We had another gota fría this week, on Friday. Just as we were set to march off to our usual morning pétanque game, the heavens opened and the rains came. Five minutes earlier I had remarked about what a beautiful morning sky we had. The storm was totally unexpected. It rained out the morning exercise ritual, but we were sure that we would be able to play pétanque that afternoon at the customary Danish social gathering at El Rancho. At 4:15, after a full day of on-again, off-again downpours, we acknowledged that there certainly wasn't any pétanque at El Rancho at 5:00 and probably not much social gathering, either.
Though long, the rains didn't seem to produce as much flooding as the first gota fría almost two weeks ago, but then, we were on this side of the low spot leading to our community this time, safe and dry and inside. The rains stopped Friday evening, and Saturday morning, I walked around the town of Algorfa in cool but sunny weather. I had made an excursion into the mysterious and long-forgotten depths of the top of my closet on Friday to find a pair of socks from my winter wardrobe stash, and I was glad to have them on again Saturday during my outside walk.
This Sunday morning we were finally able to play pétanque again. The rains had washed some of the sand in our playing fields into the roadway between the recreation area and the orange grove, and our pétanque lane had acquired a solidity and hardness that changed the way the jack rolled and the metal balls dropped. For the first time since we moved here, I wore full-length slacks to play, and that changed my game somewhat, too--I kept hitting the extra cloth of my pants on the backswing.
There is another sign that autumn is here and winter is coming. Even though we want to be out and exercising soon after we get up, we have to delay our game now--it is not light at 7:30 or 8:00 any more. In fact, the light is still dim at 9:00 and the pétanque lane remains in the shadow as the sun makes its appearance. It was only during the third game this morning that the sun moved to a position where it shone on the whole lane. By the fourth game, I had shed my long-sleeved cotton jacket and was enjoying the sun on my arms in a short-sleeved T-shirt. And later in the morning at the Sunday market, when I had switched to three-quarter length pants and an almost-sleeveless blouse, I was still downright hot in the direct sun.
I came home and hung clean laundry out on the line on our rooftop terrace. It will be dry in an hour, unless we get another unexpected rain.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Discovery Day
Today is a national holiday in Spain and in almost all of the Spanish-speaking world. October 12 is remembered by many U.S. citizens of my generation as the day Columbus discovered America. "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," with funding from Spain's Queen Isabella, even though he himself was Italian. Of course, we know now that Columbus was not the first European to discover the Americas: Leif Ericson had built a small colony in Newfoundland 500 years earlier, though it was short-lived. And it wasn't even really on October 12 that Christopher Columbus--or actually Rodrigo de Triana, one of his crew members--first sited land in what we now call the Bahamas. In the 15th century the Julian calendar governed; the world has since switched to the Gregorian calendar, and we should be observing the siting on October 21 instead of October 12.
In Spain, according to the Spanish-language Wikipedia, October 12 is observed as a day commemorating the beginning of contact between Europe and America, which culminated in "a meeting of two worlds" that changed visions of the world both for Europeans and for Americans. Its observance is not without controversy here any more than in the Americas--the Wikipedia entry has been edited six times since I first checked it this morning. But I continue to hold fast to the idea that encounters between the peoples of the two continents can enhance visions both in Europe and America, and at this writing, those words have not been excised from the article.
Since 1987 this day, formerly known as El Día de la Hispanidad and El Día de la Raza, has been officially called La Fiesta Nacional de España and is one of two national secular holidays (the other is Constitution Day). The day began like most fiesta days in Spain--with fireworks. Our regular 9:00 pétanque game was punctuated by sounds of firecrackers from surrounding towns and villages; rarely a minute passed without some observance of the day. Stores and businesses are closed throughout the country--our gardeners called last night to postpone their usual tidying up of our yard, saying they would be liable to heavy fines if they worked on the national holiday. And even I have given myself a day off from work to write this short post, to contemplate and celebrate connections between Spain and the Americas, and to be on the look-out for new visions.
