Portugal

I have been taking pictures of things since February, they just haven't made it on to the blog, so I have some catching up to do ...

I think I mentioned in some earlier posts about going abroad with my family to the Algarve for 4 days - we were very lucky to be taken away by my Dad to celebrate his 65th Birthday. Well, I made some dehydrated food to take with me: lentil burgers (based on a recipe by Chris he made on the retreat in the Gower last August) - I can't even remember what quantities I used - just hoped for the best with sprouted green lentils, walnuts, tamari, mushrooms and onions. I think that's all. I liked Chris's drier, bite size ones; the ones I made were too big, fairly moist and well, too much like real burgers for my liking. It was the onions and the saltiness that did it.



They travelled ok, but not as well as the buckwheat bread I made. I ate basically the same thing every day - the hotel and restaurants we went too were really kind and accomodating and always made me a salad with lettuce, grated carrot, onion, garlic if I asked for it, sliced tomato and cucumber. I usually had loads of fruit for breakfast with cucumber. I supplemented with avocados I had brought with me (carefully selected so they would ripen one after the other!) and did some sprouting in the room and ate these and the dehydrated food in between meals. By the end I was pretty sick of all this and had bad stomach ache most of the time, as I had had for a few weeks before we left.

I felt rude asking the Brazilian restaurant to serve me a raw salad, (to which I added my own avocado, just to add insult to injury) and by this point I was pretty sick of grated carrot, sliced tomato and cucumber. So I ate some of the big pot of bean stew and rice on the table... only to be told it contained tiny bits of sausage. It was embarrassing for me and for the chef, who felt bad for not telling me, as I had only asked about whether something else on the menu was vegan (banana - which was fried in egg). I felt awful. Learned my lesson there.

However to end on a more positive note, I found loads of carob pods in the grounds of where we stayed!! And was able to bring a load home with me. I saw them as I was running round the running track with my sister. It was really nice to be able to get away and spend some time with my family.