August 16, 2023 Lunch - CimadeVilla Sideria Dinner - Tapas in our apartment
This morning my legs were weak. I suspected because I did not eat dinner. Suzette thought it was because I have been walking 2 miles a day and eating too much salt.
In any event we slowed down today. We cooked breakfast around 9:30. I sliced 1/2 of a white potato, 1/3 of a white onion, a few slices of Iberico cheese, four slices of goat cheese, and two slices of Serrano ham.
Then Suzette made. A lovely omelet and we boiled water and drank camomile tea with honey.
The best part of the breakfast was a buttered slice of baguette spread with the bitter orange marmalade we bought at La Antigua Bakery in Santander.
I have eaten orange marmalade all my life and I have never eaten any better than this Spanish bitter orange marmalade made in Santander.
Then we showered and dressed and I hobbled the 500 feet to the Museum of fine arts of Asturias at the end of Cimadelvilla. After I hobbled around the Museum, which had many beautiful paintings, including a large 1973 Dali, a late Picasso, and a terrific large painting by Joaquin Sorolla of transporting grapes. Sorolla is considered a Master of Light. Transporting Grapes has areas of shade and sunlight that all had a quality of light imbued with an atmospheric component, like a Vermeer painting.
I learned a new word. Sorolla’s work is associated with naturalism, according to the written commentary.
After hobbling through the museum I hobbled back up the street toward our apartment. About halfway back was a restaurant called Cimadelvilla Sideria where I collapsed into the first chair at the first table.
The restaurant has been awarded the prize for the best Cachopa in Spain this year which was encouraging, but following Suzette’s advice to avoid grease and salt, I chose grilled octopus with mashed sweet potatoes and thin slices of Asturias pork blackened in a Kamado grill, which is a type of horno, pizza oven I suspect.
The octopus was very tender and lovely with bits of mashed sweet potato, and lacking any salt orange grease.
For dessert we ordered Arroz con Le he (rice pudding) with a burned sugar crust that was much better than the one at Goya in Santander and even served in a cute little wooden cart.
After lunch we returned to the apartment and Suzette propped me up on the couch with my feet elevated.
She went out on a ramble of exploration to the area including the tourist information office and the market near our house.
I napped until Suzette retuned at 4:30, which revived me. We decided to go out and try to eat at the recommended restaurant Fondin at the Fondin Plaza around the corner from the apartment, but it was closed. So we walked back to the Cathedral Plaza to watch the people in the Plaza. We sat at La Taberna de la Catedral and ordered a bottle of 2021 Do Ferreira Albariño from Rias Baixas, subzone val de Salnes for €22. It was not to our liking because it had a malolactic fermentation flavor, but it definitely was Albariño and therefore very drinkable.
We sat on the side of the plaza in front of the Cathedral from which Willy and the millions of others have left on their 200 mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella on the Camino Primativo during the last 500 years. This is the closest I will ever get to starting the Pilgrimage to Compostella and I was happy that I was no longer hobbling and proud that I saw where Willy started his trek several weeks ago.
At 7:00 we walked across the Plaza to a stage down the street featuring City sponsored summer music and listened to a folk duo for several minutes.
Suzette said she had located a tapas bar up the street so we walked back up Cimadelvilla past our apartment and the clock tower at the end of Cimadelvilla and found no tapa bar but what we found was far better, a supermarket located on the small square where the morning market is located just to the right of Cimadelvilla.
I told Suzette we would create our own tapas and started shopping. I bought a warm baguette, a soft blue cheese called Baby Blu that turned out to be a mild blue brie, Suzette picked out small flat plastic containers of anchovies in vinegar and sardines in oil and finally we went to the wine aisle and bought a bottle of Cava, a bottle of Rioja Reserva red, and a bottle of vermouth. The entire bill was €15.85, less than the single bottle of Albariño we had just shared.
We loaded all the items into our bag and the pockets of my rain jacket and walked back to the apartment and made our own tapas.
I made a cheese board with the new blu brie, plus the wedge of Iberico, the log of goat cheese, and some slices of chorizo we had previously purchased, to which Suzette added slices of pear. On another plate Suzette lay slices of sardines and some anchovies she rinsed and dried to reduce the acidity of the vinegar and two fresh figs sliced.
Suzette poured herself a glass of vermouth over some ice cubes she found in the freezer section of the ice box. I poured a glass of the Ribera de Duero and sliced 1/2 of the fresh warm baguette and we spread out all the food on the table by the window and made our own tapas.
The big success was the vermouth that did not contain wormwood and thus was not bitter and only cost €2.55. The best food buy was the baby Blu blue brie that cost €2.21 and was soft but firm and delicious. The sardines and anchovies were less than €2 each, so we had a magnificent spread of tapas for far less than restaurant food prices
I felt like we were finally eating the way we should be eating; the best quality food more directly from the producers at reasonable prices.
We made cheese and chorizo sandwiches and cheese and sliced fig or pear sandwiches. Suzette, who does not eat much bread, even made a fig and cheese sandwich with a slice of goat cheese between two slices of fig.
It was 9:30 by the time we finished eating and Suzette looked out the window to see the street and Cathedral bathed in lights, a rather magical scene.
We finally achieved what I had hoped for on this trip; good food, good wine, and beautiful sights.
We then watched the highlights of the World Cup semi-final match played today between Australia and England that Australia won 2-0 and a bit of CNN news and went to bed. I guess we will need to find a sports bar for the World Cup final and root for Spain along with the millions of Spaniards around us.
I also realize we are separated from the 24/7 news cycle by 7000 miles and a language and I could not be happier. I can only imagine when the facade of invincibility of Trump and his supporters collapses in the torrent of facts the Fulton County grand jury have amassed, and I could not be happier to not be immersed in that discussion in the U.S. news cycle and stop worrying about whether our democracy will survive Trump and his supporters, who now have been accused of being racketeering criminals.
Bon Appetit
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