Monday, June 26, 2006
Ambiente
Just to give you the full effect, this is Ainsa, the setting of the meal pictured below. (Can you tell I'm nostalgic for this trip already??)
mmmmmmmmm
The northern and eastern regions of Spain are well-known for their cuisine, and we took every opportunity to taste the local specialties. We didn't eat a bad (or even a less-than-great) meal the entire trip, but two meals stood out among the general happy feasting. The first was when we found ourselves on a Sunday in a town a bit smaller than we'd expected, where nearly everything was closed. We found one small store where we could buy ingredients for dinner that evening, but the bakery next door seemed to be closed. When we asked the store owner if there was anyplace we could buy bread, she stepped out into the street and called to a man strolling a half block away: "Pacoooooo, come open the bakery!" Paco responded graciously and brought us an enormous loaf of fresh-baked bread. Emboldened by our success, we asked if there was anyplace nearby open for lunch, and store-lady recommended a place just down the hill, past the school on the left - usually it's closed on weekends, but this was a festival weekend, so fortunately for us it was open. Oh, so fortunately! I had fresh asparagus and venison in a rich grape sauce; awesome sister-in-law had grilled lubina (a sweet white fish, not sure what it's called in English), and the Left-Wing Intellectual enjoyed serrano ham with pimientos del padron and a thick steak. Two courses each, with wine and coffee and dessert (oh, that dessert warrants a whole separate post), for which the total bill was about $25 each. (We went back to thank the store-lady afterwards.)
Awesome SIL took a picture of that lunch, so I don't have access to it yet, but below you may behold Superlative Meal #2, enjoyed in the little medieval town of Ainsa. Notice the stone walls: we're in the wine-cellar of the restaurant, cool and quiet, with plates of duck, bull-tail stew, and more lubina. (Faces blurred to protect the crucial pseudonymity of the LWI on the left and ASIL on the right. The food will have to fend for itself.)
Awesome SIL took a picture of that lunch, so I don't have access to it yet, but below you may behold Superlative Meal #2, enjoyed in the little medieval town of Ainsa. Notice the stone walls: we're in the wine-cellar of the restaurant, cool and quiet, with plates of duck, bull-tail stew, and more lubina. (Faces blurred to protect the crucial pseudonymity of the LWI on the left and ASIL on the right. The food will have to fend for itself.)
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Peace
Just a taste of treats to come: here's one of the towns we stayed in last week. The apartment itself was in an ancient stone house on the main plaza, restored so that the interior was perfect and modern and comfortable, but the main structure is centuries old. Most of the inhabitants don't have cars - why bother? - and we were at least fifty miles from any town with more than a hundred people, so there was absolute tranquility... no sound but the local folks chatting with each other in the street, and the birds and crickets, and the river passing through the valley below.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Death by dinner
Since we’re back in the city where the Left-Wing Intellectual was born and raised, naturally when we return there are lots and lots of friends to see and relatives to visit. Spaniards, as many other cultures, like to express their affection through and over food, so it’s common for us to meet friends out for dinner or to be invited to people’s houses for a meal. Naturally this is a delightful experience (especially since I have a particular fondness for Spanish cuisine), but it can be dangerous when too many of these outings cluster too close together.
Last weekend was one of those clusters. It began on Friday, when we met Guy Who Knows Everybody for lunch at his favorite Asturian restaurant. (He really is the guy who knows everybody; every time we go out with him, we can’t get half a block down the street anywhere in the city without people stopping to greet him.) The Asturian restaurant has ohmygod the most wonderful food, but in quantities that would have gotten Napoleon’s armies all the way to Moscow and back. We started with a fabada – a cauldron full of beans in a rich thick sauce seasoned with baseball-sized chunks of chorizo and morcilla sausage, eaten with warm crusty bread and fizzy Asturian cider. A plateful of this is more than I generally eat for a meal, but it’s only the first course. Next comes the merluza, a table-width platter of the most tender, delicate white fish, over a layer of tasty fried potatoes. After that we gave up any hope of moving for the next few days and went ahead and had an almond-cake dessert with liqueurs. After slouching back in our chairs and groaning for half an hour or so, we proceeded home where we collapsed on the couch and groaned for the rest of the day.
Saturday, we were invited to the house of some family friends for a barbecue. Mmmm! Nothing like a big plate of sausage and steak after a long day of sitting around recovering from sausage and beans! (Those of my readers who attended our wedding will probably have vivid memories of how Spaniards serve steak. Beef actually isn’t that common here - pork and lamb are more frequently found - but when they do beef they do it big. Nothing says love like a steak the size of my laptop!) Sunday we celebrated my father-in-law’s 80th birthday, with what else but a giant meal at a restaurant with a lovely outdoor terrace. What? You’ve only eaten two servings of ham? Here, you must have some more, it’s the best in town. (and how can you say no to a man celebrating his eightieth birthday?)
