A man and his wife are dining at a table in a plush restaurant, and the husband keeps staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sits alone at a nearby table.
The wife asks, “Do you know her?”
“Yes,” says the husband, “She’s my ex-girlfriend.I understand she took to drinking right after we split up seven years ago, and I hear she hasn’t been sober since.”
“My God!” says the wife, “Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?”
This really is a very simple recipe for cooking great basmati rice. I say basmati rice because for me this has the best body and flavour of all the different rice I have tasted and is consistently great with all kinds of curry.
I must also say that this recipe was learnt from an friend many years ago. At first you may not believe it works but believe me it does and you will be amazed how much flavour the rice maintains as a result.
What you need:
1. A small pot (depending on the quantities of rice you will make) that has a lid that closes tightly.
2. Small quantity of extra virgin olive oil.
3. A strainer/sieve/colander
4. Basimati rice.
How To Cook Rice in 17 minutes:
1. Wash rice in the strainer/sieve. Allow water to just flow through the sieve for about 30 seconds.
2. Heat a small quantity of olive oil in the pan you are using. There is no set amount of olive oil. I just use sufficient to greese the bottom of the pan. The purpose of the oil is to merely stop the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
3. When the olive oil is hot, add the washed rice to the pan and stir. This will dry the water from the rice and lightly cover the rice with olive oil. Do this for about 30 seconds, stiring the rice over at all times, in order to ensure that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
4. Add the same qualtity of water as you are using for rice. If one cup of rice, then the same cup of water. This is important…..don’t try to be clever here…..this works.
5. Bring the water to boil. Place lid to the pan and lower the fire to a minimum heat. Cook for 17 minuted at this low fire. If you are cooking with electric, then it’s best to pre-heat a minimum heat, so that you can exchange the pan to the pre-heated ring.
VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT OPEN THE LID OF THE PAN FOR THE FULL DURATION OF THE 18 MINUTES. The rice is being cooked by the steam created and if you let the steam out, the process stops.
Open after the 17 minutes and you will serve perfect rice.
Obviously Squares are very important in Cities. It’s the place people can be together in harmony. Everywhere you go in Europe there are examples of successful Squares, particularly Rome, London, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, etc….and the fact that Albufeira is a relatively mild climate, the central Square is important.
I spoke to several people about this, mainly the locals.
The Square it seems has been under continual works for the last 20 years and more recently, over the last year, businesses have suffered as a result of the recent remodeling works.
The latest criticism is that the new layout does not offer sufficient shade on a hot day. New palm trees were planted which people feel is not the ideal option for shading. They may look great but it’s not Albufeira and certainly not the Algarve. Palm trees are more Morocco. But works are not yet completed…..the fountain still lacks water, so I will not judge…..I am sure it will be fine.
I would say that the buildings in the Square and surrounding hotels and apartment blocks that can be seen from the Square, should be maintained more regularly. I suppose what I would like to see is a postcard image maintaining the character of the old fishing village.
It works though…..there are lots of bars and restaurants with facilities for outside eating and enough (although I would suggest not sufficient)(certainly not qualified like say, the excellent Dublin) street entertainment.
It’s just nice to see people watching the time go by…..
To paraphrase Mona Lisa Vito (played by the amazing Marisa Tomei 
) in My Cousin Vinnie : this could be a great Square…..if they don’t fuck it up……
I left this one for last cause it’s a bit tricky…..
And happening at the time in late August early September 2006, where just days before the Sun headlines said 27.000 Expected, 276.000 Actual….or something like that…..what we are being told is that there are foreign Europeans moving to…..yes England…..like, no where else……and according to a brief conversation with a girl from Manchester…..(don’t ask me how we got on to that subject in 3 minutes), it seems as though they are all heading to….yes, Manchester.
If you want to scare people, tell them they are loosing their jobs and there quality of life is being threatened……by Eastern Europeans…..it used to be the West Indians in the 50’s and 60’s.
I have to say that I am European and this attitude shocks me in this 21st Century. It’s almost like, as long as the world can provide my comfort, then geopolitical issues shouldn’t change my immediate surroundings.
Europe is on the move and we are improving the quality of lives of millions of people. Am I worried about the Romanian, Latvians, Bulgarians, etc travelling around Europe….yes!! Why?? Because they are leaving major problems back home in their own country. The majority of people on the move are young, very qualified professionals, looking to create a better life for themselves and their families. They work very hard, lots of the time exploited, work crazy hours, for comparitively low wages and then they are called all sorts of names. They live under fear of exportation every minute of the day. And they are not appreciated for the wealth they bring to their host nation…..and make no mistake, their presence is very positive: socially, politically and environmentally.
Funny, because we have been having rumblings of a similar nature here in Portugal…..too many foreigners from the East. What is particularly amusing, however, is that the second biggest Portuguese City is……wait for it……. Paris…..fekin Paris (yes that’s France), and I am not even going to mention London, Switzerland, New York, etc, etc….where there are many hundreds of thousands.
Let’s face it, we are in a One World situation and we all should be enjoying or suffering together. We can make this work but we have to understand the problems, not just from a one sided perspective, but from all sides.
We have to try to understand the core essence of the European project, not just listen or read snippets of extracts in the popular press. Surely you must understand this.
Invariably, people will tend to return to their homeland because that is where they feel best and want to be. With their families and their heritage.
Open your mind and understand that we have a great opportunity of make this Planet work…..it’s a unique Planet…..unique because it’s the only living Planet in our solar system……but we can only make this Planet work together. It just hurts to hear young people saying things like “The Problem With England is The Romanians”…..we don’t deserve this and surely they don’t deserve that.
The general rule is that Albufeira is safe and for sure 99.9% of the people that actually visit there are of this opinion.
However, you need to be aware that there is a sub life that thrive on venerability: girls walking home at the end of the evening, feeling safe, up to that moment when someone pounces and takes their belongings. And if any resistance is offered, as was the two cases that I heard about, the consequences can be quite horrific.
The fact that I was also told that the person responsible is now behind bars is comforting. However, just be carefull our there, cause shit does happen…..even in Albufeira 2006.
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