GRANADA`S CHRISTMAS LIGHTING AND SERRANO HAM

Christmas Streets

Happy 2nd sunday of Advent, we lit the 2nd candle and had a cosy afternoon at home a cup of x-mas tea and we tried some ginger biqsuits i baked . Yesterday afternoon we went to Granada to see the Christmas Lightning, it was cold, lot of people, news paper said round 30 000 visitors, due to the holidays this week end, not easy to get some good photos, not even easy to walk around, but cou can have an idea.

Town Hall and Plaza del Carmen.

The center of Granada town has always been marvellously lit up at X-mas and at the Music and Dance Festival in June/July, this year it's nice, but a little more modest this year, may be in solidarity for all the people going throug difficult times here in Granada and all over Spain, may be to save, or both.

Plaza Biba Rambla.

La Gran Via, still has leafs on the trees, not very comun in Dicember, but it looks nice.

Ganivet Street.

At Plaza Bib Rambla you have the traditional Christmas Market, like all Spanish cities, and these days what people are looking for are some new items for their Nacimiento or Belen, their Nativity  Scene, to decorate the homes, the x-mas tree has become a tradition here to, I will come back to the way of  decorating and celebrating here in Spain. Later on the food will be bought, and latest the gifts,  since The Holy 3 Kings comes on 6th of January in the morning.

You can get anything to make your Nativity Scene.

At our way back home we stopped at our favorite butcher and bought a Serrano Ham from Trevelez, we like the Sierra Nevada cured ham wich comes from normal white feeted pork, cured for at least 18 months in the Alpujarra Area. Then we have the Iberian Ham, we also like a lot, from the famous black feeted pork, "pata negra" who lives free, in huge areas and eat only oak nuts, the difference is also huge both in taste, texture and price, the origens are Jabugo in the Huelva mountain aerea, and Guijuelo, in the Salamanca area.

It's difficult to explain the difference, the Trevelez Ham has clean meat, and the fat is "outside", it tastes a little salty, we use to eat it with bread, tomato and olive oil, and it's the ham we use in so many cooked dishers for extra taste, and the Iberico ham has stripes of fat inside the meat, it's softer and has a sweeter, more nutty taste, it has to be cut very thin and in small slices, and eaten with piquitos or regaña, kind of  bisquit, typical from the  Sevilla aerea.

Too cut the ham properly, you need a "jamonero", as seen on this photo.

We like it with some land  bread, and normally I grate the  tomatoes , but didn't have any, so I cut some sherry tomatoes , a dash of olive oil, and some baby avocados we got from Almuñecar, delicious, muuummmm!!!!!!

This week I will try to post the history of the Nativity Scene, and the Ginger Cookies we made the other day, the time is running, I must prepare all for my x-mas trip. For the first time My Girls and me are not going to celebrate christmas eve together, it`s a strange feeling.
And then New Years Eve we`re back, and the turkey must wait until then.
Where do You celebrate x-mas??????

Night, Night, and sleep well .