It was market morning and we walked down to the central market to buy fish for dinner. I could spend hours in this place just looking at all the produce, and what makes it even better is the way it is displayed and the gusto of the Spanish people for their food, all around you. But you have to be patient. Everything is done on Spanish time, people have a chat, make their mind up, change it, say hello to someone next to them, and together with a long list of wants, it can make it a long business. But you just have to be patient.
We ended up buying some skate wings for dinner, some herbs and cheese.
Now cheese. We did a bit of research to get a list of cheeses and where they come from. Spain doesn't seem to have a big range of cheese, like France or the UK, but we are determined to find some good ones. Last week we had Manchego, very strong with whiff of the barnyard and a softish goats cheese. They do lots of goats cheese. Armed with our list we bought Tetilla from La Coruna, the pointy one really creamy, Roncal from Navarra, a like a mild Manchego and a blue, Queso de la Peral. Thought this looked like a Dolcelati, but is much drier, yum. This should last us all week.
Now in our supermarket they have a good selection of wines, and we have bought a few (only a few!) to have in the evening. But the most expensive ones there are only about 5 Euros, and we have been drinking a very nice one at 3.89 Euros. I know mind blowing. So last week we found a small wine and produce shop, only two minutes down from the flat. We ended up having a long conversation about wines with one of the owners, asking how much to you need to spend to get a better wine.
The shop booked us on one of their wine tastings and on Saturday we walked all of a hundred yards to Vinotekia. There was us, a young Spanish couple, and 9 women on a hen day. Hence to say it became apparent quite quickly that the hen party were not interested in a wine tasting, they just wanted a good yak, and carried on at 1000 decibels Spanish style ignoring the tasting. So really there were only four of us tasting a White, Rose and two Reds, and all produced locally. We bought a Rose and a Red, and can pop down the road any time for another. They do regular wine tastings and we will be booking on them. The wines cost us E6.50 and E8.00, again amazing.
Back to dinner and the skate wings. We thought they were quite expensive and when we opened up the package we knew why. We had bought tyranosaurus skate wings, they were huge, so we decided to share one and do them differently on Sunday. Rod poached them in wine and herbs. Yum... couldn't get over how much there was. On Sunday I fried them in garlic and oil, great as well.
Sunday morning was grey, so we thought we would do some culture and went tothe Casa-Museo Benlliure. It is the sort of place you probably wouldn't choose if you were only here for a few days, but an absolute treasure. The house of a family of painters, father, two sons and a grandson from about 1855 to 1937. The house has been kept as lived in, together with their studio and a lot of their paintings. Thought it would be small and a bit boring, but ended up walking around for an hour and a half.
We had intended to go to a Live Viewing of Swan Lage at the local cinema today, but we arrived to find that we had been beaten there by 3000 Spanish Ladies, they are very scary. We gave us trying to find the right queue to join, if in fact there was a queue, as it was chaos, we gave up and grumped away to console ourselves with a glass of beer and a tapa!
This lady sold little conas of ham and other meats. The Spaniards snack constantly.
So to console our lack of ballet today we went back to El Duende in the evening for a spot of flamenco. Brilliant and completely different from last week.
We talked to a couple who live in Wimbledon, over for the weekend. Hope you enjoyed it and keep on travelling............
Sorry I have been rambling on a bit today.... hope you haven't fallen asleep
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