Early October, and the fields are beginning to show it. Colors have started to turn from green to shades of yellow and golden brown, leaves are drying, and corn stalks look as if ready to crumble under the hands of a giant. And yet, we have been enjoying summer temperatures. I’m not kidding you! This week we’ve been enjoying (more…)
I have to warn you about this post: if fish is not your thing, particularly the way it comes out of the sea, then stop right here. Don’t keep reading. Don’t scroll down. The images might hurt your sensibility.
I once had a colleague, my counterpart in England (in a previous “life” I used to work in Madrid for a British (more…)
I don’t know about you, but I am finding it hard to focus on autumn recipes, fall products and produce. Today I did my first trip to the pumpkin farm. It was supposed to be my only trip to the pumpkin farm this season, but as it turned out, today was my first of at least two. See, the farm was still closed to the public! I should have been surprised, (more…)
I was hesitant to post the recipe for tomato and onion salad with olives, because honestly, it can’t really be called a recipe. After all, I’m just slicing and tossing together ingredients, there’s no elbow grease, not much elaboration, and the key is in the ingredients, which have to be of the best quality. But when I think about salads in general, (more…)
I don’t know about you, but when it’s hot outside, and still summer, I don’t feel like having heavy desserts, like anything chocolate, or cakes, and the like. Don’t get me wrong, I love those almost at any time of year and any time of day! But my body asks for something fresh, cold even, fruit, or fruity desserts, or ice cream. However, (more…)
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I associate potatoes more with fall and winter than with summer. When I think of potatoes, I imagine some deliciously roasted chunks, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with rosemary, baked to perfection, with a soft, moist inside and a somewhat crusty outside. And yet, potatoes appear in salads all through the summer, from (more…)
Beach, rice, and seafood, go hand in hand in my mind. It is the feeling of summer, the taste of it, what I remember and what I live and experience every summer in Spain.
Another summer constant is that my mom is the main cook. It’s her house, the one we grew up in, the place where (more…)
I remember vividly my brother-in-law Jorge’s comments on his first visit to our house in Indiana a number of years ago. It was with the occasion of a very American ritual: the barbecue. Jorge, a veterinarian turned the purchasing director at the meat department of a large Spanish supermarket chain, and who, since the last couple of years (more…)
I’m writing this as I’ve just sat down, trying to catch my breath after the hike to la ermita de Santa Lucía, Saint Lucia chapel in Alcocebre, Spain. The breathlessness is real, as the hike is a steep one, trying to navigate rocks, some of them part of a glacier plateau, and bushes of wild rosemary and the many other varieties of wild herbs and low Mediterranean pine trees (more…)
If there’s a dessert that prominently features in our menu during our summers in Spain, it is my sister Susana’s lemon ice cream. She makes an amazing one, everyone’s favorite, and for the most part, with lemons from the property. I’ve talked about El Taroncheral before (click here), the place that probably holds (more…)
