Ocean bound are we, edging south by southwest through scrubby tundra, the landscape taking an obvious coastal influence, but still no sight of the big blue. We know it will appear soon, heralding our arrival at the sandy beach town of Vila Nova de Milfontes.
Other than a day in Lisboa before flying out, this is the last leg of our trip. We finally feel ready to let go, though we’re in no rush and will savor these days.
Getting past the long and unwinding tchotchke bazaar
The entrance to Vila Nova de Milfontes is a strip which connects the highway with the town proper – a long straight line of made-in-China/India/Nepal souvenir shops, crunchy backpackers, and sunburned pensioners. It’s not a picturesque debut but an interesting mix of people – here a gaggle of tank-topped American teens passing a smartly dressed elderly woman, there a Birkenstocked man-bun walking by chatty girls on their way to school.
The charm volume knob gradually turns up the farther we go until we’re a stone’s throw from the Atlantic shores, which is always dramatic. It seems in Portugal the coasts are a case study in contrast – towering earth and crashing seas locked in an eternal arm wrestling contest – and there’s almost always a castle.
That 80’s house
Welcome to that cool beach house you never had but maybe a friend’s parents did and you visited once million years ago. It’s funky, it’s smelly, it’s wonderful… or at least it will be when a certain someone gives it a 30-minute makeover.
Stasia knows how to transform a living space, having done it for years and I’ve become a student of hers. It’s not just feng shui – it’s lighting, position, utility, and color. It’s accessibility and comfort. It’s unpacking your suitcase into drawers, setting up the kitchen, and cleaning the (always) half-cleaned glasses in the cabinets right after checking in. Within a half hour, she’s rearranged the furniture, hidden all unsightly cords, repositioned the lamps (changing out lightbulbs), and draped colorful blankets around. The place is 50x more livable and a joy to relax in.
Stasia says: Thank you Jet Zarkadas, mentor and interior designer extrordinaire!
When she finds out the living room hearth comes with a cord of seasoned oak in the garage – ohhhh boy… if you only knew how much this woman loves herself a crackling fire.
Everything else was just sausage
We meander and check out the cute little area adjacent to the inlet – much nicer and much more Portuguese. The cafe we plop down at is empty compared to the bustling sandwicheria next to it, but there’s something about it that attracts us. An order of sardines and black pig chouriço with bread and a couple beers, please. I don’t know it yet, but I’m about to get introduced to a whole new addiction.
The sardines are wonderful to be sure – the tin they come in has them soaking in a briny tomato base. Fat and unctuous, we make short work of those salty devils, washing them down with some sudsy superbocks. But wait, what’s this coming out? It’s surely the chouriço, but it’s charred like Nuno showed us and the inside, though cooked, is like a medium rare with large pockets of fat. I don’t think you can call this thing attractive, especially if you’re averse to fatty meats, but OHMYGAWWWWW. I know I’m in trouble when, after pounding down 12 ounces of the stuff, I’m eating the chunks of fat Stasia removed from her portion. It’s just that good.
There’s is something about properly prepared pork products I’ve discovered that transcends any other meat flavor – takes you right back to ye olde caveman days – an unrivaled umami, a mainline into our shared ancestral nostalgia. I mean, just look at bacon’s universal appeal. This is bacon on steroids, acid and crack… only better.
We make our exit by ordering an Atum Salada da Mista to eat later. Our tchau-tchaus come with a hearty por favor both for the meals and the fine bottle of vinho tinto we picked up after learning about the local vineyard that produced it. We enjoy it later and (insert chef’s kiss here) Fantastico!
Our Lady of Fátima of Sao Piétro
The next day we’re hunting for a spot of breakfast and come across Sao Piétro, a small, clean creperia at the end of the strip. (Everything edible has an ‘eria’ around here: pastelerias, petiscorias, cervejarias… even a croissanteria). After a yummy, simple geometric ham and cheese crepe, we chat with Fátima, the owner. She too helps us learn the language, including writing down simple rules of grammar on the back of a receipt.
We’re the only customers so we hang out and she has a hilarious response when we ask her about the connection between her name and the famous religious site in Portugal.
“Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere else”
Fátima
Fátima is an adventurous globetrotter, a real believer in the power of travel as a means for making the world a better place (though none of us actually says such a pretentious statement.. oh that’s right, I did). In her life, she’s thrown herself into a decade of living in Germany – showing up not knowing the language at all, but having an ‘Italian with beautiful eyes’ to keep her muse. Then she ventured to Turkey for some time. Why? Certainly not because she knew the language or the people. It was the cheapest plane ticket in the winter.
Pulled over by the emotional police
Sir, I’m gonna let you off with a warning this time for running straight into that psychological speed bump, though you’re a grownup so it’s expected that you do your own emotional heavy lifting now. Asking for help is fine, maybe just take it graciously next time instead of arguing like an ass.
How many ghosts haunt your psyche? I’ve got a couple – been trying to pretend that I’ve gotten rid of them – but every light casts a shadow and I’m not sure if we ever shake our demons completely. Thank the maker for anyone who can see through you, especially the hidden ugly bits, and still like you. You have to like yourself too though, especially the hidden ugly bits.
