We are still in Portugal, which means, look away now. We are total blissed-out bores. The ridiculous truth of this vacation is that all the planning of it went down with the other family we are with when I was neck-deep in a book deadline and my husband had a bit of extra free time earlier this summer so I outsourced 100% of the decisions to them. Thus, I knew extremely little about Portugal upon arriving here and now every turn is a surprise and I don’t want to leave. This place is stunning. The architecture is unbelievable. The people are so nice, and so kind to our rugrats. The beaches… don’t even get me started. I feel like it will take another three vacations to even see half of what we should. I want you to know that I’m up for the job. I obsess over benign details: how the eggs, butter and milk are kept on the counter, how dark the yolks are, the flaky swirl underneath a custard tart and how I’m ever going to recreate it, the remarkably smooth gray stoned streets, how much better gelato tastes basically anywhere in Europe, all the blissful formats of fried potatoes we’ve been served, the way it feels like not a single opportunity to make something even prettier than it already is was missed, the fact that a dinner setup like this isn’t even unusual. I like the way grownups can stay late over dinner and all the kids can find other kids to play with on the beach below, where we can see them but are freed from hovering. Also, I mean, I was just lamenting that we were out of berries for our fruititarian child when we realized there were blackberry bushes in the backyard. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen at home, but New York, feel free to step it up. Continue reading →