Sunday, April 15, 2012

I have just returned from a brief walk down to Mantequería Chisbert where I chatted briefly with Nacho and picked up some goodies for tonight’s dinner with Brian and Ofelia.  Susan will be making a recipe from the New Spanish Cookbook.  The author of the recipe is none other than Fernán Adriá.  It should be a fun evening.

Yesterday Susan and I did some shopping at the Central Market.  It gave me a chance to catch up with some familiar faces.  We stocked up on fruits and vegetables at Amparo’s stand.  Oranges are in season and many fruterías are selling six and a half pounds of oranges for one Euro.  Strawberries are back in season, also.  We also picked up some cinnamon sticks and pitted prunes for tonight’s recipe.  Our last stop at the market was at one of our favorite wine purveyors.  We picked up three bottle of white wine and a bottle of port, which is needed for tonight’s chicken recipe.

On the way back we stopped at La Bodega de la Dama Juana where we picked up some red wine.  She is one of the few vendors in the city who carry Mala Vida and it is an excellent young red that has a very good price point.  In addition to the wine we picked up a couple of Mala Vida coffee mugs.  It was a good thing that we took the rolling cart with us because we filled it to the brim.

When we got home we unpacked the cart and Susan went to Mercadona to pick up a few necessities.  I took advantage of that window of time to elevate the leg and apply some ice.  Around 3:00 PM we crossed the street at walked into A Nou.  We were hankering for a fideuá de mariscos and that is what we ordered.  We started off with a salteado de verduritas and that was a good way to start the meal because, in addition to being very tasty, the portion was small.  We ordered a white wine – A2 – and we discovered that it is made by the same winery that produces Mala Vida.  Here is a link to the winery’s webpage http://www.bodegasarraez.com/. The fideuá made its appearance and we did some magic and made it disappear.  We were so full that we passed on dessert and ended the meal with a coffee.

We had given some thought to going out later and getting an ice cream, but our next door neighbors came by to tell us that there was water leaking from our apartment.  Ironically, I had seen it before and I thought that it was runoff from the rain.  Miguel came by to take a look and an hour later the plumber came by to seal the leak.  By the time he finished it was too late to go out for an ice cream, so we spent the rest of the evening at home.  Thank to the PBS app on my iPad we were able to watch Dudamel’s initial concert with the LA Phil.  Airplay allows us to see the program on our TV.  This is definitely one of the pluses of modern technology.