Andalucid at Los Piedaos

Tripe Wars

No, not the rather lacklustre political jockeying of Spain's PP and PSOE candidates (dubbed the 'Race of the Number Twos' by racy regional rag The Olive Press). But the much more important callos conflicts to be experienced in two of Granada's finer tapas bars even as the PP's Mariano Rajoy takes up the premiership. 

Make no mistake, callos or tripe is Man Food.  The English translation of the Wikipedia page gets straight to the point.  Guts.  It's the kind of stewy chunky thing you'll find steaming in a battered pot over a two ring hob in a campesino kitchen on a chilly winter day.  But just as likely to be served in a white tablecloth restaurant in the yuppier parts of Madrid, the city that claims a special affinity to the dish.

Fred is a Man, so he loves this stuff.  But tonight he's a Perplexed Man.  He's pondering the purist version of callos served up at Bar El Mercado today - suitably savoury and farmyard-y, certainly, but sternly presented with just a few beans in its innocent beige gravy.  He remembers the more playful version he ate a few weeks ago at Granada's groovy Bar St. Germain. It sported chickpeas and - wait for it - red hot chilli flecks. And his heart (and stomach) are more inclined to this cheeky newcomer. (Maybe better not to mention his heart and stomach in this context).

I think someone should find out immediately how Mr. Rajoy concocts his callos.  If he messes with the original recipe, he might have other pesky innovations up his sleeve.  But if he likes his offal without waffle, then he's a man of the people and will lead Spain back to solvency through austerity.

Do you have a favourite callos recipe?  And what goes in yours?

 

Granada Tapas: the insider's guide

It's happened to most of us; you set out to explore a new town or city - let's say it's in southern Spain -  and a couple of hours later you're as hungry as a horse, as thirsty as an August acequia waiting its turn on the watering rota. You're looking for that elusive, magical bar that is going to make your day or evening special, the one you'll still be  do-you-remembering in ten years' time.

But after half-an-hour of checking out obsolete guidebook recommendations, or sidestepping scowling  students with their eyes full of hope and their hands full of flimsy flyers, you're no nearer to finding the real tapas thing. You end up in a dive with really bad tiles, faux-rustic furniture and three identical old men sipping their cervezas at the bar while they watch writhing pop tarts on the giant flat-screen TV. You are bored, fed up and want to beat your partner to death with the plywood jamon york y queso plastico bocadilla served with an extra helping of indifference by the owner's cousin's son.

It doesn't have to be like this.  After 12 years in the city, Gayle Mackie is the queen of Granada Tapas Tours, and she's graciously ready to share her insider knowledge with you.  Together with her colleague, Lecrin Valley-based writer and publisher Vernon Grant, Gayle has researched and co-written Granada Tapas Tours, a handy pocket-sized guide to Granada region's 100 top tapas bars. 

We met Gayle a couple of weeks ago for a lunchtime mini-tour.  She looks Spanish, sounds Scottish, and is more bubbly than a bottle of cava - delightful company. We started at Corrala del Carbon in c/Mariana Pineda.  It's got a pleasant old-world feel, tapas is generous if meatily conventional, and it boasts a handsome Whiskey Bar. 

Our tour ended at Saint Germain, (c/Postigo Velutti) simply because it was too good to leave. Callos, a man-food stew of tripe, chorizo and chickpeas in a spicy sauce, got Fred's vote.  As did a wide selection of primarily Spanish wines in a laid-back atmosphere with good music.

We also love Casa de Vinos in c/Monjas del Carmen, with over 100 wines to choose from, many by the glass. And their little rounds of goats' cheese on mini-toasts with onion and Pedro Ximenes jam...are GOOD! Difficult to find but Gayle knows how. And there's El Mentidero, at c/Piedra Santa 15, one of the new generation of arty, modern bars with friendly service. (see main photo).

As days lengthen and get warmer, food-lovers' thoughts naturally turn to tapas tours of Granada.  Gayle will be happy to help you through this rite of spring. Let us know if you go, and tell us about your favourite tapas experience.

And don't forget, we're offering you the opportunity to create your very own Spanish taste experience with our Mediterranean Cookery Workshops planned for March 17-24 here at Los Piedaos.