It doesn't help that left to my own devices I tend to be a vegetarian; did you notice that not a single vegetable appears in this narrative? (no, fried potatoes don't really count as a vegetable.) I love these people dearly, but I'm afraid they're going to kill me. ...In the meantime, pass the potatoes?
Last weekend was one of those clusters. It began on Friday, when we met Guy Who Knows Everybody for lunch at his favorite Asturian restaurant. (He really is the guy who knows everybody; every time we go out with him, we can’t get half a block down the street anywhere in the city without people stopping to greet him.) The Asturian restaurant has ohmygod the most wonderful food, but in quantities that would have gotten Napoleon’s armies all the way to Moscow and back. We started with a fabada – a cauldron full of beans in a rich thick sauce seasoned with baseball-sized chunks of chorizo and morcilla sausage, eaten with warm crusty bread and fizzy Asturian cider. A plateful of this is more than I generally eat for a meal, but it’s only the first course. Next comes the merluza, a table-width platter of the most tender, delicate white fish, over a layer of tasty fried potatoes. After that we gave up any hope of moving for the next few days and went ahead and had an almond-cake dessert with liqueurs. After slouching back in our chairs and groaning for half an hour or so, we proceeded home where we collapsed on the couch and groaned for the rest of the day.
Saturday, we were invited to the house of some family friends for a barbecue. Mmmm! Nothing like a big plate of sausage and steak after a long day of sitting around recovering from sausage and beans! (Those of my readers who attended our wedding will probably have vivid memories of how Spaniards serve steak. Beef actually isn’t that common here - pork and lamb are more frequently found - but when they do beef they do it big. Nothing says love like a steak the size of my laptop!) Sunday we celebrated my father-in-law’s 80th birthday, with what else but a giant meal at a restaurant with a lovely outdoor terrace. What? You’ve only eaten two servings of ham? Here, you must have some more, it’s the best in town. (and how can you say no to a man celebrating his eightieth birthday?)
It doesn't help that left to my own devices I tend to be a vegetarian; did you notice that not a single vegetable appears in this narrative? (no, fried potatoes don't really count as a vegetable.) I love these people dearly, but I'm afraid they're going to kill me. ...In the meantime, pass the potatoes?
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Princesses and espadrilles
Highlights of the past week (besides being able to connect to the internets in the national library!):
• a morning at the Madrid book fair, one of the biggest in the world. The setting is the lovely green Retiro park, where on the paths among the trees you find several hundred stands with every kind of book you can imagine (all at a 10% discount during the fair, of course), lots of author presentations and signings, and thousands upon thousands of happy Spaniards browsing through the possibilities. (I'm always impressed by how much Spaniards like to read; the book fair is one of the year's biggest attractions, and it's rare to see a commuter on the metro without a book in her hands.)
• a day in Toledo, with a deliciously slow and attentive stroll through the cathedral (which I've seen a dozen times, but it's so big and complex that every time there's something new to discover)
• several excellent outings with friends, over olives and cheese and little garlicky fishes and wine in cozy bars with worn tile floors and chunky oak tables. There are several chain restaurants here (and every day another Starbucks), but fortunately the vast majority of places are still little family-owned bars, each with its own character, that look like they haven't changed in the last two centuries.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Adventures in the attic
(Preface: one of the reasons I go on these no-posting binges is that when I neglect the blog for a few days, I feel like when I post again I either have to have a really good story or to come up with some sort of apology for not having posted, and that sense of obligation becomes burdensome enough to keep me from starting a post. So the solution is to avoid the good story and the apology and just write this explanation instead, and to try to convince myself to duck the guilt, because it is just a blog.)
So anyway. Since we’ll be gone for two months, I’ve had a whole list of fixy things to do with the house before we go. Ostensibly the easiest of these involved replacing the little screen over the dryer vent where the vent exits the house. It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, because it’s high enough up to need a small ladder, and there’s a flowering tree on that side of the house that makes it difficult to get the ladder just where I need it. But through some rather clever ladder-yoga I managed to get everything teeteringly in place, and got the new screen on. There were a few bits of grass and straw poking out of the vent, and though it didn’t seem obstructed, I suddenly had a flash of memory of having seen little birds hopping around that tree and ducking into the vent. That was about a year ago, and I’d realized then that the screen was loose – the birds were just pushing it aside and getting into the vent, which was like a nice little shady front porch for them. At the time I fixed the screen back into place (having seen no obvious evidence of nesting) and didn’t think much of it. This spring I noticed the screen was entirely gone, and though I hadn’t seen any more bird activity there, I wanted to get it fixed before we left.
