Marty Kaplan's Blog

I was still feeling the after effects of tourist tummy, but the good news was that I was feeling considerably better.  The walk to the train station was ten minutes at most and since we were forty five minutes away from departure time, we decided to wait in the Club Room.  Whereas the Club Room in Barcelona is modern and spacious, the Club Room in Valencia has more of a traditional feel to it and it is considerably smaller.  We treated ourselves to a cold drink and we lingered until our train was called and we were off on our Madrid adventure.

Our train rolled into Madrid a little after 3:00 PM.  We went directly form the station to our hotel – Hotel Suites Viena.  Hotel Suites Viena is a newer hotel located near the Plaza de España in a residential neighborhood.  The room is bright, large enough with a small sitting work area and a king size bed.  The bathroom is small.  There is also a Pullman kitchen with a fridge, microwave and stove top. If you wanted to cook for yourself, you could do so as they make pots and pans, dishes and silverware available upon request.  There is no room service, but a number of restaurants will deliver to your door.  It feels like a hotel designed for people who have business in Madrid and need a convenient place to stay.  It is opposite a school and that means that you are up at 9:00 when the commotion outside begins.

We had tickets that evening for García Lorca’s LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA, a play that I first read some fifty years ago and one that I have taught many times in my forty five year career.  It was being performed at a space for the arts called the Matadero and it stars two of Spain’s finest actresses, Nuria Espert as Bernarda and Rosa María Sardà.  Fortunately, we had bought the tickets on line before we left for Spain because when we went to the box office to exchange our vouchers, we discovered that Thursday night’s performance was sold out.

The Matadero is an amazing space.  It is one of the best examples of early 20^th century commercial architecture.  In its initial incarnation it was a slaughter house and stock yards that occupied an area of close to 2 million square feet.  The various buildings occupy 284,000 square feet and as of today 59,000 square feet of building space have been converted for public use.  It is, in essence, a center for the arts, but arts in all senses of that word – books, painting, drawing, music, theater and design.  The theater is located in a building called Las Naves del Español.  When you enter the building you discover that you are in a large space that is shared by the bar and a performance space for intimate musical presentations.  If you make your way through the bar and turn to your left, you enter into the space occupied by the theater.  The theater is unique in that the audience is seated on both sides of the stage.  Instead of theater in the round, you are experiencing theater in the parallel. The theater is capable of being used in many different configurations, depending upon the type of work that is being presented.

The performance began at 8:30 and all aspects of the performance were outstanding.  The lighting, sound and costumes were as perfect as it can get.  All the performances were spot on.  The sight of 40 women mourners, all dressed in black, who fill the stage causes an impression that will last for a lifetime.  The play, written in three acts, was performed without an intermission.  The two hours seemed to fly by.  At the end the cast received three standing ovations and they truly deserved them.

A detail from one of the walls in the Club Room in the Valencia train station.

Susan enjoying a gin and tonic as we approach Madrid.

The entrance to an exhibition on clothing design

The bar

We made our way from the theater and hailed a cab.  We found a restaurant near the hotel that was one of the few still open and we treated ourselves to a “sandwich mixto” – basically a grilled ham and cheese sandwich – and we then made our way to our hotel room and called it a night.  I went to sleep a very happy man because I had finally realized one of my lifelong dreams – seeing LA ACASA DE BERNARDA ALBA performed in Spanish by an outstanding cast.

The morning was uneventful.  We did manage to get the dirty laundry over to the Laundromat soon after it opened.  We were told we could pick it up at 1:30, so I headed back home to begin packing for our trip to Madrid and La Rioja and Susan did some shopping.  After we picked up the laundry, we made a little lunch at home and finished our packing.

Our plan for the evening was to take a cooking class on tapa at Food and Fun, a recently opened cooking school, which is a five minute walk from the house.  Unfortunately, I was still recovering from a touch of traveler’s tummy, so discretion being the better part of valor, I though it best to skip the evening’s activity and rest up for tomorrow’s journey.  What follows is Susan’s account of her evening.  She has also posted a number of photos on Facebook.

