In the end, it's all about the tuna

What foods to Spanish housewives really crave? Find out in this review of a monumental Spanish cookbook in Slate. It captures the essence of things quite well.

Yet Another Triumph

Sometimes my culinary achievements even take my own breath away.

What About Lunch?

Ever notice that in many popular songs you can replace the word "love" with "lunch" and it still works?

1. What about lunch? -- Heart
2. The lunch boat, soon will be making another run. The lunch boat promises something for everyone.
3. Making lunch in the afternoon with Cecilia in my dining room -- Simon and Garfunkel.
4. All you need is lunch -- John Lennon.
5. Lunch will keep us together.
6. The lunch shack is a little old place where, we can get together -- B-52s.

What others can you come up with?

Cocido Madrileño

I’ve had a hankering for some Cocido Madrileño lately, so I made some today, despite the fact that I knew I would end up with too many leftovers.

In honor of the occasion, I have resurrected some thoughts on the subject from my sojourn in Spain from the summer of 2000.

Sat. Sept. 30, 2000

I have just dined on that marvelous concoction known as Cocido Madrileño. Now that the weather has become brisk, it seemed appropriate to consume vast quantities of garbanzo beans and other gaseous substances to fortify my being for the next two weeks of ever-darkening winter.

I have had gas on my mind ever since yesterday, when I bought for 500 pesetas a copy of Quevedo´s Gracias y desgracias del ojo del culo, an engaging treatise on the wonders of the anus in which he compares the ojo del culo with those of the face and finds that the rear orifice has much more to recommend it. It can be a little disquieting at times imagining the great ones of Golden Age poetry being overly preoccupied with bodily functions, but given the state of hygiene back then I imagine it would be hard to avoid the subject. Of course one good reading of El Buscón is enough to confirm that Quevedo didn´t consider this or practically any other subject off limits.

So after a morning’s perusal of Gracias y desgracias, followed by a long-overdue haircut (where I accidentally stiffed the peluquera while trying to tip her, but that’s another story) I ended up down by Sol and the Doña Juana restaurant, which offered Cocido for 1200 pesetas. I´m not one to pass up cheap cocido, especially on a day like this.

I had not eaten cocido in quite a while. I remember eating some very good cocido cooked by a housewife in Ponferrada, long ago. Of course, being Ponferrada, in the westernmost reaches of the León province, it wasn’t exactly Cocido Madrileño. It was much better, in fact, not only because it was served by a pleasant ama de casa instead of a cranky waiter, but also because it was much heavier on the chorizo, giving the broth a pleasant red zip. This stuff today was bland by comparison.

Cocido is the Spanish version of a boiled dinner. It’s loaded with meat of all descriptions: chorizo, morcilla, tocino, beef, chicken; garbanzo beans, potato, cabbage. While examining my plate it occurred to me that at least half of those ingredients, had serious explosive potential. With cocido you get the broth served first as soup, then the rest follows as a second course.

Over at the next table was a group of middle aged tourists trying to decide what the menu was offering. They were all from Mexico (I gathered) which just goes to show that it is not just Americans who are not quite at home with a Spanish menu. They were saying things like: “Caldo gallego – that´s like cocido, isn´t it?” “I don´t know. Does it have garbanzos?” “Callos madrileños. Is that the same as menudo?” “Ask the waiter.” One guy decided to take the plunge and order callos. Everyone else stayed safe with paella and trout. When the callos came, the main question everyone had was “is it menudo?”

I for one have steered clear of callos on this trip. I once had a mission companion from Andalucía who told me he grew up on callos and that I had to try them. They come in a sort of coagulated brick in the deli section of the supermarket. He prepared them by melting the brick over the stove, and as it warmed it filled the kitchen with the aroma of fresh barnyard. Once they were cooked, the flavor wasn’t bad. Texture-wise they were vaguely reminiscent of overcooked squid mixed with boiled fat. Still, with the smell in the kitchen I couldn’t quite get past the idea that I might as well dine down at the pig trough, followed by a good, brisk roll in the muck. For that reason I have never – despite years of living in Santa Monica – been tempted by all the Mexican restaurants advertising in giant, booming letters “hay menudo.” The dish in general just does not call to me in quite the way it would to someone raised on it.

Cocido is another matter entirely. Garbanzos and chorizo broth. What could be better when the weather turns nasty?

Gabe's First Earthquake

We had a 5.6 earthquake last night. It happened about 8 p.m., just as Gabe was nestling into bed while Erika read him bedtime stories. We've had them before, of course, but this one was stronger than usual. It was centered just to the east of San Jose. Our landlord called me up about 10 seconds after it was over to ask how the building was doing.

"This lets you know my priorities, Michael," he said. "I called you before I called my wife."

He was calling from Santa Clara, which is right next to San Jose.

To me it was business as usual, but soon I heard weepy sounds from the Gabe's room, and Erika informing me that my son was a little freaked out.

So I went in, lay down next to him and told him the story of my first earthquake, which occurred in 1971, when I was also 4. I was sharing the back bedroom with Marcy. There was a picnic basket hanging from a hook on the door immediately opposite my bed, and as the room swayed, the basket swayed with it, looking in the pre-dawn darkness like a monster. So I freaked and jumped into bed with Marcy, who also freaked because she didn't know at first what had jumped into bed with her.

Gabe thought the story was funny, and gradually he allowed himself to be reassured, although he was nervous about going to sleep for awhile.

Nervous as he was, Gabe still held up better than some of our tenants. One woman, from Turkey, was out in the street, too nervous to go back into the building, because of bad memories of Turkish earthquakes. Another woman from Mexico was having a complete meltdown. I tried to reassure her as best I could, all the while thinking, heck this was only a 5.6. How are these people going to react when the big one hits?

People Watching at the Library

When I try to work in a public library I am reminded of my friend Eric’s description of a restless night spent attempting to sleep in an albergue on the Camino de Santiago in the company of two dozen sonorous, farting pilgrims. The presence of other people detracts from the experience.

Any noise out of place tends to distract, whether it comes from giggling children, chatty librarians, or the stumpy woman who flung herself into an empty chair at my table and started writing furiously all while audibly breathing through her mouth as if she were engaged in a waking snore.

That chair was later occupied by an old man who felt the need to clear his throat every 10 seconds while he read the newspaper.

The other day, a group of fourth-grade boys converged on a table in the reference section and were loudly giggling at something. I shushed them, and one of them impishly put his finger to his lip to shush me back. All this not 20 feet away from the librarian, who, of course, did nothing.

What has changed in the past 30 years? When I was a child, I remember a severe-looking woman of indeterminate age, with straight, mousy brown hair parted precisely in the middle, who was not shy about shushing people. When we went to the library on field trips, we learned that the first rule was to be quiet. Today, the first rule seems to be to express yourself, no matter how annoying it may be to other people.

Speaking of the library, here’s a poem I wrote awhile back about an old man I saw one day:

I have seen toupees in my time:
Stiff hair hats perched on chrome-domed racks,
Lifeless pelts that not even the cat would drag in
A robin’s nest of gray-brown twigs,
A catcher’s mitt,
An immoveable line,
A tectonic plate
Beneath which slips a leathered forehead
With every furrowing of the brow.