Having done so (hey, that was easy! look how handy I am!), I thought I’d double check and make sure the vent wasn’t obstructed. Turned on the dryer – and only the faintest breath of air came out the vent. Hmmm... this is going to require an expedition into the attic. So I clambered up the wobbly pull-down ladder in the garage, crawled up into the dark, hot, dusty corner where the vent reaches the outside, wrestled it loose enough to ease an arm inside, and just at an arm’s length inside the vent there was an impressive wad of grass and shredded newspaper.
Having cleared out that wad, I triumphantly turn on the dryer again, and… just the faint little breath of air. Now I'm starting to take this personally, muttering foul curses against cute little birds and their cozy little porches. (For full effect, please keep in mind that it's well over 90 degrees in the attic and I'm doing this by flashlight, balancing on the ceiling joists, in a space that's only a few feet high). I manage to unattach the vent from the frame of the roof and un-duct-tape the last three-foot section, which turns out to have three separate grass-wads plugging up its length. How long have they been at this? Dryer on again… and still nothing. Somehow this has gone from a five-minute fix to something that will involve me dismantling my entire attic. So I turn to the next section of vent, disconnect that, and remove several more feet of grass and newspaper. It’s a bit late to make a long story short, but suffice it to say that I ended up cleaning astonishing amounts of crap out of about fifteen feet of dryer vent (and I looked like I was wearing most of it by the time I climbed back down). WTF? I can’t imagine birds nesting that far back, but they were probably irritated by the hot and mysteriously Bounce-scented wind that blew through every Sunday afternoon, and blocked it off for that reason.
Sorry, birds. But I bet my dryer will sure work better tomorrow.
So anyway. Since we’ll be gone for two months, I’ve had a whole list of fixy things to do with the house before we go. Ostensibly the easiest of these involved replacing the little screen over the dryer vent where the vent exits the house. It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, because it’s high enough up to need a small ladder, and there’s a flowering tree on that side of the house that makes it difficult to get the ladder just where I need it. But through some rather clever ladder-yoga I managed to get everything teeteringly in place, and got the new screen on. There were a few bits of grass and straw poking out of the vent, and though it didn’t seem obstructed, I suddenly had a flash of memory of having seen little birds hopping around that tree and ducking into the vent. That was about a year ago, and I’d realized then that the screen was loose – the birds were just pushing it aside and getting into the vent, which was like a nice little shady front porch for them. At the time I fixed the screen back into place (having seen no obvious evidence of nesting) and didn’t think much of it. This spring I noticed the screen was entirely gone, and though I hadn’t seen any more bird activity there, I wanted to get it fixed before we left.
Having done so (hey, that was easy! look how handy I am!), I thought I’d double check and make sure the vent wasn’t obstructed. Turned on the dryer – and only the faintest breath of air came out the vent. Hmmm... this is going to require an expedition into the attic. So I clambered up the wobbly pull-down ladder in the garage, crawled up into the dark, hot, dusty corner where the vent reaches the outside, wrestled it loose enough to ease an arm inside, and just at an arm’s length inside the vent there was an impressive wad of grass and shredded newspaper.
Having cleared out that wad, I triumphantly turn on the dryer again, and… just the faint little breath of air. Now I'm starting to take this personally, muttering foul curses against cute little birds and their cozy little porches. (For full effect, please keep in mind that it's well over 90 degrees in the attic and I'm doing this by flashlight, balancing on the ceiling joists, in a space that's only a few feet high). I manage to unattach the vent from the frame of the roof and un-duct-tape the last three-foot section, which turns out to have three separate grass-wads plugging up its length. How long have they been at this? Dryer on again… and still nothing. Somehow this has gone from a five-minute fix to something that will involve me dismantling my entire attic. So I turn to the next section of vent, disconnect that, and remove several more feet of grass and newspaper. It’s a bit late to make a long story short, but suffice it to say that I ended up cleaning astonishing amounts of crap out of about fifteen feet of dryer vent (and I looked like I was wearing most of it by the time I climbed back down). WTF? I can’t imagine birds nesting that far back, but they were probably irritated by the hot and mysteriously Bounce-scented wind that blew through every Sunday afternoon, and blocked it off for that reason.
Sorry, birds. But I bet my dryer will sure work better tomorrow.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
vacation, all I ever wanted
Okay, instead of all the grading I was supposed to do, I spent a good chunk of last night and this morning IM'ing with awesome sister-in-law (who now will need her own pseudonym, hmm), and I am absolutely beside myself with excitement about how this summer trip is shaping up.
