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The Royal Cougar

In the United States, Hollywood is the closest thing to royalty; but in Spain, we have actual royals to obsess over.  Most of the time, the Spanish royal family behaves properly. They wear lovely, conservative clothing, they cut ribbons, somberly attend funerals, mingle with other Spanish nobility and generally act regally in front of their subjects. Sometimes, a princess has her nose altered ever so slightly. Or, there's a scandal when it's revealed that this same Princess had a bit of a "past" before marrying the Prince, but generally, the Spanish Royal Family behaves well.

The one big exception to the rule: Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart y DeSilva, the 18th Duchess of Alba.  According to the Guiness Book of World Records, she holds more titles than any other royal in the world, including the Queen of England. At times, it seems, her picture is on the cover of almost every magazine in Spain. Framing her unforgettable, wrinkle-free 83 year-old face, is her signature, white, fluffy mane of hair.  Preferring bohemian garb, she typically wears colorful clothing, dozens of ankle bracelets, necklaces and other bohemian trinkets, eschewing the designer labels.

Some call her one of the most loved celebrities in Spain.

Her bohemian fashion sense seems to be in keeping with her philosophy about life. Always a free spirit, she consoled herself by marrying a Jesuit Priest after her first husband died.  Sometime after her second husband died, she became involved with Alfonso Diez Carabantes, 24 years her junior.  When it was revealed that the Duchess would marry him, the royal family and Cayetana's six children had to step in and put a stop to their secret plan. A couple years ago, The Duchess had a shunt in her head and was in a wheelchair recovering from a serious illness.  But the thought of putting on her Pucci inspired bathing suit and frolicking on the beach with her boyfriend, must have gotten her back on her feet, surfing the waves.

Recently, she confided that "el crisis economique" has affected her too.  It takes mucho dinero to guard her spectacular art collection of Goyas and Velazquezes and to maintain many palatial estates, so she's watching her euros. And she's having fun.  She has the voice of a kitten...




But she's a royal cougar.

Hemingway's Madrid

“In Madrid on cold nights you can drink sherry brandy and go to bed. To go to bed early at night in Madrid marks you as a little queer. For a long time your friends will feel a little uncomfortable about it.

Nobody goes to bed in Madrid until they have killed the night. Appointments with a friend are habitually made for after midnight at the earliest. In no other town that I have ever lived in is there less going to bed for sleeping purposes.”  -Ernest Hemingway Happy Friday!

Best Dinner Ever (For Foodies)

Another meal, another 3 star Michelin tasting menu -- this time it's dinner at the famed Restaurante Martin Berasategui (#33 in the San Pellegrino world's 50 Best Restaurants), just outside of San Sebastian in Gipuzkoa.  Having just finished lunch at Arzak (#8 on the list), we're still pretty full.

Chip and I totter into this elegant restaurant, pleased by the lit garden walkway, the high ceilings and the floor to ceiling glass vistas to the garden.  We're greeted by a lovely, English-speaking maitre d' and after intense debate, we place our orders and the first courses arrive.

See this fork?  It's normal size.  The asparagus is mini.  According to the chef, it took 10 people to make this mini salad of vegetables in gelatin!

That's only the start to a parade of teeny-tiny food courses, mystery foods and courses that come with instructions and warnings.  We're advised by a white gloved waiter not to bite down on our black squid ink ball until our mouths are fully closed.  One of us didn't follow directions at lunch and spewed orange liquid onto the tablecloth. I'm alarmed. Is this literally one of a squid's balls?  Is it literally filled with ink?  Will my teeth be black if I smile afterwards?  I imagine someone milking a little squid teat somehow, to get the ink out.  I resist the urge to hurl my mini salad, batten the hatches and swallow something I don't want to ponder further, and it's, actually, quite good!

C. and I discuss many controversial topics, like: was that a grape skin filled with chocolate or a chocolate jello ball we ate for lunch?  We debate whether or not we've eaten our weekly caloric intake in this one meal.  Is this a ball 'o some'um or some'um else?  Clam or mussel? Morel or truffle? What exactly is a sweetbread? Blissfully unaware that the top chefs in the world spend years studying the chemistry of coagulation and molecular gastronomy, we struggle with how to classify certain items -- animal vegetable or mineral.

Martin himself appears from the kitchen and greets us.  We take pictures, he signs the menu and we're invited into the kitchen.  What a place! Seeing the group of men and women in their flawless white aprons and toques prepare the last courses of the evening brings a tiny tear to my eye.  Here stand the very people have toiled over my mini meals, carved and poached my mini asparagus, and possibly, milked my squid.

