It’s August again and just to the north of Valencia is a town called Bunol. A town famous for it’s giant tomato fight. 40,000 people took part this year in a battle lasting one hour where tons of ripe tomatoes, provided by the town hall, get hurled around at all and sundry.
Like the bull run in Pamplona, it’s a festival populated by young people from all over the world. Better not mention international food prices then eh?
Our very nice satellite broadband servers have decided to change the satellite we are using. This requires us to buy a new dish (as the signal is weaker) and install it at great expense to ourselves.
Expect disruption in all aspects of our communication for at least a couple of weeks.
The story goes that Frederico Garcia Lorca (the pilot here) erroneously believed that the film by Dali and Bunuel Un Chien Andalou (an Andalucian Dog) referred to him, coming from Granada, having recently fallen out with his surrealist friends. This to my mind seems doubly pained paranoia if you have seen the film. And who needed Dali as a friend anyway? (Walt Disney actually).
But his legacy is outstanding, in particular Blood Wedding based on a true story just down the mountain from here in Nijar.
Being gay, he was killed, shot by Nationalist militia, and bayoneted in the behind on 19th of August 1936. He was then thrown into an unmarked grave somewhere between Viznar and Alfacar, near Granada. The dossier compiled at Franco’s request has yet to surface.
That’s fascists for you.
For a long time now I have been wanting to build our own Kachelofen, or masonry oven. I remember first seeing them in Berlin many years ago and I was very impressed. Efficient burning of wood, absorbtion of the heat into the brick and the slow even release of heat there after. What could be better in the heart of Los Gazquez this winter?
The trouble is whilst the principle is straight forward enough it’s quite hard to get solid technical information.
If anyone out there is in posession of some good information please let me know. In the mean time watch this space, I may burn the house down yet.
Antonio Fernández Díaz known as Fosforito, (b. Puente Genil, Córdoba, Spain, 1932) is a flamenco singer and winner of the gold key of flamenco singing.
Fosforito. Something to do with matches, or fire? Love the coopers, wonder if Shepheard Neam still make barrels as nicely as this?
Time for another Andalucia es de Cine. This time Huescar, a little to the north from us on the way to Jaen Province. It’s a hot place in August up on the ‘altiplanos’.
Coming from the Peak District, I first recognised these trees as some kind of Rowan or Mountain Ash. The leaves are more or less similar but the fruit is yellow and large. It is, to my delight, a rare Service Tree or Sorbus Domesticus. Locally they were grown for the fruit which when ripe is highly astringent in my view and inedible. However when left to ‘blet’, (over ripen) it is supossed to be nice. Well I can testify, no, it’s just over ripe.
There is great excitement at Los Gazquez, for having neglected watering or even observing the progress of our new (if not small) olive plantation, we have olives!! And within the first and second year too.
This is the view east from the front of Los Gazquez, the sun going down beyond La Sagra on the other side of the house.
Whilst food in Spain is superb, with many regional specialities, outside of the major cities it is more or less impossible to find food which is anything other than Iberian.
However our good friends at Ganapati (and this is a secret) gave us the recipe for their absolutely authentic Tamil Nadu fish curry.
So now and then, with a rescue pack of papads, we can have that authentic taste of England again (or India).
P.S. For those of you who have not yet had the good fortune to spend time in India you will be thinking ‘surely he means poppadom’. In India we were always greeted with a small degree of hilarity if we asked for poppadoms. This is an old word from the days of the British Raj, like chutney (Acha).
