Chapter 8: Happy as a Pig in . . . .

“I can only eat so much jamón,” is a refrain Kate and I have often heard over the years from friends in the States when sharing stories of travel in Spain.

Yet our recent announcement that we would actually be relocating to Spain frequently prompted the enthusiastic refrain: “You are going to eat so well!” I was unsure of how to respond. How could I possibly eat better than I did in New York City where I had the ridiculous good fortune to live near Union Square Park, home to a farmers market with one of the greatest arrays of fresh food anywhere in the world?

Further dialogue with these enthusiasts would reveal that they were thinking of the famous Spanish restaurants and tapas bars — eating well meant eating out. But this presented a second conversational dilemma: My wife is a professional chef, so every day of eating in is eating out. There is really no way to convey this politely. Proper manners and social graces are all about making one’s interlocutor feel good, not envious. Efforts that result in humblebragging are not solutions to the problem.

But what makes me reticent in certain situations — I never realized how often food comes up in casual conversation until I married a chef — makes me one of the luckiest people on the planet during a lockdown.

With few exceptions, Spain’s State of Alarm permits us to leave our apartment only alone — no couples allowed. In the past week, Kate has darted out twice to the food markets, purchasing a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, including several heads of lettuce ranging in color from green to purple, flat beans, carrots, asparagus, red bell peppers, cucumbers, garlic, onions, strawberries, bananas, apples, pears, grapes, dates, and avocados (grand total: 29 €).

Yesterday, though, we did eat pork. We are living in Spain, after all. These were the most tender pork chops either of us had ever eaten, and Kate paired them with daintily-sliced and sautéed onions and pears, and perfectly cooked asparagus. The accompanying salad comprised not just lettuce, but toasted almonds, Spanish sheep cheese, and chopped dates. It was as delicious as any comparable restaurant meal, and we gave thanks for Spain’s foraging pigs and the farmers who raise them.

But for those people still concerned that we may be forced to live on pork alone, I can report that none of our many recent purchases of kitchen equipment (see Chapter 7) have included a carving stand resembling a medieval torture device for a pig’s foreleg. Not that we didn’t discuss it.

©2020 Kay Diaz