Chicken meatballs by Maree. The divorce

I still believed in Santa Klaus or Papa Noel  past the age when you were supposed to know where the Christmas presents come from. However, one cold morning in January, when I was absorbed in my own world playing with a Strawberry Shortcake doll, my beautiful sister Pato came in and interrupted my imagination to give me this sad news, "Esther, I need to tell you something you should have known a while ago...Papa Noel son los padres" she said in a quiet voice.

The impact of this was huge, it felt like having a cold shower!! I was so upset that, with my arms crossed in front of my chest and a grumpy face, I was on a strike and stopped playing with any of my dolls - but my disappointment only lasted for a couple of hours.

It wouldn't be the last time my childish heart got broken by the adult world. In the same dreadful year I found out about Papa Noel, my parents started their separation process.

If you are a Spanish reader of my blog, you know the TVE series Cuentame como paso (Tell me how it happened) which started in 2001, when I was still living in Spain. If you are not, I tell you that it is a fantastic television series that reflects the life of a middle-class family, very similar to mine, during the late years of Francisco Franco and the beginning of the Spanish transition to democracy, from 1968- 1983.

That TV series has helped me to understand part of the Spanish history. I think Cuentame is both educative and an entertainment. Despite what my parents told me, I have learnt more in front of the television, watching chapter after chapter. Una imagen vale mas que mil palabras!

I was born in that period, the year after Franco died. Many people celebrated it - the death of Franco, not my birth, of course - but many others were in deep sorrow.  I was too little to be a faithful witness of that drastic event that altered radically the history of my country. 

My eldest sister lived the years of La Movida, when the strong conservative Spanish society dominant by the Catholic church and the rule of Franco the Generalisimo, was going through many wrecking changes.  For example, Spain had a terrible thing called permiso marital (husband's approval) which meant that a wife was prohibited from lots of economic activities, such as employment , and divorce, contraception and abortion- or even travel away from home! - but they were allowed to prostitution. 

Thank goodness it was abolished in 1975. And divorce was finally legalised in 1981.

In this context, my own family was about to suffer a dramatic change as well. I have flashes of memories when the situation between my parents got tense, but they are blurry. My older siblings recall with sadness more unpleasant moments at home than I do.

After my sister Maria was born, we became a familia numerosa of five children. My young mum had the sixth child, Laura, not long before my dad packed his suitcases and moved out. 

My dad was working for the national Spanish airlines, Iberia, when he still lived with us. He had to travel often, although I think that perhaps some of those flights were an escape, not only work.  I went  to one of those trips, to Buenos Aires, and loved the fact you could see the sun rise on the right window of the plane while the moon was still looking at us on the left side.

One afternoon I came home from school, a Catholic semi-private school run my nuns, and was in the kitchen having a bocata de chorizo de Pamplona that our nanny Sara prepared for our merienda. My mum was in her bedroom and just woke up from her siesta. She used to suffer from migraines or strong headaches - who could blame her - and called me to see her. I went in, the room was in the penumbra (gloom), and my mum resting with her back against the wall softly made of two pillows. We both smiled. She said with a broken voice - and a broken heart - and holding my cold fingers, something like this...
"Darling Esther, your dad is not in a long, long business trip as you have been believing for the last few weeks. He is not living with us, your brother and sisters, anymore. Don't worry, he will still see you, but in another house where he lives now". 

I started to have lots of migranas as well after this conversation.

My father met someone else and got married. Despite what happened between him and my mum, I leave it to the past to make justice and keep it in a pandora box. My dad, who died in 2005, was a very good father and I miss him everyday.

My mum worked hard for us and didn't have the time to meet anyone else, although sometimes I wish she did.

And the six of us had a happy childhood despite the difficulties, financial and emotionally, we faced after the divorce. We all finished 4-5 year careers - our studies were partly paid by scholarships - , got jobs and found love. My mum is a happy grandmother of 12 grandchildren and number 13 is about to arrive in October.

There is a lesson from everything and for me, the divorce of my parents reminds me most of my days that I should live content with what I have got, my lovely husband and three gorgeous children, or I do to fill up "the glass", and complaint less - although I still do -.

Life is too short, right?

Chicken meatballs with Risoni

My mother in law made these fantastic lemony chicken meatballs during our short visit in Melbourne this weekend. The recipe was given to her by Jane, Nick's sister, who got the recipe from a friend of hers and who knows how the chain continues. This is the magic of cooking, it connects people from many places!

• 4 slices torn sourdough
• 250ml milk
• 140ml oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 chopped garlic
• 1 rosemary sprig chopped
• 600g chicken mince
• 1 egg
• 130g parmesan, plus extra to serve
• 90g toasted pine nuts
• 2 handful parsley
• 5 tsp, plus 1 litre water
• 60g butter
• juice of 2 lemons, plus grated lemon rind
• 1 bay leaf
• 300g risoni

1. Soak bread in milk for 10 minutes. Squeeze to remove the milk.
2. Heat 60 ml oil. Add onion, garlic and rosemary. Cook until soft. Set aside to cool.
3. Mix the chicken mince and the bread. Add the onion mix, egg and parmesan. Mix throughly. Stir in pine nuts and parsley. Season and roll into balls.
4. Fry the balls in a frypan covered by a layer of oil until brown. Add juice, rind, water and bay leaf. Cook for 8-10 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, cook the risoni until al dente and stir through the meatballs. 
6. Serve with extra parmesan on top and garnish with parsley.