In Spain, according to the Spanish-language Wikipedia, October 12 is observed as a day commemorating the beginning of contact between Europe and America, which culminated in "a meeting of two worlds" that changed visions of the world both for Europeans and for Americans. Its observance is not without controversy here any more than in the Americas--the Wikipedia entry has been edited six times since I first checked it this morning. But I continue to hold fast to the idea that encounters between the peoples of the two continents can enhance visions both in Europe and America, and at this writing, those words have not been excised from the article.
Since 1987 this day, formerly known as El Día de la Hispanidad and El Día de la Raza, has been officially called La Fiesta Nacional de España and is one of two national secular holidays (the other is Constitution Day). The day began like most fiesta days in Spain--with fireworks. Our regular 9:00 pétanque game was punctuated by sounds of firecrackers from surrounding towns and villages; rarely a minute passed without some observance of the day. Stores and businesses are closed throughout the country--our gardeners called last night to postpone their usual tidying up of our yard, saying they would be liable to heavy fines if they worked on the national holiday. And even I have given myself a day off from work to write this short post, to contemplate and celebrate connections between Spain and the Americas, and to be on the look-out for new visions.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Gota Fría
At the end of September, Monday the 28th to be exact, we experienced our first gota fría in the Alicante region, and, according to reports, the worst in this area in twelve years. A gota fría, literally translated, is a cold drop (as in drop of water). In this context it refers to a weather phenomenon in which a cold front meets the warm air rising over the Mediterranean and dumps muchas gotas of agua onto the land below.
When we get rain here, which is not often, it almost always comes very conveniently at night. This time it started on Sunday mid-morning, and continued on and off all that day and night. Monday morning during a temporary "off" period we went out to the grocery store, since the rain the day before had kept us away from the local Sunday market. We bumped into friends at Lidl, decided to go for a cup of coffee, and sat too long inside talking as the rain poured down.
When we left we drove through rain-filled streets with water up to our hubcaps. We made our way slowly towards home, which thankfully sits on higher ground than the surrounding area, but we still had to get through that lower surrounding area. At the roundabout leading from the highway toward Montebello, we encountered more water, a couple cars coming toward us very slowly, and another abandoned on the side of the road. As we rounded a curve, we saw a car up ahead stalled in water up to the windows. We turned around and headed back to Ciudad Quesada, the closest commercial area, to find a more comfortable place to wait until the water went down.
El Bancal restauante was the first dry spot we came to--though the downstairs ladies room was flooded so the mens on the upper level became unisex. We warmed up in the restaurante with a tasty goulash soup and glass of wine. After ninety minutes or so we ventured out again, but only because a man there spoke on his cell phone with a friend in Montebello, who told him that the roundabout at the highway was now cordoned off but we might be able to get in by driving north to the town of Algorfa and then back south to come in "the back way." We did, holding our breath for much of the half hour it took to follow this detour, and arrived at our Montebello entrance intact and with motor still running.
Our house and most of the develoment were weathering the torrent with no problems, though the following day we discovered that a wall surrounding the green rubbish dumping area--adjacent to the back road by which we came--had caved in with the force of the rushing water.
Subsequent newspaper reports said that the torrents brought 100 liters of water per square meter in just four hours. If you don't know exactly how much that is, you are not alone. It is a lot! Hundreds of drivers abandoned their cars, and dozens of people had to be evacuated from their homes. But amazingly after the rains stopped, the water receded rapidly. By the next morning, when we had a 9:00 appointment to have the car inspected prior to its official inpection, we were able to drive out the front road, but the appointment was postponed as garages had more business than they could handle rescuing and cleaning mud-packed vehicles.
The news reports that this was the worst gota fría in twelve years. Also that it was only the first one of the season.
When we get rain here, which is not often, it almost always comes very conveniently at night. This time it started on Sunday mid-morning, and continued on and off all that day and night. Monday morning during a temporary "off" period we went out to the grocery store, since the rain the day before had kept us away from the local Sunday market. We bumped into friends at Lidl, decided to go for a cup of coffee, and sat too long inside talking as the rain poured down.