Today I saw a crusty mask,
A lived-in face, yes, dignified and wary
With bloodhound jowls and basset eyes
Staring rheumily through plate glass specs
Beneath a wondrous wig of bounteous brown
Tastefully wisped, Kennedyesque,
A mop-topped codger clinging forcefully to borrowed youth
Challenging,
Daring me to smile.

Noodle eater takes trespassing plea

As a former headline writer myself, I'm a sucker for a good headline, and this one stopped me in my tracks today while we were taking a family walk.

The first paragraph explains it all:

"A woman accused of cooking noodles inside a stranger’s Millbrae home after being drawn there by its “aura” earlier this summer pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor count of trespassing and was immediately sentenced to probation and time served."

15-Minute Paella?

Just caught a segment on Rachel Ray (most annoying voice on TV) where she was showing how to cook a 15-minute paella. She threw in some familiar ingredients (chorizo, shrimp, chicken, saffron), then added turmeric (some people seem to think it is more important for paella to be yellow than to taste good), then ended with ... COUSCOUS! Couscous? I shudder just contemplating this atrocity. There are no words to express how I'm feeling right now.

Gangsta style

You know that scene in Mary Poppins, when Dick Van Dyke starts dancing with the penguins? Needing to become more penguin-like, at one point he sort of hitches down his pants so that the crotch is around his knees and starts waddling.

Well, today as I was walking to the library I found myself behind a hip, urban gangsta type, wearing an oversize green tracksuit with a low-slung waist and the crotch hugging his knees. Thus encumbered, his walk was more of a rolling waddle.

So here’s the question: if you were a hip, urban gansta, would you go out of your way to look like a green, plush penguin?

Mamet's Three Magic Questions

I was skimming through a book by David Mamet called Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business and I found the following nugget on page 85:

"The filmed drama (as any drama) is a succession of scenes. Each scene must end so that the hero is thwarted in pursuit of his goal – so that he . . . is forced to go on to the next scene to get what he wants. . . . To write a successful scene, one must stringently apply and stringently answer the following three questions:
1. Who wants what from whom?
2. What happens if they don't get it?
3. Why now?"

Now, I'm not a huge fan of Mamet as a filmmaker; I find his pacing dreary and the acting wooden and way too mannered. He has, however, written some great scripts.

Regardless of his merits (or lack) as a filmmaker, what really interests me is the applicability of the "three magic questions" to the study and teaching of theater. Does this work as a good way to approach dramatic tension in Golden Age plays?

Tractor Tipping

To understand this story it helps to know who Frank is. And to know that, you have to be familiar with the movie Cars. In Cars, Lightening McQueen, a famous racecar, is sentenced to rebuild a road in the small desert town of Radiator Springs after he accidentally destroys said road while fleeing the police (it’s all a big misunderstanding, but as often happens in drama, without that misunderstanding there would be no plot, so go with it). Lightening learns to love the other cars in the town, and in particular becomes great friends with a battered old tow truck named Mater.

Mater is a bit of a hillbilly, and takes Lightening out one night to do some tractor tipping (i.e. cow tipping). He warns Lightening to look out for Frank. Soon enough Lightening and Mater are being chased across a moonlit field by Frank: an angry, rampaging combine (bull).

Gabriel adores this movie. He obsessively collects all the characters (he has not one, but four Lightenings, one for each of the various paint jobs the character sports in the film) and is constantly recreating scenes. We cannot go on a simple family walk without Gabe scraping his foot through the dirt (imitating Lightening accidentally ripping up the road in Radiator Springs) or bellowing out full-throated roars (imitating Frank). And when Gabe gets in his Cars zone, it’s next to impossible to get his attention or shift his focus. Just ask Erika, who more than once has located Gabriel in the grocery store by listening to the calls of “Mac! Mac!” (imitating Lightening’s frantic search for his big rig transport when he first finds himself alone in the desert) from two aisles over.

Fast forward to today. Gabe and I went for a walk down by the Bay. I was envisioning a Mayberry moment (whistling while we walk by the bay, skimming stones). What I got was drag, drag, dust cloud, dust cloud.

“Will you stop dragging your foot like that, PLEASE!?” I fumed at one point.

“Why?” Gabe asked.

“Because sometimes it’s nice just to walk together,” I replied. “You don’t always have to pretend to be Lightening.”

Gabe did not seem convinced, but he tried walking in the plants for awhile, to appease me, I guess. On our way back to the car he started looking back furtively.

“Hurry,” he said, “Frank’s coming.” This went on for the next hundred yards or so to our car; furtive glance, “Frank’s coming, hurry.” At one point he let slip that “I’m pretending that those people are Frank.”

I looked back. Frank turned out to be an African American family of four. And my kid’s been dashing away and nervously glancing at them for the past hundred yards. As we climbed into our car and drove away, I thought I saw the father giving me a LOOK. I just bowed my head and moaned.

Innocents Abroad

When I lived in Madrid years ago I used to buy pistachios from an Iranian refugee in Retiro Park. I don't recall his name, but I decided to call him Stan. It drove him crazy, but I called him Stan anyway. Why did I call him Stan? One word: Ferguson.

Ferguson is every tour guide that graces the pages of Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad. The author and his cohort call their guides Ferguson, whether in Paris or in Athens. The name drives each Ferguson crazy, but they do it anyway. They know that their Fergusons aim to impress, so their goal is to remain unimpressed, no matter what the site or the feat. Standing in a charnal house before the withered remains of some long-gone saint, they adopt a pose of wide-eyed idiocy and ask the same question: "Is . . . is he dead?" All to drive the Fergusons crazy.

Is this admirable? No, but it epitomizes the experience of Americans abroad. It is brash, showing at once disdain for and secret envy of the old world, its people, and its institutions.

This is the book that instilled in me a wanderlust that still afflicts me, even though I have rarely been able to satisfy it. When I read it for the first time, I wanted to travel the world and call my guides Ferguson. I still do.

A Moment at Mervyn's (Retail Hell)

So we’re at Mervyn’s buying me some work clothes when we get the call that Joe the fix-it guy is at the Viking waiting for us. So we scramble to finish picking out the clothes and then rush to the register to buy.

The cashier is a skinny kid, about 18 or 19, with a flipped up collar that tells me something about him is fundamentally unserious. We watch as he starts scanning our purchases in slow motion. He stalls for a moment as the machine refuses to scan one of our items. With a puzzled look he slowly rescans, then scans again.

We have plastic smiles on as we mentally urge him forward, man, forward.

Then the phone rings.

“Men’s department,” he says. “Tuxedo shirts? Let me . . .”

Erika grabs my arm to keep me from using it to strangle him.

“. . . call you back, ‘cause I’m with a customer right now.” The youth finishes, and lays the phone down. Erika is satisfied that she has kept me from killing him for no reason. Then before he rings up another of our items he’s back at the phone with a blank piece of paper. “What’s your number?”

