Where’s the meat? Or, never have we paid so much for so little.

In our endless quest to satisfy our apparently ginormous American appetites, we came upon a restaurant that looked like it would fill the bill—the restaurant at the Hotel San Polo. We were allowed to eat in the quiet dining room away from the screaming soccer fans in the bar area. Our ubiquitous waiter offered us menus in English, a welcome change.

Ken surprised our waiter by first ordering a delightful Spanish cocktail known as 43 and Coke. Stunned, he repeated our order and nodded his approval. Shortly thereafter, he brought to the table two tall glasses filled with more than one ice cube (usually you just get one), two small bottles of Coke, and the entire bottle of 43 from the bar. Forty three (or “cuarenta y tres”) is a Cuban liquer with a flavor close to vanilla and it is good with Coke or alone on the rocks. If you ever get a chance, you should try it.

The waiter brought us two pieces of standard, stale Spanish bread with no butter, no olive oil—nothing. Just dry bread. Then he brought out an unexpected treat of (don’t get grossed out) phyllo purses stuffed with blood sausage, pine nuts, and rice with a tasty sauce of reduced balsamic vinegar. Ken and Mother of Ken were pleased and impressed.

These feelings were short-lived. Our entrees of grilled baby lamb chops were underwhelming. We each had about 8-10 “chops” which were approximately a quarter of an inch thick and contained less than 2% meat. These were served on a bed of 15 French fries (which were salted—an unusual occurrence) with a sautéed red pepper draped over the top of everything like a blanket. We are sure that this was a ploy to avert our attention from the lack of meat. In hindsight, it took more calories to cut through the gristle in search of meat than we actually consumed. Neither one of us was willing to be the first to comment on the paucity of the food. Instead, we kept up normal conversation. During our entire dining experience, when he was not serving us elf food, our waiter busied himself by endlessly drying silverware and throwing it into piles and drying plates and stacking them loudly a mere five feet from our table.

We were grateful when he offered us a dessert menu. Even in our weakened state, we were able to peruse the menu, which included such delicacies as olive oil ice cream and skewered fruit with hot chocolate. We chose what we believed was a fail-safe option: lemon sorbet. It arrived at our table in short champagne glasses with plastic flexible straws. We stared in amazement, looked at each other, and laughed. Sticking the straws into the glasses, we bravely took our first sips of sorbet only to find out that it was more like lemon foam than the sorbet we expected. It was somewhat like an orange julius, but thinner. Ken remarked that it tasted like lemon scented Lysol.

It was now 9:30 p.m. No one else was in the dining room with us. Had we eaten the Early Bird Special?

We got our bill and were astonished at the total as our stomachs growled in hunger. We hurried back to our room to snack on the cookies we had taken from the breakfast buffet.

Bidet or no bidet?

We are positive one of the questions you might ask is “what kinds of bathrooms do they have in Spain?” In the past, we have experienced the amazing variety of bathrooms in Spain from the luxurious to the primitive (read: small hole in the ground—ask Brother or Father of Ken about this the next time you see them). Mercifully, the cuartos de baño we have experienced so far have been excellent and of this century.

In our high tech hotel in Madrid, we were amazed and pleased by the absence of a bidet. Instead, the hotel used the bidet money to install a large state of the art hydro massage shower and an ultra modern sink.

Here in Salamanca, our bathroom is much more traditional with the lurking presence of the bidet, which we still don’t understand how to use. Not that we want to. The shower has posed a bit of a problem as it does not have a curtain, but instead, a swinging glass wall that is about 2.5 feet wide. The result is that you have to strategically position the shower head so that water hits you above the waist only when you stand plastered in the corner of the shower stall. If you fail to do this, the entire bathroom is soaked. We have learned this through bitter experience and we are sure that the women who clean our room laugh at the state of the bathroom floor every day.

Thus far, we have been extremely pleased by the quality of our hotel rooms. By comparison, English hotels, or at least the one we had in London, consisted of a series of oddly shaped small closets with beds. Some fortunate people had a bathroom in their closet while others were required to share the W.C. with roving bands of Swedish tourists. We’re part Swedish, so it’s okay if we make fun of Swedish people. Spanish hotels, on the other hand, consist of normal rooms made up of right angles and are generally more spacious than British hotel closets. Our room in Madrid, for example:

Also, there are elevators here, although they only fit one person at a time. In England, we had to drag our luggage up the stairs.

