A Portuguese Love

"Taking Stock for Easter" Note Card  by  jbrommers Become a part of Zazzle's  artist affiliate program Hello my friends! Easter is still an important Christian festival for Portuguese people. In the north is taken very seriously. Nocturnal, silent, candle processions are held in specific religious towns like Braga. Braga has been a diocese since the 3rd century and religion continues to play a dominant role in the community. The procession that features the Farricocos - barefooted men dressed in purple tunics tightened at the waist, hooded and carrying torches,- is quite impressive. Good Friday is a bank holiday and people do not eat meat. When I was a child this is what I remember: the houses would get spring cleaned for Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday, after lunch,- roast goat/lamb is the traditional dish - the local priest would visit my parent’s house with the cross for us to kiss. The priest's helper would carry a bell and I remember hearing it on the streets....

Lampreia Festival April 1-10 Montemor-o-Velho, Coimbra.  Lamprey Festival advertising poster. Lamprey is not a fish and has a cartilaginous skeleton. Local fishermen tie the lamprey by the head and pour it in and out of boiling water several times to kill it. Then they scrub the skin up and down with the help of a hard cloth to remove dirt and keep the skin intact. They remove a nerve in the head and make an incision in the animal’s belly. From there they make several cuts in the tail’s direction along the surface of the lamprey’s body. This will help to reach and remove the intestine and bill through the first incision. This is a delicate operation. The flesh will taste bitter and the dish will be spoiled if they don’t remove it intact. They keep the blood that drains to a recipient. The blood will be used to prepare this famous dish. They pour a glass of wine or vinegar into the recipient so the blood does not coagulate. This dish is typical from Baixo Mondego region-lampreys...

Eduardo Souto Moura, the 58-year-old architect based in Oporto opened his practice in 1980. He worked in his earlier years at Alvaro Siza’s office, another Pritzker Laureate (1992). Since then he has completed over sixty buildings, most of them in Portugal, and also in Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. He has just been awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2011. Read Archdaily's very comprehensive article on it! The prize takes its name from the Pritzker family, whose international business interests are headquartered in Chicago. Their name is synonymous with Hyatt Hotels located throughout the world. The Pritzkers have long been known for their support of educational, scientific, medical, and cultural activities. Many of the procedures and rewards of the Pritzker Prize are modeled after the Nobel Prize. Laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize receive a $100,000 grant, a formal citation certificate, and since 1987, a bronze medallion. Prior to that year,...

I found this song in a Zazzle Store from Japan. Can't understand a word but it's irresistable.Video comes with lyrics. Translation, anyone?

This is a very short post. I usually do not check my Feed so I was so surprised, today when I did. I found that lots of people subscribed to A Portuguese Love already! It made me really happy. As you might have noticed I do not get a lot of comments so I don’t know if people are enjoying the blog or not.  This is mostly a promotional blog for my little business at Zazzle but I am trying, very hard, not to be a bore. I really want this blog to have good content, to be useful, or funny at times, and to please my readers. ( I accept suggestions!) As you might also imagine it’s very hard for me to write in English. As I wrote in many places I learned it in high school and I am so very grateful to my English teacher- I had the opportunity to tell her this, years later, and she was pleased. John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, and many others helped me too! The English language opened many little worlds for me. But I suck at it....

Harold's book! My nephew reading Harold's book! The mail package image! Article from Herald on Sunday-NZ One month ago New Zealand suffered one of its worst natural disasters when a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck second-biggest city called Christchurch on 22th February. Maybe you have already forgotten about it. 17 days after Earth rocked again, in Japan. Horrendous consequences are known from all of us. News from Japan engulfed all media as much as the tsunami has made for the shaken land. I am saddened for both countries. Today I am again writing about New Zealand for different reasons. After Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday – I got mail, real mail in my postal box, not in my email box. That is quite a happening by itself! I got a parcel from New Zealand, another one from the UK and another one from Taiwan, via Oporto. Today I will show you what the postman brought me from New Zealand: a beautiful book about Harold, one of two hedgehogs that Ross gave shelter. I me...

