QuinnRoads

ADVENTURES IN COOKIE DIPLOMACY

Your American Ambassadors in Spain

Our first apartment on Calle Elvira, like most rentals in Granada, did not have an oven. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps it’s the cost of venting old buildings. One of our first purchases for the Elvira place was a microwave.
There are things you can do with a microwave and things you can’t do. We did try roasting a chicken, which was okay, but not worth repeating, especially after we discovered the pollo asado, roast chicken, takeouts. But you can’t cook meatloaf or lasagna or bake cookies in a microwave.
We moved from Calle Elvira to Calle Pages to escape the noise, not to gain an oven. When Guillermo, the agent, showed us what would become our house, and Kay discovered that there was an oven, she was beside herself with glee. At last! She proclaimed. Cookies. Guillermo’s London-learned English did not know cookies. Galletas. She said. Biscuits, remembering what the English called cookies. You’ll have to make me some, he said. I will, she replied, I will.
The next time we saw Guillermo was when he met with us and the landlady to answer questions we had about the stove (she would have the broken stovetop controls repaired), washing machine (put the bleach in here), dryer (the door was sprung but can be held shut with the gas tank) and dishwasher (doesn’t work). Our house is particularly well equipped, as it was our landlady’s home, and has only recently become a rental.
“Where are my cookies,” Guillermo asked.
“It’s too hot to bake,” Kay said. “Wait till it gets cooler.”
Kay planned to make oatmeal cookies, one of her specialties. She had enough oatmeal, which we’d bought in Germany, to make one large batch. At that time we’d been unable to find oatmeal in Granada; since then we’ve discovered a product, as yet untested, which may be like the real thing.
Mid-October arrived. The heat went down. The oven went on. And out came dozens of oatmeal cookies, filled with butter, brown sugar, coconut, raisins and crushed walnuts. They were, according to my unbiased opinion, superb.
“You know,” Kay said, “I think I’ll take some down to Javier.” Javier is the young Argentinean who runs the afternoon and evening shift at the café downstairs. He’s made it a point to be friendly and always leans out the window to shout hello when we go by.
“That would be nice.”
“And that nice girl at the telephone shop who’s always so helpful.” This shop, around the corner from our old Elvira digs, has four telephone booths for international calling (rates are posted, you make your call, which is timed, and pay afterwards) and a copy machine. We buy telephone cards from her, one for long distance calling and one that adds time to our cell phone account. She speaks English and has helped us on a number of occasions.
“And how about the couple in the central market where we buy our olives?” The couple runs a small food store that sells cold cuts, olive oil, wine, canned goods, juices and the best olives in town. The young woman, they were probably in their late twenties, was more than friendly to us, smiling and laughing as she offered us samples.
Kay was on a roll now.
“And Luis, who runs the little market a couple of blocks away.” A genial grandfather, Luis is extremely friendly, with a fond greeting and big smile for all his customers and pieces of candy for the children. Well, Luis was certainly deserving, but where was this going?
Where it was going was the lady who, along with her husband, runs the small tienda, or shop, in our old neighborhood. These small shops — the closest thing to them in the states are One-Dollar Stores — specialize in extremely inexpensive house wares. Because we’d outfitted our first apartment from this particular store, we referred to as Tienda de Oro, shop of gold. The lady, who remembered Flannery from her three months here, always asked about her and about what we were up to. Every time we went in she asked. And we, especially during the first few months after Flannery’s departure, understood almost nothing of what she was saying. She never stopped trying. Her husband just rolled his eyes and shook his head at the futility of it.
We considered taking some to the guys at Navegaweb, the Internet center where we get our email, but decided against it. There are three very helpful young men and three or four indifferent ones, and we couldn’t figure out how we designate who got the cookies and who didn’t.
“How about that nice lady at the post office.”
It was time to draw the line. “You can’t do that! It would be like bribing a federal employee. We could get in big trouble.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head at the audacity of it. “Who next? Zapatero?”
“I don’t see why not,” Kay said. “I could buy a little tin and use lots of paper.”

