Sketches of Spain
Saturday, October 6th, 2007It’s high time the ‘haus blog had a post about the big Spain trip. We’ve been back for a little over a week already, but it took nearly that long to label all the photos. (You can peruse the full alblum if you like, we’re just posting a few highlights here.) The trip was fabulous, even if it exposed my high-school Spanish skills to be a bit sketchy. Reader discretion is advised: this post is long, and mostly about food.
Also, I should note up-front that although the highlight of the trip was definitely sampling tapas, we have scant photographic evidence of this – in part because tapas bars are too dark for our little Canon PowerShot and in part because they’re too crowded to get a good shot and in part because the tapas eating experience was too involved to really think about taking photos. Many of the tapas were artfully constructed, but we didn’t admire them, we ate them. Quickly. Then moved on to another tapas bar for more.
And, of course, there is the matter of ordering your tapas. In Pamplona and Logrono, you got the attention of someone behind the bar and asked for (or pointed at, if your Spanish is limited) what you wanted, but in San Sebastian (tapa nirvana and pictured below), you asked for a plate, picked out your tapas of choice, and showed it to the bartender. Unless you wanted a raccion or other hot tapa, in which case you had to ask someone behind the bar to order it up from the kitchen. It takes a little more effort, but trust me, you want a raccion de pimientos (little spanish peppers sauteed in olive oil and salted).
Then there was the adventure of ordering off a 3-course menu del dia in rural bars when there is no printed menu and the waiter rattles off all the selections in Spanish and most of main courses are cuts of meat not commonly found in the U.S. That said, I’m a fan of three-course dining – start with a first salad/cold course, then a hot meat/fish course, followed by a little something sweet and accompanied by bread, wine, and water. I’m less a fan of the standard ensalada mixta – a mixed green salad that was topped with tuna, corn, tomato wedges, Navarran canned white asparagus, olives, carrots, and sometimes shredded cucumbers or beets. The mixtas could be kind of sad if you were craving more of a vegetable experience with your salad, but in general, Spanish salads were never the highlight of the meal.
Except, of course, for the salad I had at lunch in Laguardia (pictured at left; it’s in Rioja). After touring an underground bodega in the very picturesque medieval town, we had a Spanish lunch (at 2:30, lasting 2 hours) at a restaurant just outside the old town’s walls, overlooking the vineyards and mountains. This was by far the best meal of the trip. The salad had aged goat cheese, lots of fresh greens (not tired romaine), cherry tomatoes, fruit, and I don’t remember what else but it was the first salad I’d had in more than a week that actually satisfied my salad cravings. John had a baked goat cheese and apple starter that was perfectly respectable, even if not a salad. I followed it up with a main of hake with wild mushrooms, while John had the turbot (which is a very cool-looking fish). We finished it off with a cheese plate, consisting of three different sheep cheeses with quince paste, pine nuts, and walnuts. Yum! 
While true cultural immersion would dictate taking a well-earned siesta after such an epic lunch, we hopped (or oozed) into the Audi to drive a few kilometers up the road to Haro – where we stayed in a converted 14-century convent and toured an interesting winemaking exhibit at the Lopez de Heredia bodega but failed to muster up sufficient Spanish to experience the free wine tasting in their mod, pod-like tasting room. Haro was also the site of our last Spanish-style breakfast – crossiant and a cafe con leche, eaten at the counter in a bakery, or if there isn’t one around, a bar.
