June 21 – 27 Mañana Mañana

A good friend of mine (Marco) commented on taking up a senior position with a telecoms company here that the things that annoyed him most was his Spanish staff who had  turned the idea of Mañana, Mañana into an art form.

This is the mantra of my estate agent, nice guy and very personable, but I think still on the cloud caused by his marriage, all this week we were to meet to sort out the deposit on the house. Eventually on Friday I get a message to meet him at 12:30 in his office, I get there and he is in his car outside and tells me that he has had so much difficulty in contacting the 4 family members who are jointly selling the house in order to sign the agreement for the sale, anyways he took a picture of my passport and promised that something would happen by Monday (Mañana, Mañana) or maybe Tuesday.  I sent him additional details so he has no excuse that he didn’t have all my details and I await developments.

Actually, so long as I know that things are progressing and that I am not going to be gazumped etc. I am happy to wait, just so long as I know what is happening. As he is on a 3% commission the sale of a house for €13,000 against the sale of a house for €150,000 where both entail exactly the same amount of documentation means that my little piece of historical Cehegín is maybe not his number one priority.

It has been a lazy week, my tendon and calf muscle continue to heal and I am just trying to reduce the pea sized knot in my calf (down from a walnut sized knot) and can walk to the Mercadona without pain.  But no running or jogging.  I plan to start shorter walks from this coming Monday.

We “Cehegíneros” are just starting a heat wave. Last week temperatures climbed from 29 to around 33, blazing sun 15 hours a day; this next week we start today with 37 (real feel around 40) and it stay pretty much in the range 33 – 36 for the rest of the week.  So any planned walks must be done before 10am or after 7pm.  It is way too hot to go on the terrace, so I sit inside the relative cool of the living room with its single tiny window and read.

This weeks reading list:

Sebastian Faulkes:  A week in December

Joanne Harris (she of Chocolate):  Blackberry Wine

David Leavitt: While England Sleeps

Knowmadic cooking!

I think that whilst I wait for things to move on the house front and the blog will be DIY, DIY, DIY this blog is going to focus even more on cooking and food; now there’s a surprize!

For 1€  I purchased a mint condition copy of “Delicioso!”  The Cooking of Regional Spain by Penelope Casas  it’s an American book all cups, cups, cups …..  but she travelled around ( or so she says) and recorded the recipes as she went.  

Simple salad, lettuce, cucumber,
tomatoes, chorizo, eggs and cheese

Along with Delicioso, my 1080 recipes and my Spanish cooking bible and the wonderful Murcian Cooking website (in Spanish only) put out by the tourist board (EU money) and given that I have a steady stream of guests over the next few months I am embarking on a “regional (Murcian) cooking fest” so that I can entertain my guest with authentic cuisine and wines. It’s going to be a terrible job, but hey, somebodies got to do it!

Well, I plan a mixture of classic Spanish and Murcian regional as I need to explore the cuisine in all its many fascinating guises.

This week:

Mussels in a spicy tomato, wine and caper sauce.

This dish utilizes local produce, the Mussels here sell for around €1.75 a kilo and are big and succulent.

Basically I made a tomato sauce from onions and garlic with tomato paste, tomatoes and red pepper, pimentón (picante) and stock, which I reduced down.  [You can’t even start to cook Spanish food without good smoked Pimentón in both picante (spicy) and dulce (sweet) varieties – availbel form the speciality food section of Messrs. Sainsbury and Waitrose.] 

Then I added chopped parsley, a generous glass of white rioja wine, juice of a lemon and a heaped teaspoonful of capers once this was all bubbling I added the cleaned Mussels and steamed the lot for 3-4 minutes.  Enjoy with more lemon and a hunk of rustic bread, plus more white rioja.  Delicioso!

Add the mussels - big and succulent and fresh.

As I am only cooking for myself I am finding that I have enough main ingredient to try two dishes, so the Mussels in Tomato Sauce was followed up the next day with Mussels in a classic garlic, parsley and white wine sauce.