In the English hotel, we had to guard our breakfast tables at all times against marauding bands of Swedish tourists who frequently attempted to “pinch” the hard, crusty rolls that were standard breakfast fare. Occasionally, in an attempt to avoid such a high stress breakfast experience, we would venture out into the city to a restaurant and Father of Ken would order the Full English Breakfast. The FEB is the equivalent of a Denny’s Grand Slam with the addition of a bowl of baked beans. Ken and Mother of Ken would sit at another table.

In our hotel in Salamanca, we have a sumptuous breakfast buffet available every morning and, while there are often other tourists eating with us, they remain at their own tables and do not steal food from ours. Offerings include: café con leche, Cola Cao (hot chocolate), orange juice, pineapple juice, a variety of smoked meats and cheeses, apples and pears, large slices of green striped melon, yogurt, donuts, cookies, the Spanish equivalent of Little Debbie snacks, croissants, rolls, toast, and cereal. There are no baked beans.

I don’t know what I’m ordering, but I’m sure it won’t be good

Spain is not known for its culinary achievements, although, based on Ken’s previous experience, food prepared in the home is quite delicious. That said, we have been forced to eat what we affectionately call “street fare.” For the uninitiated, breakfast consists of coffee and croissants. Lunch is eaten between 2 and 4 in the afternoon and most restaurants serve a “menu of the day.” This includes a first course of soup, salad, or pasta, a second course of some kind of “meat” dish, bread, dessert, and water. Dinner, which is eaten no earlier than 9:00, is usually lighter fare consisting of small portions of cheese, cured meats, sausages, croquettes, etc.

Our breakfast at the hotel is very nice and there is much more variety than what you might get in a regular restaurant.

Our lunches so far have consisted of gazpacho (which we eat frequently because we know what we’ll be getting when we order it) and cured ham and melon for our first courses and roasted chicken, breaded pork cutlets, and extremely thin, overcooked pieces of steak for our second courses. We usually have ice cream for dessert as neither of us cares for flan or rice pudding. The water is good as long as the waitstaff remembers that we ordered non-carbonated water.

One notable exception to this dreary repetition was the lunch we ate at the Café Barbacoa in Avila. We were seated on the top floor of the restaurant with only a few other people who were all Spanish—far away from the crowded streets full of tourists. We began our meal with a teeny tiny bowl (about the size of a thimble) of melon foam with cured ham shavings on top and small pieces of toasted bread which we were instructed to top with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of gray sea salt. For the entrée, Ken ordered seafood ravioli in a zucchini reduction and Mother of Ken ordered carpaccio with arugula and shavings of a mild local cheese dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The waiter served us each three rolls—olive, cheese, and French. For dessert, we each had a plate of artisanal confections and coffee. The waitstaff at the Café Barbacoa were kind—a welcome change from the service personnel in most of the eating establishments we have visited.

In order to avoid trekking into town each evening to eat dinner amongst the raucous crowds of people participating in the Feria, we have taken to eating dinner in our hotel room while watching season two of Dynasty on Ken’s laptop. Our spread consists of bread or toast topped with tomato, different cheeses, and cured ham with apples on the side. We have cookies and Nestle chocolate bars for dessert. We cannot wait until we have our apartment in Barcelona and can cook for ourselves.

So far, we are enjoying eating jamon Serrano (cured ham), Manchego cheese, gazpacho, melon, and Nestle chocolate bars. Also, we are drinking our weight in Fanta de limón (lemon flavored soda).

Oh the places you’ll go or, how many cathedrals, churches, convents, and monasteries can one country have?

The first day we were in Salamanca, everything was closed for a city-wide party, so we didn’t get to see anything but the outsides of the buildings we wanted to visit.

The second day, we visited the cathedrals of Salamanca—that’s right, there are two here: the new and the old. Many of you gentle readers may not know that cathedrals have side chapels which contain art dating back many centuries. We know this because of the amount of dust that has accumulated in these chapels. The “new” cathedral, which was built during the 16th century, contained many of these dirty little chapels. Apparently, no one who works there knows about Swiffers. The “old” cathedral, which dates to the 13th c. has been cleaned at least once since then. Ken was able to view several works of art that will be helpful for her work, including a large altarpiece in the old cathedral and some nicely preserved 13th c. mural paintings.

The comic relief of the day was provided by Ken forcing Mother of Ken to climb up into the medieval towers of the old cathedral while wearing a skirt. Access to the tower is provided by the narrow Spiraling Stone Stairs of Death (SSSD). There was no handle, no way to see how much farther you had to go—it was an endless, exhausting ascent.