Just two things, as tantalizing examples: MedievalWoman asked about whether this region was close to the Camino de Santiago. Lo, it is, and it looks like this:
But it only gets better. We're staying four nights in a bed & breakfast (more like an apartment, really, because it's a separate floor with its own entry, kitchen, etc.) - and, well, here it is.
Let me add that it's going to cost - for the three of us - about half what a night in an average U.S. hotel would cost (because it's in a town of about a hundred people). And within half an hour's driving distance we have the castle from yesterday's post, various medieval monasteries, and some of the world's most gorgeous hiking.
How am I supposed to get any work done now, with my head full of this?
Just two things, as tantalizing examples: MedievalWoman asked about whether this region was close to the Camino de Santiago. Lo, it is, and it looks like this:
But it only gets better. We're staying four nights in a bed & breakfast (more like an apartment, really, because it's a separate floor with its own entry, kitchen, etc.) - and, well, here it is.
Let me add that it's going to cost - for the three of us - about half what a night in an average U.S. hotel would cost (because it's in a town of about a hundred people). And within half an hour's driving distance we have the castle from yesterday's post, various medieval monasteries, and some of the world's most gorgeous hiking.
How am I supposed to get any work done now, with my head full of this?
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Getaway
My week-before-last spring break trip to Madrid was mostly a scouting trip for a possible future summer study-abroad class, so I don't have a lot of great stories. (we walked a lot! we did quick sprints through lots of museums! we bought lots of guidebooks!)
There should be a much greater potential for stories, however, from the summer trip we're planning. This one will be mostly a research trip (and a family trip, since we stay with LWI's parents) but we always plan a fun getaway of some sort. This summer's week-long escape will include the following:
and best of all, a weekend in a tiny medieval town that celebrates a festival in which the entire town is lit only by candles:
How cool is that?!
There should be a much greater potential for stories, however, from the summer trip we're planning. This one will be mostly a research trip (and a family trip, since we stay with LWI's parents) but we always plan a fun getaway of some sort. This summer's week-long escape will include the following:
and best of all, a weekend in a tiny medieval town that celebrates a festival in which the entire town is lit only by candles:
How cool is that?!
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Thoughts on pseudonymity...
...inspired by all the interesting discussion going on at New Kid's and Dr. Crazy's, and by the wonderful meme that jo(e) built. They've already pointed out the best reasons for academics to blog pseudonymously, and the complex relationships between our personal and professional personae.
In my case, there's a personal angle as well. For various reasons, my strategy for survival and happiness as a child was to be generally invisible and not to rock any boats. This approach has carried over into my adult life, partly out of habit and partly because it suits my interests. I’m curious about the world and people around me, and I find I learn a lot more about them by watching and listening than by making myself the center of attention. I’ve never felt any great sense of ambition that motivated me to change the world; I do feel motivated to learn as much about it as I can while I’m here.
Blogging pseudonymously is an extension of that attitude. I’m not trying to publicize my own thoughts as much as I’m trying to join a community and enjoy the ideas and relationships that develop. (Notice I created a place where people come to hang out and enjoy each other’s company, not a place where I can pontificate about my Big Ideas.) I also blog pseudonymously because of some quirks in the way I present myself and relate to others in the real world. Most people (quite appropriately) like advertising the best things about themselves, showing off that they’re funny or musical or have good fashion sense, making sure you see their talents. When I get to know people, though, I like to keep an eye out for their hidden side, and to be the person who finds out something that other people wouldn’t be likely to know. If I went to a party and met five new people, for example, I would feel far more satisfied at the end of the evening if I'd gotten those new people to share something interesting about themselves, than if I'd told them all something interesting about myself.
So that shapes how I present myself, too, in that I don’t go out of my way to advertise the things I like best about myself. I don’t purposely create obstacles to getting to know me, but I do like to reward and surprise the people who get involved with me enough to see past the surface. (This probably explains all those personality-test things that say I’m difficult to get to know.) I don’t mind being pretty ordinary on the surface, and I rather like the idea of cultivating a secret, more interesting me, that only a few people have access to. For example, I keep in pretty good shape, but I’m kind of round and dumpy, and I don’t look at all as athletic as I am. So it tickles me when someone who’s known me for years is startled to find that I hold a black belt in tae kwon do, or that I have walked 300 miles across Spain. (One of the things I liked best about working on the Habitat site was that I signed up for morning times, and then came back to campus for an early afternoon class. It amused me to no end to clean up and change into my spiffiest outfits and go off to class, so that no one would guess that barely an hour earlier I had been wearing leather gloves and my tough boots, sawing strandboard at a construction site.)