Wednesday night found me at Valencia’s Food and Fun with 25 other fans of cooking and tapas.  The class was made up of an interesting collection of people, true Valencianos, three men from Italy, a couple of American women married to Spanish men who have been living there for 40 years, a woman from China and a number of people with whom I did not have the time to interact.

Our instructor was award winning Koldo Royo.  Food and Fun is a delightful cooking school that has well known chefs presenting courses on their specialties.  As a person who could live on tapas, I had no doubt about what course I wanted to take.  I was not disappointed.  The class was informative and indeed fun.  With 25 people getting to know each other, asking Chef Koldo questions and putting their tapas together there was a great deal of laughter and in true Spanish fashion a good deal of wine as well.  The Chef could have been a stand up comedian.  Amidst all the fun it was very hands on and I learned a great deal. Our menu for the evening was as follows:

Gulas con granada – a shot glass size tapas of tiny eels in vinaigrette on a bed of finely shredded lettuce, finely chopped tomato and topped with a sprinkle of seeds of pomegranate.

Buñuelos de bacalao- these are little very light fritters with salt cod, parsley and lots of garlic.  (Of course! It’s Spain.)

Raviolis de remolacha y queso de cabra – a small layered stack of thinly sliced beet, goat cheese, beet, vinaigrette with chopped apple, nuts and celery, topped with a tiny pinch of alfalfa sprouts.

Carpacio de buey con queso manchego – a skewer with thinly sliced beef and manchego cheese and a simple dressing

Merluza con salsa verde – fish baked in the oven then served in a sauce consisting primarily of tiny clams, parsley, and garlic

Dessert was very simple and just lovely.  Pomegranate seeds are placed in a wine glass and sprinkled with sugar.  Then a little red wine is added.   We all learned the easy way to get all the seed out of the pomegranate.  Cut it in half that tap around the sides strongly and the seed come falling out.

Unfortunately Marty was not feeling well and was not able to attend, so he or I can come to another class to make up the one he missed. I have my eyes on “Sopas, guisos y arroces tradicionales de nuestras abuelas” (Soups, stew and traditional rice dishes of our grandmothers.)   This call even includes a shopping trip to the Mercado Central.  I hope Marty will join me.  It was so much fun.

Tomorrow we head off to Madrid at 11:30 AM and we have theater seats for tomorrow’s performance of LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA.

The rain lasted most of the day on Tuesday and that mean that they activity of the day would be limited to working on the computer and reading.  Jonathan Tropper’s THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU.  It deals with a dysfunctional family who gather together at the family home to sit SHIVA (seven days of morning) for their father. I enjoyed the book thoroughly.  I found it to be sad, funny and, at times, touching.  You don’t have to be Jewish to read this book, but you need to be able to deal with rather dark humor, at times.

The skies cleared around 5:00 PM and we decided to escape the confines of the apartment.  I wanted to locate a joke store to pick up an item that I needed for one of my magic effects.  We did manage to find the store, but, unfortunately they did not have the item I was looking for.  While we were out, we decided to go in search of a Laundromat that was supposedly located just down the street from the main entrance to the Central Market.  We did indeed find it, and tomorrow we will bring in almost two weeks worth of dirty clothes so that we can have clean clothes for the upcoming eight days we will spend away from Valencia.

On our way home, we once again passed by a clothing store that is called THE DOG’S COJONES, which translates as the DOG’S BALLS or so I thought.  The name of the shop made no sense to me whatsoever.  A few days ago I was listening to an Eddy Izard‘s CIRCLE CD and I was able to solve the mystery.  The correct translation of the store name should be THE DOG’S BOLLOCKS, which is a British slang expression that mean’s “excellent.” Having solved the mystery, sleep has come more easily these past few nights.

Our evening was uneventful.  We watched a game show on TV and then we read some more.  The weather promises to improve tomorrow.  That will make it a bit easier to do all that we need to do to head off to Madrid on Thursday.

A stand outside the Cental market that specializes in a variety of nuts.

All the hardware you need to make a paella.

The rain continued through the night and we woke up to a very rainy morning that would turn into a very rainy day.  That being the case, I decided that it would be a good day for me to stay indoors, catch up on my reading and practice my magic.  That is essentially what I did for most of the day, taking the occasional break for some sustenance.  I finished EMPIRE FALLS by Richard Russo and I enjoyed it immensely.  Susan’s day was a bit different so I will let her tell you about it in her own words.

