The weekend of the 27th Amy and I were invited by a teacher at my school to his house. There is some rockclimbing near his village so the plan was to climb on Saturday. He picked us up Friday night. Moral de la Calatrava is about a 15 minute drive from Valdepeñas and takes its name, along with several other villages around, from the knights of calatrava. Reuben has a big house in this small village. It is very Spanish looking with white walls and red tile roof. Also an enclosed courtyard and short doorways. Grape vines growing on a lattice over part of the courtyard.
He prepared pan con tomate Friday night. It is Catalan (Barcelona area of Spain) and is toast with garlic and tomato rubbed on it with a little olive oil. Simple but tasty. We also sampled a bunch of Manchego cheeses (famous cheese from this region). Saturday we climbed a little and then returned to the house for gachas manchegas. A typical dish which consists of some kind of pork sausage and garlic in a special flour and water sauce. Reuben cooked it over a wood fire. His friend Marcos also came and made a tasty salad with avocado and tomate. He was expecting us to be unfamiliar with avocado so we had a good laugh when we told him our Dad raises avocados. We ate the gachas out of the pot using forks and pieces of bread. It was delicious. Saturday night Reuben had a fútbol game so Amy and I went with Marcos to another village, Almagro for theater. It turned out to be poetry but was pretty interesting and there were free drinks and cookies. We returned to Reuben´s and realized that we were going to stay in Moral the whole weekend. Marcos ended up spending the night too. Reuben has plenty of spare rooms and extra mattresses, he says people come for a night and end up staying the whole weekend quite a bit...
Sunday we all went in Reuben´s vehicle to look for wild mushrooms in the mountains in the province of Jaen (Andulucía). We stopped on the way at a natural fountian they have piped into a pool where Reuben gets all his drinking water. People in general don´t like to drink the tap water here. We didn´t find many mushrooms. Reuben had made a tortilla española for lunch so we had a delicious lunch. I was completely famished by the time we ate because like most Spaniards, we didn´t do much for breakfast and we didn´t have any snack before our 2 o´clock lunch either. Next we went further into the mountains and ended up seeing a Madroño tree along the road with ripe madroños. They are a red-orange berry-fruit thing. There is a famous statue in Madrid of a bear eating madroños from a madroño tree (sometimes called a strawberry tree). We picked a bunch.
We ended up at Cimbarra, a beautiful area with a couple of waterfalls and steep canyons. There was not a lot of water so we will have to return in the Spring and see it again. I think it is only about an hour away.
We all stayed at Reuben´s Sunday night, too. Monday Amy and I went with Marcos to the churrería in Moral and then he dropped us off at the rock climbing crag. We climbed all morning and Reuben picked us up and we went out for lunch. We had another typical dish. Liebre con arroz. Hare with rice. It was menú del dia so it was a full course meal and we all had another plate as well and desert too. It was a good weekend and now we know how to make a proper tortilla española. We haven´t got around to trying to make gachas yet though. Amy made some empeñadas the other night which were pretty good (not near as good as El Nandú though). Amy will probably modify a few things next time though and perfect them.
He prepared pan con tomate Friday night. It is Catalan (Barcelona area of Spain) and is toast with garlic and tomato rubbed on it with a little olive oil. Simple but tasty. We also sampled a bunch of Manchego cheeses (famous cheese from this region). Saturday we climbed a little and then returned to the house for gachas manchegas. A typical dish which consists of some kind of pork sausage and garlic in a special flour and water sauce. Reuben cooked it over a wood fire. His friend Marcos also came and made a tasty salad with avocado and tomate. He was expecting us to be unfamiliar with avocado so we had a good laugh when we told him our Dad raises avocados. We ate the gachas out of the pot using forks and pieces of bread. It was delicious. Saturday night Reuben had a fútbol game so Amy and I went with Marcos to another village, Almagro for theater. It turned out to be poetry but was pretty interesting and there were free drinks and cookies. We returned to Reuben´s and realized that we were going to stay in Moral the whole weekend. Marcos ended up spending the night too. Reuben has plenty of spare rooms and extra mattresses, he says people come for a night and end up staying the whole weekend quite a bit...
Sunday we all went in Reuben´s vehicle to look for wild mushrooms in the mountains in the province of Jaen (Andulucía). We stopped on the way at a natural fountian they have piped into a pool where Reuben gets all his drinking water. People in general don´t like to drink the tap water here. We didn´t find many mushrooms. Reuben had made a tortilla española for lunch so we had a delicious lunch. I was completely famished by the time we ate because like most Spaniards, we didn´t do much for breakfast and we didn´t have any snack before our 2 o´clock lunch either. Next we went further into the mountains and ended up seeing a Madroño tree along the road with ripe madroños. They are a red-orange berry-fruit thing. There is a famous statue in Madrid of a bear eating madroños from a madroño tree (sometimes called a strawberry tree). We picked a bunch.
We ended up at Cimbarra, a beautiful area with a couple of waterfalls and steep canyons. There was not a lot of water so we will have to return in the Spring and see it again. I think it is only about an hour away.
We all stayed at Reuben´s Sunday night, too. Monday Amy and I went with Marcos to the churrería in Moral and then he dropped us off at the rock climbing crag. We climbed all morning and Reuben picked us up and we went out for lunch. We had another typical dish. Liebre con arroz. Hare with rice. It was menú del dia so it was a full course meal and we all had another plate as well and desert too. It was a good weekend and now we know how to make a proper tortilla española. We haven´t got around to trying to make gachas yet though. Amy made some empeñadas the other night which were pretty good (not near as good as El Nandú though). Amy will probably modify a few things next time though and perfect them.
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