On delivery day we set out with the small bags, tied with ribbons and filled with galletas typicas de americano. There was a dozen for Guillermo, so he could share with his office staff, and a half dozen each for the telephone lady, the olive lady, the tienda lady and Javier. And what, I asked her, was she going to tell them? That she was the cookie lady?
“What I’m going to tell them,” Kay said, having added the necessary words to her Spanish, “was that my new house has an oven and I’d made cookies and that I want to give them some because they were always so friendly. Siempre muy simpatico.” Putting aside my Scrooge persona and donning my very best American smile, I decided to join the spirit of the expedition. No use standing in the path of goodness.
Since delivery day we’ve seen everyone but the olive lady, and everyone said the cookies were delicious. And they were.
Yesterday we went down the hill to drop off some film at the little shop we’ve been going to since coming to Granada. It’s well out of our way but the man who runs the shop is always so friendly. He knows our names and fills out the order envelope as soon as we enter the shop. Yesterday, for some reason, he had closed early for siesta. The open sign was gone and the door locked. But we could see him inside. When he saw us, he unlocked the door and stuck his hand through for the film. “Manana por la manana?” Tomorrow morning?
“Si,” he said through the cracked door. “Manana por la manana.”
Kay has declared him the next cookie recipient, which he’ll receive as soon as she makes another batch.
I wonder if all these people will refer to Kay as the Cookie Lady.

