I don’t normally hang out with scoundrels, scallywags, or stone-cold killers, but every once in a while I find myself among a genuinely dangerous crowd. And it’s about to happen again. So this week, to prepare my soul and psyche for a walk on the wild side (more on that in a minute), I decided to have lunch in a place I’d once had drinks with multiple murderers. It all started innocently enough one midnight in Seville, when a friend suggested we stop for a nightcap at a bar with “a special atmosphere.” Bar Plata was charmingly old-school, with exquisite tiles and dark, polished wood. Large windows overlooked the city's ancient north gate, walls built by Julius Caesar’s boys, and the Macarena church, said to be a hotbed of Opus Dei (the zealots you may recall from The DaVinci Code). There was no one around but the bartender. We ordered a drinks and had just settled at a small, marble-topped table when the door opened and a handful of young men strolled in. My friend glanced at the tallest of them and gasped. "That's Farruquito!” Farroquito was 22 and the most celebrated flamenco dancer of his generation. He was about to go on trial for killing a man in a hit-and-run; no one believed his claims that his kid brother was driving. The young men gathered in the back corner, chatting quietly, occasionally breaking into fragments of song, tapping out rhythms with palms and boot heels. The door opened again. In walked a dozen lean, hard-bitten, cold-eyed men and women. They took over the front part of the bar, talking in harsh whispers, eyes darting ceaselessly around the room. I might not recognize Farruquito at a glance, but even I could tell these were Russian mafia. From the enforcement division. Trying to look casual, my friends and I hastily finished our drinks, murmuring to one another, “Well, this has been lovely but it’s getting late ... perhaps we should ...” Once safely outside, I said, “You were right. That bar really did have a special atmosphere.” Our night at Bar Plata has been on my mind lately because I expect to find myself outside of my comfort zone again very soon. A week from today I’m leaving Seville to spend some months in my native northern California, and when I mention this to people, I find I’m getting a rather worrying response. All my life people have said, “San Francisco? Boy, are you lucky!” Now people look away and murmur, “So sorry for your loss.” OK, sure, the city’s been in a bit of an uproar lately. But San Francisco has always existed in a state of upheaval punctuated by periods of outright pandemonium. The gold rush. The 1906 earthquake. Alcatraz. Rosie the Riveter in the WWII shipyards. The Summer of Love. The Zodiac Killer. Patty Hearst’s kidnapping. The Jonestown mass murder-suicide. LGBTQ pride and the assassination of Harvey Milk. HIV-AIDS. The 1989 earthquake. Dot coms. Airbnb. Twitter. Uber. Waymo’s driverless taxis. Marketing experts have spent staggering amounts of public funds trying to convince tourists that San Francisco is all about Instagrammable leisure. Ads tout great weather, gourmet cuisine, and gorgeous scenery enlivened by a scattering of colorful characters — the perfect backdrop for vacation selfies guaranteed to arouse the envy of your social media contacts. The reality is that in summer’s high season (meaning the tourist influx, not a rise in street drugs), the fog rolls in, the air is cold and damp, hypothermia threatens the lightly clad, and those famous views are often invisible. Yes, the food is wonderful, but the prices are hard to swallow, especially when you’re washing them down with wine at $17 or $25 a glass. And while colorful characters abound, not all of them are remotely picturesque. But San Francisco is not about Instagrammable leisure. It’s always been a place for throwing yourself headlong into ripsnorting adventures, risking everything to build a better, more exciting future. Betty Soskin, who worked in our WWII shipyards, said the unprecedented racial and gender diversity of that massive workforce “accelerated the rate of social change, so that to this day it still radiates out of the Bay Area into the rest of the nation. It’s where the visionaries come to find constituents for their wildest dreams.” The very ground the city’s built on attests to that. In 1849, when the word “gold” hit the headlines, every rogue and fortune hunter with a ship sailed to San Francisco. “The 49ers, as they came to be called, ditched their ships in the bay and hightailed it inland in hopes of striking it rich,” wrote SF crime columnist Bob Calhoun. “Many of the ships were sunk near the shore, covered in sludge, and used to form the highly unstable landfill that the 58-story Millennium Tower is sinking into today.” Nicknamed the Leaning Tower, the billionaire’s dream-home-turned-nightmare was finally shored up in 2023. Due to cost constraints, the original plan to install 52 new supports was scaled down to 18. Which isn’t worrying at all. Like Millennium Tower, San Francisco is always said to be teetering on the brink of collapse. Last summer Newsweek reported, “Struggling with rampant homelessness, a drug crisis, surging crime, and several business closures, San Francisco is no longer the thriving city it used to be. Its decline in recent months has led some to say the city ‘is dying.’” Dying? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. People have been drafting SF’s obituary since five minutes after the gold rush. Bob Calhoun writes about how in the 1950s his mother used to love dancing at El Patio, a jazz club at Market and South Van Ness. When Bill Graham took it over in 1968, calling it The Filmore, and hiring the Grateful Dead and Santana instead of swing bands, Mrs. Calhoun mourned the downfall of San Francisco, “The hippies took it over,” she said, “and ruined everything.” I’m hoping that, to paraphrase Mark Twain’s famous comment, this is just one more example of San Francisco’s imminent demise being greatly exaggerated. There’s only one way I can know for sure. In the months ahead, Rich and I will frequently venture out to lunch in San Francisco, seeking offbeat places, cultural curiosities, great midday meals, and some assurances the city is still alive and kicking. With our time in Seville winding down (for now; we'll be back), I figured lunch at Bar Plata would provide an appropriate setting in which to discuss our half-baked plans for exploring San Francisco's newest — and possibly wildest — incarnation. Naturally we kept our eyes peeled for Russian mobsters and notorious flamenco dancers, but the crowd seemed cheerfully non-threatening. Will we find the same cozy atmosphere in San Francisco? Friends who live there say yes, and I remain hopeful. But of course, there are no guarantees. To me, that unpredictability is part of the fun. Anthony Bourdain said of San Francisco, “You go there as a snarky New Yorker thinking it’s politically correct, it’s crunchy granola, it’s vegetarian, and it surprises you every time. It’s a two-fisted drinking town, a carnivorous meat-eating town, it’s dirty and nasty and wonderful.” And that’s what I call “a special atmosphere.” SO WHAT HAPPENED TO FARROQUITO? Outcome of the court case, seeing him dance (yes, there's video) WHO WAS BETTY SOSKIN? An African-American Rosie the Riveter in WWII SF WHY I'M TAKING THE NEXT TWO WEEKS OFF First, I have to pack and travel to CA. Then I have jury duty. If the case doesn't get dismissed (most do), my next post may be "Out to Lunch with a Jury of My Peers." Watch this space for updates. OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch." Each week I write about visiting offbeat places, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. karen@enjoylivingabroad.com LIKE BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING TO TRAVEL? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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“No, you’re not hallucinating; those squirrels are for sale as pets.” I always enjoyed it when visitors to Seville performed double takes in front of my neighborhood pet shop during its brief stint as squirrel vendor. “And they’re not cheap; they run $50 apiece.” Instantly visiting Americans would look thoughtful, pondering how to turn their own pests into profits, wondering aloud, “What do you figure it costs to ship squirrels? Just asking.” I used to joke about buying one as a companion for my dog, letting the animals exercise each other chasing around my apartment. But years earlier I’d learned the hard way why this was a truly terrible idea. When one bold, unlucky squirrel ventured into our Ohio home, our dog sprang into chase mode. Several days of furniture-crashing pandemonium ensued, ending very badly indeed for the squirrel. I wasn’t inclined to pay $50 to repeat that experience.
(This is not actual footage, but it captures the spirit of the dog vs. squirrel incident.)