  ¡buen provecho!

 

 

A Last Taste of Summer: Frediterranean Tart

Before I start this post, can I just say something about the ongoing strong reactions to my previous posts about Tony and Lil's Reigning Cats and Dogs refuge. I will be visiting Tony and Lil to see the refuge for myself, and I've also accepted Andy and Carol's invitation to hear their point of view. So look out for a post about my visits soon.

With the dark evenings almost here, I thought I'd end the summer on a flavour high, by sharing Fred's recipe for a colourful, fragrant Mediterranean Tart, which I have rechristened just because it fits. It's based in part on a recipe by Scottish chef, Alex Mackay, and it's perfect eaten out of doors on a sunny afternoon, with a crisp green salad and a glass of misty-cold Rueda or fruity Rioja.

FREDITERRANEAN TART (Serves six, or four greedy people, with a green salad)

Pastry:
(A pack of bought puff pastry will line a shallow-rimmed baking sheet measuring 30 x 25 x 1cm (12 x 10 x 1/2 inch) )

Filling:
2 x medium aubergines, thinly sliced
1 x large red pepper, sliced

4 large or 6 medium firm tomatoes, thickly sliced
3 x medium red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
4 x cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
65ml (2 1/2 fluid oz) olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
12 x anchovy fillets in oil
As many black olives as you like, halved and...stoned
200g (7oz) goats' cheese (soft for slicing or firm for crumbling)

A handful of basil leaves
salt to taste

METHOD
Take the pastry out a couple of hours in advance to thaw it. 

Cover the bottom of a large frying pan with olive oil and fry the aubergine slices (you can dip these in flour first if you like) until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

Slice the peppers and remove the seeds, then cut in thick strips and put in a large pan.  Halve and slice the onions and add to the peppers, along with the garlic, oil, sugar, cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of salt and 150ml (5 fl oz) water. Cover and sweat for 10 minutes (not you, the vegetables) stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and cook for another 5 minutes, until almost all the liquid has evaporated.  Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC, 400ºF or Gas Mark 6.

Slice the tomatoes across in thick slices.  Fry quickly in a little olive oil until just tender and set aside.

Roll out the pastry to fit the baking sheet (I smurge the regulation two sheets together in the middle with a slight overlap, and take the long sides over the rim of the baking sheet)

Layer the filling over the pastry: aubergine slices first, followed by the tomato slices, then fill in with the pepper and onion mixture. Keep the filling within half an inch of the edge so that the pastry can puff!

Scatter over the anchovies, olive halves and goats' cheese.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and scatter over the basil leaves.  Serve hot or warm with Andalucian sunshine poured over.

¡buen provecho!

For more of Fred's mouthwatering White Bowl portraits of Spanish ingredients and other foodie still lifes, please visit his White Bowl exhibit on Flickr. I'll be happy to give you information about framing and prices for his limited edition prints, and we can send matted signed copies securely to the UK and other destinations.

Ambienza Abierto

Olive ciabatta has been a long time coming to Lanjaron, but it's here at last, sharing a menu with oatmeal and fresh fruit, bacon and cream cheese bagels, and pasta with a feta, sundried tomato and pine nut sauce. Ambienza, the café-bar that's been taking shape since summer 2005, unfurled its first brown paper tablecover last week - a plain but poignant victory banner for a long campaign fought with patience, determination and good humour.

Martin McNally and Astra Barton came to Lanjarón in 2005. They had a dream: to transform a shabby warehouse overlooking the town's new variante (bypass) into a modern family home and internet café. The vision slowly took shape as allegations, acts of God and the ayuntamiento (local authority) tested them at every turn. At least they had a couple of house moves and baby Zak, who came along in 2008, to distract them.

There was the time the scaffolding company casually asked for a €160,000 deposit...the freak hailstorm that hit Granada hours after huge pits had been dug in front of the café for new foundations.....the day they went to collect their long-awaited opening licence, only to find that a hostile neighbour had filed a complaint, setting them back another four months. In the end, even the UK magazine for which we were serialising the Ambienza story folded, while Martin and Astra kept going.

Anyway, all that's history now. In fact, after my second watermelon smoothie with vodka, it seemed as though Ambienza had always been here, with Astra and her team in their smart black baseball caps and aprons, the bubbling fountain in the courtyard, the pastas and pestos and pastries and panini.