What’s funny about the blog is that it tends to reflect the “secret” me rather than the outside me. Not that I have that many wild adventures to write about (or that what I’ve written is all that fascinating), but the nature of blogging means that you’ve already gone through the process of finding me and sticking around long enough to decide you like it here, so even though I haven’t met most of you (and even have no idea who you are), we’ve established the kind of intimacy that lets me write more about the fun stuff. (besides, who wants to cultivate ordinary on a blog?)
But if I were to write about all this under my own name, that would defeat the purpose. You meet me, you google my name, you can walk right into this goofy virtual bar that somehow came to exist here. Nah. What would please me far, far more would be to find out that someone I knew IRL came to the bar but didn’t know it was mine; maybe then in two or three years I could have the pleasure of mentioning offhand “oh, yeah, remember Pilgrim/Heretic? That’d be me.”
In my case, there's a personal angle as well. For various reasons, my strategy for survival and happiness as a child was to be generally invisible and not to rock any boats. This approach has carried over into my adult life, partly out of habit and partly because it suits my interests. I’m curious about the world and people around me, and I find I learn a lot more about them by watching and listening than by making myself the center of attention. I’ve never felt any great sense of ambition that motivated me to change the world; I do feel motivated to learn as much about it as I can while I’m here.
Blogging pseudonymously is an extension of that attitude. I’m not trying to publicize my own thoughts as much as I’m trying to join a community and enjoy the ideas and relationships that develop. (Notice I created a place where people come to hang out and enjoy each other’s company, not a place where I can pontificate about my Big Ideas.) I also blog pseudonymously because of some quirks in the way I present myself and relate to others in the real world. Most people (quite appropriately) like advertising the best things about themselves, showing off that they’re funny or musical or have good fashion sense, making sure you see their talents. When I get to know people, though, I like to keep an eye out for their hidden side, and to be the person who finds out something that other people wouldn’t be likely to know. If I went to a party and met five new people, for example, I would feel far more satisfied at the end of the evening if I'd gotten those new people to share something interesting about themselves, than if I'd told them all something interesting about myself.
So that shapes how I present myself, too, in that I don’t go out of my way to advertise the things I like best about myself. I don’t purposely create obstacles to getting to know me, but I do like to reward and surprise the people who get involved with me enough to see past the surface. (This probably explains all those personality-test things that say I’m difficult to get to know.) I don’t mind being pretty ordinary on the surface, and I rather like the idea of cultivating a secret, more interesting me, that only a few people have access to. For example, I keep in pretty good shape, but I’m kind of round and dumpy, and I don’t look at all as athletic as I am. So it tickles me when someone who’s known me for years is startled to find that I hold a black belt in tae kwon do, or that I have walked 300 miles across Spain. (One of the things I liked best about working on the Habitat site was that I signed up for morning times, and then came back to campus for an early afternoon class. It amused me to no end to clean up and change into my spiffiest outfits and go off to class, so that no one would guess that barely an hour earlier I had been wearing leather gloves and my tough boots, sawing strandboard at a construction site.)
What’s funny about the blog is that it tends to reflect the “secret” me rather than the outside me. Not that I have that many wild adventures to write about (or that what I’ve written is all that fascinating), but the nature of blogging means that you’ve already gone through the process of finding me and sticking around long enough to decide you like it here, so even though I haven’t met most of you (and even have no idea who you are), we’ve established the kind of intimacy that lets me write more about the fun stuff. (besides, who wants to cultivate ordinary on a blog?)
But if I were to write about all this under my own name, that would defeat the purpose. You meet me, you google my name, you can walk right into this goofy virtual bar that somehow came to exist here. Nah. What would please me far, far more would be to find out that someone I knew IRL came to the bar but didn’t know it was mine; maybe then in two or three years I could have the pleasure of mentioning offhand “oh, yeah, remember Pilgrim/Heretic? That’d be me.”
Saturday, February 18, 2006
More personality stuff...
...as seen at What Now?. Hey, it says I'd be a good teacher and writer! Good thing I don't have to pull a big career switch. (I took the full-blown version of this several years ago, and I think I got the same results. I yam what I yam!)
Your #1 Match: INFJ |
| The Protector You live your life with integrity, originality, vision, and creativity.Independent and stubborn, you rarely stray from your vision - no matter what it is.You are an excellent listener, with almost infinite patience.You have complex, deep feelings, and you take great care to express them. You would make a great photographer, alternative medicine guru, or teacher. |
Your #2 Match: INFP |
| The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist. |
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