No matter how cute they are, wild animals rarely make good pets. I recently ran across the article “Tragic Stories of Exotic Pet Ownership Gone Wrong,” and you won’t be surprised to learn that chimpanzees, pythons, and black bears can cause a lot more damage to your home (and to you and your kids) than a rampaging squirrel. Which is why I was somewhat stunned last week to learn that a neighbor here in Seville used to keep a pet tiger. José María Lassaleta was an explorer, adventurer and zookeeper, and in the 1970s, after retiring as director of the zoo in nearby Jerez de la Frontera, he adopted an aging, ailing tiger and brought him to live in Seville. The arrival of the tiger as a household pet caused the biggest sensation since the Sultan of Egypt sent the Spanish Princess Berenguela a live crocodile as a courting gift in 1260. People lined up in in front of Lassaleta’s home on Amparo Street and cheered whenever the big cat sprawled out onto the balcony to take some sun. My mind boggles at what it must have taken to manage a tiger at home. For a start, these are whopping great animals, weighing up to 660 pounds, and their idea of a nice, light supper is 80 pounds of raw meat. That’s a lot of hamburger to haul home every day. Don’t worry, that cute white dog in the photo was never intended to serve as an hors d'œuvre. She's said to be the surrogate mother who helped raise the tiger and his littermates during their time with the Seville Circus. I’ve heard one of those littermates used to be seen riding around town in the back of a convertible. Sadly (although perhaps fortunately for public safety) those tigers have long since gone to their reward, laws passed in 2023 prohibit owning such beasts, and their stories have faded into Seville legend. But the legacy lives on in Lassaleta’s seventeenth-century house on Amparo Street, now home to the marvelously atmospheric restaurant La Casa del Tigre (Tiger House). It's one of the coziest, most romantic spots in the city. The fare isn’t so much Spanish as vaguely international. We sat at the bar, where the stools are arranged in pairs placed a discreet distance apart. I watched in awe as two youngsters, having demolished a couple of jumbo gin cocktails, downed a bottle of wine with a substantial lunch and looked as if they were now heading bedward. Ah, the stamina of youth. La Casa del Tigre was a cheerful antidote to the shock and gloom Rich and I were feeling over that morning’s announcement that Librería Verbo, one of Seville’s iconic bookstores, was closing. Housed in the vast, century-old Imperial Theater, the librería had held an abundance of books, author lectures, and chalkboards quoting Marcel Proust and Albert Camus. It was a cherished part of the intellectual life of the community, but it couldn’t outrun the new predator stalking this city: cultural deforestation. It's a well-known tale. Apartments where families lived for generations are now Airbnbs. Neighborhood shops, including the pet store that once sold squirrels, have closed to make way for fast fashion and souvenirs. Food — that most sacred of Sevillano social traditions — is being sold from vending machines. Bit by bit, the habitat sustaining the daily life of residents is being stripped away, and people are moving out. The shops they once supported can't survive. This week, Verbo became the latest casualty. Rich and I stopped in to bid a fond farewell to Verbo and then, before we could become completely demoralized, we set off to visit places, including La Casa del Tigre, that are still their goofy, quirky, oddball, only-in-Seville selves. We didn’t have far to go. It was Thursday, and that meant a trip to the Mercadillo histórico El Jueves, Feria Street's historic Thursday Market, which has been selling second-hand treasures for at least 700 years. True, a little gentrification has taken place recently. Instead of spreading wares on the ground, vendors use tables. A small monthly fee is required to participate, and spots are assigned, ending (or at least reducing) generations-long infighting and drama. Some stalls even take credit cards. But you’re still negotiating with colorful characters for goods without formal guarantees, and caveat emptor (buyer beware) at all times. I don't mean to brag, but our pickpockets are world class. Even on non-market days, Feria Street is a fun place to shop for vintage clothes, second-hand books, fresh produce, electrical supplies, paint, hardware — all the building blocks of a vibrant urban life. And despite the inroads made by cookie-cutter corporate eateries and chain stores, pockets of quirky individualism and old-fashioned artisanship remain throughout the city. And yes, I shop in funky little family-run establishments whenever possible. I realize buying a few lightbulbs, a can of paint, or a used paperback won’t stop cultural deforestation. Places we love are changing before our eyes, not always for the better. The world is an unstable and scary place these days, and it’s easy to feel helpless. We aren’t. We may not be able to turn the tide of world events or keep a beloved bookstore alive as long as we’d hoped, but as author Laura McBride points out, we all make a difference, even when our acts go unacknowledged or seem, in the grand scheme of things, to be trivial. “It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is the whole thing. What is most beautiful is least acknowledged.” OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch." Each week I write about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. karen@enjoylivingabroad.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. When I was laid low with a cold last week (I'm fine now, thanks for asking) I found myself watching lots of WWII videos to cheer myself up. First of all (spoiler alert!) we always win in the end. And while I might have been coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose every 15 seconds, at least nobody was shooting at me or reducing my city to rubble. Also, I didn’t have to answer unthinkable questions like “So …. shall we build an atomic bomb or let the Nazis do it first?” Nor did I have to worry about defending my virtue. In Atlantic Crossing, Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, desperate to get America to join the Allies, spent much of WWII being chased around Washington, DC by that old womanizer, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who never let little things like being married or in a wheelchair slow him down. It was impossible to watch without asking myself, “Just how far would I be willing to go to save my country, Europe, and civilization as we know it?” One of the reasons we go to the movies — and spend sick days on the couch in front of the TV — is to imagine, if only briefly, how we would face up to life’s tough challenges. It’s why American teenagers flock to horror movies, millions of adults are addicted to reality TV and extreme sports, and why bullfighting has been popular for 4000 years. Especially in Seville. When I first came to Seville, I was gobsmacked to see all the bullfighting memorabilia around here. Gigantic horned heads loom high on hotel walls, glittering trajes de luces (bullfighters’ “suits of light”) gleam in restaurant display cases, and flyspecked black-and-white newspaper photos of famous toreros hang in places of honor above even the humblest bar. Animals killed in the ring are always eaten, appearing on menus as cola de toro, a succulent stew of bull’s tail simmered in wine and herbs. Years ago Antonio, owner of a tiny neighborhood tavern in the Triana district, tacked to his wall a newspaper clipping with the headline, “¡Volveré a torear!” (“I will return to bullfighting!”) When I asked about it, he explained that for his debut in Seville, one bullfighter decided to make his mark and demonstrate his courage by dropping to his knees and holding his ground when the bull was released into the ring. The bull, hardly able to believe his luck, instantly lowered his head and gored the man’s chest, neck and face. Antonio, Rich, and I gazed at the hideous scars in the grainy newspaper picture. “Where is this man now?” I asked. “Working in a stationary store here in Triana,” Antonio said. So much for that career in the bullring. Rich and I were reminiscing about that ex-bullfighter (whose name has been so lost to history I couldn’t even track him down on Google) during a recent lunch at Sol y Sombra, a classic bar taurino (bullfighting bar) in the Triana district. Sol y Sombra is dim and cozy, with worn tiles, yellowed posters, and handwritten menu cards stapled to the walls. Rolls of toilet paper are scattered about, to be used in place of napkins. Just keeping it humble and real. Faces of top toreros peer down from every wall. Many of them are unlikely characters, such as Juan Belmonte, a spindly Trianero with crooked legs. "My legs were in such a state," he said, "that if one wanted to move, it had to request permission from the other." Unable to leap nimbly out of harm’s way, he had to find another way to fight. "At night," he said, "we would swim the Guadalquivir and fight the bulls in the pastures in the moonlight. That was the beautiful time, fighting them naked in the moonlight." Naked or clothed, he developed a