"Soon we'll be overweight and broke, and you'll be responsible," I tell Astra as sternly as I can through a mouthful of filo pastry with feta cheese. She just smiles her inscrutable Astra smile. "Carrot cake or chocolate brownie?" she asks.

Ambienza is at C/Señor de la Expiración, 31, opposite the bypass at the Orgiva end of town. You can call them on 958 771381 (they offer a takeaway service too) but don't worry unduly as the carrot cake is pretty much always available. Just come and work your way through the menu on the mist-cooled sun terrace. See you there!

Andalucid Lite(r)

No solid food, no booze, no caffeine.  No TV.  No makeup.  I didn't even brush my hair once.  I just got back from a week's yoga detox retreat at lovely Kaliyoga near Orgiva, and I can't remember the last time I was so happy.

That's not to say it wasn't challenging.  Last time I was at Kaliyoga, in 2005, I did the yummy yoga retreat for people who eat - three delicious, healthy, colourful Al-Andalus meals to look forward to every day. Then, anticipation helped me flow through morning and evening yoga like a young gazelle.

But last week, mealtimes were more like the Japanese shock-TV series 'Endurance'. 

First there was a glass of gluey glop, fibre and suchlike, into which we mixed a few drops of cider vinegar in a vain attempt to make it edible. I can't really talk about it yet. Next, a cup of barley grass water, which looks and tastes like it sounds. The third course, a delightful linseed smoothie made from....linseed.  Our reward was a freshly pulverized fruit and veg juice, a different blend every meal, dancing with garlic, ginger, bright green and citrus flavours.   

In the evening, we gathered around the big table on the terrace for our vegetable gruel, literally the stock from a big vat of cooked organic veg.  With a sprinkle of paprika, a squeeze of lemon and dollops of olive oil, it was a feast.  Still, I think I was the first of the group to break - by the third day I was hallucinating, identifying exciting wisps of escaped vegetable in my soup bowl. On the last afternoon, we were served a salad with alfalfa sprouts, freshly picked organic leaves, carrots and lots else - it was like tasting everything for the first time in my life.

In between meal ordeals, we cleansed our colons, had morning coffee (enemas), and sessions with various therapists - a homeopath, a nutritionist, a kinesiologist, acupuncturist and others. The schedule is cleverly designed so that you are always just on your way to or from an appointment, massage or yoga, like a White Rabbit in sports gear.  I know I didn't have time for any cravings.  In fact I was relieved to be in a food-free zone, not having to make the closely reasoned choices that usually lead me, with flawless logic, to the bag of Maltesers or Doritos.

What I loved about Kaliyoga was the laid-back, houseparty feeling, the lovely staff and most of all, Rosie and Jonathon Miles, who put so much time and behind-the-scenes effort into creating a relaxed atmosphere where I could sit and chat, read, write, sleep, do yoga and just reflect on my life. 

Rosie and Jonathon, who run the detox weeks in spring and autumn, say the process is life-changing.  I have to agree:  I lost 8lbs and kicked caffeine, wheat, sugar - most things really - all in one go.  A week later, I've managed to stay off the junk food, eating more green leaves than ten White Rabbits.  This is mostly thanks to Fred, who devised a weightless, wheatless, meatless menu that kept me on the path of rightjuiceness until normal eating could be resumed.

I think there are still a couple of spaces left on the next yoga detox retreat, which runs from 11th to 18th of May, so check out the Kaliyoga website and come on down!

Orgivanised Chaos

"Orgiva's not even Spanish, just an alien place."

"It's full of hippies."

"It's dirty and lacks grace."

And these are just the comments I have heard this week about the capital of Las Alpujarras. Plenty of people think Orgiva is as seedy and crumbling as a stale pipas de girasol loaf from Galindo's - and they don't all live in Lanjarón either. 

On grumpy days, I can see what they mean.  The endless obras, construction works that never seem to decrease the number of buildings needing work; a plentiful supply of potholes but non-existent parking; the run of cafes opposite the church - plastic chair parking lots serving the Orgiva special, a tostada con tomate where the tomate is apparently scraped off the polystyrene bread just before serving.  Stray people and stray dogs busy heading nowhere. Even the little piper wraith opposite Galindo's, with her formless fluting.  Some days I just want to get in, get the shopping and get back to Lanjarón's more sleepy certainties.