Back at the table, the mini desserts keep coming and the cholesterol keeps building until we're like a couple of wax figures with mechanical elbows.  Conversation devolves. Will the children pass any of their classes?  Will they forgive us? Will we learn Spanish?  Soon, all I really want is to brush my teeth and go to bed.  Please! No more chocolate, I'm thinking.  Finally, the courses stop coming and I dart into the ladies room on the way out and there is the proverbial icing on the cake: mini toothbrushes and toothpaste!  Promising not to eat anything that isn't super healthy for the next 2 weeks, I grab a toothbrush and my husband, and we collapse into the back of a cab hoping that the cab driver will understand our pronunciation.

Best Lunch Ever! (For Foodies)

Really, if you're happy with Burger King, don't waste your time on this post.  Re-watch Tina's video; you'll have more fun.

I, on the other hand, come from a family that spent every breakfast deciding what we'd eat for lunch and dinner.  Food is in my blood; it's past of my family heritage.  My father is a fantastic cook of mostly quirky Asian food (sea urchin delicacies, etc.), but he can make anything.  My Grandparents were all gourmet cooks and bakers and my Paternal Grandfather was the Director of Nabisco Labs way back when.  After Dad and Mom split, he with his wok, and Mom remarried, we were a motley mix of half, step and full siblings with a mother who was much more successful in the business world than in the kitchen. (I emphasize MUCH.)  Consequently, we ate at restaurants most nights, where we talked about, yep, the food.

So here I am in San Sebastian, a city that, according to The Lonely Planet Guide,  has more restaurants with Michelin Stars than Paris! (Actually a quick fact check on the Michelin website seems to prove that that's not the case, but whatever.) We only have a couple of days here and one of them has already been, ahem, frittered away with Jacques-oh-lee, so that leaves us with one day.  We throw caution to the wind and decide to eat at 2 different 3-star Michelin restaurants in one day!  What the heck!  We get the tasting menu -- that's 20 or more (!) courses of food -- all within 10 hours!

Friends tell us we can't miss Arzak, a restaurant run by a father/daughter chef team.  We can´t get dinner reservations, but we manage to score for lunch.  A stucco flat-front building with an awning just three feet from the roadway, the place is nothing to look at from the outside, but inside is different.  Actually, it's not that much different, but it's kind of sleek with shaped-cement walls inlaid with impressions of forks and spoons.  Subdued, gray tones and fine linens give the impression that we could be in fancy cave in Manhattan or Paris.   Before we know it, small plates of delicacies are being brought to our table four at a time.  We sample fried lotus root chips held together like a teepee by a fish cream in the middle, tiny shish kabobs of seafood with, what looks like spun sugar around them, but isn´t.  Thin disks of fig are served crispy with a sliver of Foie gras and tiny pommegranite seeds -- heaven.

(No earthly idea what that is, pictured above, but it has a liquid middle.)

We discuss the proposed health care plan and other worldly matters most of the time, then spend inordinate amounts of time debating what we just swallowed.  We love food alot, but are squeem-ish about a few things.  Asking for clarification in Spanish doesn't help, so some of the questionable things get washed down our gullets with some other good things.  Sometimes we eat a bite of something, like this foamy chip below, and find out that it's our vegetable -- eggplant!

Hours later, having eaten some of the best food ever and having solved all the world's problems, except for how to make the dollar go a bit farther against the euro, we emerge from our sleek gray cave back into the sunlight, blinking like a couple of moles, wondering why Europeans think that all Americans are obese.

If you see this woman, run!

I haven't posted much lately because I've been a binge -- a glutinous foodie binge -- through San Sebastian on the Northern coastal border of Spain.

San Sebastian is one of the most beautiful small cities I've ever seen. Where else will you find a delightful grid of narrow cobblestone streets, filled with charming shops and fantastic restaurants, next to some of the finest beaches in Europe? As one guide book put it: It's impossible to lay eyes on San Sebastian and not fall madly in love!  One reason people feel the love is that the city is known to have the best pintxos, a variety of small appetizers, in the world.  Most pintxos are composed of a slice of bread with some delicious concoction on top.   Eating pintxos is accomplished by dropping into the bar that looks best to you, and choosing from a vast "buffet" of treats laid out on the bar.   Check this out:

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Just one thing to be aware of: a little drink called Txacoli (Jacques-oh-Lee).  This regional "wine" looks, to the untrained eye, like a cava or a champagne and tastes somewhat like Pinot Grigio.  Watching it be poured -- just one or two stingy inches -- into a rocks glass, is entertainment in itself.  The bartender takes the bottle up high and leaves the glass on the bar.  This is what she looks like:

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Sometimes she yells: Txacoli!

One can easily wonder what all the fuss is about for such a tiny glass of wine.  One can easily order two more tiny glasses while eating some of the best appetizers ever on the planet!  And, I've heard, one can even find herself face down on her bed with her shoes on in the late afternoon wondering what the heck happened...I'm just saying.

