Visiting a city is obviously very different from living in a city. The tourist is in a constant state of motion, consuming as much culture as possible in a brief period of time. With a limited schedule, I would encourage every tourist who travels to Madrid to maximize his/her experience by spending hours in The Prado, The Reina Sofía, and Museum of Archaeology, bar crawling in the evenings in La Latina, Calle Ponzano and Malasaña, and strolling through majestic Old Madrid or “Madrid de Los Austrias”, visitng the Plaza Mayor, The Royal Palace, Liria Palace and many other iconic buildings. On my free days, I will often head out and go to Retiro park and meander my way to Sol and find a good “menú del día” on a quiet side street in Huertas or Barrio de las Letras just to be surrounded by such a pretty backdrop. But, really, as a resident of this city, my daily habits are similar to life back in the States where I cling to my own neighborhood, going to my markets for fresh produce, hitting the gym a few blocks away, having afternoon tea at a fairly nondescript cafe up the road and occasionally having an evening “caña” with a “tapa”next door at what I would describe as a working class bar which happens to serve an amazing tortilla. Pushing on with life, I think we all tend to fall in love with our mundane habits that give us the framework to cradle our deeper selves soaked within the canvas.
Today I plan to have lunch with my friend Isabel and her mother at her mother’s home in the northern part of the city. I will arrive around 2:15 pm and we will chat in the living room before we sit for a proper “comida” where María will serve a first plate, then will clear the table, and we will proceed with a second plate and finally a dessert. Tea or coffee will be offered at the very end to help with digestion! Enjoying meals at friends’ homes is always such a treat for me and is without question my favorite part of Spanish culture. The mid- day meal is still sacred for many and on the weekends you can rest assured that you will be anchored at the dining room table for a minimum of three hours. Regardless of what the plan is for my gatherings with friends in Madrid, when we meet, we always plan to incorporate a meal into our time together. In the rapidly devolving art of conversation, eroded by our faces buried in a social-media crazed world, there is nothing more refreshing than sitting at a table with good friends for long hours talking about life. As I sit and write this entry, vivid memories of specific meals come to mind:
-An afternoon paella that worked its way into sunset in Miraflores de La Sierra overlooking the mountains north of Madrid.
-Our end of the Spain trip meal at José María in Segovia years ago with colleagues from E.H.S. where we sat down at 2:00 pm and did not rise until 6:30 pm after quite a bit of cordero asado (grilled lamb) and vino!
-A lunch for 30 cousins in a stone home in the Galician countryside where we were served homemade empanada Gallega filled with mussels and tomatoes, tortilla, plates of jamón ibérico and lomo and a fideua of almejas (clams) and gambas (shrimp). On a patio surrounded by Magnolia trees and the lush emerald Galician grass!
The picture of this blog entry is a shot of my friends’ children and me outside of their home waiting for a lunch of “rabo de toro” (bull’s tail) to be served on Halloween weekend. Great people and great food make for a great time!