unique, close-in, barely moving style that led to getting gored fifty times but won him acclaim as “the greatest bullfighter of all time.” Another unlikely local hero is Curro Romero, who often took fright and ran away from a bull, flapping his cape from a safe distance, not even pretending to fight. “Curro was booed and cursed and rained on with seat cushions,” explained blogger 100swallows, “and of course fined heavily for breaking the rules that required a bullfighter to kill his animal.” But when he was at his best “it was like going to heaven. There was nothing like it in this world. If you saw it, you knew you had seen something angelic. Curro hypnotized with his slow capework and the dignity of his poise. The bull charged as though he too were trying with all his might to reach perfection, to ‘get it right.’” Say what you will about bullfighting — go ahead, everyone does! — you have to admit it’s colorful stuff. The season starts Easter Sunday, runs through spring, pauses during the heat of summer, and finishes up with a few fall events. And I can already hear you thinking, “Nope, not me! I wouldn't be caught dead at a bullfight!” Never say never. When my friend Reza Hosseinpour, the brilliant pediatric heart surgeon, moved to Seville, he was appalled by the very idea of bullfighting. But Spanish amigos finally persuaded him to go just once, and he fell in love with “the esoteric ritualistic art.” Eventually he wrote the first comprehensive English book on the subject, the meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated Making Sense of Bullfighting. Inspired by our lunch at Sol y Sombra, Rich and I decided to drop by Seville’s Maestranza bullring. During the off hours you can pay a small fee and wander about to your heart’s content, checking out the museum, the arena, and the torero's chapel, where some of the most urgent praying on Earth takes place. When I first visited you could also poke around in the bullfighter’s hospital — another hotspot for communing with the Almighty — but then some stickler for hygiene objected to the idea of random crowds tramping around a sterile operating theater, and the medical facility was shifted to a less public area. Go figure. The museum houses a wonderful collection of trajes de luces, some still showing bloodstains. Toreros are “dressed to kill” in outfits inspired by the spangled, embroidered, and tasseled extravagances favored by dandies in the eighteenth century, when modern bullfighting practices developed. To prevent horns from snagging in the fabric, the fit is super snug. Indeed, men wear their trousers so tight that their “noble parts” are clearly visible, arranged to one side, or “away from the bull,” as famously demonstrated in this statue of Curro Romero. Life is full of impossible moral dilemmas. Should animals be killed for food? If so, is it wrong to perform this act yourself, assuming personal risk to achieve artistry? Is it kinder to raise beasts in overcrowded pens and kill them in slaughterhouses ringing with the death cries of their mates? Is it OK to eat cola de toro if you’re opposed to bullfighting? These questions have been hotly debated for thousands of years, and are best discussed over a cold beer in one of Seville’s classic bullfighting bars. Let me know what you decide. BULL BARS YOU MIGHT LIKE Taberna Sol y Sombra, Calle Castilla, 147, Triana Casa Pepe Hillo, Calle Adriano, 24, Seville centro Bar Estrella, Calle Estrella 3, Seville centro OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch." Each week I write about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. karen@enjoylivingabroad.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. Why is Rich carrying around a bull's head?
Read all about it here. Hot news! Time travel is real — and I have proof! How else would you explain this recent email, asking me to remove a subscriber: Hello, I have retired from Washington University as of 5/3/21021. For assistance with microarray-related research, please contact the following staff … Observe the facts, Watson. 1) She retired in 21,021, some 18,997 years in the future. 2) She’s a scientist. 3) I couldn’t find her anywhere on my mailing list (maybe she hasn’t subscribed yet?). 4) Her university sponsors a hot air balloon called “Time Traveler.” Coincidence? Oh sure, think that if you want. Of course, until this former/future reader of mine shares her scientific breakthroughs, my only form of time travel is immersing myself in the past. This week, Rich and I spent many entertaining hours reliving bygone days in the Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares de Sevilla (the Museum of Popular Arts and Customs of Seville). Never heard of it? You’re not alone. It’s one of the city’s best-kept secrets. Housed in a vast, four-story 1914 exhibition hall in Maria Luisa Park, the museum has chosen, inexplicably, to bury its permanent collection in the basement. Wandering the subterranean labyrinth, you get a glimpse of daily life and age-old wisdom that sparks profound, thought-provoking questions, such as: how do you encourage small children to drink more beer? It takes a village. The heartwarming 1933 news photo above shows officials holding a beer tasting session for young orphans at a health center in Seville’s Triana district. Just helping them get their start. You see, until the 1960s, beer wasn't all that popular in Spain. For 3,000 years wine had been the beverage of choice, viewed as a vital part of a wholesome diet. The 1850 Trafalgar Wine ad below favorably compares vino’s nutritional value to that of bread, milk, meat, and eggs, and quotes Pasteur as saying "Wine is the healthiest and most hygienic of beverages." “Until quite recently,” explained a museum display, “men, women, and children drank wine throughout the day. They watered it down, spiced and flavored it, and customarily ate bread dipped in wine for breakfast. Even medical professionals considered it just another form of nutrition, and the calories it provided were deemed essential to the poor diets of the underprivileged classes. Other factors contributed to these ideas and habits: the unpleasant taste and bad reputation of water … and the unpopularity of beer, which was only brewed in northern Europe.” But as we all learned in college, it’s not very hard to convince people to drink beer. Seville established its brewery, Cruzcampo, in 1904 and spent much of the twentieth century campaigning for young hearts and minds. But of course, children need more than beer to grow up big and strong, and for a long time the museum presented another exhibit — now removed to keep tourists from fainting — about la matanza. This is the winter pig killing, when the entire village gets together to butcher a 500-pound animal, keeping everyone fed until spring. The museum’s small, grainy, black-and-white video of the matanza was hair-raising. It showed the killing, the butchering, and the village grandmothers cleaning out the intestines to make sausage casings — a process, I’m told, that is traditionally enlivened by the women’s bawdy jokes. Sadly, the video had no sound, so I can’t share any. Even without the matanza video, there was plenty to see. On display were once-cherished possessions from the last two centuries, including kitchen utensils, toys, and beautifully handcrafted, worn-to-fit-the-palm tools that made Rich drool with envy. It was unnerving to realize how many of these historical objects I’d seen in daily use. The tailor shop, for instance, was just like one that used to be around the corner from our Seville apartment. Rich often gazed through its window, fantasizing about having a bespoke suit fashioned by the elderly proprietor. It closed years ago, and now Rich stood regarding the tailor display with the same wistful look. As for me, an old-style coal-heated brasero (brazier) sparked recollections of visiting a friend’s country home where she announced after lunch that we’d all siesta at a mesa camilla, a round table with a brasero underneath. Ensconced in comfy armchairs, a heavy tablecloth draped over our laps, our feet warm in the chilly room, we all began to doze off — until our host began to snore like a freight train. Our long ramble down memory lane left us with a keen appetite for old-fashioned, homesytle cooking. Leaving Maria Luisa Park, we started up Calle Felipe II, a broad street where good neighborhood eateries appear with cheering frequency. We soon settled on Taberna La Auténtica, a roomy tapas bar that’s particularly gifted at crafting tortillas. Decades ago, I was stunned to discover that here, a tortilla isn’t anything like the flatbread we Californians wrap around our tacos and burritos. The name means “little cake,” and in Spain, it refers to a dense potato omelet, often called tortilla española or tortilla de patatas to avoid confusion. Debate continues to rage about whether to include onions; fortunately for me, Seville is firmly in favor and so am I. One bite and tortilla became my go-to comfort food, a tapa I can enjoy any hour or the day or night. The secret lies in the