Yesterday I had a very interesting experience.  I decided to seek out Yom Kippur services.  It just happened that one of the congregations was holding their services at the Hotel on our little plaza.  So I had no excuse to not go. I am so glad I did.  It was very interesting- a small group and very informal.  The service was primarily in Spanish which I could understand, unlike at home when it is primarily in Hebrew.  I learned that there are 4 tiny congregations in Valencia.  This one is led by a woman from LA who has been living in Valencia for 40 years.  While there were a few people who actually come from Valencia(sort of like California), many did not -Ariel is a Moroccan Jew whose mother was from France and his father from Morocco, there was a young couple was from Argentina, Roberto was from Connecticut but has been living in Valencia for 45 years.  Claus (originally from Germany) and his wife Zahavah from Canada just sold their home in Canada and have move here permanently.  There was a couple visiting from France that came, Claire from South Africa, and me from LA.  As you can guess, we had some time to chat with each other and in some cases we exchanged names and phone numbers.

This is also the second day of rain.  The rain here comes and goes all day – first a light sprinkle, then it stops, then the heavens open up and there is a huge downpour that soaks you from your ankles to your knees if you happen to be out walking with an umbrella,  which I have been on more that one occasion. Then the sun comes out, then it rains some more. The good news is that it has not been cold, so it really doesn’t bother me at all.

Wednesday evening we are taking a cooking class on Tapas at a local cooking school.  The chef, Koldo Royo, is an award winning chef so it should be quite enlightening.  We are really looking forward to it. Thursday we head up to Madrid and then to la Rioja with friends.  We will spend one night in the Rioja at la Bodega Marqués de Riscalwhere Frank Gehry designed the hotel.  It is stunning.  I can hardly wait to take pictures of it.

So, that is today’s abbreviated report.  It looks like today will be a good day to stay close to home.  We shall see what develops.  No new pictures to speak of, so I will post a few taken on Sunday.

This is the first time I have seen a horse drawn carriage in Valencia.

Mr Horse up close and personal!

Decisions, decisions, decisions

We passed up the chance to buy a bottle of 170 proof Absinthe.

Another horchatería directly opposite Santa Catalina

Detail of Horchatería Santa Catalina

Interior of the Horchatería Santa Catalina

Sunday had the makings of a lazy day.  We got up about 10:00, got dressed and headed out to find some breakfast.  We settled on Café Lisboa, which is located on one of the side streets near the Central Market.  We made quick work of our café con leche and croissants and decided to investigate a small flea market that was near by.  Truth be told, there was not much that caught the eye, so we continued on our way.  A few minutes later we bumped into Pepe and Sara who had just bought the morning paper and were in search of a quiet spot to sit down and read it.  We chatted briefly and then we each went our separate way.  As we approached the house, Susan and I decided that this would be a good morning to do our exercises.

Susan and I have become big fans of resistance training done with rubber tubing.  It provides a workout that is equal to any in a gym and it is portable.  We had shipped the tubing, along with a few other things, before we left for Spain.  We needed to find anchor points for the tubing and we enlisted the front door, the balcony doors and the railing of the staircase to set up for our session.  Some of the exercises are done by stepping on the tubing, so that makes an anchor point less of an issue. We exercised for some 35 minutes and managed to work up a good sweat.  It was time to move on to other things.

While I went upstairs to work on my blog, Susan set about the task of making lunch.  We had a lovely salad of lettuce, tomato, asparagus, olives and tuna, followed by a tortilla española.  We accompanied the meal with a couple of glasses of a nice Albariño.  Dessert was a peach.  I proceeded to wash the dishes while Susan worked on her computer.  Since the sun was shining, we decided that we would take a little afternoon stroll.