But if I don't take the winding road to Orgiva for a week or so, I start missing just that clash of people and energies that drives me mad at other times.  Here's a 'top-of-mind list of things I love about Orgiva:

Café Galindo's terrace (see pic above) on a mild spring or autumn morning.  Who's sipping their café con leche under the big green canopy today?  I might stop to sip and read the latest hair-raising issue of The Olive Press.  And to buy one of Galindo's serious, substantial loaves of wholemeal, oatmeal, five grain or sunflower-seed bread. (The earlier stale loaf allusion was just a figure of speech).

Camac Wholefood Store - To me, Camac is the perfect 'village store' run by the perfect proprietors.  'Organic, international, wholefood and soulfood' is how they describe the contents of their pleasant shop.  I love exchanging weather news and local gossip with Steve and Audrey while buying the all important chocolate peanuts and raisins, Steve's yummy homemade jams and pickles, emerald basil and coriander nodding happily in their pots, Indian and Thai ingredients to transform local chicken or veg...I sometimes go in even when I don't want anything.  Camac is part of the Orgiva experience.

Baraka - Perched just above the Plaza Alpujarra, serving wonderful drippy chicken or falafel shawarma wraps and blended carrot/apple/orange juice, with a thoughtfully-supplied shower in the women's loos so you can clean up afterwards (semi-joke).   And just a waddle away is Café Willendorf.  Excellent coffee in tall thin mugs, squishy sofas (if you get there first), palatial loos.   Dire food but never mind, because for great food there's...

...Cafe Libertad.  Sally and her team of smiling maidens have ditched the original, rather clinical décor and given the room a lightly girly makeover.  No pink ostrich feathers, but soft seating in jewel-coloured velvet now surrounds a big low table at the back, with warm brown cane seating around tables draped with softly shaded cloths.  And the menu - brunchy, lunchy, crunchy, a great balance of healthy and self-indulgent savoury and sweet things.  Fred took a photo of me trying to look dignified as I plunge into the All Day Breakfast Tart, light pastry around a wobbly egg custard filled with bacon, sausage and tomato.  There's a veggie version too.  Unless you are very hungry, get one to share!

Art shows put together at two days' notice.  "They told me the space (the old ayuntamiento next to the Plaza) was available.  I told them I didn't have anything to show just now.  Next day, they printed a poster announcing the exhibition," says a slightly bemused but happy Jayne Morley.  She worked early and late to put up the show, also featuring wildlife photographer Gig Binder, and Fred.   Jayne, a theatre actress turned photographer, is busy putting together aRThOUSe Orgiva, a range of residential courses in photography, filmmaking, theatre, dance, music, writing,  and voice. (Website under construction, like everything else in Orgiva, but getting there).  I love that in Orgiva, you don't have to be rich or connected to some stuffy European establishment to get things like this started.  Good luck Jayne and I hope to report on aRThOUSe's first season soon.

Christmas shopping at Nomadas.  If you haven't been into the sunny mini-emporium above Bar Cañada (opposite Dia supermarket) lately, it's been transformed.  Maria has done away with a lot of the ethnic fabrics, soft furnishings and clothes, replacing them with gifts, decorations and household stuff.  I am going there to do some Christmas shopping next week - the products and prices are a joy, and they wrap your gifts in bright pink Nomadas paper stamped with gold.

The little piper.  Bright-eyed and wild-haired as a Portuguese water dog, this elfin street performer almost lives on the high kerb opposite Galindo's, in the shade of the yellow pillarbox. Her unpunctuated piping is one of the characteristic sounds of Orgiva.  When she is not there, I step around her space.

So if you see me lurking in a shop doorway with a scowl, just ignore me.  But if I've found a shady seat at Galindo's and Antonio has just brought my coffee, then put your shopping down, take a seat and tell me what drives you nuts or lights up your day in Orgiva!

 

Honey, it's good for you!

