Now that’s what I call cooking. You take a heat resistant baking dish, pour in some local schnapps, set it alight, put in your cured chorizo sausage which you keep lifting with your fork and voila, you have dinner! I ain’t seen nothing like this before.

But I get ahead of myself. A couple of years ago we had the incredibly good luck of meeting Hedwig and Willem, an amazing Dutch couple that live in an idyllic village on the Rio Guadiana – the border river separating Spain and Portugal. And once we know where you live, there is no getting rid of us…

So they have had the fortune (haven’t you forgotten the mis- there Crystal!) of us visiting then every year. The above photo is the view of their tangerine tree from their front window. We all meet up in the local village café/pub/kiosk and enjoy the great wines from the Alentejo region and each other’s company along with all the locals. Bar Cantarinha, Laranjeiras, is the place to be!

This is not 5 star dining (the restaurant of the same name up the hill is renowned for its local, but first class food) to some, but this chorizo will knock your socks off. I mean, they use real alcohol, you know, the stuff they (we) actually drink. It’s the local version of Grappa called Aguardente Bagaceiro: Rochedo and it’s perfectly drinkable. I had a taste of Edmund’s drink (another person who doesn’t yet know how lucky he is to have met us…) and liked it. I decided to stick to a bottle of wine rather than mixing – am I getting sensible in my old age or what?!

The kiosk owner and family were actually cooking it for themselves, but brought one over for us after I had taken photos (and dribbled all over their dinner!). Though Hedwig says that they do this often thank goodness. It was superb. Some chorizos can be very fatty, but this one was super. The photo of the whole cooked sausage is out of focus (couldn’t possibly be all the wine), but here is a photo of a small piece on bread.

One of the local doggies sat very patiently under the table while we ate in the hope that just a teeny weensy piece would fall down for her. She doesn’t know me very well, now does she. Alright, alright, of course I gave her a little piece. Who could resist such a cute face.

You may be asking yourself why that piece is in a green leaf and I would be delighted to tell you. Edmund, or Eddie, is quite clued up on what local weeds you can eat. Stop getting all excited – I said weeds not weed! This one tasted like mustard and was really delicious. We will be visiting him again (someone should have warned him!) and I’ll take pics so that you too can go out and eat weeds.

But until then be good, or rather don’t!