This next week, I am planning to make two Murcian dishes using rabbit (conejo).  Both simple and rustic.  I have never been a great cook on presentation that is all “faffy” I have always gone in the direction of strong flavours, rustic tradition cooking and allowing the taste to be more important than overly “arty-farty” presentation.  These two Rabbit dishes are just that, both cooked in a single pan and both using only a handful of good quality local ingredients.  Pictures and recipes will follow.

Also with Rustic cooking quantities seem to be very flexible and I like this, you just use intuition, taste and smell as your guides. 

The coast is 70 minutes drive away so the fish is fresh, fresh, fresh. All the old houses had a loft used for raising chickens, rabbits and pidgeons all destined for the pot! (My little house was the same, before the upper floor was turned into bedrooms)

I think I am going to splash out on a paella pan and a good deep sauté pan this week AND most importantly a big ceramic "pestle and mortar".

On the desert front, I am for the moment being very good and my  twice weekly desert of preference is a basic plain cheesecake with fresh fruit all set against a glass of Pedro Ximénez.  

 I am resisting the more calorific “postres” for when I have guests, with such an abundance of lovely peaches, apricots, plums, etc. who needs double cream!

My big indulgence is two lovely pastries with Coffee on a Sunday.  It how I know it is Sunday (along with the fact all the shops are shut (and have been since 2pm Saturday).

Following much interest in the CHICKPEA dish from two weeks ago, here is the recipe:

Chickpeas with Tomato, Almonds and Spinach

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and add 2 chopped onions and 2 chopped cloves of garlic and cook over medium flame for 15 – 20 minutes until golden and slightly caramelized. Add  1 can (400g) of chopped tomatoes and simmer for 15 minutes to make a thickened sauce.

Add 250 ml stock, a few strands of saffron (optional), 1 teaspoon of hot paprika, half a cup of ground almonds, 1  can (400g) of chickpeas and cook for 15 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Stir in 2 cups of chopped fresh spinach and cook until the leaves wilt.  Season to taste and serve either hot or at room temperature.   Good with rice or crusty bread.

Finally, a very nice little "Tapa"

Gently fry a sliced Itallian Tomato in Olive Oil along with a quatity of capers until soft.  Put on plate and leave to cool to room temperature, serve of freshly toasted rustic bread.  Generously use the lovely juices over the bread. Yummy!

Sunday also means nice biscuits and Earl Grey tea!

Have a good week.  There is of course an open invitation to my dear friends to come and sample life here in Cehegín.

June 14 - 20

Sunday 14 – Saturday 20    I found my Achilles heal, unfortunately!

BREAKING NEWS:  11.40  21/06/2015   My estate agent  wrote to say he is back in Spain on Monday and then we can proceed!  phewy!

 

Cehegin probably taken in the 1970's before the expansion of "new Cehegin"

Not much to write this week as I have been incapacitated by this pulled tendon (my Achilles Tendon), I rest for two days and then try to walk and after about 1 km it starts to tighten up and become painful again.  I limped to the local “farmacia” and got some cream to rub in/on – hot cold – and it is helping but I am so frustrated that my health improvement plan has been derailed for the time being.  I am having to use the more local and slightly tacky supermarket where quality is certainly suffering but the prices are low.  So I have been thrown back on my improvisation skills again in terms of cooking. 

By Saturday I decided that things had improved enough to make the trip to Mercadona as I had plans for my Sunday lunch and had run out of so much other stuff.  Armed with my backpack I set off and after buying a coup0le more novels in Cosa y cosas did my shop  14 items €27 (including a very fine Valdepeña Gran Reserva 2006  and a  bottle of Rum for Cuba Libres.)

I had also bought a kg of lamb (€7) for my Sunday lunch of slow cooked lamb with lemon and herbs.

Disaster struck about 2/3 of the way back when my tendons just got tighter and tighter and I was reduced to hobbling the final kilometre back home in great pain.  So I am back to square one.

Having just read up on injuries to the Achilles Tendon, I am a bit worried and now fully intend to rest more and put no strain on this weakened/damaged muscle.   

Making it worse leads to all sorts of unpleasant complications!!!

Sunrise 1

Sunrise 2

Summer has arrived.  From sunrise at 6.30 to sunset at 9.45 I enjoy 15 hours of cloudless blue sky, little breeze sadly and the temperature is slowly going up from 24 last Saturday to 30 this.  The “Accuweather” gadget I have on my trashy Notebook tells me that the “real feel” is some 3 or 4 degrees higher.  From 1pm until 4pm it is almost too hot to sit out, despite the umbrella, so siesta time is th order of the day.   This coming week the 30 is going to increase to 33/34. Highest temperatures here are recorded normally in August so heaven alone knows what is in store.  But I do love the warmth and am being careful to use the sunscreen (thanks Andy) and my legs and arms are going brown.

Ready for the Oven

Cooking:   well last Sunday I cooked the loin of pork wrapped in serrano ham and cooked in Pedro Ximénez sherry with roasted onions and pears …… mmmmmm  my best Spanish dish so far, absolutely yummy.  The sherry as it reduced produces this intense sauce for the pork and pears. I offset all this sweetness with a fairly tart ratatouille called in Spanish “Pisto Manchego” and of course the Jumilla wine was perfect for all this.

 

Out from the Oven

Service.

My vegetarian dish of the week was Chickpeas cooked with Tomatoes, Spinach and Almonds showing the Moorish influence in Spanish cooking. Having made a sauce from onions and tomatoes the cooked chickpeas are added along with toasted and ground almonds (I chopped these in the mini food processor here so they added real texture as well as taste) and of course lots of paprika.  Finally the spinach was wilted into the mix.  Very pleasant and earthy.  Next time I want to cook this dish more slowly in a traditional “terracotta casuela”.

Today as mentioned above I cook Lamb.

My reading this week has been varied:

Sebastian Faulkes: Human Traces - Wow! 

C. J. Sansom:– Revelation “16^th century whodunit.”

Kate Atkinson: behind the Scenes at the Museum – what a varied nad for me nostalgic read, the 60’s captured so well.

William Nicholson: The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life – what happens when temptation is put into an otherwise ordinary life.  Very good.

This week kicks off with another Sebastian Faulkes ……..(A week in December)

Sandfield Road School, Guildford.

I have in no way abandoned my plan for the “auto-biog” and am making notes but not ready to commit to paper. However, I did go on a journey of discovery based around my brain making a link to the name of of one of this weeks books authors.  “Sansom” – my brain said no it should be Samson like your old headmaster at Sandford (actually I find out it is Sandfield) Road Primary in Guildford.  Then I remembered the annual reading test which gave you a reading age; you had to read out lines of words which got progressively more difficult and were linked to giving you a reading age. I remember when I was 10 I had a reading age of 13 years and 8 months but came to grief over the word “choir”.  My reading age was a product of being an only child and in a one parent family where the parent was largely absent as Mum worked evenings. 

This led on to trying to recall the names of all the teachers and more memories, Mr “Whacko-Jacko” Jackson  (long before another Jackson had the same title). Whacko got his name from his propensity for caning across the joints of your outstretched fingers with a cane split down the middle for added effect (what a sadist!); Mrs Seager, all bosom and glasses on a gold chain - handicrafts; Mrs Potter - lovely, but forbidding; the hateful Mrs McKay/McDougal/McSomething who reduced me to tears for once mispronouncing “Women” as “Woman” when practicing a reading for the carol service.  “Blessed art thou amongst women”. Well Mrs McShouty “damned art thou amongst women” forever in my memory. Horrible woman.  All this and more to be revealed later. 

Still awaiting the return of the estate agent from his protracted honeymoon (is two weeks protracted?- yes when you are waiting to put the deposit on a house!)

……. Thats about it for now.    One last photo of Cehegin in 1968!

June 7 – 13 Deluge!

This week's theme!  Do listen!

Clouds brewing up!

No daily diary this week, but you can be sure that there was a routine mainly getting up around 5:30 to talk to Nick via Skype (10:30 pm Peru – 7 hours behind) then every other day a jog for 3 to 4 kms, shower, breakfast, a visit to Mercadona: 3 kms round trip. Preparing  lunch, siesta, reading/studying, 4:30 afternoon tea (Earl Grey) more reading study, aperitif, supper, concert on radio at 8pm, reading, bed around 10pm.

However, this week saw a spectacular cloudburst on Thursday around 6pm, which is the usual time for a short thunderstorm, but Thursday was an absolute deluge. One minute the pathway outside the house was dry the next it was a torrential river!  I was amazed to watch a literal wave of water come hurtling down the road. The house is two-thirds up the “Hill of the Blacksmiths”  I just couldn’t imagine how it was at the bottom, especially after many other pathways would have joined it. It was just too heavy for me to satisfy my curiosity by actually going and looking – next time maybe.

I have been pondering the whole idea of this “Sabbatical Year” as, because my estate agent is on honeymoon (“luna de miel”, I actually have nothing to actually do.  Except to simply “be” … it is strange. I have enjoyed getting back to reading this week I have read:

Ken Follet:  World Without End – 14^th century saga surrounding a Priory and life of several families. 1237 pages.

Patricias Cornwell:  Cruel and Unusual – Scarpetta mystery. 437 pages.

Christoher Tansom: the Birthing House – Ghost story. 407 pages.

Thomas Harris :  Hannibal  -  Dr Lecter sequel to Silence of the lambs. 562 pages.

So 2643 pages WOW!     And so enjoyable and a real return of my reading habit.  

And currently I am reading  C.J.Sansom - Revelation - 16th century murder mystery.

Not necessarily what I would immediately choose, but I am limited to what is available in the "book exchange" says lots about my fellow Brits reading habits!   (if I was into "chick-lit"  I would have a ball!) Sadly the section of past Booker prize winners is non-existant.  Now there's a surprize!

Also this week I am enjoying having the time to cook.

Fun with Flags - The flag of Murcia one for Big Bang Theory!

Tuesday turned out to be “Murcia Day” and a local holiday, I only realised when on my walk to Mercadona at 10:00am the streets were empty and the shops were shut, but I walked there anyway wondering what I had missed (only found out by internet search) so extended the walk to the supermarket and took in another part of new Cehegin and made it a 6km  walk.  But as it was a weekday the place was empty as the old town only fills up at weekends. 

My problem was that I needed to shop as the fridge was looking a little empty, so returning empty handed I had available potatoes, a red pepper, onions, eggs ….. all a bit like Ready, Steady, Cook and I had salad ingredients …….. so I improvised a Frittata!!! A jolly tasty it was too!

Wednesday was market day so more flat peaches and pears, and ingredients for Chicken and Rice, a kind of Paella without the fish, but put off making this until Thursday as there was a lot of frittata left!   

So The Chicken was Thursday.   

All set for a lovely FISH FRIDAY lunch!

Spoke to Martin who then emailed me to say I had inspired him to make a real Paella which in turn inspired me to do the same on Friday.  Here you can buy a kind of “Paella fish kit”  consisting of squid rings, uncooked large prawns, clams and mussels, I had some Chicken left so made the Paella – lovely as you can see! Washed down with a glass of Fino Sherry.

Remains of the day!

