Tag: ham

Spain–He Is Risen!

Now that I’m Greek Orthodox, I’m not supposed to say this, but today is Easter. And you’d think that would be a day of rest in Spain, right? I mean, teams of 40 men have been carrying immensely heavy statues through the streets nearly all day, every day for a week. There was a special 100th-anniversary-of-something procession yesterday with all of the statues. Today everyone kicks back and eats, right?

Yeah, no. Three more groups are parading today, starting at noon. Como se dice ‘overkill’?

But to be fair, even last night I was still stunned by a procession. We caught one coming up a hill, without much of a crowd around. There’s this great super-slow Doppler effect with the band, which follows behind the statue. So the music’s getting louder and louder, but if you’re around a bend you can’t really see anything. And then the music is bouncing off the walls of the buildings super-loud just as the statue, surrounded by candles, emerges from the side street.

And then, as the statue goes by, and you’re boggling at how heavy it is, the band finally emerges and it is even LOUDER. And the bass drums go by last.

I saw this effect for the first time a few nights ago, with a statue of Christ hauling the cross, surrounded by centurions with huge feathers in their helmets. When the statue emerged from the side street, with the band blaring, all we saw first was the feathers. By the time the whole statue was visible, I expected Jesus and the soldiers to be doing a big kick line routine.

On the research front, things have gotten a little easier. We’ve figured out the route to break out of our little procession island, and know better to avoid bars right on the routes, because they’re mobbed and are basically pulling tapas out of their asses. “Beer coasters? Toss ’em in the fryer! Forty more people just showed up!”

Yesterday was a good day for research–I checked a fair amount of stuff of my list, and it even felt a little easy and like I was ahead of the game.

Then I looked at my watch, and I realized I’d been walking, with Beverly tagging along behind, for ten hours straight.

We started out after our churros and chocolate–the logical thing to eat when it’s 44 degrees out. But apparently the rest of the city thought so too. I have never seen bars so frenzied, even at night. The place where we did finally get our ch-and-ch fix–an excellent rec from AV–looked like a war zone inside, with empty chocolate cups four deep and two high stacked all along the bar. So we sat outside, which was for the best, since we were wearing every layer of clothing we packed (six each), and it would’ve been too difficult to adjust to a heated room.

The chocolate was thick as pudding, and the churros actually had a little ridgy texture, which I have seen only up in northern Spain–down south here, they’re usually they’re just smooth round tubes. And they were so perfectly fried and light they were almost empty inside. We shared a table with an older Spanish couple, the only people we saw all day who were as bundled up as we were.

Later, I admit, we did stop for a fairly nice lunch. Lovely baby beans with ham, and some nice fancy mushrooms. A real live green salad. And some too-creative-sounding veal with cardamom that turned out to be good. Finished with a little dab of orange wine that the waiter, who looked like Peter Dinklage, gave me for free, because apparently it was available only by the bottle. Crazy.

And later we took a 15-minute break in a bar that went from funky-neighborhoody to totally skeevy in the time it took for the foam to settle on our beers. While I was looking in the kitchen and noticing that when the sign said “food cooked with love,” they really meant “food cooked with cigarette butts and dirty wads of paper towels,” the older regulars at the bar were replaced by strung-out hippies, one of whom was doing the junkie lean into his beer. The review I was writing in my head was quickly discarded, and I pushed my octopus tapa around, feeling bad that it had died in vain. We fled up the street and took solace in a church with a very strange collection of artifacts, none labeled.

Which reminds me–earlier in the day, we saw an honest-to-God shrunken head in another museum! Why that museum is not listed in the guidebook I cannot for the life of me imagine. I can’t wait to rectify that oversight, and type the words “shrunken head” in the manuscript! First I will have to figure out what the whole point of the museum is, though–the guided tour was in Spanish, and while I thought I understood what the guy was saying most of the time, when I strung it all together at the end for Beverly, I realized it made no sense at all.

I’m sure a million other funny things have happened, but they’ve all been beaten out of my head by those bass drums. Monday is going to be quiet, right?