Mother of Ken climbing the stairs:

We emerged to find ourselves surrounded by birds and centuries of accumulated bird offal—oh, the humanity! The tower that we exited:

The balcony you see at the top of this photo is where we were walking:

Crippled by an inexplicable fear of birds, accosted by jabbering tourists, speechless and terrified, Ken and Mother of Ken inched their way along the precipice to the door that lead to the balcony at the clerestory level of the nave. Once inside, terror mounted for Mother of Ken when she realized the height they had attained. Spurred on only by her desire to be closer to the earth, we soldiered on and descended the SSSD of the opposite tower, which were made even more treacherous by the metal, arrow shaped “decorations” embedded in the stairs. Mother of Ken’s heel caught about every third step, threatening to catapult her into a dizzying fall toward the bottom of the stairs.

More stairs--this time made of metal:

Upon reaching the bottom, we needed a cocktail.

Later in the day, we visited the Dominican church and convent of St. Stephen and the Convent of las Dueñas, which belongs to the Dominican sisters. They sell confections in a little shop off of the cloister and they maintain a pretty garden in the cloister that includes several long stem rose bushes.

Thursday, we took a day trip to Avila, which is about an hour east of Salamanca. We were trapped in a train compartment with the four most obnoxious Spanish teenagers that exist for the ride to Avila and we got the hell off of the train as quickly as possible when it stopped. However, we were unable to escape the teenagers and their equally obnoxious friends who greeted them at the station.

We stopped first at the Romanesque Basilica of St. Vincent, where we saw a few cool works of art and then we walked to the cathedral. The cathedral of Avila was slightly cleaner than the new cathedral in Salamanca, but they didn’t provide much information about the building or the works of art inside, so you just had to wander around and guess what you were looking at. Ken found one painting that will be helpful for her dissertation and Mother of Ken avoided further tower climbing.

The Roman wall around the old part of the city of Avila:

A view from outside the Roman wall, overlooking the area around Avila:

After eating an awesome lunch (see next post about the food so far for more), we walked to the Dominican convent of St. Thomas and found a 18th century chapel dedicated to St. Vincent Ferrer that Ken didn’t even know was there. A helpful cleaning lady turned on the light for us so that we could see the chapel better and Mother of Ken stood guard while Ken took a few photos without flash.

On Friday, we stayed in Salamanca with the goal of seeing all of the convents and palaces on the map. We started at the Clarisan convent, where we had to ring a doorbell so that kind, tiny, tiny nun who was in charge of visitors could come and get us and drag us up three flights of stairs to the old choir loft. She pointed to a small door at the top of yet another staircase and told us to go up and look around. Imagine our surprise when three elderly ladies suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, exclaiming about what they had just seen. Once they were safely down the stairs, we climbed them (open, metal grate stairs), we found ourselves above the present ceiling of the convent church inches away from the original painted wood ceiling from the 13th c. We inched along the permanent scaffolding that had been installed, keeping our eyes heavenward so as not to freak out about how high up we were on the less than firm walkway. There were two walkways that we could use to walk across the roof of the nave to the other side. This was a wood beam ceiling and all of the beams were painted with lions and castles and geometric and vegetal shapes, most of the painting was fairly well preserved, although the painting on one side of the nave was worn away in places. After climbing around in the ceiling, we made another treacherous descent into the upper choir, where we had a lovely view of the city. There is no obstacle too great in our quest to discover all of the medieval art that is left in this city.

Along with the medieval art, this convent also possessed a dynamic Museum of A Bunch of Crap That No One Knows What To Do With. This consisted of musical instruments, farm tools, expositions of shoemaking, baking, and primitive country living. The second floor of this “museum” was a room full of dishes, children’s toys, a collection of key chains, and a case full of crucifixes.

In the afternoon, we went to the Convent of the Ursulines, who make sure to make clear in their literature that they are “real Franciscans.” We were greeted by another nun who was even smaller than the one from the morning and she unlocked the “museum,” which was a small room at the back of the church with a random assortment of antiquities. Once she let us in, she locked the gate and pulled a sheer black curtain over the door, leaving a small space through which she could peer out and holler at people not to take pictures in the church. We did not want to cross her, so we walked quietly and reverently around the small room, conveying our appreciation for the art by ooh and ahhing as she smiled in approval. After she released us from the museum, we were able to tour the church before leaving.

Saturday, we embarked on a pilgrimage with the goal of seeing all of the small parish churches built before the 16th century in Salamanca. We stopped first at San Benito, which is apparently never open as we have tried to visit this church on several occasions. Next, we went to the church of St. John the Baptist, where Mother of Ken made the discovery of the day when she saw St. Vincent Ferrer’s name inscribed on the outside of the building. When we tried to go in, we found a chair with a jacket on the back in the foyer outside of the church, the door to the nave locked, and no one sight. Ken did find an e-mail address for the church on a parish poster so that she can e-mail someone to ask about the St. Vincent inscription.

