Real August weather (he wrote bitterly):
warm to hot, muggy, overcast, but in the tradition of off-days in Catalonia,
brightly dull. Were this Britain, I
would write off the day – but Catalonia isn’t and therefore I expect better
things weather-wise later. Please.
Meanwhile there is the prospect
of lunch. And, more importantly, the new
Thai restaurant in town. Catalonia is
not noted for the quality of local Indian or Asian restaurants. The problem is that people here are not given
to spicy foods. Yes, there are types of
local cold sausage that are piquant, but nothing like the solid fire of an
after-drinking ‘Indian’ in any typical British late-night restaurant. I am still trying process Toni’s sister
saying that her first British Indian meal in Rumney in Cardiff was too hot for
her – and she was attempting to eat a chicken korma! With that in mind, it is hardly surprising
that the blander ‘commercial’ Chinese food found in virtually any moderately
priced Chinese restaurant is much more acceptable to the Catalan palate.
I have checked out the new restaurant
and there is no indication that they have a menu del dia. The a la carte offerings look to be quite
expensive for this area and I am not prepared to pay evening meal prices for a
light lunch, but it is worth trying to find somewhere that can give me an
ironic ‘taste of Britain’!
As it is the height of summer many
menus offer the cold soup of salmorejo.
This is a very simple soup to make, but its very simplicity means that
each person’s take on it is distinctively different. It is usually very thick and is a different
colour from the more recognizable cold soup of gazpacho. Salmorejo usually has cold chopped egg mixed
with bits of Spanish ham as an (essential) garnish and is delicious. Here is a recipe to try!
Ingredients
Ingredients
for 4 people: 1 kg tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic, 200 g bread (preferably a day
old), 100 g extra virgin olive oil, 10 g salt. Optional: egg and ham.
Method
Wash the
tomatoes, blend them and strain them to remove the skin and seeds. Add the
bread (before this, leave to soak in water or in the blended tomatoes), extra
virgin olive oil, garlic and salt, and blend again.
Presentation
Serve in
individual bowls and garnish with chopped hard-boiled egg and bits of ham.
Perhaps the greatest culinary news
for me this month occurred in Aldi. Our
local store has undergone a refit to accommodate an in-house bakery and a
reorganization of the aisles. Considering the
way in which retail management has now become one of the dark sciences I don’t know
whether the creation of bottlenecks at various points in the store, together
with the narrowing of some of the aisles to make the passing of shopping
trollies difficult is engineering or incompetence, but I am prepared to
overlook those because I have discovered that Aldi is selling Taramosalata and
Tzatziki in little plastic tubs.
I have tried, in a desultory way
through the years, to find Taramosalata in Castelldefels and did indeed find it
(or something like it) in a so-called Greek restaurant – though they looked at
me blankly when I called they called the ‘salsa rosa’ Taramosalata. The taste was near enough for me to kid myself
that if not back in Greece on the beach in Mykonos, I was at least back in
Wales where it was easy enough to get!
After a few visits to the restaurant, the staff there began to deny that
they had ever had the stuff and my weary search continued.
In the way of the taste of
Catalonia, humus is easy enough to get – in my view the least tasty of the
trinity of Taramosalata, Tzanziki and Humus – because it is the blandest of the
three. Admittedly you can now get a
piquant version which raises the taste level by a notch or two, but by itself,
it is insufficient. At least for me.
I am tempering my delight in finding
these delicacies by my belief that with Aldi nothing lasts. Buy it when you see it because tomorrow it
will be gone is a commercial necessity with the discount stores.
I certainly did my bit when humus
was introduced by buying quantities of it to try and ensure that it became a
staple. And I am now doing the same with
the neophyte tara and tzanziki. I am
relying on the fact that there are substantial numbers of my fellow countryfolk
in this area to make their retention a retail fact.
Not (as Toni continually reminds
me) that I should be eating any of the above.
The fat and salt content is way beyond my limits, but I have convinced
myself that the psychological satisfaction I can get from their consumption
outweighs (a moot word) the deleterious effects on my physical health.
Talking of which I am steadily
working my half-pill-a-day (except for Sundays when it is three-quarters) way
to my next Control on the 21st.
If my results are within the limits then the next Control could be in
Castelldefels rather than in a more distant hospital. It will be cheaper (you have to pay for
parking in the hospital), quicker because I can use my bike for the short cycle
of my health centre, and a damn sight less wearing. The rat poison that I am taking is supposed
to ‘thin’ my blood making coagulation less effective – this means that the clot
in my right leg will thus be gradually dissipated and things will be well!
The key to my continued health is
in getting the thinning component in my blood to register between 2 and 3, that
is, my blood is between two and three times less likely to coagulate than
normal. This sounds dramatic (and I hope
it is for the thrombosis in my right leg) but has little effect on normal life. The advice from my doctor was, “Don’t fall
over. Don’t cut yourself! Don’t run for the bus!”
Before you think that I have
become the living incarnation of the Tsarevich looking for a modern-day
Rasputin, my condition is nothing like as dramatic and I have indeed cut myself
(accidentally) and did not bleed to death!
Or indeed, in my view, bleed any more dramatically than normal. After all, I tell myself, they do prick me
for a spot of blood for my Control and that in itself must tell you something!
So, as part of my regimen I am
now off for my metric-mile swim. On my
bike. Even though my bike is electric
and has five levels of motor support for my pedalling, the battery level is
very low and (horror of horrors!) I might actually have to rely purely on pedal
power to get me to the pool. As we are
on the coastal plain, I do not worry too much, but the bridge over the motorway
is officially classed as a hill in my book and is an obstacle to be overcome.
But, at my father was fond of
repeating: “If it is easier to walk with the bike then pedal, then walk.” It took me a long time to work out that the
advice was not purely for the bike, but was more generally a view of life. Making pointless effort because of peer
pressure or how something looked was, well, pointless. It links with Occom’s Razor and gives the
sort of obvious direction that we frail humans are often too loath to take.
Which, philosophical musing
aside, will get me to the pool somehow. 1
,500 meters here I come!
Well, the swim took place, but
the restaurant was a washout. It turns
out that the restaurant has suspended the menu del dia for the month of August. So, we looked elsewhere for sustenance. Unfortunately, we settled on an establishment
that provided us with a sub-standard set of tapas. Not a place to go back to. But I am too lazy to find the receipt to give
a name to the guilty. Perhaps I can edit
it in later.
A stint on the beach after Irene
left and the threat of a concert at eleven thirty at night of non-classical
music will bring an eventful day to an end.
Roll on tomorrow.