I'm surrounded by stalls selling sweet, sticky, fragrant edible things, and a smooth Spanish voice is whispering that they're good for my health and I should eat as many different types as possible.  Am I dreaming?  I dip a cracker into the earthenware bowl in front of me.  Thicker and darker than molasses, with a burnt sugar edge, the flavour of miel de madroños is too intense to be anything but real.  (I can't find a translation for this fruit, any ideas from this lovely photo)?

I'm tasting my way around the Feria de Miel Andaluza, the Andalucian Honey Fair, opening today for its seventh year in Lanjarón.  Dare I say that the building opposite the town's famous Balneario is buzzing?  Young, old and in-between, visitors are congealing contentedly around the thirty or so stalls selling everything from clear amber to chestnut brown honey, as well as soap, hand cream, candles, and even wines containing the magic ingredient.

The honey from Granada has its very own D.O. (Denominacion de Origen) quality mark to protect its purity, a status it shares with only one other Spanish region.  At the stall of local specialist Al-Andalus Delicatessen there are honeys made from chestnut, rosemary, thyme, lavender, orange blossom and even avocado.   A little further down the hall, Apicultura Jeronimo has cuddly beeswax cow candles, plus the oddest-looking chicken version and even Santa candles if you want to make an early start on your festive buying.

Apicor from Cordoba, where I tasted the mysterious miel de madroños, is a honey heavyweight.  The dignified elderly gentleman behind the counter lists the medicinal properties of each honey with the gravitas of a surgeon:  Cantueso (French Lavender - please correct me if you know better) honey is good for colic, flatulence and indigestion. It has powerful antiseptic properties too, so you can wash wounds with it.  Perfect for the greedy guts who has tripped over on the way back from the restaurant.  Romero, or rosemary honey, is good for the kidneys; Azahar, or orange blossom, helps with insomnia.  I try another speciality honey, miel de meloja, flavoured with pieces of pumpkin or squash.  It's a world away from the squeezy bottles of anonymous honey, 'Product of Several Countries' that line most supermarket shelves.  Apicor also sells big, chestnut-brown bars of pure beeswax, for furniture restoration and the like. 

A particularly enthusiastic bunch of visitors is gathered around La Bodega de Maria, based in Laroles.  Her family recipe produces  a  flowery, dark red 'honey wine' that she says is unique.  An elderly man standing next to me says he's been taking a medicinal glass of it every day for thirty years, and has hardly ever suffered colds or sore throats as a result.  If he's a 'plant', he's very convincing.

Other local/natural products are also on sale here.  I bought soaps with extract of caviar (they had a version with extract of snail-shells too), and there were plenty of local naughty treats: Exquisitos Mulhacenes, charmingly named after Spain's highest mountain, are golden brown meringue 'peaks'.  There are the deceptively pure white rounds of queso de almendras, or almond cheese, which must pack the world's greatest amount of calories into the smallest area, and hefty sausages of pan de higo, the dried fig sweet that thinks it's a giant chorizo. One smart tap from a pan de higo could fell a mule.

Spend a delicious hour or so absorbing this important Andalucian cultural mainstay - it's your patriotic duty!  The Fair is open all through the holiday weekend, from 11.00 am to 8.00 pm. And if you still feel hungry when you get out, several local restaurants are doing special honey dishes.  Try classic berenjeñas con miel (aubergine slices fried in honey) or costillas con miel, (honey-glazed spare ribs) at Volante (opposite the petrol station at the Orgiva end of town), or  lomo al estilo Luisiana con miel (Louisiana fried pork with honey) at Casita de Papel, the last restaurant at the Granada end of town.   For more information, you can call: (+34) 958 77 11 96/31, or email: apinevada@terra.es.

¡Buen provecho!

PS: Ever wondered what it takes to make the Spanish dream job work?  I spoke to Jonathon and Rosie Miles at Kaliyoga retreat to find out.  Their story is on the Guardian Abroad website.

Pedigree Chumbo

With their reputation for being hard to handle, and those all-over spiked collars, they're the pit bull terriers of the Andalucian fruit basket.  But just like that other maligned breed, the best of them are soft and sweet under their bristling exteriors.

We're talking higos chumbos; nopales in South America, tunas in Mexico, Indian figs, handiyyas in Morocco, Xian ren zhang in China, mission cactus or figues de barbarie.  There are dozens of names for the fruit of the prickly pear cactus, the opuntia ficus-indica.

