Eating with Innuendo

On my first trip to Spain, my friend Marián and her father, Carlos, promised to take me to their summer home in Miraflores de la Sierra. Marián had spent much of her childhood in this quiet village, which is tucked away in the mountain range just north of Madrid.

The first morning in Miraflores, we drove north through pine tree-studded hills to the medieval town of Pedraza. The summer feria was winding down, with drunken revelers still stumbling through the cobblestoned streets.

Marián and I were hungry but we had to save our appetites for a delicious lunch of roasted suckling pig, the local specialty. So to stave off our hunger, we stopped at the only open bakery in town, a tiny storefront where she ordered a few bollos to go.

My eyes widened in astonishment but I said nothing. She ordered what? In Miami, my hometown, Cubans use the word bollo (pronounced bo-yo) to refer to a section of the female reproductive system that Americans would usually identify with the “p” word. As with its American counterpart, the Cuban “b” word is used only when the speaker wishes to be deliberately vulgar, most certainly never in polite company!

To tell you the truth, I really didn’t care what this bread roll was called. It was my first morning in Spain. I was still recovering from jet lag, a mild hangover and I felt light-headed under the hot August sun. I had to take a bite out of this bollo immediately just to keep my blood sugar from dropping. There simply wasn’t time to discuss the finer points of variations in the Spanish lexicon.

As I chewed on the soft, sweet roll and surveyed the stone exterior of Pedraza’s castle, I mulled over another mundane metaphor. The night before we had dined on conejo al ajillo (rabbit stewed with garlic sauce). This was a messy meal with bits of tender meat chewed right off the bone and sauce slopped up from the plate with crusty bread. No sooner had the waiter filled our glasses with the second bottle of Rioja the jokes were flying. Marián’s friend, Manuel -- who had as much delicacy at the table as a rutting bull -- was kind of enough to explain that the word for rabbit also referred to a “highly prized” part of a woman’s body. So I was beginning to get the hang of it: when in Spain, you eat with innuendo, my friends, not just with gusto!

By the time we left Pedraza, my stomach had stopped growling and I relaxed into the passenger’s seat to enjoy the ride. Imagine my amusement when we passed one town called Rebollo (which translates as “not just a simple bollo, but a really impressive one!”) and another called Sacabollos (which can be interpreted as “get those bollos out, ladies!”). I chuckled quietly under my breath and when asked what was funny I simply sighed and exclaimed, "ah, this is such a sensual country!"

Even though Marián and her father treated me like I was a member of the family, I didn’t think it was appropriate to bring up the subject of bollo with Carlos in the car. As the day wore on, I became distracted by the landscaped gardens of La Granja and completely forgot about the matter.

The next morning, Carlos woke us up by knocking hard on the door and telling us how much we snored, when in fact, he had snored most impressively throughout the night, echoing through the cool green pastures of the Sierra and keeping the cows, I was sure of it, from peaceful slumber.

Playing the stern father, pretending that we were still young girls and not grown women, he chided us for sleeping late. To prove how late it was he boasted loudly that it was 9:30 AM and that he already had enough time to eat three bollos! I shoved a pillow on my face to contain my laughter. That a sixty-something man could be so busy was impressive!

Later that morning I discreetly explained the story to Marián, who eventually repeated it to everyone she knew in Madrid. And so now there are a handful of Madrileños who smile every morning when they enjoy their café con leche with a warm, fresh-baked bollo.

Old Lovers, Unseen Islands

La Gamella, Alfonso XII 4, near El Retiro

I'm having lunch rather late, even for Spain. The room is empty except for two American women from Chicago sitting behind my table. The waiter and maitre d’ are both Cuban and when they learn I’m Cuban-American, their eyes brighten with familiarity, as they always do, when Cubans find each other around the world.

Soon I’m alone, completely alone in the little, beautifully decorated room. These two well-educated, well-spoken gentleman, who gave up important posts in Cuba, but would rather work here for less money and one hundred percent inviolable freedom, make my afternoon an unexpected pleasure.

While in Spain I caught different glimpses of Cuba from across the Atlantic.

Last week I had dined with a man from northern Spain who loved to dance salsa and had traveled to Cuba more than a dozen times. He told me that conditions in Cuba had deteriorated and that he would never return. Statistically speaking, he informed me, men from Northern Spain formed the greatest percentage of tourists on the island.

And only last night, I caught the end of a hidden camera investigation on television called Infiltrados about prostitution and drug rings in Cuba. A Spanish friend once told me that while in Spain, I should never say I’m Cuban, because Spanish men identify Cuban women with the starving prostitutes of Havana. If only it were so simple to get rid of that other side of hyphen, the other side of American.

I’m so relieved to be a casual observer of words, of gestures, of intentions. Writing in my velvet book about conversations I’ve shared with different men in Spain about Cuba, I am sheltered from the rhetorical storm. There is no need to prove if anything I’m told is true. What’s important here is the fact that someone wants me to see Cuba through their eyes. The living, breathing interpretations of a history so complex that it might as well be part of some fiction.

My waiter’s parents pay the government of Cuba a monthly stipend to stay out of the island, but they are free to return whenever they like. How times have changed. My parents went through a teeth-clenching, bureaucratic hell to leave Cuba legally and can never return.

Enough. I finish my delicious meal. Memories of my family's history taken with broader sweeps on the canvas, with a new flavor.

The waiter treats me to a chupito. I close my book, savor the tart liquor on my tongue and I immediately recall pear schnapps, the Black Forest, the scent of his dark blonde hair. I think I had a dream about him last night. Yes, I definitely did.