I made another purchase from Amazon this week  “The Spanish Bible”  a DK Cookbook 120 recipes “fresh and bold” of Classic Spanish Cuisine, it was on Amazon.es  for €7.32 (£5.25). My €20 prime membership gave me free shipping and the book was due to arrive on Thursday. I was sent tracking information from both Amazon and from the Courier service down to a last email telling me that the book would be delivered between 2:30 and 3:30  - it arrived at 3:05.  But it had come from Inverness – Glasgow – Madrid – Murcia – Cehegín.  The guy delivering it looked relieved, it was his first delivery to Cehegín and had had to abandon his van a long was away and find his way through the maze of passageways to my road. I think it was a smile when I said well you will know the way for next time!

From both my books I have been reading about important ingredients and have rediscovered Pedro Ximénez sherry. Cloyingly sweet, like drinking raisins, but lovely with ice! (try it) – it is not a bit like British Cream Sherry by the way -  deep flavours, that explode on the tongue and with a richness that reminds you of Christmas pudding.  But it is a classic ingredient in many sauces here and I am probably going to have Roast Pork Loin (Lomo de Cerdo), with Serrano Ham, Rosemary and Pedro Ximénez sauce for Sunday lunch along with papas doradas (roasties) and courgettes.  Alongside a bottle of Sabatacha – Jumilla Reserva 2007.

(And all this is before I get my new “dream” kitchen!!!!!)

Nick is in charge of sales for tinned (bottled) products at DanPer (amongst other products) and I am amazed at the variety of bottled vegetables on sale here, especially when there is an absolute abundance of fresh available. But I was happy to spot some Pimientos product of Peru on the shelves and now in my store cupboard.

On Friday I spent my siesta awake but listening to Handel Messiah and realised that I know every bar of this work, and fondly remembered back to a complete performance I gave with friends way back in my college days in St. Anselm’s Church Hayes. Amazing how I can remember absolutely every bar and all the entries of both instruments and voices.#

 After this I came across a most enchanting work, thanks to it being listed next in my i-tunes library of 8300 plus works …… Howard Hanson’s Concerto for Organ, Harp and String Orchestra; delightful and so interesting to balance the grandeur of the organ with the delicacy of the harp. 

You can have a listen here:

This was followed by another work by a famous American;  The Third Symphony of Roy Harris (1939) in one movement and probably one of the 10 most significant symphonies of the 20^th century.

The joy of having the time to listen, intently and peacefully. (And when I dump this heap of rubbish Acer notebook and get a laptop, I can follow the scores of which I have over 500 downloaded.)

Haven't quite got this "selfie" thing sorted yet!

Hoping that the estate agent will be back so we can complete the purchase agreement and I can get on.   I found out this week that the necessary permission I will eventually need to work on the house is no great problem– all work on any house in Spain must be certified by the municipality – even down to DIY jobs. I will have to list what I want to do and pay €25 and I get a certificate valid for 6 months, renewable for another €25.  Basically it gives the council the right to inspect work and to ensure that the integrity of the old-town (especially) is not compromised.  Actually looking around it is pretty compromised in places.  But as all my intended work is internal it will be a formality.

My plan for Sunday lunch, pork loin, Sherry sauce and roasted pears.

In this already quiet place, things are beginning to wind down for the summer, from July many shops will not open after lunch and the siesta in July and August stretches from 2pm to 8pm as it is simply too hot to do anything outside in the afternoon.   Now I understand why the old houses have small windows and rooms at the back with no windows, it was the simplest way to stay cool.

Quality of life ......

So I have been wrestling with thoughts about this new slower life and of course the following was my guiding precept, after it intruded into my thoughts one day ……… (see video at top of this posting)

Ouch!   On my run this morning (Saturday) as I was running down a slope and gaining way too much momentum I slammed my foot down to break my speed and managed to pull a tendon in the back of my lower leg between my heal and my calf.  I had to limp home, decided that I could walk on it so went shopping as there are no shops open on Saturday afternoon or Sunday and am now resting it. Hope to be running/jogging again by Tuesday.

More soon.   Do write.