We decided to head to the Plaza de la Reina to take a look at the cathedral and the Miguelete.  The Miguelete is a tower that is the only remnant of a mosque that stood in that square.  It was the tower that was used to call the faithful to worship.  Before we made our way around the plaza to shoot some pictures, we stopped for a gelato.  After we had downed them then it was time to take some pictures.  We were back home in a half an hour.  We both set to work on our computers but at 7:30 Susan went to a nearby Kol Nidre service, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Around 10:00 we went out for some wine and tapas.  On our way home, the heavens opened up and the rain that had been promised all day finally made its appearance.  We arrived home a bit soggy, but none the worse for wear.  We called it a day shortly thereafter.

An example of a menú del día

El Miguelete

The cathedral

The park in front of the Miguelete and the cathedral

One of Valencia's oldest horchaterías

Pepe came by at 11:15 this morning and we headed out to the train station, which is all of five minutes away from the house.  We bought our tickets to Gandía, passed through the turnstiles and boarded our train.  It was a local that would make a number of stops before we reached our destination, but the trip would last less than an hour.  Pepe had a backpack that held the vegetables for today’s paella, as well as the high quality saffron.  Five minutes after boarding the train, it pulled out from the station.

We reached Gandía at 12:45 and in traveling sixty miles to the northeast of Valencia the weather had changed.  The morning sun had vanished and we were caught in the middle of a sudden downpour.  Pepe’s sister, María, was picking us up and we watched her pull up all of two minutes later.  It took us a goodly amount of time to get to Pedreguer because of the need to pass through several small towns and the fact that there was construction going on.  When we arrived, we found a parking space right outside of Pepe’s mother’s house and we entered.

I have known Pepe’s family almost as long as I have known Pepe and I have eaten at his mother’s table on a number of occasions.  Truth be told, I feel very much at home here. The paellero, which works of butane gas, was in place and ready for action.  This is what a paellero looks like, minus the advertisements:

The fire was lit and the paellera was placed in the heat source.  The first ingredient was olive oil from olives that had been grown and pressed by a neighbor.  The taste and quality were better than any olive oil you can buy at any gourmet store you would care to name.  When the oil was hot the meat was added.  Today’s paella was to be a paella de carne and so we added chicken, pork and rabbit.  Sometimes duck is added instead of pork.  The reason foe either is that they are fatty and will give off enough juices to add a consistency to the paella.  As the meat cooked to a state of caramelization, the troops got busy preparing the greens that we would use in the paella.  We shucked a goodly quantity of broad beans somewhat larger and flatter than fava beans.  We also worked on some of the largest green beans I have ever seen, cutting off the end and breaking them into smaller pieces.  Pepe’s mother and sister grated the tomatoes that would be part of the sofrito.  Three different varieties of tomato were used.

When the meat had reaches its state of caramelization the vegetables were added and briefly cooked.  Then came the water – three cups of water for each cup of rice – and the rice.  At this point Pepe’s mother added some small meatballs that she had prepared the day before and everything proceeded to happily boil.  Fifteen minutes later the rice had reached the perfect stage of doneness and the heat was turned off and the paella was left to rest.

There were nine of us at the table and we happily anticipated the paella that would take its place of honor at the center of the table.  The paella made its appearance and we, the assembled, attacked with gusto.  The paella was superb!!  We washed it down with a couple of bottle of a very nice Rioja wine, La Vía Mágica, which was produced for consumption at last year’s Magic Convention.  We were drinking the results of a second bottling.  The wine is not commercially available.  We finished the meal with buñuelos de calabaza made from pumpkins grown by Pepe’s brother-in-law.  After an after lunch coffee, we all retired to the second floor to the television room. The four younger members of the group were on the second floor playing on the computer.

Within five minutes all of us were deep into our siesta.  We began to stir a little before 5:00 and shortly thereafter María drove us back to the station and our train delivered us to Valencia a little before eight.  We were tired enough that we had a light snack around 10:00 at home and after a brief spate of reading we made ready for bed.

The patio of Pepe's mother's house

Pepe - ready to do battle

The oil has been heated and the meat is now added.

Your author demonstrating that he has domestic skills, also.

The vegetables have now been added.

The water, rice and saffron have now been added.

And now the albóndigas

The finished product

Pepe made a paella and we helped...eat it.

Los buñuelos de calabaza and a calabaza

On Fridays the rental company that manages our apartment sends in someone to clean the apartment and change out the sheets and towels.  They finished up about 1:30 and we decided to take advantage of the sunny day and head for the beach.  The only question we had was how to get there.