Here in Andalucia, the sudden appearance of wiry old campesinos transformed into mountain goats with buckets signals the beginning of the chumbo harvest, and summer drifting into autumn.  The other day I watched an expert fill a bucket with the bright orange fruits, 'fishing' them off their knobbly mother plant with long-handled tongs.  Others wear rubber or leather gloves for hand-to-fruit confrontations.  "You can roll the fruits on the ground to get rid of the hairs," a chumbo-wife told me.  Other suggestions, (thank you Todd of Alcaudete on Andalucia.com) include  waving them around in an open flame, or shaking them in a bag of hot coals.  Or you could just open a tin of peaches. Don't do what I am doing in the picture here, staged for photographic purposes only.

Some say the red fruits are superior to the yellow and orange varieties; others keep them for feeding organically-reared pigs.  Either way, Todd recommends eating or preserving the fruits soon after harvesting, as they tend to start fermenting quickly. They are delicious as both a fruit and a vegetable, featuring in salads, jellies and jams, cookies and syrups, especially in American Southwestern and Mexican cuisine.   But don't go mad.  'Caroig' of Cabo de Gata, also on the Andalucia.com forum, warns: "I've also heard them referred to as 'sh-- eaters,'" advising that too many of the fibrous fruits can lead to severe constipation.

Sacred to the Aztecs, the Spanish brought the plant back with them when they returned from conquistadoring in the New World. Opuntia was historically grown in Spain to cultivate the cochinilla beetle, source of the heavenly red colouring.  Today it thrives in many Mediterranean countries including Spain, Italy and North Africa, as well as arid regions of the United States - in fact it can take over and needs careful managing if it is not to become a nuisance.

There are still chumbos to be had in our local campo.  So for a little while longer, next time you see a Spanish senior citizen clinging precariously to a steep terrace and waving wildly with a white stick, offer to hold his bucket.  He just might peel you a juicy chumbo, and soon you too will be hooked.

See A Man About a Hog

It had everything.  The tense wait as the deadline ticked past.  A car teetering on the edge of a sheer drop.  And then the stars - a shapely heroine with legs to kill for, and a passionate Spaniard who's a bit handy with a knife. 

We're talking jamon, and the launch of Lindsay and Orla Ostervig's first Intercambio Cultural at their home, La Joya, just outside Lanjarón.  Our hambassador for the evening was Gustavo Rubio, dapper proprietor of top local tapas bar and jamoneria Arca de Noé.  Well, the animals might go in two by two, but they get to check out in much smaller parcels.  We were about to find out how and why as Rubio took us back in time.  Our interpreter Eva, owner of the teetering car, took up the tail in English.

Back in 1950, he said, Lanjarón's economy, such as it was, depended almost entirely on agriculture.  So whether the family home was in the town or in the surrounding campo, almost everyone kept a mule, horse, goat or what Eva charmingly dubbed "porks," and not just for company.  No, the patter of tiny hooves was like the clink of bright coins - the more, the merrier.  The porks recycled the family's leftovers, as well as a yummy porridge of maize and wheat husks on their way to porcine obesity. 

When the pigs' weight topped 140 kilos, and the season was right (between November and March) they were 'sacrificed' as the Spanish put it, at the matanza.  This was once a big family occasion, where willing hands would start preparing morcilla, chorizo, longaniza, salchichas and salchichon, every piggy product they could extract, even making soap from the inedible portions of the pig's fat.  The delicious results were stored for family meals.  Sometimes creditors were even paid in pig.  However, if you were really poor, you would sell your ham, under cover of night to avoid the shame. 

Domestic abattoirs (mataderos) and even Lanjarón's own matadero have now succumbed to EU regulations making small scale killing both unprofitable and illegal, and larger-scale slaughtering methods have mostly taken over.  However, in the selection, salting and drying of ham, expertise still makes all the difference.

Just as well then that Gustavo's eye for a lovely leg is no less keen than, say, Mick Jagger's.  He travels up into the High Alpujarras, to Trevélez, Spain's highest town, and selects his jamón serrano (mountain air-cured ham) from the Landrace breed traditional in this area. "I only sell embras (females) or castrated males," twinkles Gustavo, asserting that only the fat in these hams is in the proper proportion and distribution.  The hams are carefully drained, salted and dried, and can hang in the mounain air for up to two years before they are ready to buy.

