L'Oli i Calzots

In the first few weeks of arriving Rosa told me about how she and her husband always make a trip around the first of the year to an olive farm to buy their olive oil supply for the year. So I'd been looking forward to the excursion we made last Saturday for several months now. Like the trip to Gosol, the teachers that I work with organized a group excursion to visit the olive farm and take a tour of the pressing facilities. As the day approached we planned our morning carefully knowing that we should have a good breakfast. Days with the group tend to be long and we're never quite sure what we're in for - add to that the fact that when we do finally stop for lunch it is often disappointing and pricey. I'll say it again, I love Spain, but the food leaves a lot to be desired. Not to mention that it seems the majority of Spaniards don't get the concept of vegetarian. So the plan was to get up early, fuel up, and be ready for the day. Instead, the alarm didn't go off and we ended up having twenty minutes to get ready and get to the meeting spot, which meant no breakfast. Never a good idea. Less so in Spain, and even less so when your day is on someone else's schedule. We survived though and the day made for a good story.

The olive oil pressing process was interesting - how the olives are collected, washed, sorted, pressed and bottled. We bought 5L, which we calculated to last us almost to the end of our stay here. This oil is made from the arbequina olive, a small, black bitter olive. The olive oil retains some of the bitter flavor, but is absolutely delicious. Here is a shot of a truckload of olives being delivered to the pressing plant.

The olive farm was in a little town called Llardecans and when we finished our oil purchases we walked up into the town, as we had been told about a little pastisseria selling some of the best roasted almonds around. The area of Spain that were in is know for its olives and it almonds trees. They were indeed tasty almonds.

Onwards to lunch. We drove just a little outside of the town and pulled into a gas station, no, not to fill up the tank. There was a restaurant attached to the gas station and this, apparently, was where we would eat. In Spain, all restaurants offer a daily menu, which has a fixed price and comes with a first plate, second plate, dessert and wine. Usually there is a choice of plate for each course. We were a group of fourteen, and it is often easiest to all order the "menu" instead of individual dishes off the regular menu. Instead of giving us all a list of the options to choose from, one person was handed the list, he read the four or five choices for the first course, we raised our hands for which we wanted and he marked down how many of each. Then the same was repeated for the second course and for dessert. Just imagine the confusion. For the first course, Kristian and I both ordered calzots, which are grilled green onions which are served with dipping sauce made of ground almonds, hazlenuts, red pepper, olive oil, garlic and cheese. They are eaten by first peeling off the outer skin that has been blackened by the fire, dipping in the sauce, and then holding them up and swallowing them down. Right now is the season for this and there are special dinners offered in all the restaurants called calzotadas, featuring this dish. We dove right in, gloves, bibs and all. They were delicious!

After the first course, the table was a little dirty from bread crumbs and the burnt parts of the grilled onions. So of course the waiter came out with a dust buster to clean us up between courses. Normal, right? Pesce, are you taking notes?

After lunch, and on the way home, the crew wanted to stop at the new airport that had opened just outside of Lleida. It was so new, it hadn't even had its first flight. But apparently it was a really big deal for everyone in the area, the fact that Lleida, which is not Barcelona, got its own airport. It is extremely tiny, smaller than the airport in Portland, ME. Inside was a cafe, and surprisingly it was full of people. Not there, obviously, to wait for their flight or to meet someone coming in - just there to hang out and enjoy their brand spanking new airport. It was so weird! Then the mayor of Lleida arrived with some journalists to make a tour and the women in our crew suddenly got all flustered. The journalist was famous they said and they fluttered around and got all excited when he waved in their direction. It puts fame in perspective when you see people acting ridiculous about some person that to you is just some guy. Aren't all famous people just some guy or some gal? The following Friday was to be the first flight and we happened to be in Barcelona arriving at the bus station when the first bus heading to the Lleida airport from Barcelona was leaving. There was a camera crew and reporters to mark the momentous event.