texture, dense yet tender; this requires plenty of oil (dos dedos, or two fingers deep, is the standard measure) and low-temperature cooking. The real challenge comes when you have to flip it halfway through, either sliding it onto a plate or using one of the newfangled hinged double pans (which many regard as cheating). My one attempt to make a Spanish tortilla, even with coaching from two local women, resulted in disaster: a burnt exterior and runny interior, although to be fair at least 10% of it was marginally edible. Some cooks are famous for creating tortillas five inches thick, and frankly, my sombrero is off to them. The customary height is about half that, served in a pie-like wedge, sometimes with a side of mayo or drizzled with whiskey sauce. Food trends constantly evolve. You’ll be relieved to hear Sevillano kids are no longer raised on beer and wine, although they are allowed the occasional taste from a young age, and teens often gather on weekends to imbibe (hard to imagine, I know). Villages still hold matanzas, although some are now turning the job over to professionals, and many say their social life and store of bawdy jokes are the poorer for that. The tortilla is as popular as ever and likely to remain so well beyond the year 21,021. If the past has taught us anything, it’s to take nothing for granted, not even our most cherished beliefs. Just look at all those conscientious parents who gave kids sips of wine all day or told them beer was the breakfast of champions. If we’re lucky, we live and learn from our individual and collective missteps. As the old Spanish proverb puts it, "A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will." STORIES ABOUT SOME OF MY OTHER FAVORITE MUSEUMS Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum), Seville Bigfoot Discovery Museum, Santa Cruz, CA Museum of Failure, Traveling Exhibitions Atomic Bunker Museum, Kaunas, Lithuania The Empathy Museum, Traveling Exhibitions OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch." Each week I write about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. karen@enjoylivingabroad.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. When I explained to the hospital emergency staff that my American visitor had a piece of his hearing aid stuck in his ear, the three white-coated professionals erupted into gales of laughter. And so did my friend, saying, “Hey, it’s not funny,” as he chuckled along with them. And this is what I love about the Spanish medical system — in fact, about the entire Spanish culture. Being a professional doesn’t seem to require the same kind of emotional distance that’s customary in the US. In fact, people talk to each other all the time in situations that astonish me. Last Saturday, when Rich and I were in the Metro waiting for a train, a woman plopped down beside us and said, "¿Qué tal la lluvia de ayer?" (“How about that rain yesterday?”) As we chatted about the downpour, I tried to imagine someone in the New York subway or a San Francisco BART station making eye contact, let alone conversation. Clearly a wildly different social etiquette prevails in Seville Metro. But then, the Metro is a funky little transit system running just 11 miles; it feels remarkably safe — unless you suffer from bathophobia (the fear of depths). Apparently the engineers kept running into more layers of ancient ruins and had to burrow deeper and deeper underground. As I stepped off the fourth long escalator, I said to Rich, “I’m not sure, but I think I can actually feel the earth’s molten core beneath my feet.” Our journey into the Metro underworld was prompted by the death of the battery on Rich’s power drill. As Rich learned during an exhaustive, city-wide search, battery design has advanced considerably over the past 17 years, and the one he needed no longer exists. He was forced to lay his faithful drill to rest and start thinking about a replacement. To cheer him up, I suggested we head out to Leroy Merlin, the giant, French-owned home improvement store in the nearby suburb of Tomares. We’d make a day of it, buying a drill then going for a pleasant browse around the adjacent poligano, four square blocks of discount houses selling furnishings ranging from practical to whimsical. To make it blog-worthy, we’d lunch at a workers’ café we liked. A lovely outing all around. And then, hours before departure, I discovered what Leroy Merlin has been up to in Russia. Leroy Merlin reacted to the invasion of Ukraine by doubling down on its loyalty to Moscow. It cut loose its Ukraine branch, agreed to donate money and supplies to Putin’s war effort, and committed to helping the government conscript Leroy Merlin employees to serve in the Russian army. In July, Leroy Merlin (along with Unilever and Proctor & Gamble, who did likewise) was named "an international sponsor of war" by the Ukrainian government — admittedly not an objective third party, but still. “Rich, I have bad news about Leroy Merlin,” I said. The price of a drill was obviously not going to tip the balance of geopolitical power, but we felt uncomfortable swelling the coffers of a war sponsor even by that minuscule amount. Knowing Rich had always regarded the megastore as something of a temple, I added, “I’m sorry for your loss.” On the plus side, I’d learned something extraordinary about Tomares: it’s the richest town in Andalucía. “Let’s go anyway,” I suggested. “Obviously we’ll avoid the megastore-that-shall-not-be-named, but we can visit the poligano and then walk up the hill to see what the main town is like.” After the short Metro ride, we strolled to the poligano, enjoyed a coffee in the workers’ café, and visited the shops, which had lost none of their zany, treasure-hunt feel. I was only sorry we didn’t need an antique bed, bicycle-shaped table, or plastic meerkat. Leaving the poligano for the town proper, the first thing we saw was the Casino Admiral, home to 100 slot machines, electronic bingo, American roulette, and shows featuring Spanish comedians and Queen tribute bands. We didn’t stop. I soon began noticing small children running around in costumes. Then we walked smack into the tail end of a parade, and I realized Tomares was celebrating Carnival. This is the age-old “farewell to meat” party that marks the beginning of fasting during Lent, the 40-day run-up to Easter. The idea of Carnival is to overindulge while you still can, and it was clear from the overflowing taverns that the townspeople were really prepared to put their backs into it. The sunny day began to darken, the wind picked up, and a sudden rainsquall sent us dashing into the nearest shelter, which happened to be Bar Tipitin’s enclosed terrace. The owner kindly shoved some reserved tables closer together to create a small space for us, tucking our table cozily next to a heater. Explaining there was no printed menu, he began a serious discussion about the various meats he was grilling on the barbecue a few yards away. The smell was heaven. “Pluma,” Rich said decisively. That means feather, although it’s anything but light; this cut comes from the back of the pig’s neck and is famous for its rich fat and superb flavor. Soon our host returned with a platter displaying a large slab of raw pork for our inspection. Before I could say, “Do you have anything smaller?” Rich said, “Sí, perfecto.” Forty years together, twenty of them in Spain, and I’d never seen Rich order pluma or a piece of meat that massive. It was nice to know he could still surprise me. The pluma was magnificent, sizzling hot, perfectly cooked, and dusted with just the right amount of coarse salt. After I’d cut off the small corner that was my preferred portion, Rich proceeded to eat the entire rest of the piece, surprising me again. The man may not own a functioning power drill, but he does possess, as the Spanish put it, “una buena boca,” literally a good mouth, meaning a splendid appetite. He wasn’t alone. Everyone was tucking into platters of grilled meat with similar gusto, and I marveled yet again about cultural differences. Having grown up in what’s now Silicon Valley, I associate affluence with slim, gym-toned bodies clothed in upscale fashions. This being an agricultural area, folks tended to enjoy robust figures, weather-beaten faces, and a merciful lack of trendiness. Most looked like they could bench-press a tractor and would enjoy a good laugh if someone had to have a hearing aid surgically removed from an orifice. It was a wonderful day, even if we didn’t come home with a power drill. I’ve since learned that Leroy Merlin has yielded to public pressure and sold off 99.993% of its Russian business to a firm from the United Arab Emirates. A step in the right direction but a bit late to keep us as customers. And so the quest for a new power drill continues. I’ll keep you posted on our progress. Read About Our Time in Ukraine We visited before the war and fell in love with the zany humor and remarkable grit of the Ukrainian people. Learn more OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch." Each week I write about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. karen@enjoylivingabroad.