Speed Friend-ing

You know speed dating: 5 minutes at a table with a stranger blurting out your deepest secrets before the bell rings and you move to the next table? At the end of the hour, you decide which guys you want to see again, right? That can be what it's like to move to a foreign country and make new friends -- if you're using the Streator Moving Method, that is.  Ms. KK Streator, who has moved many times in her life and can barely touch foot in an outpost of Tanzania without running into an old friend or roommate from Brown, has very specific ideas about moving.

Thanks to this friend, I came to Madrid armed with tips about how to make friends.  She knows very, very well that I can amuse myself happily for months without another human being.  She doesn't think that's healthy.  She warns me: you must be the one to make the effort!  She chides me: people already have a life with their own friends, you have to be the one to make it happen.  Apparently the days of the welcome wagon are behind us.  Now, new city dwellers, it's up to us to send up a flare and let others know how lucky they are to have us darkening their doorways.  KK says we can do this by collecting lists of contacts from our real friends and following through with friends of friends (FOFs) once we arrive.  We can host endless dinner parties, join endless clubs, take tours, join museum groups, take Flamenco lessons, learn to make tapas, call our mother's old garden club friends and see if they're still living... God, I'm tired.

So, I started with the Streator Moving Method months ago.  I made spreadsheets, I called, emailed and invited the FOFs!  Several times, I mistook one FOF's kid for another, or paired the wrong husband with the wrong wife.  I thought one FOF was a friend of Jeanne's from college when he was really someone's old boyfriend's friend.  Soon, I'm introduced to friends of FOFs and now there's a whole new level -- FOFOFs. Geez!  Do you see how confusing this is?  And it's coinciding with the period when I'm trying to learn Spanish and blurting out some long forgotten French words and calling my children by my dog's name.

But guess what?  The Streator method works!  I've done my speed-friending and I'm enjoying an occasional lunch here and dinner there with some really great people and just when Chip worries that I'm becoming way too attached to my computer, I announce that I'm headed to the museum with so and so, the one who does such and such...unfortunately, I can't remember her name.

Apropos absolutely nothin'

Sometimes when you move to a new country you find yourself with some extra time on your hands. You can't talk to your old friends, you don't have that many new ones, you don't know the language in the new country and since nothing really works, except for the internet, intermittently, you find yourself trolling a lot.  And sometimes, when you're stressed, you enjoy a tidbit like this that makes you laugh.

Keep It Short

If you plan on calling me, just know that there's a 98% chance that we'll be disconnected after a minute or two.

The electricity cuts off approximately 2 dozen times a day leaving us with the impression, sometimes, that we live in a very beautiful part of Beruit.  The electrical company says that the apartment may not be wired to handle the amount of electricity that we need to live in the apartment....did you get that?  Luckily, there is a way to "open a case", to test whether the apartment is fit to live in, electrically speaking... It will take several months, but in Spanish terms, that's the blink of an eye.

The following is a sample conversation that I've had many times recently:

Delora: Hi, how are you?  I'm so sorry that we got cut off earlier!

Friend:  No problem. What a pain in the #$@ though!  Everytime I call you we get disconnected.

Delora: Yeah, it's really a drag.  So quick, how are you?  Silence...

Lately, I haven't even been able to enjoy these short conversations. Why?  Because of a nice little monopoly called TELEFONICA.  Telefonica reminds me of the ATT monopoly in the US about 25 years ago.  Although our local phone service has been out for 8 days, and we're on the EMERGENCY list, it will take between 8-15 days until the technician will be able to make it to our house. Telefonica provides our landline service and our cable service.  Just one glitch: when you plug in the phones, it blows out the line.  Oops.  And the microfilters that they suggest you buy to keep from blowing out the line?  They don't work either.

Watch your back, César Alierta, Executive Chairman of Telefonica.  There's a new cowboy in town gunning for your job.  He's a man of few words, but he's customer-oriented, focused on service and highly intelligent.  From what I've seen, there's no way he couldn't do a better job.  Here he is:

Thundér Pérkins,  future Executive Chairman of Telefonica

Shopping Sleuth

Millions visit the city of Madrid to see the traditional tourist attractions -- the exquisite museums, the gorgeous architecture, the open air markets, the Flamenco dancers and the bullfights, among other things.  Not so for my friend Taylor, who makes her first visit to Madrid to decipher the grocery market.


Being the gem that she is, she spends her first full day here accompanying me to Él Corte Ingles. A store the size of Minneapolis, our version of Bloomingdales houses a giant supermarket in its basement. Entering the store, Tay puts on her game face.  Gone are any visible signs of jet lag. Instead, this bright-eyed woman capable of heading a G7 conference takes in the scene. She scans my shopping list, scrap paper, used as a general guide, something to remind us we're out of milk. She chastises me gently: you haven't grouped the like items together. 


