Spain Trip Part 9: Manzanilla, Day Two

Part 1: Brussels Layover
Part 2: Calçots Somewhere in Catalonia
Part 3: The House of Garlic Mayonnaise
Part 4: Spanish-Italian Fusion in the Countryside
Part 5: Barcelona Holdouts
Part 6: Chocolate Leftovers
Part 7: Tapas in Seville
Part 8: Small Town Andalucia

Good morning, Manzanilla! It's semana santa week, just prior to Easter, and that means torrijas, or honey-soaked pieces of toast. Sigh...if ever a descriptive phrase was destined to fall short in evoking deliciousness, "honey-soaked pieces of toast" is it!

This isn't Miguel's sort of thing, so I strayed to another village cafe, which had triggered my chow-dar as I passed by. Sure enough, there were torrijas, and they were slamming:

Deeply moved, we asked what other pastries are made in house. The proprieter told me she had a cookie pie in the works, but hadn't yet doused it in chocolate. Finishing touches were applied right in front of us while we drooled and moaned:

We strolled over to the village's olive oil cooperative, which sells two liter bottles of the local bold, rich, luxurious aceite for eight bucks. Check out these prices:

Here's the bottling equipment:

We also bought magical, radiant bread from the village cooperative bakery:

I chose not to buy a gallon jug of mosto at the village cooperative winery, figuring I'd just drink it all and then find myself back in the exact same predicament of not having any mosto. Better just to go cold turkey when I left Manzanilla.

Then it was back to El Puesto for lunch. Let's tear this off fast, like a band-aid, so as to cause you, the viewer, as little pain as possible: Miguel asked his mom to cook me this fava bean omelet:

...plus a dish of fried eggs with bitter, tender, tiny sprigs of wild asparagus in delicious sauce:

I have no comment. What could I possibly say?

As the sun set, I was startled to run into what appeared to be a stampede down the main street:

These two chatting women didn't bat an eyelash as the bleating pack strolled by en masse:

Here they remain, oblivious, as if nothing had happened:


The next morning, I took the really really fast train to Madrid, performed the complicated transfer to Madrid airport (which involves catching both a commuter train and a subway), arrived in New York, and immediately ran to a Chinese restaurant, like a desperate junkie.

Thanks for coming along.