Ben and Marina will be on holiday in the UK from September 23rd until September 30th, so I won’t be posting here on NFS this week. We will still be logging in to the forums every day however, and posting at Notes in Spanish.
So, until next week, why not come and say hi in the forum? – Ben and Marina
Marina takes on the local butcher as she tries to out-do his Pincho Moruno kebabs!
Ingredients
1 Kg or 2.2 Pounds of pork meat
2 garlic cloves
2 tsp of sweet paprika
1 tsp of hot paprika
1 tsp of ground pepper
2 tsp of thyme
3 bay leafs
4 tbsp of olive oil
Preparation
Start by chopping up the meat into 1.5 cm or 1/2 inch cubes. Then add the crushed garlic cloves and add all the spices to a bowl and mix them with a spoon before adding the olive oil and mixing a little bit more. Add the meat to the mixture and mix until all the pieces are covered with the spice mixture. Leave in the fridge to marinade for at least 12 hours (and up to 2 days) before cooking. Before barbecuing the meat, make the kebabs by putting four or five cubes of meat onto metal kebab sticks.
Tips
1. If you want even more Moorish flavour, add a tsp of cumin seeds or powder.
2. If it’s no longer barbecue season in your part of the world, you can always cook these under the oven grill (broiler).
Discuss this episode in the forum
Based on my own experiences, and reports from our forum, it’s never too late to move to Spain forever. In 9 basic steps, this is how it works:
1. Make up your mind to start a new life in Spain.
This is the really hard part, believe me! I mean we all know we want to move somewhere hotter, friendlier, and a good deal less dangerous, but everyone back home insists on telling us we are mad or just plain irresponsible. Ignore them, shut out the rising feelings of guilt, and:
2. Fix a date for departure.
Make it sooner rather than later to avoid procrastinating your way out of the decision. If you are from outside the EU you will need a return ticket to make sure the Spanish let you in. If you are from inside the EU, get a one-way ticket to ensure you don’t do something stupid, like return after less than at least 12 months.
3. Sell everything that won’t fit into a couple of suitcases…
…or your old bedroom at the parents’ house (Ebay is your friend!)
4. Have one last drink with the mates and get on that plane.
Don’t get morose. Soon you’ll be drinking colder beer in a warmer climate. Warning: Do not get so drunk that you change your mind or miss your plane! Life is about to get really exciting…
5. Work in whatever field you can upon arrival.
And if you can’t do anything else, then be an English teacher. Not qualified? No problem. If you can read this, then you can certainly teach English in Madrid or Barcelona. It’s the law of supply and demand. 😉 Same goes for bar jobs in Spain’s Irish pubs.
6. Get an intercambio language exchange.
Which is a lot like a blind date with an excuse, really helps you to learn Spanish and make friends, and will often lead you to:
7. Marry or move in with him/her.
Warning: do not go out with, marry, or move in with a non-Spaniard. Sooner or later they will screw everything up by trying to take you back to where they came from (risk revising this rule only if they come from somewhere even nicer than Spain).
8. Get the job you always wanted.
Your Spanish is good enough by now, and, more importantly, you have all the enchufes (nepotistic contacts) you need via your new Spanish husband/wife/partner.
9. Sit back, relax, and remember that…
… You did it! ¡Olé! You triumphed where others feared to tread! And it wasn’t really that difficlut, was it?
Still need a bit more inspiration? Why not…
This post was inspired by a writing project at probolgger.net
The UK’s Hay Literary Festival (usually held in Wales) is bringing authors from around the globe to Segovia next week. Both the festival and the town are described very nicely in this week’s Guardian…
Ben chats to Chris at Amateur Traveler about eating, drinking, and wandering around Madrid, plus Ben’s Madrid highlights, and some of the less visited corners of Spain’s capital.
Amateur Traveler page
Direct MP3 link
Plus… Travel Guru Rick Steves has a recent podcast on Spain, featuring an interview with a Madrid-based travel expert, and a member of the tourist board explaining the role of the siesta.
This street, that appeared in our recent photo quiz, is Granada’s Carrera del Darro. For me it’s the highlight of one of the most beautiful walks in Spain. In case you happen to be in Granada one day, and have an hour or two to spare, here’s the route:
Start in the Plaza Nueva, and head north west, through the Plaza Santa Ana, and up the Carrera del Darro. This cobbled street is bordered on one side by the river that gives it its name, the Darro, and on the other by the low houses that mark the border of the old Jewish quarter, the Albaicin. High above the banks of the river on the other side you catch glimpses of the towers of the Alhambra.
Carry on, wandering through the quiet Paseo del Padre Manjon (look at the wonderful house with the palms on the opposite bank!), until you reach the end of this road by the enormous fig tree, and are forced to turn left, uphill, into the Cuesta del Chapiz.
Head on up until you reach the junction with the Camino de Sacromonte. Now this is a very important point to remember. Come back at night and take a right, to find the flamenco cave bars and the extraordinary cave discos, but for now, as it’s daytime, turn left into the Cuesta de San Agustin, and, paying close attention to the map (I hope you brought a map!), wiggle your way across and up to the Plaza de San Nicolas, for breath taking views of the Alhambra Palace framed against the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada. You may want to spend a while up here…
Finally, head straight down through the flower-draped, white-washed lanes of the Albaicin. You don’t need the map for this, just choose whichever alleyway grabs your attention, and let gravity do the rest. Eventually you will come out onto the Carrera del Darro again, and you can make your way back to the Plaza Nueva.
Do let me know if you try it one day…
Head over to the Notes from Spain forum to take part in the latest NFS photo quiz. There are 10 photos from all over Spain, can you name the location and answer the questions?
The photo above is from question 7: It’s the interior wall of a bar, which is located in the Spanish city in the photo. Can you name the city and the river? Good luck!
Frank Gehry has done it again, this time for La Rioja, building a 42 million euro Bilbao Guggenheim look-a-like for Spanish wine producer Marques de Riscal.
Vast purple and silver titanium wings shield the interior from the sun, hiding a 5 star hotel and wine spa (apparently you bathe in the stuff that gave you the hangover that sent you to the spa in the first place…) At anywhere between 300 and 1200 Euros a room, most of us will have to be content with seeing the complex from outside, or, that failing, on low quality youtube videos. So what do you think, a blot on the landscape, or genius contrast of old Spain and the new? More info over at Expatica.com.
Just a quick reminder that all of the Notes in Spanish podcasts are now over at NotesinSpanish.com. There’s a new advanced Spanish podcast out today, and the second intermediate Spanish podcast will follow hot on its heels tomorrow. ¡Hasta pronto!
This weekend we headed deep into the Alpujarras, a mountainous region south of Granada, to interview Chris Stewart, author of Driving Over Lemons, A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, and the Almond Blossom Appreciation Society. After a rather fine lunch overlooking his valley farm, we sat down to discuss topics including:
– The history of the Moors in Spain and the Alpujarras
– The Moorish influence on his lifestyle and farming techniques, including Moorish irrigation techniques
– Olive trees and olive farming around Jaen
– The similarities between the Alpujarra and Morocco
– The writing process
– Moroccan immigration in Spain and El Ejido (a town in Andalusia where many Moroccan immigrants end up working in intensive greenhouse farming).
– The African immigration problem facing Spain now, and the treatment of Moroccan immigrants in Andalusia
– … and finally, a great recipe for Gazpacho!
Hope you enjoy it! Discussion and questions are welcome in the forum.
Notes from Spain by Ben Curtis 