In this city that I am only just discovering, in this city of lovers, I dream about men I have loved. They creep into the foggy labyrinth of night, blending into archetypes and architectural structures, surrounded as I am by buildings that I’ve never seen until now. This quiet refuge, this solitary meal at La Gamella, just like my solitary bed, that’s all it is, a sanctuary, a place of respite from the torrent of memories that might accost me around every corner of Madrid. I walk among unfamiliar buildings but there you are: old lovers, unseen islands, what are you doing here?

Napkin Scribbles

La Platería, Plaza de la Platería, near el Prado

Eating alone in Madrid. It's a handicap in this city of lovers. Refusal to serve only half a ración; these hearty appetizers are always meant for two or more. Fideuas and paellas at the ChampagnerÌa Gala are always for two, never for one. The host won't seat me, even if I'm willing to pay full price.

One evening I eyed a platter of ripe-green pimientos de padrón under at the bar and I decided to return the next night to savor this Galician specialty. Faithful to my craving, I returned, sitting at the bar of this modern, busy wine bar and restaurant, sipping a glass of crisp white alvarinho, I patiently waited for my table.

The waiter and I exchanged glances. I knew this meant table for one lady, assured. But when I stood to follow him, the couple next to me, a man and a woman who had been completely oblivious of their surroundings until that moment, leered at me and demanded a table because they had arrived before me. Yes, of course, before me, how appropriate, the world before ME. Single me out, yes, I'm a single woman, eating alone, and my only purpose in life is to keep this seemingly happy couple from the additional pleasure of filling their bellies. Well, I thought, perhaps they did arrive first, but I didn't have some handsome man fondle me while I waited for a table. Yes, yes, now that I think about it, they were before me, literally, flaunting their love, companionship, shared meals, conversations before me, in my face, as if nothing matter but themselves and their gurgling stomachs.

In the love-busy eateries of Madrid, you've got to wait for that, that unique request, table for 1, why, no one ever asks to be seated alone, unless you're an eccentric American writer.

The manager pours me a second glass of wine. Consolation prize. On the house. Sorry to make you wait, señorita.

And so I envision a rare restaurant where everyone dines alone, silently, blank gaze staring at the distance, looking into nothing or perhaps the memory of forgotten eyes, listen to the half-words of half-remembered conversations. What an odd, mechanical, lifeless restaurant that would be: only the clank, clink of silverware, the occasional slurp and the nearly silent wipe of a neatly folded cloth napkin against a hardly soiled mouth.

Yes, eating is social, isn't it? Eating alone is an anomaly here, but still, I'm human and I've got to eat. So I swallow my pride and wait.

The waiter who seats me is terribly busy. Service that is so slow by American standards, and which I normally enjoy, seems unbearable tonight, as if I had marked this evening with a musical direction of lentissimo, symphony of the reluctant diner and her humiliation.

The waiter seats me in the middle of the crowded plaza. The antisocial writer scribbles frantically on her napkin. I miss my book terribly. The menu arrives. Relief. They serve half raciones. I order dinner and when it finally arrives half an hour later, the pimentos de padrón are missing. I politely note the omission. But my heart silently demands, oh yes demands -- after all that, after feeling invisible, ignored, neglected, treated as a lonely diner -- those little green peppers mean the world to me. Twenty minutes later my waiter appears with a saucer full of the fresh peppers, tossed in exquisitely flavored olive oil and covered in coarse sea salt. One bite. Ah. I'm redeemed.

Expatriate Writer

Bar El Brillante, Atocha 122

The famous bocata de calamares is simple yet delicious: large, tender fried calamari rings, lightly breaded and stuffed between two halves of a fresh, foot-long baguette. No condiments necessary.

After having read so many praises sung to the bocata on MadridMan’s message board, I literally stepped into this café without even realizing I was there!

I sit under the canopy of trees just off the street facing the Atocha station. The floor is strewn with cigarette butts and napkins. Cleverly avoiding the hurried footsteps of busy waiters, pigeons and finches pick scraps off the floor. You can have a 40 euro lunch at the Ritz just 10 minutes away, but it doesn’t get better than this -- a bocata and a caña one August afternoon in Madrid.

People stare at me: the men lustily; the women suspiciously. Yes, I’m a woman and I'm writing at this table, alone, sitting here quietly satisfying my hunger and my need to write all at once. I realize this afternoon that I am profoundly bored I where I permanently reside, that my soul must travel in order to feed itself, that the words I jot down in my journal will sustain me once I return home: anything eaten in a state of freedom and happiness tastes much better and the memory of this meal is just as satisfying.

Do the little finches consider themselves Madrileños? These magisterial pigeons who lord it over the sidewalks of the world, do they have a sense of nationality?

The City to Myself

Café Gijón, Paseo de Recoletos 21, est. 1888

There’s a lovely English couple sitting by the window overlooking the Paseo de Recoletos. They both wear beautiful grey hair: she, long and luxurious tresses and he, cropped short. The seem frozen in time, for in spite of their age, they are impossibly elegant, poised, youthful, smiles full of wisdom. He looks into her eyes gently and smiles knowingly as he pours another glass of white wine, as if they’ve had the same conversation a thousand times, and as if he would hear her speak again and again.

The waiter interrupts me with my first course, a Crema Bretona. Sitting here, a single woman, ‘singled out’ from the crowd, I write in my book in this café famous for its literary past.

I am a single woman always walking alone, eating alone, writing alone in this city of lovers. I feed on the lives of others, spy on their gestures of affection, observe the nuances of their body language.

I finish my meal of Trucha a la Navarra with a coffee and a slice of melon. I wondered what the lovers would do at 3 PM on a hot summer day in Madrid. Eat, make love and sleep, or simply linger in half-sleep with a belly full of pleasure.

I will walk instead. I will walk alone in the deserted streets of mid-afternoon and have the city to myself. I will walk alone, waiting for the city to awaken once more, for its pulse to quicken and carry me into the night.