LOW-TECH, TRADITIONAL COOLING

Spanish Strategies for Summer Survival


Granada is in Andalucia, the hottest region in the hottest country in Europe. Fortunately for us, Granada is roughly 2200 feet above sea level and only 20 miles from the Sierra Nevada, so it’s not as hot as Sevilla. But it’s still very hot.
How hot is hot? From July 22, when we returned to Granada, through mid-September, the daily highs, with few exceptions, were between 35 Centigrade, or 95 Fahrenheit, to 40 C. That’s 104 F. There were days when the temperature exceeded 40 C. Few were the days when the temperature dropped below 90 F. And the nights were warm, rarely below 75 F.
(I have now transitioned, dear American friends, from Centigrade to Fahrenheit. I promise not to return.)
This may sound terribly unpleasant, but believe me, the Julys we’ve spent in North Carolina and Florida have been far more uncomfortable. Living a reasonably normal life — by reasonably normal I mean a life not spent moving from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned destination — at these temperatures is made possible by the low humidity. It is very dry.
How dry is very dry? Clothes hung on our rooftop line are dry in two hours or less, including the towels. Don’t delay combing your hair after a shower; it will dry within minutes. Plants must be watered every day. Skin must be moisturized. A baguette bought in the morning can be used as a weapon that night.
Back in July, we looked at a computer weather page. There were a number of statistics offered, like the heat index: temperature plus humidity plus the number of seconds it takes to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Another was the wind chill factor: temperature divided by wind speed equals the time in minutes it takes for ears to go numb. But the number we found most interesting was something called the “comfort temperature,” a number derived, as best I can tell, by an arcane formula consisting of the temperature, humidity, wind speed and the availability of cold beer. We compared Raleigh, North Carolina, and Granada. Raleigh was 89 F., the humidity 86 percent, the comfort temperature 72, making Raleigh an uncomfortable 17 degrees above the comfort temperature. Granada, that day, was 97 F., the humidity 17 percent. The comfort temperature was 94, a difference of only three degrees.
There are strategies to beat the heat. Because the hottest time of day is late afternoon, not mid-day, we began our errands in the late morning. During the course of our journey, we stop once or twice at a cafe for a cold beer and tapa; even when the temperature is pushing 100, sitting under an umbrella with just a bit of breeze is pleasant. Afterwards we walk slowly back up the hill to the house, sticking to the shady side of the streets and lanes.
When we get home, usually around three, the sun is hot. The house, which has been closed, is, as they say in the South, “right tolerable.” We switch on the fans. It is now time for strategy number one: the siesta.
With the exception of restaurants, cafes and a few department stores, all businesses close for siesta, from two till five-thirty. Everyone goes to a café or home for lunch and a nap.
When we wake up, usually around five, we look out on an almost deserted street and plaza. I’ve stepped out on the street at five o’clock and seen not one human being. There is only the hot sun burning down on the cobblestone street. People began to venture out around five-thirty, and by six-thirty street life is back to normal. At seven-thirty the cafes are filled. At eight-thirty the restaurant across the street begins to put out tables and chairs in the plaza, and by nine-thirty every table is occupied. At ten-thirty the street has become a crowded promenade, a procession of couples, families and baby strollers that continues until after eleven. On especially hot days the parade may continue till midnight.
Another strategy used to combat the heat is the famous Spanish fan. Although they can be quite ornate, they are not simply an affectation. They work. And they are used. Sitting on a bus, in a restaurant or café, or at an outdoor concert, when the air ceases to move, out come the fans. (The sound of dozens of fans going at once brought back the memory of sitting in church on hot, summer Sundays, and those round, colorful, cardboard fans, with their wooden, tongue-depressor handles, a picture of Jesus holding a lamb on one side and an advertisement, most likely a funeral home, on the other.)
The efficiency of this low-tech, cooling device was demonstrated to us back in August, after a long walk we took beyond the city into the surrounding plain. I was curious to see what all that green was that we could see from the heights. It was corn. The day was hot, and after an hour and a half, we turned back towards the city, where, on the outskirts, we ducked into the first café we came across. We’d picked up the pace to get out of the sun, and we were, in spite of the dry air, red-faced and more than damp. An older, Spanish woman sitting across the café looked our way, smiled, then offered her fan for Kay to use. Kay declined, but the woman persisted. It took Kay only minutes to cool herself and me before returning it. She has since bought two.
We also use fans at our house, though not the manually operated ones. Within weeks of returning to our non air-conditioned house in Granada, we purchased three electric fans: a small, 15” fan, which can be put on a table or chair; an oscillating, floor fan for the bedroom; and a large, metal fan which could pull a small airplane. This fan has three settings but we’ve never run it higher than the lowest; even at that level it makes the pictures and plates on the wall swing.
The fans did not, however, help in the kitchen. We have an oven, which we didn’t have in our previous apartment, but we were unable to use it until recently. The hot kitchen heated the entire house.
A third strategy, one that Kay feels is unfair to men, is dressing lightly. Older women wear light, sleeveless blouses and loose-fitting dresses, while younger women wear midriff-baring tanktops and mini-skirts. Sandals and flip-flops are worn by everyone. Some young men wear T-shirts, but most men wear slacks and shirts and don’t seem nearly as cool. They don’t even get to use a fan!
The ultimate strategy, one very popular among Spaniards, is simply getting the hell out of town. All over Spain (all over Europe, for that matter), businesses, shops, even cafes and restaurants, simply close their doors for the month of August, as owners and workers head for the coast or the mountains. On the Spanish coast, they join the hordes of British, Germans and French tourists already there. Prices are high and the beaches crowded, not exactly inviting, at least to us.
The unrelenting heat did become a bit tiring, day after day without letup. The Andalucian summer is long. Normally, June is warm (though there was a heat wave this year), July and August are hot, hot, hot, and September remains very warm. This year the heat lasted through the first days of October, then suddenly ended. October 8th was warm, October 10th was at least 20 degrees cooler. Facing four months or more of daily heat next year is not an appealing prospect. Perhaps we’ll escape to the mountains.
A recent global-warming conference in Europe predicted that temperatures in Spain could rise by three to four degrees Centigrade in the decades ahead. That would mean that the high temperatures in Seville, which now top out at around 108 F. (unless there’s a real heat wave), could reach 115 F. or more. Temperatures that hot could, the report stated, impact tourism. From my point of view, this is quite an understatement.

LOTS OF BEAUTY BUT NO BEASTS

An Exercise in Cultural Math

I see more beautiful women in one afternoon in Granada than in one week in San Francisco. If you don’t believe me, ask our daughter Flannery, who lived here with us for three months.
There is more construction taking place here than in San Francisco, probably that in the entire Bay Area. If you don’t believe me, talk to Flannery.
Both these assertions are difficult to quantify. But in an effort to create a cultural equation – as well as a blog entry — I’ll make a conservative estimate of both. There are ten times more beautiful women in Granada than San Francisco. There are five times (and this is very conservative) more construction sites in Granada than San Francisco.
What, you may ask, is your point? I beg your patience. The equation is not complete. There are more factors to come.
Consider this: You’re walking in downtown San Francisco, and you pass a construction site. There are, let’s say, 20 workers scattered across the site. Walking towards you is an unusually good-looking woman. She is wearing a short skirt and tank top and is very . . . womanly. The result of this simple equation is easy: One good-looking woman plus 20 construction workers equals wolf whistles, catcalls and shouts of: Hey baby, I got what you need. Ignoring them, she walks faster and turns the corner, but as she does a pickup truck passes by trailing a: Whoooooeeeee, what a set!” Enough. You get the point.
Let’s round the above off and call it – not even counting the pickup truck – one good-looking woman times 20 construction workers equals 100 grunts. Grunts because it’s so piggish.
Now to Granada. One day as Kay and I were walking down the street we passed four construction sites. Each site had five workers, for a total of 20 workers. Walking just ahead of us was an absolutely sensational looking woman, a woman so beautiful that one must take care not to walk into a pole or trip over the curb. She was wearing a mini-skirt and a tank top with bare midriff. She was bathed in a golden light and above her a large red neon sign proclaimed: This Is A Woman! As she passed one site, the workers paused in their work and looked at each other out of the sides of their eyes and grinned. One actually shook his head in wonder. This was, and remains, the strongest visual response we’ve seen here in Granada. The woman didn’t appear to notice.
Kay caught their eyes and smiled. They looked at each other, almost embarrassed, and smiled back. “Muy guapa,” Kay said. Very beautiful. “Si,” they all nodded. “Muy, muy guapa.” She then stopped to help me to my feet, as I had walked into a pole, stumbled over the curb and fallen into the street.
Let’s do some math. One good-looking woman times 20 workers (four sites with five workers) equals five looks. Five looks! For the sake of fair play, I’m going to call that one grunt.
So for each mix of beauty and the beasts, we have a ratio of one hundred grunts in San Francisco to one in Granada. Being that there are ten times more beauties in Granada than San Francisco, we now have a ratio of one thousand to one. And since there are five times more construction sites in Granada, the number becomes 5,000 to one. In short, if workers in Granada behaved like workers in San Francisco, the sound of grunting and snorting, of whistling and catcalling, of vulgar suggestions and adolescent invitations would so fill the air that the cacophony could be heard in Seville.
But it’s not. There are none of the above. Now why is that? Why do American women allow it? Why do American men (gentlemen) allow it? Why do so many American men who wield tools or drive pickups or wear hardhats or have oily fingers feel that their work gives them license to act like pigs? (Okay, I know that stockbrokers, lawyers and professional athletes can have smutty mouths, too, but generally they keep it in the boardroom or locker room).
I cannot claim to know what Spanish men are thinking, but I do know what I see. And that is that Spanish working men do not act like little porkers in public. In this city of beautiful women, we have yet to hear one, not one, insulting or vulgar remark. Is it that Spanish men don’t appreciate feminine beauty? It’s my guess that Spanish parents raise their sons with more respect for women. And teach them not to behave like beasts.

