Saturday, March 12: Lunch in the Campo- Part I

Mirian (Spanish), Claire (American) and I went to eat lunch at Mirian´s grandmother´s house in Ejica in ¨the campo,¨ a.k.a the middle of nowhere.  After driving on a 2 lane road for what seemed like forever, we met Mirian´s Dad and his girlfriend at a gas station to follow them to the exact spot in the middle of nowhere where the abuela´s house was located.  The girlfriend insisted on driving Mirian´s car because the dirt path to the house was so waterlogged from all the rain that day that she was worried.  We obliged and relocated to her Dad´s car to bumble down the gravel for what really seemed like forever, and finally arrived at a huge barn-like house filled with a milling multitude of Spaniards.  We had dropped in on a family reunion.  Literally, her dad´s cousin was in town from Denmark and everyone came to say good-bye before she went back.  

Now, when we arrived at the barn filled with Spaniards, Mirian´s car and her Dad´s girlfriend still were not in sight on the dirt path.  I had left my sweater and my jacket in her car.  Anyone who has not encountered a Spanish adult woman, we´ll say over the age of 27 for our specific purposes, may not understand how big of a deal it is for to this demographic if someone is NOT wearing a jacket when outside at any time during any month that has the letter ¨r.¨ Being March, heavy jackets are necessary.  No matter if the sun is shining and it is 75 F and you live at the beach, you will be looked at like you are crazy by these women if you are not wearing a jacket.  

I entered this family reunion, where 15 plus women in this demographic were seated, wearing a short sleeved dress.  Oops.  I knew I should have waited for Mirian´s car to arrive.  I heard murmurs of ¨well in some places in the US they just don´t consider this cold¨ and ¨oh my she´s dressed for summer.¨  One aunt actually came up and told me to take her jacket. I tried to convince these people that I had not one, but TWO jackets on the way, but to no avail.  No one believed me until I actually put them on, which was about 15 minutes later when the car finally made it all the way down the dirt path alive.  That was (pretty much) the end of that, minus a few ¨So are you warmer now?¨ comments later.

The family had started eating lunch at 3, and we got there at around 4:45.  This is for lunch, remember.  I was almost even marginally slightly worried in the car that there might not be much food left when we got there.  Within 5 seconds of sitting down, we had sausage, cheese, “cocido” which is a type of stew, deviled eggs sitting atop a vegetable medley, spinach dip with “picos” for dipping, some sort of spinach carrot pastry, and shrimp sitting in front of us.  Not to worry, the croquetas were heating up in the oven and came out shortly after.  After we stuffed ourselves until we could eat no more, the dessert table was unvield.  So we proceeded to sample, sample being a delicate word for eat copious amounts of,  tiramassu, chestnuts in some sort of yummy sauce, lemon flan, a random “tarta” that Claire described as tasting like cologne, and butter cookies.  The drink choices, by the way, included whisky, “vino dulce,” coke, and red wine throughout the day.  I mean, they were just downing whisky with lunch.  After dessert(s), we took a walk down the path winding around their acres of crops and past the hens and dogs to watch the sun set with Mirian’s dad.  When we came back, they were making more food.  So naturally we ate it.  We didn´t want to be rude. And then we went to visit Mirian’s mother in Sevilla.