A short walk later, we found ourselves at the church of St. Mark, which is a 12th century church with a circular plan and some really cool mural paintings. After leaving St. Mark’s church, we walked to the Church of the Holy Spirit, which belonged to the Order of Santiago in the 13th c. There was no medieval art inside the church, but there was an astounding sculpture of a so-called miraculous image of Christ wearing a black velvet and gold embroidered skirt. Don’t confuse this with other so-called miraculous images of Christ wearing a skirt found in other parts of Spain—they are all different!

In all of these churches, there were people praying, so we didn’t linger for more than a few minutes, allowing us to take a scenic trek back to our hotel. Mother of Ken likened this journey to the Bataan Death March or the Oregon Train with the addition of speeding Spanish motorists. Note to selves: Always look both ways twice before setting foot in a crosswalk in this country.

The Roman bridge in Salamanca that we walk across every day:

The Iberian (pre-Roman) bear at the end of the bridge--it is missing its head:

The Rio Tormes:

A boxer looking out of his apartment at us:

Maria

After all of my hard work this week, I decided to treat myself to paella. This is adapted from the recipe that came from the lady I lived with in Seville, Spain several years ago, Gloria. Gloria was a great cook and since I love food, we made a deal the day I moved into her house that I would try everything once and be honest with her if I didn't like it. If I didn't like something, she wouldn't make it again. That only happened with calamari (which I happened to walk in on her cleaning--ew) and some weird North African pumpkin dish. I still tried both, though. One of my favorites was her paella and she gave me the recipe the night before I left.

I started with a heavy skillet and coated the bottom in olive oil.


While that was heating on medium-medium high heat, I prepared the vegetables and meats.

Here, I have a red pepper, a lemon, two cloves of minced garlic, about 1 cup of chopped yellow onion, and a chopped tomato.

The meat component includes 1/4 lb. of cubed chorizo, one cubed chicken breast, and one cubed pork chop.

First, I added the chorizo to the pan to start rendering some of its fat.

Then the chicken and pork go in, sprinkled with a little salt and pepper and cooked until they are slightly browned.

I removed the meats from the oil with a slotted spoon and set them aside in a bowl.

Next, I added the onion and garlic to the remaining oil.

Once the onion and garlic were softened, I added the tomato and cooked for another minute or two before removing that mixture to a bowl.

I added 1 1/2 c. medium grain rice to the remaining oil and toasted it for about 30 seconds before adding 3 c. water.

The saffron goes in next--I usually use about 1/2 tsp. saffron, but all I could get today was American saffron, so I added about a tablespoon. I'll have to stock up on saffron when I'm in Spain next month.

I put the meats back in:

Then the tomato mixture:

Then I added frozen peas--1/2-1 cup:

I stirred everything together, added the juice of half of a lemon and a little more salt, then decorated the top with sliced red pepper and thinly sliced lemon.

The lid goes on, I leave the rice alone, and let it cook--here's what it looks like while it is cooking:

The paella is done when the rice is cooked. Then I turn the heat off and let the paella sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Don't forget to get the browned rice at the bottom of the pan--they look more black than brown in the photo, but they are delicious. I used to fight with Gloria's son (my Spanish "brother") Paco Pepe for the rice at the bottom of the pan.

I serve this with Catalan bread, which I drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper and then toast:

When it comes out of the oven, I rub the warm bread with a clove of garlic.

And then I rub each piece with tomato, which gives it an orange tint that you can't really see here. It is delicious:

Here's my final Spanish dinner--paella with Catalan bread and peaches for dessert. We always ate fruit for dessert, but I wasn't allowed to eat certain fruits after 5:00 p.m. Gloria said that fruits like oranges would upset my digestive system and keep me up at night, so she gave me peaches, pears, and apples in the evening.

Yum. There were many days that we would have paella for lunch and then I would spend the afternoon sitting by the Guadalquivir River near our apartment reading a book or studying. There was a cafe on the river bank that used to play Blondie's "Maria" over and over again. Every time I hear that song, I think of Spain.

Pig City

As anyone who has ever been to Spain knows, the Spanish are quite fond of pork. While I have no problem with this in general, sometimes they go a little too far. A warning, gentle readers, that the following images may be somewhat disturbing. Proceed at your own risk.

A dear friend of mine took these pictures of the window of a restaurant on a recent trip to Spain and was kind enough to share them with me and give me permission to publish them on my blog for your viewing (dis)pleasure.

Lady Pig and Baby Pigs:




Gentleman Pig: