wk 11 – famiglia, 70th & fish feast

The setting for my dad’s 70th birthday was on the coast just outside Lisbon in Estoril, perfect, we rented a villa and me, Loc, my brother, Nicki and the parentals spent a relaxing week putting one toe in the atlantic (literally), popping into Lisbon, and mainly walking up and down the gorgeous waterfront, eating the odd tapas plate of miniature snails a cooling capirinha ice-cream…and of course vinho verde…

Preparations for the big day began early, well actually months early when we planned the trip (!) but from the all important food perspective, it began the day before, with a trip to an amazing weekly market in Cascais, from which we returned with, amongst other things, a huge octopus, and a massive bunch of white flowers, results of each once “played with” equally good contributers to the birthday evening, along with the EA wine courtesy of the EAmes!!:

The morning was spend opening presents and puzzling over a kindle (I know, probably should have been a Kobo in my old life) and the indecipherable Happy 70th card constructed to look like Portugese mosaic tiles…he he he

…followed by cooking and house prep before meeting the rest at the gorgeous bar down the road overlooking the sea…

The focus as should rightly be for a significant Doyle birthday was on the dinner, and we had many courses, all cooked from scratch by the team (mainly Loc and CJ) with a masterful delegation mid octopus boil switching over to Loc to make a second starter, all delicious and I think the meal lasted about 4 hours!!!

And of course to finish the birthday cake, with rather unsuccessful sparkler action (finished before we managed to get anywhere near the table!!) lovely night…week…and the size of the cake about sums up the abundance of us all together eating again!!!