Another clerk drifts into range. “Have these been rung up yet?” she asks.

“You tell me,” Erika says. “You’re the one with the screen.” She looks back quizzically, no doubt wondering why these strange Americans are always in a hurry.

Meanwhile, our clerk is still on the phone. “Is that a land line or a store phone? ‘Cause I can’t call out on this phone. . .”

Finally Erika can stand it no more. “Hey,” she bellows, “finish with us. We’re the ones paying $134 here.”

I pout because the clerkish child does not look penitent enough as he returns to finish ringing up our order.

“Do you have a Mervyn’s Card?” he asks politely, no doubt as taught in retail sales school.

“No, and I don’t want one,” I snap back.

“Why not? You’ll save 30 percent.”

Surely he’s aware that all debt management gurus say to avoid store cards like the plague. I simply say, “no time,” grab my things and race out the door with my family close behind.

A pair of tapas

Supposedly, tapas originated in Spanish bars as a way to keep the flies out of your glass of wine. The bartender would put some tidbits on a little plate and lay it on top of the glass of wine. Tapas can be as simple as a few marinated olives, or they can be quite elaborate.

These two tapas come from ¡Delicioso!, by Penelope Casas, my bible of Spanish cooking. The cheese dish was nice and smooth, but had a little bit of a kick to it because of the garlic and the cilantro. The other one is toast with an anchovy/olive paste and ratatouille on top. The vegetables and Garum (anchovy mixture) work well together because the veggies cut down the intensity of the anchovy. They are both very nice tapas.

Queso fresco con mojo de cilantro
(Fresh Cheese in Cilantro and Green Pepper Marinade)

Start preparation several hours in advance.
½ teaspoon salt
6 cloves garlic
½ medium green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 cut finely chopped cilantro (stems trimmed)
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
1 pound fresh cheese with a solid consistency, such as fresh mozzarella or mild goat cheese, cut in 1-inch cubes

Mash to a paste the salt, garlic, bell pepper and cilantro in a food processor. Stir in the oil and vinegar and taste for salt.

Gently mix the cilantro sauce and the cheese together in a bowl. Refrigerate several hours or overnight. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Tostadas de escalivada y garum
(Roasted Vegetable Canapés with Anchovy and Olive Paste)

1 red bell pepper
A ¾ pound eggplant
1 small tomato, halved
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon thyme leaves or ½ teaspoon dried
1 tablespoon fruity extra virgin olive oil
Eight to ten ½ inch bread slices cut from a long narrow loaf

GARUM
8 anchovy fillets, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons capers
12 cured black olives, minced
¼ teaspoon sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Arrange the red pepper, eggplant, and halved tomato in a roasting pan and cook in a preheated 500 degree F oven, turning the pepper and eggplant once, for about 20 minutes, or until the skin of the pepper browns and separates from the flesh. Cool. Peel, core, and seed the pepper. Peel the eggplant, cut in half lengthwise, and scrape out most of the seeds, then dice the pepper and eggplant. Chop the tomato, removing as much skin as possible. Mix all the vegetables together in a bowl with salt, pepper, thyme, and the tablespoon of olive oil.

Arrange the bread slices on a cookie sheet and toast in a preheated 350 degree F. oven for about 5 minutes, or until crisp but not brown. Place the ingredients for the Garum in a mortar or mini processor and mash to a paste. Spread the Garum on the bread slices, spoon the vegetable mixture on top, and garnish with thyme.

Paella extravaganza

I broke out my paella pan yesterday for a tapas and paella shindig out by the pool. Damian and his wife Kristin came up from Sunnyvale; we also invited Neil and Melissa, and the Baileys (Scott and Jennifer). Conversation centered around academic shop talk, with a little Air Force mixed in.

The paella turned out great, even though the clams didn’t open up, which is always distressing. I hate it when I’m sold dud clams. I also pulled a couple tapas from my trusty ¡Delicioso! book: queso fresco con mojo de cilantro, and tostadas de escalivada y garum. Garum is a pretty potent anchovy and olive spread that apparently dates back to Roman times. I found it to be too intense on its own, but it goes great on toast with escalivada, which is essentially a mixture of roast eggplant, peppers, and tomato.

I adapted my paella recipe from ¡Delicioso! a long time ago. I cooked the paella outdoors on a charcoal grill, which is a little less precise than doing on the stove, but more fun.

Paella mixta (Meat and seafood paella)

6 cups chicken broth
½ pound medium shrimp, peeled
2 ripe tomatoes
3 boneless/skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces*
Sea salt
6 tablespoons olive oil
½ pound Spanish chorizo (2 hot dog sized chorizo) cut into ¼-inch slices*
¼ pound piece of prosciutto, diced*
1 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
1 bunch scallions (green onions), chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced*
2 teaspoon paprika*
1 cup frozen peas*
¼ teaspoon crumbled thread saffron
3 cups short-grain rice*
12 small mussels
12 small clams
1 roasted red bell pepper

* Notes on ingredients:
Spanish butchers hack the chicken to pieces, bones and all. Using boneless is therefore less authentic, but less of a pain to eat. Do NOT use Mexican chorizo; it is not the same as Spanish chorizo. I actually bought “Spanish-style” chorizo from our local over-priced gourmet-organic market. Spanish jamon serrano is actually better than prosciutto, but it’s easier to find the Italian stuff. For the paprika, I used pimentón that I brought back from Spain. For the rice, short grain is preferred; I used Calrose, which is technically medium grain. Do NOT use long-grain rice. It is a travesty and evil (at least in paella. It’s fine in other things).

1. Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise. Squeeze gently to extract the seeds and with a coarse grater, grate down to the skin. Drain off any excess liquid (I actually did not drain off the liquid and it turned out fine. Call me crazy, but I think a little extra liquid doesn’t hurt).
2. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt. (Don’t be afraid to be generous).
3. Heat the olive oil in a paella pan. Stir-fry the chicken pieces about 10 minutes over high heat, until lightly browned on all sides. Remove to a plate.
4. Add the chorizo, ham, and shrimp, and stir-fry about 3 minutes. Take out the shrimp and set it aside. Stir the chopped green peppers, scallions, and garlic into the pan with the meats and cook over medium heat about 5 minutes. Stir in the paprika, then the grated tomato. Add the peas. Add the saffron. When this is all stirred together into a goop you can
5. Stir in the rice, combining it well with the mixture that’s already in the pan. Pour the chicken broth over the rice.
6. Return to a boil and simmer over medium or medium low heat for about 10 minutes. The dish should be no longer soupy, but there should be enough liquid left to continue cooking the rice.
7. Stir in the chicken and the shrimp and taste for salt. It should be well-seasoned. Arrange the mussels and clams over the rice WITH THE EDGE THAT WILL OPEN FACING UP (I once screwed up on this step; it doesn’t affect the flavor, but it looks silly and unattractive to pull the paella out with upside down mussels). Arrange the strips of roasted red bell pepper attractively over the top.
8. Close the lid on the barbecue and simmer for about another 10 minutes. Hopefully by this time the coals have burned down to the point that the cooking will be really gentle.
10. Remove from grill, cover loosely with foil and let sit another 10 minutes before serving.

