Cocina: Las zanahorias aliñadas

Carrots are a gloriously simple vegetable.  Healthy any which way you cook them - or, indeed, if you don't cook them! - we often eat them in our household in the following way: first, you boil them; then you gently fry up in some extra virgin olive oil some chopped garlic; finally, you pour the olive oil with the fried garlic on top of the drained carrots - and, hey presto!, a deliciously quick and tasty way of serving this wonderful food.

Today we're going to look at a slightly more complex version of the above recipe.  First, as always, the comprehension questions.  And when you do look at the text, try and answer them in Spanish!

1. How much water do you need?
2. How do you know when the carrots are cooked?
3. What spices does the recipe contain?
4. How long does the recipe need to be left in the fridge for?
5. If you want the carrots to be really tasty, how long should they be left in the fridge for?

And now to the text itself.  The photo is beautiful, isn't it?  Just makes your mouth water.

If you're still having problems understanding parts of the recipe, click here to go to the Google Translate version.  And do have a lovely weekend.

PS - a note from the administrator of the web: classes at college have now finished for the autumn term.  I'll therefore be taking a break from posting until the week of the 9th January 2012.  In the meantime, please do try out the forty exercises we now have on the site to improve your ability to understand Spanish and compare and contrast it with English.

¡Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo!

Cultura e historia: El Día de los Santos Inocentes

Today, we're going to look at the traditions surrounding the festival celebrated on 28th December in the Spanish-speaking world.  Like April Fools' Day in the UK, this is a day of much fun and practical jokes.

First the comprehension questions for the text - and, as always, please do try and predict the answers before looking at the text itself:

1. What kind of jokes are practised on this date?
2. What do the media do?
3. Why do they do it?  
4. What does it allow them to do?
5. What happens to gullible readers?
6. Is this day celebrated just in Spain?
7. If not, where else is it celebrated?

Now the text itself.

En Hispanoamérica y en España es costumbre realizar en esta fecha bromas de toda índole. Los medios de comunicación hacen bromas o tergiversan su contenido de tal modo que la información parezca real. Se trata de una libertad que se dan los agentes mediáticos para dar rienda suelta a su sentido del humor, oportunidad que solamente tienen una vez al año. Es tradición que los periódicos publiquen páginas enteras de noticias cómicas, con la advertencia de que es día de los inocentes, que van desde las que son una obvia mofa a cualquier suceso reciente, hasta las que parecen serias y engañan al lector desprevenido. El día de los inocentes se vive en todo el mundo hispanohablante.

If you've still had problems understanding what it's about, copy the above, click here and paste the content into the left-hand side of the page.  You can then use Google Translate to obtain an automatic English translation.

¡Y disfrutad de las bromas!