Enjoying a leisurely lunch

Lunch should be long and leisurely not rushed. The people who live around the Mediterranean have always appreciated this and in Cartagena the long lunch is still thriving.

A few days ago we enjoyed a lunch at the Café Marin, in Calle Angel Bruno, where the cooking was great and the waitress, Catie, was so friendly that we felt as if we were eating in someone’s home. The Café Marin is in the Ensanche district, which was formerly the giant lagoon that protected the back of ancient Cartagena. This was filled in during the early 20th century and is now a popular residential area.

We arrived some time after 1pm and Catie pushed two tables on the pavement, or sidewalk, together so that there was plenty of room for Sharon in her wheelchair. Being virtuous, water, fizzy and still, was ordered rather than wine and the menu was explained. Waitresses and waiters in Cartagena have fantastic memories and they give details of everything on offer and answer all questions.

Sharon decided to have pollo asado, which is oven-roast chicken, and I chose albondigas, which is the traditional meatball dish of Spain. The world albondigas is derived from the Arabic word “bunduqah”, with “al” meaning “the.” Our friend Graham also had the meatballs and his wife, Liz, chose paella.

First to arrive was a huge salad, with lovely fresh tomatoes, lettuce and olives, together with a big basket of fresh bread. We tucked in.

Then the main courses arrived and they were all fantastic. Sharon´s chicken was mouth-wateringly tender and served with oven-roast potatoes and juices from the pan. The albondigas were delicious and served as a kind of stew dotted with little cubes of roast potato. The paella was rich with the colour of saffron and Catie brought a fresh lemon for Liz to squeeze over.

Full to bursting, we all agreed we could not eat any more. But, then Catie insisted that the inside of the café be inspected. In fact, Café Marin is not just a café, but a bakery and patisserie as well and the shop is full of fantastically tempting treats. We ordered a plate of small sweet delicacies, a couple of big glazed strawberry tarts and an apple flan, which were brought out to the table. Everything disappeared in a very short time. Another specialty of Café Marin is the take-away meals that are very popular with the locals who call in a constant stream to pick up something tasty for lunch or dinner.

We can´t remember what time we finished lunch, enjoying coffees, of course, after the desserts had disappeared. Who cares? That´s how lunch should be.

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A real Spanish salad

Sharon says: “Sometimes people ask me how I know so much about Spanish food. I have to say it is because the thing I am most famous for is talking. And I talk to just about anybody and everybody I meet.

“People who know me will know this.

“This morning I was in the great El Corte Ingles department store in Cartagena to pick up my bits and bobs. I like to go there because there disabled parking underground right next to the automatic door entrance. There is also a Post Office. And there is no siesta. The café is excellent and the staff is always very helpful. There are fantastic toilets and the place is always clean. Just like department stores should be.

“Anyway, I was in there this morning buying some stationery and I got talking to Rosa who was serving me. She is a food expert and loves the country food of Murcia. She is originally from Águilas which is down the Murcia coast to the south and is famous for its seafood.

“Rosa told me about a great way to make roasted vegetable salad. Take a big oven tray and fill it with aubergines, red and green peppers, tomatoes and plenty of chopped garlic. Roast it all in the oven, take out and let it all cool down. Take the skins off and arrange on a serving dish before sprinkling with olive oil.

“So, of course, I am all set to try this at the weekend. Bear in mind this could be served as a starter or a side dish with a main meal.”

What nice people you meet in El Corte Ingles.

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Beautiful bread

The baker in our village has been there for decades and he says it is the only place in Europe that proper bread can be baked. Go a few miles north or south and the weather and conditions are hopeless for good baking.

A big old oven is used and the loaves go in on special long-handled wooden shovels to be baked to perfection. The bread is sold all around the Campo by little vans but it was only on returning after our break that we found that the baker has opened a shop.

The place is beautifully decorated, with images of the tools of baking and the oven itself on the walls and when Sharon popped in for a look around today she found a steady stream of customers. As well as bread there were savoury pastries, or empanadas, and a selection of cream-filled treats.

On asking what round baked circles of pastry were, she was told that this was the same pastry that is folded over to make empanadas. Apparently, it is broken up with the fingers and eaten like crisps. “It´s great with cold beer,” said a lady customer.

Sharon chose a huge round loaf which was still warm from the oven and hunks went very well with our home-made chicken soup lunch.

“The other thing I treated myself to was a bagful of freshly-baked mini-croissants that are stuffed full of chocolate,” said Sharon. “They are delicious. What a treat.”

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©Phillip Bruce. www.sharonskitchenworld.blogspot.com

Where did apples come from?

Sharon continues to enjoy the apples from the little tree in her huerta, or kitchen garden. These apples, like all apples, are probably descended from the wild mountains of Tian Shan, or “Heavenly Mountains”, which straddle Kazakhstan and China.

That seems a very long way from Sharon´s small garden but Oxford University researchers claim that study of the DNA of British apples, such as Granny Smith and Cox´s Orange Pippins, confirms the theory that the first edible sweet apples on earth grew in the Tian Shan mountains, at heights of more than 6,000 feet, or 2,000 meters.