Aioli Disaster

Last night's dinner featured artichokes with homemade aioli. I think we need to find a new aioli recipe. This one was so intense, my mouth didn't know what hit it. Thing is, it wasn't the garlic that was overwhelming. I think it was the olive oil. It tasted like an over-the-top caesar dressing. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Heroic Computer Dies To Save World From Master's Thesis

Via Eric Mayer, from the Onion.

Choice sentence: "I guess when she got to the chapter about how the 'imitative tactility' used in the first two stanzas of 'Young Sycamore' can act as a 'neo-structuralist, pre-objectivist perlustration and metonymy' of the importance of anti-Episcopalian sentiment in the rise and fall of central West Virginian coal miners' unions, the computer just decided that something had to be done for the greater good."

The San Mateo County Fair

Since today was such a beautiful, warm, summer day, we decided the moment was perfect for going to the fair. We live just 10 minutes away from the fairgrounds in San Mateo. Fairs, in areas such as this, are not as big a deal as in a place like Bishop. We didn’t even know the fair was going until we saw the lights of the Ferris wheel the other night as we drove out to see the meteor shower. When we walked in today I checked the schedule and found out that the fair had already been going almost a week.

We made sure to eat lunch before we went, thinking we would save some money that way, but we still plunked down a pretty penny, what with admission, rides, snacks, and whatnot.

Among the highlights: I test drove a Segway, once hyped as the wave of the future, but now reduced to a sight gag on Arrested Development.

They charged me $5 to ride the thing, when they should have been paying me to do it. The guy in charge swore up and down that Segways are selling like hotcakes, but I suspect that if they were I would be seeing more of them around town. Still, it was fun. It moves intuitively: lean forward, and it moves forward; lean back and it slows, and eventually starts moving backward. I suppose that if I could drop $5,100 and not miss it, it might be worth buying a Segway; but since I can’t, it isn’t, so I won’t.

I tried to get Gabe to go down the giant slide, but he refused, so I ended up going alone.

I did manage to get him onto a small rollercoaster and onto the Ferris wheel, where we admired the view.

Gabe also won some goldfish at the midway, and then we capped off the day with a trip to the pig races.

Hurricane Flossie?

So are we naming hurricanes after cows now?

Democracy in Action

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted to commend the administration of incipient Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez for its "commitment to democracy." Just thought I'd pass it along.

Perseid meteor shower

Tonight we drove out to the hills away from the city lights to check out the Perseid meteor shower. It's supposed to peak tomorrow morning in the early pre-dawn hours; we went tonight at 10 p.m., so it wasn't as spectacular as it's going to be, but still quite impressive.

We told Gabe we would be going out to see the shooting stars when it got dark enough. He didn't know quite what that meant, but the anticipation was killing him. About 7:30 he pointed out that it was starting to get dark (it was barely even dusk yet) and we patiently said it had to be even darker. He was climbing-the-walls crazy, asking every few minutes if it was dark enough yet until finally, about 10 p.m., we climbed into the car and drove to a Vista Point on a ridge on the road to Half Moon Bay.

There were other star watchers there before us, and more folks came and went during the hour we were there. We spread our blanket on a patch of ground and stared into the night sky. It took awhile, but every so often in my peripheral vision I would see streaks of light, and then the pay off: a long streak, like a jet leaving a vapor trail, right in my direct line of sight. Every time a good one lit up the sky the crowd would ooh and ahh like watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.

It was chilly, and the three of us snuggled together to keep warm. Gabe saw one or two meteors, but soon was ready to go. I was starting to get cold, but Erika wanted to hold out a little while longer. Meanwhile, the crowd seemed to be getting younger and the overheard snippets of conversation more raucus. Not wanting to share space with the high school set, we finally packed up and left.

All told, a pleasant way to spend a summer night.

Empanada de pescado

An empanada is a meat pie. The best empanadas I have ever had, bar none, were the ones I used to buy from a bakery in Ponferrada, a town along the Camino de Santiago in the northwest of the province of Leon. I lived in Ponferrada for five months, and I would frequently stop by the bakery close to the apartment where we lived with a local family and buy empanadas, either of chorizo or tuna. These empanadas were as big as a plate, with a delicious, savory Galician-style crust, more like bread than the puff pastry shell that is common in Madrid.

My empanadas are based on a recipe I found 20 years ago in a cheap paperback cookbook I bought in Segovia called Cocina facil para todos los dias. Cocina facil calls for merluza (hake), but I usually use canned tuna (believe it or not) and have attempted it with all kinds of fish, with varying degrees of success. Frequently, when we have fish, if there's enough left over I'll use it in empanada: halibut (which my sister brought back from Alaska), salmon, tilapia, snapper. I think it works best with the tuna, because the flavor doesn't get drowned out by the tomato sauce. Tonight I tried it with left over tilapia, and it turned out well, but since tilapia is a mild fish that tends to take on the flavor of whatever it's cooked with, I found that the flavor got buried by the other ingredients. However, I recall attempting an empanada once with leftover orange-glazed salmon, which did not turn out good at all. So, strong-flavored is good, but wrong-flavored won't work.

For the crust, I usually use pizza dough (1 pound), but I've also used puff pastry and even those canned croissants you get in the dairy section of the supermarket. Tonight I used puff pastry.

Empanada de pescado

1 package puff pastry

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 medium onion, diced

1/2 bell pepper, diced

1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce

salt

sugar

1 6 oz. can of tuna

red pepper flakes (optional)

1 hardboiled egg, diced

1. Thaw the puff pastry according to package directions.

2. Saute the onion and bell pepper in the olive oil until the onion is transclucent. Add the tomato sauce and simmer uncovered for a few minutes, then add salt to taste and a dash of sugar to bring out the tartness of the sauce.

3. Stir in the tuna, crushing slightly with the spoon so it is well integrated into the sauce. Add a dash of red pepper flakes, if desired.

4. Remove from heat and add the hardboiled egg.

5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

6. Place one sheet of puff pastry on a baking sheet and spread the tuna mixture evenly over it. Lay the other sheet of puff pastry over the top, crimp the edges with a fork and place in oven.

7. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool on wire rack, and serve.

This can be eaten hot or cold, although I prefer it at room temperature.

R.I.P Merv

Long before My Big Fat Greek Wedding thought of inventive uses for Windex, The Man with Two Brains, gave us a serial killer who dispatched his victims by injecting them with window cleaner. The killer turned out to be Merv Griffin. The world may mourn him as the creator of Wheel of Fortune, but to me, he will always and forever be the Elevator Killer. R.I.P.

Buckley Update

I finished Florence of Arabia last night. It's a good read, funny, but with a much more serious tone than his other books that I have read.

I found this op-ed from him that seems to clarify somewhat his political position.

Book Nook

I have discovered Christopher Buckley.