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. I often see newcomers blinking in confusion over Seville menus offering “lard of heaven” (the eggy dessert tocino de cielo) or “green Jews” (a mistranslation of judías verdes, meaning “green beans”). But generally Spanish restaurants describe their dishes with admirable clarity, and we are spared the kind of pretentious nonsense that’s all too familiar elsewhere. “Here, for example,” wrote author Peter Mayle, “is a London restaurant’s attempt to justify the exorbitant price of its whitebait: ‘The tiny fresh fish are tossed by our chef for a few fleeting seconds into a bath of boiling oil, and then are removed before they have a chance to recover from their surprise.’ Anyone who suggests tossing the writer in after them has my full support.” You expect that kind of silliness in London or Albania, but not Seville. So it took me a few moments to recover from my surprise when I picked up a café menu this week and read: “The Hake Has Balls and the Squid is Downright Saucy!!” Yikes! Did I want fish balls topped with cheeky squid? No, I really didn't. Soldiering on, I discovered a dish called “What Have I Done to Deserve This,” pork brioche in a sauce of “coke and wine.” Would that be Coca-Cola or cocaine? Further down was “pastor meat,” denomination unspecified. As a writer, I had to admire the author’s daring, even while I questioned some (ok, most) of the word choices, which sounded equally bizarre in the Spanish version of the menu. I reminded myself this was Seville’s Triana district, which for millennia was a notoriously independent separate city, home to outliers, misfits, flamenco dancers, scallywags, bullfighters, and artists. Technically it’s now part of Seville, but clearly Triana is maintaining its reputation for ignoring the rules and living out loud. Triana is also justly famous for the excellence of its mud. The blue clay lining the Guadalquivir River is ideal for making ceramics, a fact noted by the crafty Romans back in Biblical times. They developed an artisan community that has provided a hundred generations of Seville families with plates, cups, platters, and statues of various deities. And of course, where you have deities, you have controversies. One such controversy involved early Christian potters, sisters Justa and Rufina, who refused to sell their wares for use in pagan rituals. Angry neighbors attacked their stall, and in the ensuing donnybrook, one of the sisters broke a statue of Venus. The two potters were arrested, jailed, tortured; Justa died first. Rufina was then thrown to the lions, but the beasts became as tame as kittens, licking her feet. (It’s possible some of these details may not be 100% accurate.) Rufina was eventually beheaded, and the sisters became Seville’s patron saints, always shown with piles of pottery at their feet. Triana’s pottery really upped its game in the seventh century when the Moors conquered the region. The new overlords brought with them sophisticated techniques such as white tin-glazing and the iridescent gold finish known as lusterware, adding breathtaking dazzle to local architecture and housewares. Another game-changer was the arrival of British aristocrat and entrepreneur Charles Pickman in 1841. Looking to build a factory, he bought Triana’s ancient Cartuja Monastery, where Christopher Columbus had prepared for his voyage to the New World and later the artist Zurbarán painted some of his best-loved masterpieces. At first Pickman’s factory was welcomed as a revitalizing force in the industry and a source of jobs, but the elegant English designs — and higher prices — soon stirred up resentments. Competitors reacted by embracing pre-industrial techniques and old-school Spanish designs, an approach that lasted well into the twentieth century. By the 1970s, Triana’s ancient, wood-fired kilns were creating so much smoke pollution that they were banned, marking the beginning of the end of large-scale commercial pottery production in the barrio. You can still see some of the ancient kilns in the rambling, fascinating Centro Cerámica Triana museum. Pickman's Cartuja Ceramics moved to a neaby town in 1982, and today the monastery serves as the Andalucía Contemporary Art Center, home to some outrageous art. No discussion of outrageous contemporary art in Seville would be complete without a mention of the red hot controversy currently convulsing this city. Every year officials commission a poster to promote Semana Santa (pre-Easter Holy Week) when the streets are jammed with processions and visitors. Typically posters show pious depictions of the suffering Jesus, a weeping Mary, or an adorable altar boy. This year’s theme is the risen Christ. Luminous, radiant, and absolutely gorgeous. Every one of the powerful Holy Week organizers, the Council of Brotherhoods of Seville, signed off on the piece before last week’s unveiling. Ultra-conservatives took one look and began foaming at the mouth, cursing the day it became illegal to burn heretics at the stake. Death threats have been hurled at the artist, Salustiano Garcia, who said, “To see sexuality in my image of Christ, you must be mad,” adding there was nothing in the image that “has not already been represented in artworks dating back hundreds of years.” Curious yet? Want to see what all the fuss is about? Yowser! People will be talking about this poster for centuries. Which is no doubt why they did it. “Contemporary art challenges us,” said billionaire collector Eli Broad. “It broadens our horizons. It asks us to think beyond the limits of conventional wisdom.” Art is all about redefining what it means to be alive in a particular era. We have to keep at this, because we humans are ceaselessly reinventing ourselves and our environments. And that’s what’s happening right now in Triana’s old ceramic district, where they’re busy dismantling the last vestiges of a 2000-year-old industry. Artisans still make pottery in small workshops, but the big factories are being transformed into stores, restaurants, wine bars, and abacerías, tiny grocery markets with a few café tables and, in most cases, modest menus. The Abacería El Mercader de Triana, however, went large with a flamboyant bill of fare, placed temptingly on tables set beneath orange trees on a back street winding past the former ceramic factories. I sat down and began reading, curious to see how our host proposed to “reanimate” (as the Sevillanos say) weary wayfarers like ourselves. “Listen to this,” I said to Rich. “There’s one called ‘Does Not “Entrail” Any Risk.' Apparently it’s a plate of entrails with chimichurri sauce. Yikes!” I'm not a bashful eater, but in the end I selected the more conventional “A Sword That Doesn’t Kill,” tender swordfish steak lounging on a bed of lively lime-infused potato-ginger puree. I reflected that Sevillanos, once the most conservative of eaters, had come a long way in the twenty-plus years I’d been hanging around with them. The city continues to draw its strength from ancient traditions — culinary, spiritual, artistic, and social — yet fearlessly embraces fresh ideas that even the most modernist thinkers might find startling. And that’s why I never take this city for granted; I’m always agog to see what’s going to happen next. OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch." Each week I write about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. “In ca5e I haven't mentioned, I am having to u5e the number 5 in place of the letter that come5 between R and T in the alphabet,” a friend emailed me this morning. “Alway5 something.... the letter i5 not working for some rea5on ... *but clearly sometimes it works..... Weird.” Yes, as you’ve probably noticed, computers are running amok in fresh, creative ways these days. I assume it’s our new AI overlords, warming up with a few frisky pranks before taking over the world. It’s the only way to account for my friend’s malfunctioning “S” key and for my epic battle this week with a nefarious online form. It all started with good news: the US Navy base at Rota, 78 miles south of Seville, had finally received a shipment of the newest Covid vaccine booster and would be happy to inoculate us. Just a quick update of my account with Tricare (military health insurance we have thanks to Rich’s Navy service) and then I could make an appointment. Easy-peasy, right? At once I ran into an impenetrable thicket of unfamiliar acronyms: MHS, DHA, DEERS, ADFM. I was assigned passwords, access codes, and PIN numbers. My personal and medical details were exhaustively examined. I had to formulate answers to a slew of security questions like where I’d gone to high school, my dog’s maiden name, and how I would set the ignition timing on a 1955 Bel Aire Chevrolet with a 327 cubic inch engine and a four barrel carburetor. And what did I get for my efforts? An Error Code 11 saying my form couldn’t be processed. Why not? A typo? A PIN pasted where the password should go? I kept trying. After four Error Code 11s, three Error Code 10s, and