Back at Arca de Noé, beamed and wallpapered with glistening jamones, Rubio sells just two types of serrano ham, a whole piece 'Centro de Jamon Gran Reserva' or al corte, paper thin slices, retailing at €9.50 per kilo.  Before you buy at 'the Ark' order a chilled golden fino or a rioja.  Your drinks will arrive with Gustavo's finest ham, glowing garnet on its cushion of white bread and you'll be participating in one of the Alpujarra's finest food rituals.

Four Go Alfresco at Puente Palo

After weeks of moody weather, last Sunday dawned breezy, the sky vibrant blue.  We weren't working, no invites to lunch had been given or received, our Jeep was back on the road.  There was only one response to this spooky serendipity: we had to go on a picnic.

We quickly sought inspiration from one of our favourite food writers.  In her classic collection "Summer Food", Elizabeth David* daringly suggests skipping the foie gras and lobster in aspic in favour of robust peasant food like olives, anchovies, salami/chorizo and cheese, the kind of thing you can find in such abundance at our very own deli in town, Arca de Noe. 

Because we are essentially lazy, our picnic was humble.  Fred roasted chicken pieces with garlic, herbs and chunks of lemon.  We bought coleslaw and pasta salad (sorry Elizabeth), and mini-bottles of Cune Rioja.  There was a tub of cherries, and there may well have been some crisps and chocolate. 

The cool box packed, it was time to load the perfect picnic props into the back of the car.  "Come on guys, we're going on an adventure!" I said in my best happy-voice to Lola, our needy ex-abandoned spaniel/sheep cross.  (She has a big square butt and stick legs).  As all Lola's previous car journeys have ended in cold metal brandished by men in white coats, she immediately flung herself to the ground in a fine show of civil disobedience.  She was lifted into the Jeep, whimpering softly.  And our 12-year old Bearded Collie, Macduff, also had to be hand-winched from tarmac to tailgate, like Henry VIII in his later years. With the dogs staring out of the rear window in hopeless resignation, we were off for our fun day.

We took the left turn just out of Lanjarón towards Caballo Blanco, the riding/trekking centre I blogged about earlier this year.  We stayed on the track, climbing high above Lanjarón and Orgiva, passing signs to Cañar, driving for over an hour towards the picnic park at Puente Palo.  Thanks to the recent rain, the hillsides are bursting with wildflowers; golden broom and poppies, fat stalks of lavender and wild thyme. 

We parked in the meadow next to the picnic site, a good distance from the only other car there.  The dogs did some obligatory racing through the grass before flopping in individual areas of car shade.  We used the bonnet of the car as a picnic table.  There was no sound except birdsong, breeze whispering through grass, the rustle of the crisp packet...

A little later we drove on and found a parking spot near a grove of pines.  Fred took a nap, while I crowded into the back with Duffs and Lola.  For half an hour we were all at peace, just listening to the birdsong and watching sunlight sifted through pine branches.

We hardly ever do this stuff, yet in the past we have spent much more to be much less happy. 

This leads me neatly to an Andalucid Appeal - for your ideas and stories.  Our friends Ben and Marina, who run the excellent language learning site Notes in Spanish, are compiling a book called 500 Things to Do in Spain (Before You Die).  Entries are coming in fast, but there's still a window of time and room for your life-enhancing Spanish experience.  If you have a minute, do click on the Comments link at the bottom of this post and share your ideas with us.  We'll pass them on to Ben and Marina and if selected, you'll get your name in print in this wide-circulation book.    

Meanwhile, we're already browsing through "Summer Cooking" for next week's ideas. Here we are: "A joint of cold roast beef, a joint of cold boiled beef, two ribs of lamb, one piece of collared calf's head...."

*Historical footnote:  One of my first writing jobs was to edit a book by Ms. David's nephew, architectural kitchen designer Johnny Grey.  We took him to Chez Gerard in Charlotte Street for steak frites.  At the end of the meal he lifted his dinner plate in both hands and licked it clean.