Satire comes in many forms, but its overriding purpose is to ridicule folly wherever it can be found. It doesn’t hurt if it’s also funny. Christopher Buckley is very funny. His favored targets are Washington beltway insiders, PR flacks, politicians, and their enablers in the media. Buckley’s own political bias is not easy to discern, which is surprising, considering his pedigree: son of William F., graduate of Yale, member of Skull and Bones, former speech writer for George Bush I. One would peg him as an urbane, eastern establishment conservative, and one would probably be right, but how do you label someone who creates characters like the 30-year-old public relations specialist whose favored method for solving the social security crisis is voluntary suicide for baby boomers? Or the junior Senator from Massachusetts who is inspired to run for Congress after an epiphany experienced while tripping on acid at the Kennedy Presidential Library? Or the spokesman for the Religious Right, a preacher equal parts Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton, a virginal 40-something tub of lard who dresses like Colonel Sanders, is always ready to go on camera to rail against America’s moral failings, but who nevertheless has a crisis of faith, gets involved with Russian prostitutes, may, in fact, have killed his own mother, but who in the end turns out to be an OK guy after all?

The novel in question is Boomsday, which satirizes self-indulgent baby boomers and the problems they have caused, along with those who would try to solve those problems. This seems to be a theme with Buckley: good intentions (especially governmental good intentions) often cause more problems than they solve. I’m currently reading Florence of Arabia, in which the title character is a U.S. State Department employee who is sent to a fictional Middle Eastern emirate to start a satellite TV station with the aim of airing programming that will lead to the emancipation of women in the Middle East. I’m at the point where her efforts are about to blow up in her face. Who is the target of this satire? The U.S. for trying to fix the Middle East, or the Middle East for needing fixing in the first place?

The book that started me on my Buckley kick was No Way to Treat a First Lady, in which a Hillaryesque first lady is put on trial for assassination when her philandering husband dies after a marital spat. The spat is precipitated by a presidential affair in the Lincoln bedroom with a dim-bulb socially conscious singer/actress (shades of Streisand?) who is prone to believing everything her press agent says about her efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

Pure bliss.

Potato Salad, Spanish Style

Ensaladilla Rusa
(Spanish Potato Salad) I’ve read cookbooks that call this a quintessentially Spanish salad, while others say it really is of Russian origin. Regardless of origin, you can find versions of this potato salad in virtually any bar in Spain.

The salad is made with prodigious amounts of mayonnaise, something a little off-putting in this age of cholesterol paranoia but necessary nonetheless; you can skimp on the mayonnaise, but the flavor won’t be quite right. Spaniards consider mayonnaise a gourmet-level sauce, instead of something you spread on sandwiches; consequently, most recipes that I’ve seen for ensaladilla rusa call for using homemade mayonnaise. I had a bad experience once in Madrid with some mayo that had turned, so I’ve never been anxious to try making my own. My friend Neil tells me that it’s pretty easy, though, so I suppose that some day soon I’ll give it a try. Meanwhile, I used mayonnaise from a jar for this recipe.

I’ve adapted this recipe from Cocina facil para todos los días, by Clara San Millán, (Madrid: Interediciones, 1984), with occasional glances at ¡Delicioso! by Penelope Casas.

1 pound new potatoes
2 carrots
½ cup petit frozen peas
1 6 oz. can of tuna
Chopped olives
Pimentos
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1½ tbsp. lemon juice
Salt to taste

Peel the potatoes and carrots and cut into ½ inch cubes.

Place in a pot of boiling water and cook for about 10 minutes until done. Add the peas, then drain the vegetables and rinse in cold water; repeat a few times, then place in a bowl.

Add the tuna, olives, pimentos and egg.

Mix together the mayonnaise and lemon juice; the mayonnaise should have a creamy texture. Add to the vegetables and mix well. Add salt to taste. Let chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

In Spain this will often be garnished with more pimento and served with an extra dollop of mayonnaise on top.

Chicken and Red Peppers

Penelope came through for me again with this delicious chicken dish that we made for some friends the other day. This one’s going into the regular rotation, although I will check my other Spanish cookbooks for other variations. Apparently this also works quite well with lamb and other meats. Adapted from ¡Delicioso!, by Penelope Casas, New York: Knopf, 1999.

Pollo al chilindrón
(Chicken Braised with Red Peppers)

A 3-3½ pound chicken (cut up into pieces, each breast chopped in half)
Salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp coarsely chopped jamón serrano (or prosciutto)
½ tsp paprika
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, unsalted
2 large roasted red bell peppers, cut in strips
¼ tsp chile pepper flakes
Freshly ground pepper

Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt.

Heat the oil in a shallow casserole and brown the chicken on all sides. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion has wilted. Add the ham, cook a minute, then stir in the paprika. Add the tomatoes, cook a minute, then mix in the roasted pepper strips, the chile flakes, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer 45 minutes. Serves 4.

Notes: I'm a little less insistant than the recipe when it comes to specific ingredients. The recipe calls for fresh tomatoes; since I didn't have time to scald and skin fresh tomatoes I used canned. It worked out well. The recipe also calls for imported or homemade pimientos; I bought a jar of roasted red bell peppers that worked just fine.

Garbanzo and Spinach Soup

I tried this recipe on some friends tonight with good results. My friend Neal said “it tastes like Spain.” Since that was the general idea, I’d consider it a success. On a personal note, I don’t understand why some people persist in calling garbanzos “chickpeas.” “Chickpea” sounds dainty and ineffectual, whereas “garbanzo” is a robust name that rightly does justice to this wonderful bean.

Potaje de garbanzos y espinacas
(Garbanzo and Spinach Hotpot)

1 15 oz. can garbanzos
1 quart chicken broth
½ lb white potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 lb fresh spinach, washed and chopped
salt
1 hardboiled egg
4 tbsp olive oil
1 thick slice French bread (cut into large cubes)
2 cloves garlic, peeled
½ medium onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp. chopped prosciutto (optional)
½ tsp paprika

Drain the garbanzos and rinse in a colander and set aside.

Heat the chicken broth in a large saucepan. When it comes to a boil, add the potatoes and the spinach; cover and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes can be pierced with a fork, but are still firm. Add the garbanzos.

Chop up the white of the hardboiled egg. Reserve the yolk.

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Fry the bread until crisp and golden on all sides, then remove from the pan and set aside. Turn the heat down to medium and fry the garlic in the same oil until golden, but not burned; remove and set aside. Slowly saute the onion (and prosciutto if using) until it starts to brown. Add the paprika, stir, then quickly add this mixture to the soup.

Crush the fried garlic and bread with the egg yolk in a mortar, then add to the soup along with the chopped egg white.

Check the seasoning. Cook uncovered gently for another 10 or 15 minutes, then serve. Serves two as a hearty one-dish meal or four as an appetizer soup.

Adapted from: The Heritage of Spanish Cooking, by Alicia Rios and Lourdes March, New York: Random House, 1992.

Big Al

Via Camille Paglia's column at Salon.com, I found this link. Enjoy.