once, rather excitingly, an Error Code 5, I admitted defeat and called the help line operator. The operator made suggestions for half an hour before asking, “How are you inputting the information?” What did she think I was using, telekinesis? “Typing,” I said. “And pasting in the longer codes…” “You can’t do that. No pasting, no auto-fill. Keystrokes only.” I was flabbergasted. Why? No really, why? “Was there a reason,” I asked through gritted teeth, “this was never mentioned anywhere in the instructions?” I could almost hear her shrug coming down the line. So I re-entered every word and code by hand and finally got into the system. Only to learn I couldn't book an appointment because they were currently shifting to a new portal called Genesis. Until I’d had an appointment with Genesis, the bot explained, I couldn’t make an appointment with Genesis. “It’s Catch 22!” I exclaimed to Rich. “The military never disappoints. I guess we’ll just go down there and see what happens.” A few days later we rented a little Fiat and drove to the Navy base, where we were directed to Admin. To my delight, I walked into that administration office and saw something I never in a million years expected to find flying over a desk on a US military base: a rainbow flag. I’d have snapped a photo, but Rich explained taking pictures on a military base will get you arrested, possibly shot, so I refrained. But take it from me, the military isn’t what it used to be, and thank heavens for that. The young sailors in Admin sorted out our Genesis paperwork, and minutes later the medic was giving us our Covid shots. Whew! Now to enjoy part two of our outing: the small, beachfront town of Rota, a charming fishing village turned tourist mecca. I only hoped it wouldn’t be so overrun with holiday makers that we’d have trouble getting into one of the restaurants famed for seafood so fresh it winked at you on its way to the table. Leaving the Fiat in a vast seafront parking lot between a couple of large, drab cafeterias, we headed uphill for a recombobulation coffee. Settling at a café table across from the castle and the church, we listened to the gentle splash of a fountain and the desultory conversation of men taking their late-morning ease over glasses of sherry and beer. A balmy breeze carried the welcome news that, after weeks of near-freezing temperatures, the thermometer had suddenly shot up to 70 degrees. Rich and I lingered long over our coffee but eventually bestirred ourselves, knowing most places would close by 2:00 so everyone could to go home for lunch. Our first port of call was the 1571 Church of Santa Maria de la O, where we naturally expected to see “La O,” one of the ancient statues of a heavily pregnant Virgin Mary once popular in Spain. The name came from a ritual on her feast day, December 18, when “clerics in the choir after Vespers used to utter a loud and protracted ‘O,’ to express the longing of the universe for the coming of the Redeemer.” Nowadays images of a heavily pregnant Virgin are often considered unseemly, if not outright pagan. Her feast day has been expunged from the church calendar and most of her statues have been discreetly retired. Today, a conventional Our Lady of the Rosary presides over La O’s altar in Rota. Although disappointed La O was no longer in residence, we thoroughly enjoyed Rota's cozy atmosphere. We admired the castle (built in 1295, now the town hall), the sweeping white sand beach, quaint side streets, and roomy parks. By 1:30 everything was deserted. Clearly it was time to think seriously about lunch. I’d done my homework and earmarked various promising places, all listed as “open” online. When will I learn? I could almost hear Google chuckling as it sent us all over town in search of these glorious eateries, all closed. This was the off-season; nobody expected tourists or updated web listings. Only a few cafés remained open, and apologetic staff members explained they only had frozen, deep-fat fried fish balls and unheated, canned clams. A handful of tourists sat at the tables, drinking heavily, and who could blame them? Eventually Rich and I trudged back to the parking lot, where we’d noticed the two large cafeterias. One was the Fisherman’s Cooperative; surely they …? Nope. All frozen or canned stuff. With very, very low hopes we made our way to the Cantina Marinera. To our astonishment and joy, they were able to serve us fresh corvina (sea bass), hot, crisp, and perfectly cooked. We counted our blessings. And I am still counting my blessings. OK, this wasn’t the richest culinary experience in recent memory. There were head-banging frustrations. I’m more convinced than ever that robots are playing tricks on me. But I received the booster, which I believe ups my chances of survival. And I learned all over again that while cities like Seville have adopted international habits, there are still plenty of towns where people live by older rhythms. Winter is for slowing down. Warm mornings are for lingering in the sun. Midday is for family lunch. Every life offers us moments of comfort like these, if only we remember to embrace them. OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch." Mostly I write about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) This week I ventured a little further south to the province of Cádiz. WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. “The purpose of art,” said Picasso, “is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” It doesn’t always have to be good art, either. Sometimes a work of art is so transcendently awful it electrifies our senses, whacks our funny bones, and gives our souls that brisk spring cleaning we didn’t even realize we needed. Take Lucy in the Field with Flowers. I know, right? Absolutely ghastly on every level. I apologize for inflicting it on your eyeballs, but I am illustrating a point here. Back in 1993, one trash collection day in a Boston suburb, antiques dealer Scott Wilson spotted Lucy among curbside bins and picked her up, thinking he could sell the frame if he discarded the painting. “You can’t do that!” objected his pal Jerry Reilly. “That’s so bad, it’s good.” Reilly took the painting home and with a small group of friends began collecting other "disasterpieces." Eventually they threw a party jokingly called “The Opening of the Museum of Bad Art.” And the rest, as they say, is art history. Today the Museum of Bad Art owns 1000 works, each worse than the last, with a few dozen of the most dreadful on display in its current location, the Dorchester Brewing Company just outside of Boston. Occasionally road shows and international exhibitions are organized, but sadly, so far the collection hasn't made it to Seville. I keep hoping. How well has MOBA managed to preserve the low standards set by Lucy? You be the judge. Brace yourself. You might want to remove your eyeglasses and take a step back. OK, ready? Here goes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Little is known about most pieces, so titles and backstories are largely imaginary. Sunday on the Pot with George was a take-off on Sunday in the Park with George, a musical about Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The description suggests the subject is sitting on a chamber pot, inspiring one visitor to write in the comment book: "Someone had slipped into the bathroom as I took in this painting and began peeing loudly into a toilet. The reverberating sound of urine splashing while viewing George brought the painting to life, and when the denouement of the flush sounded, I wept." You don’t get that kind of experience at the Louvre or the Met! Truly terrible art may make us wince, but just as with more respected works, it can fire our imaginations and stir up emotions. Who can resist the come-hither look of Ferret in a Brothel? Research shows that looking at powerful art — good, bad, or perplexing — stimulates our brains and makes them more supple. “When you observe a profound piece of art you are potentially firing the same neurons as the artist did when they created it,” says art activist Jacob Devaney, “thus making new neural pathways and stimulating a state of inspiration.” This is why I love going to downtown Seville’s Pan y Circo (Bread and Circus), a three-story art installation which also happens to be an outstanding restaurant. It’s the brainchild of artist Cristina Galeote, whose big, bold, wonderful paintings dazzle the eye throughout the space and play off other artists’ work, vintage memorabilia, and kooky knickknacks. The visual stimulation is so strong that while I’m there I find my conversations growing livelier and my brain buzzing with ideas for new projects. I know what you’re thinking: “Sure, stimulating our brains is great, but what about our tastebuds? Our stomachs? Our post-prandial haze of goodwill?” I am pleased to report the eclectic fare is as much fun as the circus atmosphere. Although we’d dined there many times, Rich and I felt we owed it to my readers to evaluate the food in an official capacity, so we lunched there last Thursday. To awaken our palates