STREET SCENE, LIVE AND RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR WINDOW

The Albayzin Just Wasn’t Built for Trucks

Construction, which in the Albayzin is always preceded by destruction, presents significant logistical problems, namely, how to get material in and out. With very few exceptions, the streets of this neighborhood are either hillside stairways, extremely narrow or both. Not so long ago, this work was done by burro and mule. Almost all the work is now done by mini-front loaders, small, material carrying vehicles about the size of a VW Beetle. When access is really tight or steep, wheelbarrows are used. On a couple of occasions, we’ve seen heavily laden mules ready to ascend the hillside.
Rather than make dozens, if not hundreds, of trips up and down the hill with a mini-front loader, the procedure is to have large trucks load and unload as close to the building site as possible, then let smaller machines take over from there. This makes sense.
There are, however, only two ways to drive into the Albayzin. One is to take the very narrow road along the river, then turn left up a steep street to the top, at which point the street becomes Calle Pages, the street we live on. The mini buses that serve the Albayzin turn left here and cross the side of the hill. There are several places along its route where the street is so narrow one has to find a doorway or press one’s self against a wall when the bus comes by. Calle Pages continues on for about a half a mile, ending at the highway to Murcia, just past our house.
The other way up is to drive up the winding Murcia highway and enter by Calle Pages. Because the river route is too narrow and the hill up too steep, this is the route the trucks take. Because Calle Pages is a two-way street, this is also the route out.
This route into the Albayzin does present one rather unique problem. Just beyond our building, Calle Pages simply ends. The reason for this sudden termination is that there’s a building in the middle of the street. But then, clever medieval street that it is, it jumps to the left through a wide gap and continues. This is easier to draw than describe. Imagine this: you’re walking down the sidewalk on the left side of the street, the sidewalk ends, you cross a space the width of a street, and now you’re on the sidewalk on the right side of the street. This little jig presents no problems for pedestrians, and cars can drive through – though only one at a time – at an angle. But large trucks and cement mixers face a challenge.
To navigate this jig, trucks must hug the extreme right side of the street, take a sharp left turn, then turn immediately back to the right. However, if a car or delivery van has parked on the right or at the dead end, the truck or cement mixer cannot achieve the angle necessary to clear the gap. They must either wait for the driver to come out and move the vehicle or try to make the turn anyway. The first option means that traffic stops, a perfect excuse for the Spanish to practice their second favorite activity, right after café sitting, which is blowing the horn. If the truck driver chooses the second option and tries to make the turn without the proper angle, the show begins.
Soon the truck is jammed in at an impossible angle with only an inch or two of clearance on each side. That this is not a rare circumstance is demonstrated by the fact that about four inches of the corners of both buildings on the turn have been scraped off up to a level of about twelve feet. Now its eight inches forwards, six inches back. The maneuver is complicated by the fact that vehicle originally blocking the turn is now trapped by the truck. Passers-by shout directions and wave their arms. Traffic is backed up in both directions and drivers begin practicing their horn blowing techniques. Because there is not enough room for pedestrians to squeeze through, they mill about talking excitedly. Sometimes fifteen or twenty minutes are required for the driver to finally get the truck through.
Fortunately, there aren’t many large construction projects going on up here on the hill. When trucks do pass through, they usually have an open passage. On occasion, when a number of trucks are expected, an employee is dispatched to the “intersection” to prevent vehicles from blocking the turn and to assist the driver. So my little street scene takes place only two or three times a week, always between eight and ten.
Each time, I stop what I’m doing and stand on the small balcony outside the study with my coffee and take it all in. I watch the truck as it inches back and forth. I watch motor bikes weaving in and out between the cars, old ladies pushing their shopping carts between the bumpers, blocked cars trying to turn around and the old men in the plaza chuckling at the confusion from their benches. I hear passers-by shouting advice and encouragement, horns blowing and the people on the sidewalk noisily ordering coffee and rolls through the cafe window below. It’s like having a front-row seat in a Spanish movie. And it’s a comedy.