Huevos Flamencos

While the wife's away, I've been experimenting with dishes I know she wouldn't be interested in. Tonight it was "Huevos a la Flamenca," a baked eggs and veggies dish from Spain. Here's the recipe, from The Best of Spain: A Cookbook, by Alicia Saacs, Collins: 1993. I'm a big fan of the Spanish way with eggs.

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/4 pound cured ham (serrano or prosciutto) cut 1/4 inch thick and diced
1/4 pound chorizo, cut in 1/4-inch slices
1 1/2 pounds fresh or canned tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
6 tbsp. dry white wine
1 tbsp. minced parsley
salt and freshly ground pepper
8 large eggs
8 asparagus spears, cooked
1/2 cup peas, cooked
1/4 pound green beans, cooked
1 pimiento, preferably freshly roasted

Heat the oil in a skillet and saute the garlic and onion over medium-high heat until the onion is wilted. Add teh ham and chorizo and saute 1 minute. Remove the chorizo with a slotted spoon and set aside. Mix in the tomatoes, paprika, wine, parsley, and salt and pepper. Cover, and cook ham mixture over low heat about 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Divide the tomato mixture among 4 shallow individual casseroles, each about 6 inches wide. Gently slide 2 eggs into each casserole and arrange chorizo, asparagus, peas, beans, and pimiento on top. Bake until the eggs are just set, about 5 minutes in all; check for doneness after 4 minutes. Serve in the casseroles. Serves 4.

Note: I varied this slightly. I didn't have any ham on hand, so I doubled the chorizo and diced it instead of slicing it; I also left it in with the tomato mixture, instead of removing it. I also replaced the asparagus with canned artichoke hearts.

For those of us who teach Garcilaso

Here's an interesting piece from Psychology Today on a variety of politically incorrect subjects, including why the male ideal of feminine beauty is what it is. Adds an interesting perspective for those of us who teach renaissance sonnets.

Happy 4th

A few years ago I had a student who was interested to find out that I had lived in Spain. Upon finding out that I had returned home after two years, his only question was “Why?”

My only response was, “Because this is home.”

I like to think of myself as someone with an international perspective. I love traveling and living abroad. I adore Spain and would love to take my family there to live for a year or two.

But I love my own country more. This is home.

Happy Independence Day, everybody.

Gabe Quote of the Day

"But I have to walk in the dirt; it's my job."

Quote of the Day

"Hey, I know! If I dry myself off, I won't be wet anymore!"

-- Gabriel, having a bright idea after getting out of the pool.

PEZ Museum

I'm going to try to get into the habit of blogging every day. In the meantime, I thought I would resurrect some earlier pieces. Here's one I wrote exactly two years ago about our visit to the PEZ Museum in Burlingame.

Gabriel has become a man of taste. He knows what he likes and is not shy about sharing his opinions. So when he found out we were going to the Pez museum he squealed in delight. Gabe is a man who loves his Pez.

The world's only Pez museum is located in Burlingame, just about 10 minutes to the south of us.

We were expecting something on a somewhat grander scale, so when we passed a tiny storefront with PEZ in big letters on the facade we had to do a double take. But there it was, wedged between a cake bakery on one side, and a music store on the other.

Once inside we found a wonderland dedicated to all things Pez. Every conceivable Pez dispenser is for sale there, including some you wouldn't think would be for sale. A door at the back of the gift shop led to the museum.

We paid our $3 a pop for a personal tour of the Pez museum itself. Inside you find yourself in a small, square room lined with display cases, showing off Pez dispensers of every conceivable variety. The owner of the store/museum, a lumbering man who bears a passing resemblance to Randy Quaid, showed us around. The man oozed enthusiasm for Pez and proved to be a repository of Pez facts and minutiae -- things you would never imagine needing to know, but once you do know them you are glad to have found them out.

Pez itself is an acronym for "pfefferminz," German for peppermint. As the name implies, it started out as a breath mint, and originally came in a little tin can, not unlike Altoids. One such can is on display in the museum. And even though all these years I thought Pez was as American as Certs, it turns out to be as European as Altoids. Pez originated, and is still produced, in Austria.

Later came headless dispensers that look somewhat like cigarette lighters. It wasn't until the 1950s that Pez began topping their dispensers with cartoon character heads. Since that time, some 600 varieties of character heads have been produced for the Pez dispensers. All 600 of them are on display at the museum (as of last week, we were told, that number went up to 608).

Our guide started collecting Pez 15 years ago. The Pez museum started out as a small display in a corner of his computer store. He soon realized that people were more interested in the Pez than in computers. He told us he hasn't sold a computer in 10 years.

Recently he added to his collection a piece he had been looking for his entire 15 years as a collector. He guided us to a large case with rows of Pez dispensers and pointed to one on the first row: a faded pineapple-headed dispenser wearing a jaunty pair of sunglasses. One of the most rare Pez dispensers in the world.

Pride of place, however, is reserved for the most rare dispenser in the world. A sort of Pez version of Mr. Potatohead, the Super Spiel was withdrawn very shortly after being introduced because it was felt that all its tiny pieces constituted a choking hazard (Erika chortled at this, saying that Pez itself constitutes a choking hazard; the Pez man was not amused). Only 20 of these pieces are known to still exist.

Speaking of Mr. Potatohead, the museum also boasts an impressive collection of vintage toys, including erector sets, viewmasters and the original Mr. Potatohead. Originally, the Mr. Potatohead pieces were smaller and sharper than what are available now because they had to be stuck into a real potato. If you didn't have access to a potato you could use a cucumber or a pear. Later in the 60s the plastic potato was introduced (you could even get a plastic cucumber).

After a pleasant while spent browsing through Pez we finally bought Gabe a couple Madagascar Pez dispensers and took our leave.

Regarding Paris

Hilton, that is.

I keep seeing headlines about Paris's new "post-prison look." People keep talking as if she's done time in some maximum security lockdown, instead of a few weeks county jail. I'm sure county jail is terrible; I know I wouldn't particularly want to go there. But am I wrong in thinking there's a major difference between prison and county jail?

Someone a few weeks ago wrote that with this whole jail thing, we'll never be rid of her now. I shudder to think that he might be right.

Santiago II

My plans to leave Santiago by the night train were frustrated by the simple fact that there were no more seats available. The man at the train station told me so, emphatically, several times: “no hay ninguno.”

You could tell he was frustrated with me. I hope he could tell I was frustrated with him. It wasn’t his fault, of course; he was just an officious RENFE man with no vested interest in helping a stranded foreigner; it was my own fault for deciding to wait until the last minute to buy my return ticket.

If this had been an episode of “Amazing Race,” and if I were 15 years younger, blond, and female, I might have been able to work a miracle. But in my present condition I didn’t think flirting would work with him, so I stalked out to find a place to stay. I resolved to try the first hotel I came across, which happened to be fairly close to the train station. It also turned out to be not only cheaper, but nicer than the place I’m staying in Madrid, except for the fact that the shower didn’t work and I ended up having to take a bath. Why did I wait so long to head back to the train station, you ask? Because it was Corpus Christi and I thought it might be interesting to see the procession.