Spain–I Love a Bidet!

Not much more to say about that, really. Except I sing that to myself (to the tune of “I Love a Parade”) every time I see one in my hotel bathroom. And I do kind of love a bidet. But the separate one? That, what, you have to sort of stay crouched and shuffle over to from the toilet? I have never really understood that procedure.

Anyway, away from the toilet and onto the food. Things are sort of looking up. I all on my own, not cribbing from any guidebook but using only my inborn restaurant Spidey-sense, found us a super-tasty place for lunch in a little village up in the mountains. It looked like a promising village because there were a bunch of small trucks sporting the names of different cheese companies, all with addresses there.

So we wound up with wild mushrooms, all sauteed till crispy and caramelized and drizzled with garlic cream, and some rabbit in an almond sauce and little chicken croquettes to die for. Oh, and extra-nutmeggy chicken croquettes. No green vegetables, but who needs ’em? Name of tiny town and restaurant available on request. (Oh please, oh please don’t tell me it’s already in Fodor’s…)

Then, uh, things got bad again. I stupidly followed the advice of the same book that had led me to the wicker-chair-and-foie-gras horror show. And for my trouble (and it was a fuck of a lot of trouble–there is no parking in Baza!), I got chicken soup that tasted distinctly of margarine. Beverly got some macaroni that was Chef Boyardee-like in its gumminess. And we both got disapproving glowers from the waiter who cleared our main dishes. They were just 10 percent eaten and the rest shoved under a pile of soggy fries.

The cruel part is that I stopped in what smelled and looked like a great restaurant to ask directions to the crappy restaurant.

There was another hideous lunch, too, but I think I’ve just blotted that out.

The last two days, we’ve skipped lunch altogether (I mean, except for that ice cream today…), mostly because I’m sensing a mutiny in the ranks. Beverly goes to bed every night whimpering about how full she feels and saying plaintively, “Tomorrow will be a light eating day, right?”

So I’m a little fried on the food front. Have seen neither hide nor hair of the tortillitas of Bittman fame. Am only semi-hopeful…

On the general charmed-by-a-foreign-land front, though, things are going well.

For instance, the pillows in Spain are all exactly as wide as the beds. Granted, I’ve only slept in twin beds–I don’t know if they expand on larger beds. But very comfy.

Also, in Spain, they have these ingenious electric heaters that fit into the base of a table, which you then cover with a heavy blanket, and stick your feet under the blanket and on top of the heater to get all toasty.

If I’d had one of those when I lived in Cairo, I might’ve actually sat and done my Arabic homework instead of crawling into bed to get warm and feel less depressed. In fact, all those places where they think the weather is balmy enough not to warrant proper indoor heating could benefit.

Finally, in Spain, as if it needs to be said, they are into the ham. Creepily so. I saw a cartoon mural in one town of a Catholic king and a Muslim emir sitting down to a giant pig dinner. Sort of malevolent, no?

More heartwarming, though, are the words I’ll leave you with. Overheard on a street one morning in Laujar de Andarax, from one old Spanish man in a cardigan to another old man in a cardigan:

“Eat some ham. It’ll make you feel better.”

Switching Gears

jamonDear readers! You can probably barely remember when I used to write guidebooks. Neither can I!

Not since last August have I complained, exulted or otherwise ranted about guidebook writing, because I’ve been sitting at home, all domestic-like, writing the cookbook.

But now I’m heading out on the road again, very shortly. Too shortly: the 24th. The amount of stuff I have to get done between now and when my plane takes off for sunny Andalucia is keeping me awake at night.

I’d go into more detail, but Leif Pettersen has deftly summarized the arc of a guidebook gig.

Read that, substitute Andalucia for Tuscany, deduct total sexiness by 10 percent due to my not having practiced my hot lisping Spanish accent, and you’ve got my upcoming gig. Oh, and did I mention my mother is coming?

Brace yourself for on-the-road posts involving ham, ham, sherry and my mother. And if you have any recommendations for me (Granada and Almeria provinces are my beat), let me know in the comments.