We start in the produce department, where I've been yelled at twice these past weeks for touching the peaches and pears. Only the fruit picker, a woman who stands on a raised platform with the fruit bins around her, is allowed to touch. After ordering our fruit, Tay decides that our best strategy is to divide and conquer.  We're looking for items for a specific recipe. She offeres to search for Sherry, something I've been trying to find for 6 1/2 weeks.  When she returns, victorious, 10 minutes later, she is amazed that I'm still in produce. (See annoyingly chipper photo with Sherry -held like a trophy - below.) She shrugs and tells me that this place isn't too different from the Stop & Shop back home. Again, she tells me gently, if I had grouped the items on the list...

Next we pick up eggs.  Oddly, (to Tay anyway), they're not refrigerated.  Are they usually, I ask? This tips her off to the fact that I don't have a clue about groceries in any country. She's irked that she can't check the eggs to see if they're broken because they're wrapped in a protective sleeve (BTW, all six were broken in one of the packs we bought). Milk and juice aren't refrigerated either, I point out.  This, she explains patiently, is because I'm buying ultra, ultra pasteurized milk. Unwittingly, we've been drinking the stuff that comes in cartons in the US and is used in fall-out shelters from Chernobyl to Secaucus.  An hour later, when we're still near produce trying to find unsalted cashews, she concedes that sometimes, even she makes substitutions.  We grab the salted nuts.


Next we hit the meat department where, with her beginner's luck, she points to a package with a hen on it.  There's the chicken!  Moments later, she staggers backwards clutching her heart after seeing a small purple chicken fetus with eyes staring back at her from a package. We're not in Kansas anymore.

I mean really, where's the pig leg (with hoof) aisle in Westport, Miss smarty pants?

This entire counter, almost a 1/4 mile, is full of cheeses.  And it's only one of THREE places you can buy cheese in this store:


Let's just say that, after a couple hours in the store, Taylor's eyes start to glaze over a bit. When two Él Corte Ingles employees can't tell us where the tea aisle is, we agree to leave without a few items. Leaving cornstarch, Earl Grey tea, dried cherries and frozen waffles (are there frozen waffles in Spain?) behind, we happily leave the food maze.


Eating, resting for the afternoon, and enjoying an early evening glass of Rioja allow us to better assess the shopping issues. Here's what we Taylor identifies:

1. Some items can be found in several sections of the market -- creating confusion.  Olive oil, for example, is found in: "Products from Andalucia", the sale aisle, the "olive oil" aisle AND the other oil aisle.  No such thing as one long aisle that is filled with oils. Nuts can be found in produce, nuts, specialty items and sales...you see the problem?  People like me, who have a rare form of shopper's Alzheimer's end up seeing the nuts and saying, oh yeah, I need nuts!  I end up with 3 or 4 packs when I'm unloading the bags at home.
2. MINI AISLES -- the worst thing ever!  I never thought twice about the long cereal aisle or canned vegetable aisle back home, but here, I long for them! It's like a cruel game of concentration to find anything. Why? because little areas hold food unrelated to the food in the next mini aisle.  So cereal is one place, but cereal bars? God only knows where...
3. Taylor suggests using the signs, high up and in Spanish, to guide me.  Um, did I mention I don't know Spanish.

Él Corte Ingles- take notice - you need organizational help! Tay might just be the woman for the job. 

Language "Barrier"

I drank the Berlitz Kool Aid.  I believed that if I applied myself for 2 and a half hours a day, twice a week, for 4 months this past Spring, that I would be passably fluent in Spanish by the time we moved here.  Chip figured he'd just absorb the language when we arrived.

We've been here almost 2 months and are just now becoming proficient at stating our address to cab drivers. (We do have a tough address.)  We hid in our apartment for a few weeks after realizing how dire the situation was, venturing out only with the help of our interpreter.  Unfortunately, she has a life and refuses to accompany us 24/7, so now we're out there on our own sometimes.

Bravely, Chip walks to the "la farmacia" in search of Advil.  No such thing, so he tries the generic name of Ibuprofin.  He even throws in a little spanish accent for good measure.  The lady behind the counter finally seems to understand and puts a small white box on the counter.  Chip looks down and tries to tell her that he wants the giant size bottle.  "Mas grande -- mas, mas grande!" Holding his hands wide apart, he indicates the huge economy size bottle he's looking for.  She's embarrassed for him and gives him a quizzical look.  She stares directly at his torso, before going behind the counter to retrieve another box of the same size.  Chip recognizes the "XL" on the new box, picks it up, and realizes for the first time that she's given him a box of condoms.

In this country, famous for its Latin lovers, does he admit, he really didn't need want the XL box of condoms and then try for the Advil, or does he take the XL's and go elsewhere in search of pain medication?