Earlier when I had visited the cathedral I had picked up a flyer announcing that the Corpus Christi procession would take place that evening at 7:30. I thought, ok, I’ll hang out by the cathedral for awhile, take a few pictures of the procession and head over to the train station around 8. This was a foolish assumption. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that I would have to stand through another mass first. Yes, actually, I do know why. Because when I went to the fiesta for my friend Joaquín’s pueblo in Asturias (San Román, if I remember correctly), they started with the procession and ended up at the church for the mass. Alas, that was not to be in this case. I had already been to one mass earlier in the day, but I wasn’t sure at what point in the service they would break for the procession, so I decided to stick it out.

About 90 minutes later I found out that the procession came at the end (I’m sure if I were Catholic I would have known that already), and then the procession left through the door opposite the one where I was standing. By then I was tired of standing, so I decided to hightail it over to the train station before I collapsed altogether. Despite my tiredness and non-Catholic ignorance, I found it to be a fascinating service. This one pulled out all the stops. The entire cathedral chapter was there in full regalia, including the archbishop. They had the organ going, which was pretty cool. I like a good organ. It sounded pretty great, which must mean they keep it in better shape than it looks. Not that it looks bad, it just looks old and a little spider webby.

After awhile I wandered toward the Portico de la Gloria, still under the illusion that I could make a quick escape and take pictures as the procession left the church, and got to witness a moment of high irony when the police loudly rousted a beggar out of the doorway at almost the exact moment that the archbishop was talking about the Christian duty to remember the poor.

There was a lot of singing and chanting in this mass, which I found quite moving. I was not the only one; at a key point in the service when the archbishop was chanting, some boneheaded pilgrim (I assume, from the shorts and general air of greasiness) moved out into the aisle and started doing what looked an awful lot like the antler dance (obscure SNL reference -- 1976, Lily Tomlin hosted). I saw a tie-died sixties relic dancing that way at a Santana concert once; I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the pilgrim hold up acigarette lighter and start flicking.

Then it was over, and I was off to the train station, only to find myself stranded. I could have looked at the bright side and chosen to see this as an opportunity to head back up toward the cathedral, eat tapas, and have some fun. But by that time I just wanted to climb into bed and sleep. Which I did.

Speaking of tapas, I found a cool tavern where I sampled an array of montaditos while I waited for the Corpus Christi mass to start. One nice thing about Santiago is that everything is cheaper than in Madrid. They had some cool montaditos for maybe 1.50 euros. One of the better ones was a piquillo pepper stuffed with tuna. There was also one with bacalao and roasted green pepper.

I have never been to the Pacific Northwest, so I might be way off base, but Santiago de Compostela strikes me as being somewhat akin to what I imagine that area to be like. Clouds moved through all day, so in a split second you could go from bright hot sun, to cool shade, to misty drizzle, to a downpour. I was sitting in the Plaza de Obradoiro working on a paper when random, fat drops began to splash near and around me. I quickly grabbed my things and got undercover with other refugees from the plaza. Within 15 minutes it was over.

Speaking of the Plaza de Obradoiro, there’s a tunnel-like walkway that open sonto the plaza where a bagpiper chose to stand and play, probably because of the acoustics. A bagpiper can be a cool thing, good for a picture. But gradually it dawned on me as I tried to work on my paper that an hour had gone by and the guy had not shut up. Two minutes of bagpiper for a photo op is tolerable; a bagpiper who won’t shut up is a tool of the devil. I’m just saying.

One last observation: Santiago de Compostela has the cleanest train station restroom I have ever seen. Kudos to the cleaning lady.

Santiago de Compostela I

I took a night train up to Santiago de Compostela, planning to see the town and then take the next night's train back down to Madrid.

A word about pilgrims: for people supposedly so wrapped up in the transcendant, life altering, spritual experience of the camino, they sure have limited respect for what some people consider to be sacred.

There are signs all over the cathedral saying "no flash photography". So everyone uses flash. There are signs saying no tourism stuff during Mass. So what do they do? Wander the aisles, noisily get up and down, stand up and wave to their friends, shoot pictures with cameras that beep.

I don´t know. I´m not Catholic, but if I´m in a Catholic church during mass I try to have respect for the place and the people in it.

At least I can take comfort in knowing that most of these people, at least the ones I saw today, were not ugly Americans. They were ugly Germans, mostly, with some French mixed in. And some were quite ugly, in the metaphorical and literal sense. One guy had obviousy just arrived by bike. He was in his biking gear, and apparently was wearing nothing underneath, if the prominent bulge in his stretch pants was anything to go by.

I guess pilgrim behavior in the cathedral has always been a problem, though, which is why Gelmirez cut off access to the saint´s tomb in the 12th century.

I have to say that I love Santiago and am kicking myself for never having come here before. When I arrived at 7 a.m. the place struck me as quite clean; of course, the pilgrims were not yet up and about at that point. I had some tasty chocolate a la taza at a little bar with a non-nasty restroom. Later I had some caldo gallego and pulpo gallego (when in Galicia, you know). Later this evening is the Corpus Christi procession, so I think I´ll be heading back for that.

Working at the Biblioteca Real

There was a book I needed to consult that was only at the Palace Library, so I went over to the Royal Palace. Quite cool. For one thing, I was the only one there. The security people radioed from the entrance "uno para la biblioteca". Then they gave me a badge and usured me through.

It´s fun going places where regular tourists do not get to tread. The reading room is roomy, with a lofty baroque ceiling. Bookshelves line every wall. When I went to pay for my photocopies they sent me to the secretary, who kept being through one more set of doors, around another corner, over squeaky floors and past rooms and rooms full of old books. I felt like I was entering the inner sanctum of some Arturo Perez Reverte novel (who is, after all, merely a Spanish knockoff of Umberto Eco).

Here´s another observation that might get me crucified by the 20th century types among you: After watching Un chien andalou and part of L´age d´or at the Reina Sofia museum, I have decided that surrealism is B.S. I mean, I get that Bunuel was a genious, but the thing played like the bad home movie of a precocious and overly self-conscious high school drama geek.

I guess I belong where I am: in the middle ages.

Random thoughts on Spain

A few random observations from my recent trip to Madrid:

1. Not all cafes are created equal. I had what I thought was impossible: anabsolutely flavorless ensaladilla rusa at a cafe near Atocha station today, notto mention the albondigas that tasted of cardboard, heavily-flavored with onion.

2. Bullfighting is rife with ironies, not the least of which is that theultimate macho battle of man against beast features men who wear skin-tightsparkly suits with pink socks.

3. While watching a bullfight on TV other night, one matador was interviewed,apparently one of the top matadors in the country, even though he looks barelyover 20. The interviewer asks a question, and the kid opens his mouth, and Iswear, he’s still waiting for his testicles to drop. Imagine Mike Tysontalking, but make him 100 pounds lighter, and dress him in a sparkly suit with pink socks.

