Killer Tomatoes

As far as I'm concerned, summer is the only time to eat tomatoes. I never really like them except in sauces the rest of the year - they're often mealy and flavorless and not really worth the trouble.

This year, the entire state of California has experienced a relatively mild summer, which is great from a liveability standpoint (except for those of us in San Francisco who have experienced the foggiest summer in 40 years), but not great from a farmer's standpoint, whether commercial or backyard. Tomato growing has been particularly thwarted. I wonder if the promotional postcard, above, was delayed due to the product's availability?

In June, we planted a backyard garden, including three kinds of lettuce, arugula, tomatoes and basil. The lettuce has done great. The tomatoes, on the other hand, grew into beautiful bushes and then started fungi-ing themselves to death. We had one measly green tomato appear, but ultimately had to just pull the disintegrating bushes without harvesting a single tomato. Even my mom, who grows a variety of beautiful tomatoes in her backyard, has only just started harvesting. In a normal year, she'd be rolling in tomatoes by late July.

Speaking of rolling in tomatoes, the annual Tomatina, Spain tomato fight took place last Wednesday. (See photos here.) For this annual food fight festival, upwards of 40,000 people descend on the town of 9,000 and spend one to two hours throwing 100 tons of mushy tomatoes at each other. It sounds like a blast.

Note to anybody who lives in the Bay Area: If you're looking for killer tomatoes, we discovered a place off 101 in Morgan Hill, Dave's Famous Old Tomatoes. It's worth a visit, if you are so inclined.

El Oso de Madrid

This statue of the bear and the strawberry tree is located in the Plaza Puerto del Sol in Madrid, Spain.  It was never clear to me how or why these two icons combined were symbols of Madrid.

Some claim there used to be lots of bears in the area and the madron (strawberry tree) sounds like the name "Madrid".  More believable is that they are physical representations of the original coat of arms of Madrid.  Check it out here. 

Ernest Hemingway

Second in a short series of writer postcards, short because I only have three.  This postcard of Ernest Hemingway's Florida (Key West) home, was sent to me by Sandy and Duke, at the beginning of their trip throughout the US and Canada.  Sandy is one of my loyal postcard senders, and I'm looking forward to following their adventures through the postcards they send.

Postcard collecting is often serendipitous, as was the case with this one.  As Sandy mentions above, "...I stopped into the museum and they had just found some old postcards."  I love that!  Not clear exactly when this postcard was made, but I'm guessing 60s.  Ernest Hemingway committed suicide in 1961.  By that time, he was living in Idaho, having left Cuba (and Key West?) in 1959.

I thought a lot about Hemingway and his novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, when I was in Spain.  I got the feeling that the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent 40 year (FORTY YEAR!) Franco dictatorship are two things the Spaniards don't really want to talk about much.  Not that I spent a lot of time talking about this with Spaniards, or even asked the questions.  It's just a feeling one gets.

Picasso Museum, Barcelona

While this postcard is not from there, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona was a high point of my recent trip to Spain. The setting itself, located in a medieval palace in the gothic quarter in Barcelona, complete with marble stairs worn in the center of each riser from years of people walking up and down, was spectacular.

What I found most fascinating about this museum was two rooms full of paintings focused on the Velazquez masterpiece "Las Meninas".   From the Wiki, "...(in) 1957, Pablo Picasso painted a series of 58 interpretations of Las Meninas, and figures from it, which currently fill the Las Meninas .... Picasso did not vary the characters within the series, but largely retained the naturalness of the scene; according to the museum, his works constitute an 'exhaustive study of form, rhythm, colour and movement'."   In addition, there was a particularly compelling video juxtaposing the original Velazquez painting with Picasso's work.  As I've never had any training in art history or evaluation, seeing Picasso's interpretations gave me a glimmer of understanding about Picasso's art.   Sophisticated readers may scoff at my school girl's enthusiasm, but I  had just seen "Las Meninas" at the Prado, and was excited to feel my brain learning something new.

Turns out there are seven Picasso-specific museums in the world, two in France, two in Germany and three in Spain, including this one in Barcelona. I have only visited one other - the one in Paris.

Arcos de la Frontera, Spain

The southern part of Spain is replete with sparkling white hill towns, including Arcos de La Frontera, above.  These towns are remnants of the Moorish rule in Spain, and traces of their influence is seen the local architecture.

We stayed in the parador at the top of the hill on the Plaza del Cabildo, although it looks more like a parking lot than a plaza.  You can see a corner of the parador in the postcard  to the left above.  The tower of the Iglesia de Santa Maria in this same postcard can be seen in the postcard to the right, but from a distance.  You can't tell from the picture, but the church and the parador are perched on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the valley.  It is quite beautiful. 

Rick Steves has this to say about Arcos de la Frontera:  ..."the romantic queen of the white towns, Arcos de la Frontera. Towns with "de la Frontera" in their names were established on the front line of the Christians' centuries-long fight to recapture Spain from the Moors."  Another more well known "de la Frontera" town is Jerez de la Frontera, famous as the center of the sherry making region of Spain.