When we left we drove through rain-filled streets with water up to our hubcaps. We made our way slowly towards home, which thankfully sits on higher ground than the surrounding area, but we still had to get through that lower surrounding area. At the roundabout leading from the highway toward Montebello, we encountered more water, a couple cars coming toward us very slowly, and another abandoned on the side of the road. As we rounded a curve, we saw a car up ahead stalled in water up to the windows. We turned around and headed back to Ciudad Quesada, the closest commercial area, to find a more comfortable place to wait until the water went down.
El Bancal restauante was the first dry spot we came to--though the downstairs ladies room was flooded so the mens on the upper level became unisex. We warmed up in the restaurante with a tasty goulash soup and glass of wine. After ninety minutes or so we ventured out again, but only because a man there spoke on his cell phone with a friend in Montebello, who told him that the roundabout at the highway was now cordoned off but we might be able to get in by driving north to the town of Algorfa and then back south to come in "the back way." We did, holding our breath for much of the half hour it took to follow this detour, and arrived at our Montebello entrance intact and with motor still running.
Our house and most of the develoment were weathering the torrent with no problems, though the following day we discovered that a wall surrounding the green rubbish dumping area--adjacent to the back road by which we came--had caved in with the force of the rushing water.
Subsequent newspaper reports said that the torrents brought 100 liters of water per square meter in just four hours. If you don't know exactly how much that is, you are not alone. It is a lot! Hundreds of drivers abandoned their cars, and dozens of people had to be evacuated from their homes. But amazingly after the rains stopped, the water receded rapidly. By the next morning, when we had a 9:00 appointment to have the car inspected prior to its official inpection, we were able to drive out the front road, but the appointment was postponed as garages had more business than they could handle rescuing and cleaning mud-packed vehicles.
The news reports that this was the worst gota fría in twelve years. Also that it was only the first one of the season.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
An Ikea Weekend
It's been an Ikea weekend again. Friday, on the drive back from a short visit in our former home town of Roquetas, we stopped at the Ikea in Murcia, in a never-ending quest to fill up just a little more wall space with books and bookcases.
Our timing was not good. We reached the highway around Murcia at 2:10 in the afternoon, just as thousands of people were headed home for Friday luncheon and siesta. Or so we thought. When we got into the Ikea parking lot, and then the store, we knew where they really went for siesta. Not sleeping in the furniture display as reportedly done in Beijing, but definitely passing the afternoon time of day.
Though we have practically memorized the downstairs warehouse location of Billys and Bennos, we still had to go upstairs into the exposition part of the store because there was one new (to us) model that we had to check out and get the stats on. A half hour later we were making our way through the warehouse, picking our packages, and then we spent several minutes in line before paying. No recession here! People were buying. Out to the parking lot gymnasium, where strange contortions are often evident as people (including us) struggle to get heavy packages into or onto the car or truck.
We managed to position four units inside our Ford Fusion and then returned to the second floor café for our traditional snack of canapé de gambas (open-faced shrimp sandwich) and cervesa sin (beer without (sin) alcohol). No siesta here! It seemed as though everyone in the store had assembled in the restaurante and were all eating, talking, and laughing with family. One more stop-off at the well-equipped tienda sueca to pick up arenque (herring) in various glass jars to take home for our Saturday smørrebrød. Arenque must not be as popular with the Spanish as the albóndigas and other hot dishes and desserts in the restaurant--they had lowered the price to a euro a jar!
Sated for now, and prepared for the next meal, we drove home single file, i.e., passenger behind the driver, as the bookcase boxes were spread on the entire right side of the car, from trunk through the front seat. On Saturday the man of the house magically turned cardboard boxes into standing bookcases, and the woman of the house prepared a smørrebrød with four kinds of herring. And today, we are emptying boxes under the bed and filling new bookcases in our offices and bedroom.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Tomato Country and More
During the brief time that I lived in Indiana, my sister introduced me to Red Gold, a small but excellent canner and processor of tomatoes grown northeast of Indianapolis. We enjoyed finding and purchasing the local brand whenever we had need for tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, tomato juice, or any other tomato something from their extensive brand and product list.