We opted for taking the Metro.  We took the Line 5 Metro to its last stop and there we connected with Line 6, which is a surface trolley car.  Our entire journey took less than 20 minutes and after a three minute walk we found ourselves on the sands of Malvarrosa Beach.

Malvarrosa Beach is a long sandy beach that seems to go on forever.  There are numerous sites where one can rent a beach umbrellas and chaise lounges and, of course, you can bring your own.  When you get hungry you have a multitude of restaurant choices.  Many of them are set back from the beach where the sand ends and the paved walkway begins.  Some are directly across the street from the beach.  Our usual test of a new restaurant would not work today because it is September and all the locals are back to work.  No restaurant this day would be filled to capacity.  We passed on a number of the restaurants we saw and headed to one called La Alegría de la Huerta.  It looked welcoming and we liked the menu choices.

Every restaurant in Spain, by law, must offer a menu del día.  It includes an appetizer, an entrée, a beverage of your choice, and dessert.  Sometimes your end of the meal coffee is included.  Some restaurants will even you an after dinner drink on the house.  As you can well imagine, the price of the menu can vary.  Most average about 10 Euros, but I have seen some offerings as low as 6 Euros and I recall seeing one for 30 Euros on a previous trip.  Most restaurants will post their menu, some do not.  In that case, you have to ask because their hope is that you will order off the regular menu.

Since it was a beautiful day and we were seated at a table that had a glorious view of The Mediterranean, we decided to order off the regular menu.  We settled on the house salad, puntillas, olives, boquerones en vinagre and a zarzuela de pescado y mariscos.  For dessert we ordered a slice of a home made coffee flavored pie and, of course, our usual coffee.

The house made salad was a treat.  It had a variety of lettuces, tomato, three different varieties of olives, corn, sesame seeds, and walnuts.  Puntillas are the little feet of the squid.  They are prepared in the same way as calamares back in the States. They are breaded and deep fried.  A little squeeze of lemon on the top and you are good to go.  You can also put a dab of a garlic infused mayonnaise (ali oli) on top and discover heaven on earth.  Boquerones are anchovies before they undergo the heavy salting process that we have come to know and love.  They are traditionally served in a marinade consisting of olive oil, vinegar and chopped garlic.  A zarzuela is a medley of fish and seafood that is prepared with a rather delicious brown sauce.  Our medley consisted of generous portions of monkfish and dorade, mussels, squid and shrimp. Since Susan and I were sharing, we had ordered a single portion and it was a good thing that we had. Dessert rapidly disappeared along with our coffee and we decided to linger a bit over a liqueur.  We paid our bill, collected our gear and headed out to the beach.  When I looked at my watch I was surprised to see that it was 4:00 o’clock.

The beach was not very crowded, so Susan and I had no problem renting a beach umbrella and two chaise lounges.  Out came Susan’s Kindle and my paperback copy of EMPIRE FALLS and we proceeded to read for the next two hours.  We gathered our things and crossed the street parallel to the beach and there was a bus stop.  We took the 32 and it dropped us off a mere block from our house.  It is great living in a city where everything is EASILY reachable by Metro, bus or train.

Our evening for the most part was uneventful.  We ventured out around 10:00 o’clock for a glass of wine and a tapa and were in bed before midnight.  Tomorrow we head out to Pedreguer with Pepe to visit with his family and witness the preparation of a paella.

Today's restaurant

A shot of our meal and the view from our table

Puntillas up close and personal!

Yes, the dessert was that good!

The rules of the beach

Streetcar interior

The tranvía traveler

The sun peeked through the cracks in the persiana gently waking us a little before 9:00.  A quick trip to the bakery and breakfast was underway.  We made a quick trip to El Corte Inglés to replenish our supply of bottled water, coffee, milk and, while we were at it, a bottle of wine.  We spent the rest of the morning straightening up and doing a number of tasks on the computer.  We headed out in search of lunch a little after 2:30 and settled on a nearby restaurant called Dondequiera (Wherever).  To be honest, the food was unexceptional so there really is no need to go into details.  We made our way back home to pick up our cameras and to make ready for our afternoon excursion to La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias.

