From our apartment on Rua de Camōes (Portugal’s greatest poet), my husband (Chris) and I walked to the Faria Guimarães (19th-century businessman and politician) station and took the D line, Santo Ovidio (saint of ears and deafness), to the João de Deus (19th-century poet of love and pedagogue of literacy) station to shop at my favorite grocery store in Porto, the Supermercado in El Corte Inglés. For those back home in the Midwest, it’s somewhere between a Whole Foods and Hy-Vee.
What’s important to me is that the store has our favorite Portuguese sparkling water – Castello, organic chicken, and good cuts of steak. Their produce selection is high quality, and maple syrup (one or two options) is typically on the shelf. Today, Chris spotted Nature Valley Crunchy Canadian Maple Syrup bars and put them in our basket. I impulsed on a bag of four Bolo Lêvedo (yeast cakes) because they look like English muffins. They are, I have just learned, a specialty of São Miguel (Saint Michael) island in the Açores (Azores).
Getting to El Corte Inglés takes three minutes of walking and thirteen minutes on the train. We left our place at 9:50 and were back to our home of the moment by 11:15. Not bad.
I went armed with my umbrella and wearing a hooded jacket. Chris wore his good rain jacket. On our way back, as we waited at an outdoor station for Santo Ovidio to return us to Faria Guimarães, the wind lifted the rain, chuva, sideways. From the knee down, the backs of our jeans got wet - not soaked, thank goodness. We were tucked back into our home of the moment before the wind and rain became even stronger. Two hours later, the wind had calmed, but the rain hadn’t slowed. I don’t know if we’ll make the walk to our local wine shop.
Home of the moment. Something I started calling our places back in July 2021, when we began to live as tribeless nomads
I have not found pretzels, anything resembling Chex, or candy canes at El Corte Inglés. None of the standard grocery stores I’ve shopped in Porto have had them. I did find candy canes at a shop called Glood, which brings in foods from all over the world. But not pretzels. Not yet.
I didn’t start looking for pretzels until just before Thanksgiving when I came across a recipe by David Lebovitz for the best snack mix ever and wanted to make it. Now, I’m counting down the days (12) until I’ll be in Orlando, able to give making Lebovitz’s snack mix a try.
Bolo Lêvedo update. I tried some as my three o’clock snack. It is similar to an English muffin but sweeter and softer, even after toasting. I topped it with butter and a bit of four-berry jam. Today, on Camōes Road, I’m grateful to have three more bolos lêvedo to treat myself to over the coming days.