Now, totally unexpectedly on a visit to a rural hardware and building supply store near our Montebello home, I have found my local Spanish equivalent to Red Gold. The huge warehouse had a good-enough supply of kitchenwares that I browsed through while the other half of the family talked wood and a building project with the lumber people. But back in the corner I found a section promoting locally grown products. And this is how I found out that it's not just lemons, oranges, mangoes, and olives that are grown in this area. They also grow tomatoes.
I came away with a 390 gram can of tomate al natural pelado (peeled whole tomatoes) and a 400 gram can of tomate al natural triturado, categoria primera (tomato sauce, first quality) for a euro each. A smaller jar (300 grams) of Dulce de Tomate Extra (tomato jam) was three euros. There was a variety of brands and labels in the store, but I noticed after I got home that all three of my purchases were labeled Conservas Almoradí. Almoradí is a town only six or eight kilometers up the road from our home in Montebello--we had previously been there to get our health cards and to buy a few familiar but hard-to-find-in-Spain items at a British EuroStretcher warehouse store.
The two cans also bore a Gómez y Lorente, S.L. mark. When I checked out the Gómez y Lorente website at home, I found that in addition to tomato products, they do alcachofas (artichokes), pimientos (peppers), cebolla sofrita (onions sauteed in olive oil), brocoli, and habas (baby lima beans, also in olive oil). I only saw cans of various tomato products and the onion sofrita, but I look forward to trying the other local products as they become available. I might even try to like artichokes.
I purchased one other local product from the hardware store: Salt. We knew that they still mine salt from one of the two inland salt lakes in Torrevieja--we can sometimes see mountains of salt as we drive by on the road from Torrevieja to Montebello--but I had been completely unsuccessful in finding local salt from any grocery store in the area. Now I have it: Chaco refined sea salt for the table and cooking, packaged by Rocamora Hnos. in Torrevieja, 40 euro cents (about 60 US cents) for a kilo. But salt is a subject for another Sunday.
Now, totally unexpectedly on a visit to a rural hardware and building supply store near our Montebello home, I have found my local Spanish equivalent to Red Gold. The huge warehouse had a good-enough supply of kitchenwares that I browsed through while the other half of the family talked wood and a building project with the lumber people. But back in the corner I found a section promoting locally grown products. And this is how I found out that it's not just lemons, oranges, mangoes, and olives that are grown in this area. They also grow tomatoes.
I came away with a 390 gram can of tomate al natural pelado (peeled whole tomatoes) and a 400 gram can of tomate al natural triturado, categoria primera (tomato sauce, first quality) for a euro each. A smaller jar (300 grams) of Dulce de Tomate Extra (tomato jam) was three euros. There was a variety of brands and labels in the store, but I noticed after I got home that all three of my purchases were labeled Conservas Almoradí. Almoradí is a town only six or eight kilometers up the road from our home in Montebello--we had previously been there to get our health cards and to buy a few familiar but hard-to-find-in-Spain items at a British EuroStretcher warehouse store.
The two cans also bore a Gómez y Lorente, S.L. mark. When I checked out the Gómez y Lorente website at home, I found that in addition to tomato products, they do alcachofas (artichokes), pimientos (peppers), cebolla sofrita (onions sauteed in olive oil), brocoli, and habas (baby lima beans, also in olive oil). I only saw cans of various tomato products and the onion sofrita, but I look forward to trying the other local products as they become available. I might even try to like artichokes.
I purchased one other local product from the hardware store: Salt. We knew that they still mine salt from one of the two inland salt lakes in Torrevieja--we can sometimes see mountains of salt as we drive by on the road from Torrevieja to Montebello--but I had been completely unsuccessful in finding local salt from any grocery store in the area. Now I have it: Chaco refined sea salt for the table and cooking, packaged by Rocamora Hnos. in Torrevieja, 40 euro cents (about 60 US cents) for a kilo. But salt is a subject for another Sunday.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Rain in Spain
Last Sunday it rained in Spain--not terribly hard where we live, but the thunder was loud enough and the lightening close enough that I didn't want to tempt fate by keeping the computer connected to an electrical outlet, no matter that it is protected. We went out to visit friends in the early evening and remembered to leave a light on because we knew it would be dark by the time we returned home. When we came back at 9:30 the light was off, though street lights were still lit. Fortunately a flip of the circuit breaker restored power to the house.