Hubris souvenir
We come upon a little scooter with two tourists (it’s obvious) sputtering up a steep hill on the highway, going as fast as that little rental 50cc will take them given the incline and its payload. It’s not the best life decision they could have made, but the driver sputters on anyways. Despite a generous shoulder to the right, they’re in the middle of the only highway lane and an inpatient line of traffic is queuing up behind. Stasia and I are first and we know not to spook them by honking, crowding, or passing in the oncoming lane. Eventually, they’ll find that shoulder but in the meanwhile, we’ll all have to endure their hubris for another minute.
Margit’s Praia
Stasia’s dear friend back home has fond memories of a beach she went to years ago when visiting Portugal. It’s got a great name, Praia do Zambujeira, and we want nothing more than to go, take pictures, eat in the cafe she recommended, and send all that love and nostalgia back to her.
Just, wow.
Stasia and I both relate to this coastline in a different way than previous beaches. The beautiful southern shores are flashy and golden with showy caves and zoomorphic strata, but this is deeper and inkier, primal and elemental. The towering cliffs imbue a womb-like quality to the beaches below. The super-terrestrial effect of oblique basalt/slate/marble structures jutting out of the sand are right out of a sci-fi movie.
The water is clear and dark like sunglasses, salty, and deliciously brisk. I wade into the foreboding waves and disappear (if only for a second).
On the way out, we spot a precious memento – parent and child footprints. The magical memory of bringing our own son to the ocean at 6 months comes flooding back.
A tentacle after my own heart
We find what we think is the cafe Margit told Stasia about and sit in the sunny windowed overlook. It has a commanding view of the ocean and feels very celebratory. We get the house sangria and marinate ourselves for a bit. When it’s time to eat some lunch, Stasia blows me away by ordering the house special big octopus dish with roasted garlic and potatoes. I’m watching her go at these big gangly tentacles – it’s like an aphrodisiac. Hot girl, weird food… sign me up.
1-800-comfort
Dear Stasia: I know you were going to pass on a big dinner tonight – but I can’t imagine why – seeing as how we’ve been consuming beer, bread, meat and cheese four times a day for the past month. Anyways, you saw that I was in need of some comfort after an up and down day so thank you so much for making that big batch of red primavera pasta – the one with the chicken stock, wine, lots of tomato, garlic and salami. As you saw, I ate nearly 3 bowls worth before passing out 15 minutes into our late night show.
No end in sight
Up with Stasia before the sun awakens. Coffee & conversation over a breakfast blaze. With my girl luxuriating with her morning bonfire, I’m whisked out the door, over the roads, and through the sand dunes to the water. I peer off the edge of the world and stare at the pounding surf and towering geography.
On a tiny blue dot in one of 200 billion galaxies, we two grains of sand.
The peixaria quest
Our place has an outdoor BBQ that’s just begging for a big fat fresh fish to get sizzling atop a toasty woodfire. In my quest for that one item (recall from the previous sentence that it was big fat fresh fish), I’ll stop at 3 different stores because there’s no such thing as getting just one item when food shopping. But nowhere is big fat fresh fish. The nice lady at the Mercado says “peixaria” (big fat fresh fish market) and garnishes that recommendation with a slew of words and hand signals I can’t interpret. I drive around for a while using maps with no joy until I start asking the locals and finally get to the part of town they’ve been pointing me at. It better be this unlabeled building or we’re having a big fat fresh choriçou for dinner – AND IT IS. The telltale smell as I approach is like a big stinky hug – welcome to the peixaria!
The big fat fresh fishmonger recommends the most expensive big fat fresh fish he has as being the tastiest – which is all I need to know. I ask for two because I’m going for greatness.
John’s Big Fat Fresh Red Mullet
This was delicious served over rice made with seafood stock, carrots, and broccoli (add those veg for the last 5 minutes).
- Clean the big fat fresh fishes of entrails, scales, and fins, then score a 1 cm slice on each side
- Sprinkle a good amount of fresh oregano, cilantro, sea salt, and pepper on a plate
- Roll the prepared mullet on the herb mix and rub it into the cuts and inside the cavity
- Fire up the barbie
- 4 – 5 minutes per side
This salsa was awesome on top:
- Prepare:
Rough cut a small handful of assorted olives
Cut a clove of garlic into thin slices
Slice up a hot chili
Halve a handful or two of cherry tomatoes
Chop cilantro and get a lemon ready - Oil up a pan, add the olives to get warm then toss in the garlic
- When you smell the garlic aromatics, add the chili pepper, and a moment later…
- Add the tomato, cilantro, and a squeeze or two of lemon
- Let that cook for a hot second and pour over the fish and rice
Welcome to Flavor Town
Zephyr the lifesaver
We cap off the night with some Mando-binging (just found out there was a new season), but before that, we get a facetime call from our pride and joy, Zephyr, who’s just gotten out of his first day of EMT training. He’s so stoked! And so are we; to be where he’s at right now is the product of so much life experience. While pursuing his psychology degree, he’s decided to train to become a firefighter. The list of prerequisites for the EMT class are extensive and he had to take care of them all – plus work his normal job (instructor at the dojo), take care of our home and cats, and attend regular college – all while we’ve been away. Talk about parents swelling with pride! He wanted to tell us all about it and show off the shirt they gave him in class. We love this guy!!!!
Doppelganger
There are so many cats everywhere, and most look as content and chill as any top-of-the-food-chain beautiful killing machine might. Today I saw one that is the spitting image of our second cat Bear, who we trapped as a feral baby out in the wilds of Yolo County.
The Itinerant Three TnTs 