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/album.php?id=652502467&aid=387589   The photo was taken by Pedro Timóteo, March 22, Lisbon concert Roger Waters - The Wall Live "30 Years ago when I wrote The Wall I was a frightened young man. Well not that young, I was 36 years old. It took me a long time to get over my fears. Anyway, in the intervening years, it has occurred to me that maybe the story of my fear and loss with its concomitant inevitable residue of ridicule, shame, and punishment, provides an allegory for broader concerns.: Nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, Whatever! All these issues and ‘isms are driven by the same fears that drove my young life. This new production of The Wall is an attempt to draw some comparisons, to illuminate our current predicament, and is dedicated to all the innocent lost in the intervening years. In some quarters, among the chattering classes, there exists a cynical view that human beings as a collective are incapable of developing ...

When my nephew comes to stay with me he keeps asking for drawings to fill with color. Gormitis, he asks. This time I said yes, but with a special request: he should create an original Gormiti. And he did! Gabriel is 8 years old and I don't have a clue what he wants to be when he grows up. I think it's too soon to guess and too soon to ask...! In the meantime, Gormitis rule, yeah!

From the MIC site:" With a brand new design, direct links to the most popular sections as well as easier and more attractive navigation the Portuguese Music Research & Information Centre hopes to contribute even more to the international visibility of Portuguese music. The renovated mic.pt website has new areas: the monthly "in focus" section as well as a direct connection with the "New Music Review Lounge", among others. Explore all the innovations."

My Oporto   Facebook photo album Just a few things I like at Oporto - River Douro - Gustave Eiffel's Dona Maria Bridge - Rem Koolhaas' Casa da Música - Port wine and wine cellars at Gaia - Lello’s bookshop - Riverfront at either side of the Douro river - São Bento Train Station's tiled walls - Charismatic old quarters - Soares dos Reis’s Art Museum - The gigantic shovel by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen at Serralves - Shopping on the street stores and not at shopping centres – Festival of Saint John's Day - The bronze cube surrounded by coffee tables at Ribeira - Bolhão market - Café Majestic - Sweets from Arcádia - Siza Vieira's Serralves Museum and its exhibitions that have included "Andy Warhol: A Factory," "Francis Bacon: Caged - Uncaged," and "Paula Rego." - The way people talk...my Oporto friends.

Ana Moura is the celebrated Portuguese Fado singer that sang No expectations with Mick Jagger at Alavalade XXI Stadium, in Lisbon. She also performed in New York’s Carnegie Hall and that will go down in history as the first Portuguese act held there. Now she has been nominated Best Artist by Songlines , the magazine that looks at the world through its music. The winners, to be selected by the Songlines editorial team, will be published in the June issue (#76), on sale on April 29. Songlines Music Awards aim to recognize and celebrate the wealth of outstanding musical talent from across the world that has been reviewed in Songlines. Deolinda's, a Portuguese band, was 2010's Newcomer artist nominee. Explore the 50th sold-out issue of Songlines here . Watch and listen to Ana Moura's here . BEST ARTIST •Ana Moura (for the album Leva-me Aos Fados on World Village) •Cheikh Lô (for the album Jamm on World Circuit) •Femi Kuti (for the album Africa for Africa on Wrasse) •You...

I have created a PicBadge for Facebook Profile. Let's turn Facebook red and white for Japan. Go to PicBadge and adopt my badge, pick another one or create a new one. If you like my badge, you can use the widget on your right to get one. My badge has the word HOPE written in several languages, the date of the disaster and an origami swallow. I picked a swallow because it's a bird that announces Spring. Japan will be reborn and from misfortune will come a new Spring. That our thoughts be with Japanese in this grim hour of their History.

Photos were taken by Isabel Camarinha, a friend, at Oporto, where at least 80.000 people gathered to protest. Called onto the streets by a social media Facebook campaign a total of 300.000 thousand people marched in a dozen Portuguese cities last Saturday to vent their frustration at grim career prospects. This was one of the biggest demonstrations ever held in Portugal. After a decade of feeble economic growth Portuguese are now facing hard austerity measures with reflections on every life sector from education to health. Demonstrators were mostly in their 20s -30s but their middle-aged parents were present too and even older people in their 60s already. On Facebook´s Manifesto, young organizers stated that this demonstration would be from unemployed and other poorly paid slaves disguised as workers and its aim was to trigger a qualitative change in Portugal. The organizers aspire to a decent future with stability and security. The generation with the highest level of tra...