It rained on and off for the next three days, and the temperatures dipped into the low 70s F. though it seemed colder in the early morning when we went out to play pétanque. By midweek I was beginning to wonder whether it was time to bring out long-sleeved clothing and relocate my summer sleeveless next-to-nothings to my winter undershirt drawer. Procrastination pays off sometimes. I did not renovate my wardrobe, though I did start to wear 3/4 length pants for the first time in three months.
Our garden benefited greatly from the rain--everything is clean and fresh--but the local Euro Weekly News paper is telling us that the rain caused flooding in Orihuela, the largest near-by city. In the Valencia region, it was feared that extended rain could damage the rice crops, but the storms seem to have passed over by now. Grape vines were damaged in the Utiel-Requena wine district west of Valencia, however, and the grape harvest is expected to fall by 50% this year. That's not good news for the local wine industry that we are beginning to explore.
It rained on and off for the next three days, and the temperatures dipped into the low 70s F. though it seemed colder in the early morning when we went out to play pétanque. By midweek I was beginning to wonder whether it was time to bring out long-sleeved clothing and relocate my summer sleeveless next-to-nothings to my winter undershirt drawer. Procrastination pays off sometimes. I did not renovate my wardrobe, though I did start to wear 3/4 length pants for the first time in three months.
Our garden benefited greatly from the rain--everything is clean and fresh--but the local Euro Weekly News paper is telling us that the rain caused flooding in Orihuela, the largest near-by city. In the Valencia region, it was feared that extended rain could damage the rice crops, but the storms seem to have passed over by now. Grape vines were damaged in the Utiel-Requena wine district west of Valencia, however, and the grape harvest is expected to fall by 50% this year. That's not good news for the local wine industry that we are beginning to explore.
Monday, September 7, 2009
A Trip to the Bodega
Last Thursday we took a bus tour inland to the village of Jumilla, in Murcia province. It was pleasant riding up high in a large tour bus; even though some of the roadway was familiar to us, we saw vegetation from a different angle than when passing through the countryside lower to the ground in a common car.Our destination was the Finca Omblancas, a small winery just outside the town of Jumilla, which is home to at least ten wineries and bodegas. We had a spectacularly informative tour of the winery, which was purchased by its present family owners in 2002, who have made huge investments in modernizing production methods and improving quality.
Our tour started out in the vineyards, where the slightest touch of autumn coolness was making its welcome entry after a long hot summer. We moved inside to see the chute where grapes are delivered, dumped, and inspected for the second time (the first inspection is done by hand-pickers out in the vineyard). Then we went down to the huge stainless steel vats where the grapes and their juice are collected and ferment. It was here that I learned about the monastrell grape, a variety unique to Mediterranean countries, and the only grape that survived the Phylloxera epidemic that destroyed most of the vineyards of Europe in the late 19th century.
We passed on to the wine cellar and tasting room, where we tried three of the Omblancas wines--all interesting and worth a purchase--and then on to a nearby restaurant, where we enjoyed one of those lovely Spanish menú del día three-course luncheons. I had a wonderful gazpacho and finger-licking lamb chops. And this menú featured two more Omblancas wines, in generous quantities.
If I had written this post immediately after hearing about the processing and the monastrell grape, while we were still in the vat room, I would be able to tell you many more facts about wine making and Omblancas. But since we proceeded to the wine cellar and the luncheon, those facts floated out of my head with the flow of wine, so if you want to know more, you will have to follow the links highlighted here, and also, perhaps, to an interesting book called Let's Open a Bottle: My Journey through the Spanish Wine Revolution.
And did I mention how nice it was to have someone else driving the bus on the way home?
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