4. The house where Cervantes lived and died was on Calle Cervantes, just downthe street from the Casa Museo de Lope de Vega, also on Calle Cervantes. In theultimate indignity, Cervantes was buried, I believe, in the Trinitarian conventjust around the corner on Calle Lope de Vega.

5. That whole neighborhood around the intersection of Calles Huertas and Leon,where the Academia de la Historia sits, is now being called the Barrio de lasLetras. Periodically, you will find literary quotes written in what appears tobe brass inlaid into the pavement on Calle Huertas and other streets, fromEspronceda, Cervantes, Quevedo, etc. Despite the literary pretensions, however,the whole neighborhood still smells like pee.

6. Madrid is always and eternally “en obras.”

7. The Prado is being expanded, which has had the ironic effect of constrictingspace on the inside. Entire sections have been closed off for remodelingleading to awkward bottlenecks where rivers of tourists converge into oneseething, sweaty, smelly mass before splitting off again into their respectivetributaries. Even though I’m carrying a camera, I like to consider myself a cutabove the standard tourist, since I’m here for work, dammit, and therefore Iresent it when I find the paintings that I am particularly interested insurrounded by tour groups with their droning guides.

8. That does not stop me from occasionally eavesdropping, however. Hey, if they’re going to intrude on my space, I’ll intrude on theirs.

9. I also went to the Reina Sofia museum today and discovered that, at least today, I prefer representational art over non-representational.

10. Spanish TV has more channels now, but it’s still just as bad as ever.

11. The President, Zapatero, looks like Mr. Bean.

Random observations about Spanish food

Random observations about Spanish food.

Years ago, after my first extended stay in Spain, I was elated to discover that right in my home town was a Spanish restaurant. I called them up and asked what I thought was a reasonable question: Do you guys serve cocido? I got a frosty silence followed by an acerbic “we serve Spanish cuisine here.”

To me, real Spanish cooking is exemplified by cocido, not by cuisine. Here’s some random thoughts about some Spanish dishes.

Tortilla. When I lived in Spain some 20 years ago, the country had still not discovered the microwave. Tortilla was served at room temperature. So that has forever been locked into my mind as the way tortilla should be. Today, though, if you order tortilla at some cafes (including, unfortunately, the venerable Cafe Comercial), they will automatically warm it up for you. To me, that is outrageous. But it gets worse; the tortilla I ordered at the Cafe Comercial tasted like the potatoes had been boiled instead of fried. The texture was all off, as if someone was trying to make a low-fat tortilla. The words “low-fat” and “tortilla española” do not even belong in the same sentence. The potatoes must be cooked gently in copious amounts of olive oil for the flavor and texture to be right. So the Cafe Comercial got it wrong, as far as I’m concerned.

Restaurante Los Arcos. My last full day in Madrid, I decided to eat lunch at Restaurante Los Arcos, an establishment recommended by my erstwhile colleague, Emilio Cabeza-Olías. That lunch is the reason siestas were invented. Ideally, I would have lingered over it for two hours, chatting with friends while my body slowing absorbed what I had foisted upon it, then gone home and slept while the absorbing continued. But I was by myself, which meant the lunch did not last as long as it should have, since I am by nature not very sociable with people I don’t know. Astoundingly, this restaurant had a separate room for non-smokers, so I dined in blissfully fresh air, although a certain essence of the Spanish experience was missing. I ordered “pimientos rellenos” as my first course. I believe these were piquillo peppers, stuffed with what tasted like sauted jamon serrano, among other things. It was really hard to tell, because like chilis rellenos the peppers were enveloped in an eggy batter, and then swamped in a sauce that was out of this world. The sauce was tomato based, but it had a meaty flavor somewhat reminiscent of the broth you get when you slow cook a pot roast. It was very rich, with just enough of a tomato tang to pucker my taste buds. The whole thing was served in an earthenware cazuela, for added authenticity.The next course was “cochinillo cochifrito.” Once before I have had “cochinillo cochifrito.” I was with my friend Damian in Avila, and what arrived on my plate was flattened and crisped beyond all recognition. I finally recognized that what I had been gnawing on and attempting to extract meat from was a little, tiny piglet jaw complete with molars. Because of this previous “cochinillo” setback, I hesitated between this and the more expensive “cochinillo asado,” but in the end I decided to give the “cochifrito” another try. Succulent comes close to describing it. Chunks of crisp, fatty meat fell from the bone with very little urging, yielding juicy, salty goodness with every bite.I wasn’t sure if I could cram more food in, but I decided to give dessert a try. I opted for the flan. Flan can be mediocre, or very bad. The best custards do not have little air bubbles trapped in them. Bubbles fossilize and completely ruin the texture of a flan. This flan was clean; no air bubbles to be found. Great care had been taken with this flan, and you could taste it in every bite.

Tasty dish

The wife found a recipe that we tried tonight that was pretty tasty.

Quixote article in LA Times

My friend Damian sent me this link to an article in the LA Times about the continuing impact of Don Quixote in Latin American culture. Very interesting piece; worth a read.

While in Madrid I picked up a copy of Alatriste, a Golden Age period epic that follows the adventures of soldier and sword-for-hire Diego Alatriste in early 17th-century Madrid. The film stars Viggo Mortenson in the title role, and borrows elements from the first five novels in the Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez Reverte.

This was the most expensive Spanish feature ever produced, although by American standards it was woefully under-budgeted. It wonderfully captures the paradoxes of Golden Age Spain – a country at its height culturally and artistically, but also beginning its centuries-long decline.

The filmmakers had a wealth of material to choose from in the novels of Pérez Reverte; each of the five source novels could have provided enough material for a solid adventure movie on its own. Combining them into a single panoramic epic that covers 20 years in the life of its hero has the unfortunate effect of diminishing substantially its cinematic impact.

Budgetary constraints are also evident from time to time. Scenes that ought to be grand in scope feel claustrophobic at times, as if by filming in dark light and confined spaces the director sought to camouflage inadequate sets and locations.

Despite these weaknesses, Alatriste is a cinematic event that cannot be missed by aficionados of Golden Age Spain.

Good Read

I picked up a book at the book fair in Madrid called Ladrones de tinta. It’s sort of a mystery novel where the hero is contracted by Cervantes’s editor to discover the identity of Avellaneda. Along the way he rubs shoulders with pretty much every heavy hitter in Madrid circa 1614: Lope, Quevedo, Tirso, Góngora and myriad others, high and low.

Occasionally the book feels like it’s trying too hard; every time the hero meets a literary icon, said icon is in the middle of writing one of his iconic works and the hero just happens to make a key suggestion (such as the entire plot of Fuenteovejuna). However, the book is lively, and paints a vivid picture of Madrid in the Golden Age, complete with the sights, sounds, and smells of the streets, the grooming habits of the people, and a very vivid description of how to treat hemorrhoids.

One small quibble: I don’t think a chapter goes by without some mention of urination; apparently bachelors in Golden Age Madrid had a habit of forgetting to empty their chamber pots. All that aside, the book was loads of fun and I recommend it for your summer enjoyment.