The City of Arts and Sciences was designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela and it was opened to the public in April of 1995.  The newest completed building, el Palacio de las Artes Reina Sofía was inaugurated in October of 2005 with the first performances starting almost a year later.  A new structure, a multifunctional performance space, the Agora, is currently under construction and is scheduled to open next year.  This attraction, along with the rebuilt port area and the spruced up Malvarrosa beach has made Valencia, Spain’s third largest city, a required stop for the tourist visiting Spain.  Here is a link to the official web page of The City of Arts and Sciences http://www.cac.es/

The walk from our house to The City of Arts and Sciences took us about thirty minutes and we made the trip accompanied by a brilliant sun that had raised the afternoon temperature to close to 90 degrees.  Your first view of the complex, as you make your way down La Avenida de la Reina, is striking.  We chose to cross El Puente de la Reina in order to approach the complex from the other side.  The bridge is guarded on both ends by rather fierce looking gargoyles.  As you cross the bridge and continue on your way you are able to drink in a view of the entire complex and it leaves you with a sense of both euphoria and amazement.   We slowly made our way towards the center of the complex to get a closer view of all the buildings.

Not surprisingly, there were a goodly amount of people present.  Judging by the number of cameras, many of them were tourist.  However there were many valencianos who were taking advantage of a lovely autumn afternoon.  We ran into a group of four and five year olds who were on their way home to celebrate the birthday of two members of the group.  We stopped and chatted with the kids for a brief moment and I asked permission to take a photo.  I am very wary of taking pictures of children without asking permission.  The picture taken we continued on our way to the heart of the complex.

The last time we had visited this complex was just about a year ago.  We were in Valencia to attend El Congreso Nacional de Magia de 2008.  I was a member of the organizing committee and my job, some six thousand miles away from the planning center, was to contact American magicians who might be interested in performing and lecturing, as well as doing a number of translations of legal documents and, in one case, lecture notes.  The awards dinner was held inside the Hemisferic and it was late at night when we got there.  The fact that it was nighttime and that we were unaware that construction was progressing on yet another structure, made our first glimpse of the Agora all the more striking.

We spent another half hour taking pictures and then we made our way back to the house.  I was getting together with some of the magic guys at around 8:00 and Susan was looking forward to a quiet evening when she could work on her photographic projects undisturbed.  When I got home a little after midnight Susan was fast asleep and five minutes later, so was I.

The Science Museum and the Planetarium

View from Avenida de la Reina

Gargoyle 1

Gargoyle 2

The Birthday Girls

Birthday Girls 2

The Happy Hikers

Entrance to the Planetarium

Susan's Take on the Fish

Tuesday night’s showers turned into Wednesday’s rain.  It was a good morning to stay at home, spend time on the computer and catch up on our reading.  Susan is currently reading RUN by Ann Patchett and I am reading Richard Russo’s EMPIRE FALLS.  The rain had abated by 2:00 PM so we ventured forth in search of a place to have lunch.  We decided on a small restaurant called Aries that is literally three minutes away from the house.

We opted for the menu del día and we both made the same choices – paella as our first course and swordfish and grilled vegetables for our main course.  Susan opted for melon as her dessert and I decided to have flan.  After coffee, we were offered a chupito, a shot of what we call an after dinner liqueur, in this case moscatel.  Let me hasten to add that this moscatel is different than the muscatel that usually occupies a brown bag in the hands of loiterers outside your local supermarket.  Since the rain has started up again, we lingered over our drink.  The scene inside was amazing.

Aries probably has, at most, twenty tables.  The restaurant is staffed by five people.  There is one person doing the cooking, one person washing the pots and pans and dishes, a woman tending the bar, a gentleman who is the waiter for all twenty tables and a second woman who assists him by taking the occasional order and delivering a few of the dishes to the appropriate table.  So, in sum, we have one waiter servicing twenty tables who not only delivers the food promptly, but also has time to chat briefly and joke with all his customers.  To make matters more interesting, the kitchen is incredibly small.  In smaller restaurants it measures 9X12, and yet it is capable of turning out a multiplicity of dishes.  In the case of Aries, one had a choice of six different starters and four entrees.  Additionally, some clients were ordering off the menu.  It is truly another world here when you compare it with the realities of a Los Angeles restaurant with its usual indifferent service by unconscious waiters.