I had not heard of paradores, but the Spanish government saw them as a way to promote tourism and use the funds to help protect the national and artisitic heritage of Spain, and established a this large network of higher end accomodations in castles, palaces, fortresses, convents, monasteries and more throughout the country.  The first one opened in 1928!

Madrid

We were pretty jetlagged when we were in Madrid, and probably didn't get quite as much out of this fabulous city as we might have.  But I loved Madrid - the food was incredible, the plazas vast, clean and entertaining, and the Prado was a delight. 

We had tapas one night with some friends living in Madrid, visiting their two favorite neighborhood places, and every plate was better than the last.  We visited the Mercado de San Miguel for appetizers one evening (where we bought just a bite of caviar at one booth, a couple bite size pieces of different types of cheese at another, and a few paper thin slices of jamon at a third) and had breakfast there again the next morning because we liked it so much.

Perhaps costumed street performers with the express purpose of "surprising" and then posing with tourists for pictures is found throughout Europe these days, but until I wandered the plazas of Madrid (Plaza Mayor, Plaza del Sol or Puerto del Sol) I hadn't seen a table set up with three heads, only one of them real, and/or three men dressed like Neanderthals, all waiting to grab the attention of unsuspecting tourists with movement or loud noises or bad jokes. 

Finally, I am not always a fan of huge museums but I am glad I didn't let that stop me from visiting the Prado.  We didn't explore every room, but made a point of seeking out the Goyas, the El Grecos,  and the Velazquez, especially "Las Meninas", considered by some to be the most perfect painting ever painted.  It was also very cool to see Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" live, after having seen posters and pictures and a variety of other reproductions of it  more than enough times.

Madrid is fantastic, and I hope to go back some day.  Bucket list!

El Rocio, Spain

Spain is a country of festivals and pilgrimages, including "La Tomatina" (the massive, annual, late August ripe tomato fight in Bunol near Valencia - Bucket List!) to the "Camino de Santiago de Compostela" (an on-going pilgrimage route running through the northern part of the country, a postcard of which was posted previously in this blog).

One pilgrimage you may not have heard of is "La Romeria de El Rocio", occurring in the province of Huelva, in the southwesternmost part of the country. It occurs every Pentecost , seven Sundays after Easter.

 While we were not there during the pilgrimage, we did visit the town. What a surprise, after the cobblestone streets and narrow lanes of the Spanish white hill towns.

For most of the year, El Rocio is an empty village, described as "a strange outpost of the Wild West, with wide, sandy streets lined with houses complete with broad verandahs and wooden rails for tying up horses". There might be less than 1000 people living there, the streets empty and wind blown and better suited for four-wheel drive than a compact rental car. However, during the pilgrimage the population swells to 1,000,000 (that's one MILLION) every year.  

It was wild to be there when the town was empty and try to imagine it filled with people.

The pilgrims in groups of "hermandades" or Catholic brotherhoods, travel for up to seven days to reach El Rocio on horseback, in ox-drawn carts, in four-wheel drive vehicles, and dress in the typical dress of historic Andalucia - the men in wide hats and cropped jackets; the women in flamenco dresses, or at least flounced skirts.

It is a huge moveable party, with flamenco singing and dancing, and much wine and frivolity.  When they reach the town, they gather around the chapels of each "hermandade" , and sing and dance and party all night long. While there are streets lines with little houses, there is not even close to enough room for everybody, and mattresses are strewn around the streets, with people sleeping anywhere they can.

The culmination of the celebration is the veneration of the Virgin of El Rocio or La Paloma Blanca ("white dove").  The hermandade which considers itself the protectors of La Paloma Blanca remove her from the church, and parade  her through the streets.  Much commotion ensues as each hermandade grapples to bring the Virgin to their chapel, and other try simply to touch her.  Eventually, she visits all the chapels, is returned to the church and the revelry continues.

By Monday night, the pilgrims are beginning their return voyages home.

Spain, Morocco & Portugal

I'm leaving for a three-week trip to Spain, Morocco and Portugal tomorrow, and don't know if I'll be able to post any postcards.  I'll be collecting some and mailing others, but access to a scanner might be a challenge.

If any of you postcard people are interested in receiving a postcard, let me know your addresses, and I'll make every effort to send you one.

I suppose I'll have to make up the non-posting days, in keeping with my commitment to post a postcard a day for a  year, but I'm not complaining.  Can't wait to go!

Camino de Santiago, Galicia, Spain

The Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, has been a pilgrimage route for a thousand years, or more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_St._James

I'd never heard of this before, but it's now appeared on my radar twice in the last 6 weeks or so. My friend, Jim who sent the card, is walking the route (or at least part of it) and my friend, Tim, spoke of it after his return from Spain for a wine research trip. Trend or coincidence? It remains to be seen.

In any case, it does appear to be a trendy quasi spiritual vacation and respite from modern life. I've always wanted to do so some sort of walking trip in Europe (Scotland? France? Italy?), so perhaps this could be an interesting alternative.