and place our interiors on high alert, the restaurant provided a complimentary dish of creamy hummus accompanied by homemade bread. Next came vegetable gyozas, the Chinese potstickers that have become the darling of Andalucía foodies. Legend has it jiaozi (餃子) were invented 2000 years ago to be placed over frostbitten ears, but some naysayers doubt the medical efficacy of this treatment. We concluded the meal with a Moroccan pastilla, a delightful pie combining savory and sweet flavors in a delicate, flaky crust dusted with cinnamon. Created here in Andalucía a millennia ago, it was originally pigeon pie, but now, in a nod to modern sensibilities, it’s made with chicken. “Or at least, that’s what they tell you,” Spanish friends say with a wink. As usual, I took time between courses to roam from floor to floor, checking out the latest acquisitions to see if I wanted to take anything home. Absolutely everything in the restaurant is for sale, from $10 plates to Galeote’s major works costing upwards of $8,500. So far I’ve never acquired anything there except good food and inspiration for my own artistic endeavors. A year ago, Rich and I dined in front of one of Galeote’s major works. The large scale felt exhilarating, and this winter I finally found the time, a smaller but still sizable canvas (40 x 40”), and an inspiring subject: the coziness of snuggling into a warm bed with a good book on a cold night. This weekend I finished painting Winter Dreams, and Rich and I celebrated with a long Sunday lunch in my studio. OK, it's not the Mona Lisa, but at least it’s not the Mana Lisa; I feel there’s a fairly good chance Winter Dreams won’t end its days on MOBA's walls. Although from what I read, plenty of artists actually donate their work to the museum, no doubt for the fun of bringing all their friends around to make snarky remarks. Contributions pour in from across the globe and from the local Trash Collectors Union as well. On slow news days the press runs stories about MOBA, and nurse Susan Lawlor was idly perusing one when she saw a picture so unexpected she “snorted Coca-Cola from her nose in astonishment.” It was a portrait of her grandmother, Anna Lally Keane (1890 - 1968), now known in bad art circles as Lucy in a Field with Flowers. Lawlor’s mother commissioned the painting and gave it to her sister who, while dubious about its artistic merits, displayed it for years because hey, it was their mom. Here it is again, in case your subconscious has already repressed all memory of Lucy. "The face is hauntingly hers, but everything else is so horribly wrong,” says Lawlor. “It looks like she only has one breast. I'm not sure what happened to her arms and legs, and I don't know where all the flowers and yellow sky came from." And yet … more than half a century later, we’re still talking about this painting. It makes us feel something — if only a powerful urge to hurl it out the window. And that’s art fulfilling its purpose: springing up where we least expect it, startling a laugh out of us, sharpening our senses, and shaking the dust off our souls so we can see the world around us a little more clearly, as if we were looking at it for the first time. Or as designer Anni Albers put it, "Art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness." OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch" about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. “That can’t be right,” I said, staring at the bodega’s menu. “Lagartito — doesn’t that mean ‘lizard?’” Rich already had his phone out. “According to my translation app, it’s ‘little lizard.’” So … tender young reptile? I flagged down the harried woman dashing among the tables and asked for details. “It’s meat,” she replied. And was gone before I could pin down any particular species. “Hmmm,” I mused. “What wine goes with lizard? I’m thinking white. To me, red pairs best with a mammal-based meal.” “I’m sticking with beer,” he said. We’d already obtained small, ice-cold starter cervezas to slake the worst of our post-sightseeing thirst. For medicinal purposes, of course. My long-time readers will recall that ten years ago I published one of my most popular posts ever: “Hot News! Beer Rehydrates Better Than Water!” After perspiration-inducing athletics, we need to replenish not just moisture but electrolytes and calories, which are found in beer but not water. This groundbreaking humanitarian research was (naturally) conducted on a college campus here in Spain. The bottom line: beer is good for you. It’s science! However, on this occasion Rich and I should probably have opted to rehydrate with H2O, as we were in Alcalá de Guadaíra, a town famous for its water. In fact, the town’s gushing springs and robust river supplied the city of Seville for 2000 years via a Roman aqueduct. This marvel of engineering carried clean drinking water ten miles from Alcalá to a vast cistern in Seville for distribution throughout the city. It never stopped until 1912, when, in the giddy rush of progress, everyone decided they didn’t need that old thing anymore and tore it down. Jesus wept. Despite occasional outbursts of progress, there remains plenty worth seeing in Alcalá de Guadaíra, and Rich and I decided to visit so we could tour the town and enjoy a nice Sunday lunch. Normally we do our “Out to Lunch” excursions midweek, when everything is open and less crowded, but I was inspired by Peter Mayle, who wrote about his experiences in Provence: “Sunday lunch, at any time of year, is my favorite meal. The morning is undisturbed by work, the afternoon siesta free of guilt. I feel that restaurants have a more than usually good-humored air about them, almost an undercurrent of festivity. And I’m sure that chefs try harder, knowing their clients have come to enjoy the cooking rather than to discuss business. There’s no doubt about it. Food tastes better on Sunday.” Would that, I wondered, hold true for the lagartito al PX (in Pedro Ximénez sherry sauce) I’d just ordered? But before arriving at the lunch table, Rich and I had much ground to cover — starting, of course, with a second breakfast. We arrived from Seville by bus at midmorning and immediately popped into the nearest café, where I was eager to try the town’s other claim to fame: great bread. Nicknamed Alcalá de los Panaderos (Bakers), the town rejoices in abundant wheat fields, hydraulic power, and such unusual breads as teleras, medias bobas, and albardas. “Alcala’s bread comes in various shapes and sizes, many of which are not found outside of Alcalá,” wrote blogger Mexican Cassie. “When I asked about this I was told that it’s really all about the texture rather than differing tastes.” Let me tell you, it’s about the taste, too. Flavor and texture both surpassed what I’m used to in Seville’s traditional bakeries. According to Spanish friends, 700 years ago most of Seville’s bakers were Moors who were persecuted along with the Jews during the dark years of the Inquisition. When all the professional bakers were gone, no one wanted to step into their shoes, so quality lapsed. How Alcalá de los Panaderos escaped that fate I don’t know, but they've been baking great bread for countless generations. Just blocks from the café we found the town museum filled with romantic landscape paintings, a few lovely Roman artifacts, and a handful of fossils. The star exhibit: a couple of six-million-year-old teeth from the now-extinct giant mackerel shark megaselachus megalodon, which fans of direct-to-video action movies may remember from such epics as Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, and The Meg. And then began the ascent to the castle, which as usual was located in the highest, most inaccessible part of the landscape. For nearly 4500 years humans have looked at that outcropping and said, “Yep, easiest place to defend. We’re building there.” Twelfth-century Berber Muslims put up a fortress, but the vast castle you see today began taking shape after Ferdinand III claimed the region for Christian Spain in 1248. A new line of defense was added in 2007: the colorful, Gaudí-style Dragon Bridge. Beside the castle stands Santa María del Águila, the church of Saint Mary of the Eagle. They say after Ferdinand III retook the town, an eagle kept flying over the castle walls then landing in a small cave. There folks discovered an ancient statue of the Blessed Virgin, hidden during 500 years of Muslim rule. The simple figure, gussied up with crown, fancy robes, and an eagle at her feet, was declared the city’s official protector and permanent mayoress; they began carrying her through the streets during wars and plagues to comfort her many devotees. Four centuries later, documents came to light in which Ferdinand III says of the statue, “Call it the Eagle,” explaining his second wife was a big fan of St. John the Evangelist, whose symbol is the eagle, and he knew this would please her. It was all the king's hoax! Shocking, I know. Because otherwise the story is so believable. The statue I saw wasn’t even the original. The nun at the gift shop explained that during the Civil