The rain persisted until the late afternoon, but by 7:30 it had stopped again.  We decided to go in search of a movie and we ended up deciding on a Spanish film called “Gordos.”  I will not go into details, but it was not very enjoyable on a number of levels.  However, for me, even a bad Spanish movie is a good experience in that it offers me the opportunity to listen to Spanish for ninety minutes or more and that always proves helpful in improving both my comprehension and my vocabulary.

More rain had fallen while we were in the theater, so we carefully navigated around the puddles as we made our way home.  Since we had consumed a tapa or two before the movie our supper consisted of a glass of wine and a nibble.  Then, for the first time in a week, we were in bed before midnight.

An interior shot of the FNAC store in Valencia. FNAC is a French chain.

The main entrance to the Central Market

A notions shop in a circular plaza near the Mercado Central

A finicky customer at La Frutería Ros

One of the more striking buildings in the center of town

We started our day yesterday with fresh baked croissants.  There is something wonderful about having a bakery 200 feet away from your front door.  After breakfast we headed out to the Central Market to replenish our supply of fruits and vegetables.  Afterwards we found a nearby shop that specialized in kitchen items and bought ourselves a carving knife and an oven mitt.  We finished off our little morning adventure with a café cortado and we headed back home.  Now that we know the direct route to the market, it takes less than five minutes to get there.

We had lunch at home.  Susan had purchased some asparagus and some oranges and so she put together this wonderful dish that comes from the URBAN ITALIAN cookbook.  It is easy to put together and it takes all of two minutes in the microwave to make it table ready.  We had purchased some croquetas and empanadas on Sunday so we warmed those up.  We sliced a fresh tomato, cut up a loaf of bread and unwrapped the salchichón (think salami) we had purchased earlier in the day.  To accompany the meal I opened a bottle of  Martín Códax, a nice, crisp Albariño with the aroma of herbs and apples.  It is one of the best that you can buy.  That was the opinion of a recent article on  Albariño wines in a recent LA Times article.  If you want more information about this particular wine, here is a link – http://www.martincodax.com/

After lunch Susan headed to a nearby park to read her book and I fired up the computer and worked on yesterday’s blog entry.  We met up around 6:00mand shared a Diet Coke and, afterward, we headed home to get ready for our evening visit to a local jazz club.

We met up with Sara in front of the Central Market and from there made our way further into El Barrio de Carmen.  Our destination was a small club called Jimmy Glass Jazz Bar.  It has been around since 1991 and, true of jazz clubs in general, it is located in a seamier part of town.  The club can hold about eighty customers with most of them seated, but there are those who prefer to stand closer to the bar.  The club is dark and smoke fills the air because smoking has yet to be banned in Spanish restaurants and bars.  We were seated off to the side and towards the back and the breeze from the fans at the front of the establishment never quite reached us.  There were five of us all together when the first set began.  Pepe arrived late because he was putting together the final touches for a chess exhibition taking place on Wednesday.  It is a rematch between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. You can find the details here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/kasparov-karpov-chess-mat_n_294503.html

At 9:50 the first set began and we all settled back in our chairs.

The group we were listening to was the María Neckam Quartet.  María was born in Austria and currently resides in Brooklyn.  She has a style that is somewhat reminiscent of Bjork, but for Susan and me, she reminded us a bit of Annie Ross.  The three musicians backing her up were outstanding and the fact that the pianist was a last minute replacement made his playing all the more amazing. María’s voice was pitch perfect and pleasing, but there was a sameness to her repertoire.  She always seemed to be on top of the music, rather than emotionally involved in it.  Here is a link to her myspace page and you can make your own decision. http://www.myspace.com/marianeckam In between sets we had another beer and we all had a bocadillo of ham and tortilla española.  The second set ended at midnight and as we made our way back home it started to sprinkle.  No sooner had we opened the door to our apartment when the skies opened up and it began to pour.  Wednesday promises to be a showery day.

The Maria Neckam Quartet in action

The Maria Neckam Quartet - Take 2