Biologist Barry Juniper, says that descendant trees of the “Garden of Eden” fruit are still growing on the high mountainsides, although they are threatened by modern development. Apparently, the DNA discovery has surprised the experts. They had thought that apples were hybrids of different fruits. Bears were thought to have assisted their spread as they love eating sweet, ripe fruit. The resulting waste products spread the seeds widely. The first cultivated fruit orchards were set up around the Persian Gulf and later soldiers of the Roman legions brought apples to Europe.

Cartagena was a Roman city for many hundreds of years and Sharon says she is now going to tell everyone that the ancestors of her little tree arrived with a legionnaire.

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Battered apples very tasty

The rain has swelled the apples in Sharon´s front garden. These apples grow on a small tree of unknown origin and although they don´t grow very big they are delicious.

We haven´t given the tree any fertilizer or sprayed it so the fruit counts as 100 per cent organic. The apples have to be shared with the birds and bugs but there are usually enough left for us to enjoy. With the heavy rain, many had fallen to the ground and when things dried up a bit we went out and scooped them up. Careful peeling and cutting was required but the end result was a pan of delicious stewed apples.

Delicious natural fruit doesn´t look like the perfect factory farm specimens in the supermarket but our apples are sweet and juicy. “I´m more than happy,” said Sharon as she tucked into a plate of the stewed apples with fat raisins.

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Sharon the rain maker

Sharon has had a wet summer in Scotland and she has brought the rain back with her to the Campo.

“Everybody in Spain asked me to bring back some rain with me. But I never intended to bring back the rain that we have experienced in the past few days. In all the seven years I have lived here I have never known anything like it,” said Sharon.

Between September 12 and Monday, nearly half the annual rainfall for the region has fallen. In the Cartagena area, the downpour amounted to 264 liters per square meter and to get an idea of just how much that is, think of the big two-liter bottles of Coke or Fanta. So, 132 bottles worth have fallen for each little patch of land. Last year the total rainfall in Cartagena was only 600 liters.

“No wonder they had to call the army out,” said Sharon. The soldiers helped in rescue operations, including of children trapped on a school bus by the downpour. The impact over at Los Alcázares was particularly severe with two ramblas turning into raging rivers. Ramblas are river beds that are normally bone-dry. The area around Eroski, Cartagena, was deeply flooded. Residents of a Polaris World development were taken to a hotel for safety.

At Puerto de Mazarrón, which is built on a low-lying patch of sand by the sea, the rain flooded the town and the normally quiet rambla near El Alamilo was turned into a torrent. See the photo taken by our friend Viv who lives nearby. The Cartagena suburb of Los Dolores was particularly badly affected, with a rambla there filling to the brim and considerable flooding. One Campo resident said he had never seen the rambla near his house, which isn´t too far from our own home, so high. He even took a fishing rod down but that turned out to be a little to hopeful.

Normal service is resumed

Normal service is resumed

I have been away in Scotland over the summer enjoying plenty of cakes and fine food but now I am back in Spain and will start writing my blog again.

I have been staying with my family and seeing my children which was great. The Scottish weather did its best to keep me fit and alert with fresh winds and plenty of rain, even though it was August. Mind you, I have arrived back in the Campo to the worst downpours I can ever remember. There has been dramatic thunder and lightening for the past few days and the track outside my house looks like a little river. All my Spanish friends asked me to bring some wet weather with me when I came back so I have done as I was told and I hope their fields are doing nicely like mine are.

One of my first stops on getting back was the local bodega, to stock up for my first lot of dinner guests. I bought five liters of Jumilla red, one liter of sherry, one liter of port, a liter of proper Gordon´s gin, a dozen Schweppes tonics, and a jar of bandarilla pickles on sticks. The whole lot only cost a little over 30 euros. When I asked for port, the man said: “How much do you want?” I said “One liter.” He said: “Oh, just for sampling then.” No one buys just one liter, which is, in fact, equal to one and a half normal bottles. My guests said the port was lovely so perhaps I will buy five liters next time and restore my reputation.

We enjoyed a hearty meal which began with gazpacho, served with olive-oil bread and home made garlic and parsley butter. Then we moved onto beef in Oyster Stout, with dumplings, served with huge baked potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes and buttered cabbage. The pudding was lemon posset – my sister Deborah having given me her special recipe.

Here´s how to make the posset, which is best prepared the day before needed. Ingredients: One and a half pints of cream, double cream if you can get it but we just used ordinary. One and a half pints is just under one and three quarters of a liter. Eight ounces of caster sugar, the juice of four lemons and the grated zest of two lemons. Put the cream into a pan over a low heat and stir the sugar until dissolved. Then bring to the boil, constantly stirring. Boil, still stirring, for one minute. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Then add the strained juice and the zest. Put into individual dishes or a big bowl and chill in the fridge.

I think we overdid the lemon zest as it was rather sharp, so you might want to cut down on this. Anyway, everyone enjoyed the posset which was perfect after a heavy casserole.

Not knowing how to spell posset, we looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary which said: “A drink composed of hot milk curdled with ale, wine, or other liquour, often with sugar spices, etc.; formerly much used as a delicacy, and a remedy for colds etc.”

If anyone is reading this, hullo. Drop me an email – raxomnium@gmail.com

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