War the church had been attacked by Republicans, who burned the statue and much else. A replica was immediately commissioned and presides over the altar today. After hiking all over town, Rich and I were more than ready to sit down to the kind of leisurely gourmet lunch Peter Mayle described so lovingly. Having armed ourselves with a list of possibles, we trudged around to half a dozen restaurants, only to learn they were all completo (fully booked). Would we be reduced to eating in one of the pizza and hamburger joints we’d passed? As you can imagine, when I spotted the modest, family-run, old-school Bodeguita Sanlucar, I was overjoyed. In the end, I learned my lagartito wasn't really lizard but pork extracted from between the pigs’ ribs and loin; apparently the long, skinny strips remind people of sinuous reptiles. I’m lucky it wasn’t the real deal. Lizards tend to be bony and bland, where my lagartito was succulent and delicious. And the sweet, slightly tangy Pedro Ximénez sauce was so yummy I sopped up every last drop with the fine local bread. I reflected this meal might not fit the definition of five-star haute cuisine beloved by serious travel writers, but it certainly ranked as the best damn lizard I ever tasted. Thanks for the memories, Alcalá! WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE BEER STUDY? Of course you do. Here's the link: “Hot News! Beer Rehydrates Better Than Water!” READY TO TRY MAKING LAGARTITO AT HOME? Surprise your family! Lagartito with Pedro Ximínez Sauce Recipe OUT TO LUNCH This story is part of my ongoing series "Out to Lunch" about visiting offbeat places in the city and province of Seville, often by train, seeking cultural curiosities and great eats. (Learn more.) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so you'll receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com LIKE TO READ BOOKS? Be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it A few days ago, I found myself gazing nostalgically at a painting of two brawling women. “Remember that night …?” I said to Rich. He was already nodding. Many years ago, we were standing in a tiny Seville bar when a fight broke out between two neighborhood matrons. The free and frank exchange of views grew increasingly personal and physical, escalating to shouts and shoves. It never quite reached the hair-pulling stage, but eventually one woman stumbled out the door, flushed and disheveled, while the victor swaggered back triumphantly to finish her beer. It was the first time I’d ever seen an actual bar fight in real life. I know, you’re right, I have got to get out more. The painting that prompted this trip into memory's barroom hung in an unfamiliar museum I'd stumbled upon while taking a short cut through back streets near the cathedral. I'd have missed it altogether except for the giant poster by the door that said, “Seville, the last romantic city?” “Seriously?” I said. “Yes, this city is romantic. But what about Paris? Italy? Zagreb, where we danced summer nights away beneath the stars?” I peered more closely at the building. “What is this place?” I soon discovered it was a museum saddled with the unfortunate, designed-by-committee name of Mariano Bellver and Dolores Mejías Romantic and Traditionalist Collection at Fabiola House. (For short, it’s the Bellver Museum or Casa Fabiola or some configuration involving the words Bellver Collection and Casa Fabiola. You see why it pays to hire professional copywriters in these situations.) Grandson of a famous sculptor whose works include the cathedral’s 1885 Assumption portal, Bellver spent a lifetime collecting art which he gifted to the city in 2016. Two years later the museum opened, only to shut down in 2022 following a construction disaster. It seems the next-door neighbor had commissioned renovations involving the overenthusiastic application of a pneumatic drill, which cracked the common walls and sent priceless art tumbling to the floor. Rich and I decided to go in and see what was left of the collection. I was instantly charmed by the fourteenth-century palace, renovated many times by various owners, and by the warmhearted paintings of daily life in nineteenth-century Seville. Many of the subjects looked impossibly quaint — a dispute at knifepoint over a card game, carriages in front of city gates long since demolished to smooth the flow of automobile traffic, the Feria de Abril (April Fair) in the days before it was attended by five million people a year, generating annual revenues of $1 billion. But in this deeply traditional city, many elements — such as Feria outfits — were instantly recognizable and nearly identical to the way we dress for the occasion now. The nostalgic mood inspired by these paintings prompted us to head over to the place Rich and I always call “The First Bar.” More than two decades ago, newly arrived for our first extended stay in Seville, we’d wandered out of our rental apartment and fetched up in this modest, traditional tapas bar. I remember standing at the counter’s glass case to see what was on offer, as I didn’t yet have the vocabulary to read a menu. Being vegetarian at the time, I pointed to boquerones en vinagre (anchovies in vinegar) and espinacas con garbanzos (spinach with chickpeas). The very air seemed to sparkle with the sizzling excitement of being there at last. I still feel that way about this city. Of course, it’s changed enormously over the decades. Word of its charm has gotten out and the streets are thronged with tourists nearly all year round. Crumbling old buildings have been renovated and converted to smart new hotels or Airbnbs. Monuments such as the Alcázar palace and the cathedral, where I once could wander in and out freely, now require advance reservations, and hours-long lines are the norm. Happily, the quality of the food has improved tremendously just about everywhere, including The First Bar. Having sustained many changes in ownership, The First Bar is currently called the Abacería Puerta Carmona, meaning the butcher shop of the long-gone city gate that once gave access to the road leading to Carmona. The abacería is painted in brighter colors now, and the menu is more extensive but still sticks to the classics. We ordered tomate con melva, thinly sliced tomato topped with mackerel, and a truly outstanding solomillo al whisky, pork sirloin with a garlicky whisky-soaked sauce. This whisky sauce burst on Andalucía’s culinary scene in the 1970s, supposedly a desperation substitute when a cook ran out of wine. But that seems unlikely; I’ve never seen a Sevillano run short of wine on any occasion. As we sat in The First Bar enjoying our solomillo al whisky, Rich and I talked about all the changes we’d seen here over the years. To us, Seville is still the most romantic city we know, and it’s hard not to mourn all the good bits that are slipping away. But change is necessary and healthy; it keeps historic cities from becoming fossilized into theme parks. And if the expat life teaches us anything, it’s how to deal with loss. We miss so many people back home, and expats friends here have a dismaying tendency to depart unexpectedly for old haunts or new adventures. It’s the price we pay for a vivid life. Is it worth it? Oh, yes, I think so. I recently ran across this lovely quote from author Brianna Wiest, summing up the cost and value of change. Whether our transitions come from geography, age, jobs, relationships, or other circumstances, her words apply to all of us, sooner or later. “Your new life is going to cost you your old one. It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It’s going to cost you relationships and friends. It’s going to cost you being liked and understood. It doesn’t matter. The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. You’re going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of being liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of being understood, you’re going to be seen. All you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are.” Is Seville the world’s last romantic city? No; there are certainly many others out there. Seville’s gift is bringing its own special vibrancy to the time we spend with people we love and, if we’re lucky, enabling us to rub shoulders with Sevillanos who know how to enjoy the small pleasures of daily life. During my year-end break, I was considering how I could best help visitors embrace the city's culture, and as is so often the case, my thoughts turned to food. I decided to start compiling my own personal guide to the city’s most endearing eateries. If you’re visiting Seville this year, or just love drooling over pictures and descriptions of great meals, check it out. Cozy Places to Eat in Seville |
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As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful. I'm an American travel writer living in Seville, Spain. I travel the world seeking eccentric people, quirky places, and outrageously delicious food so I can have the fun of writing about them here.
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