Happy Birthday Tommy

We woke up this morning with the recollection of where we were last year at this time. Beirut, Lebanon enroute to Baskinta, Lebanon to spend a few days with long lost family. It was a most memorable birthday for Tom and I so when his birthday approached this year I wanted it to be another unforgettable day. We had planned to be in the Alhambra museum/palace in Grenada but had a slight difficulty getting our tickets because of the holidays here in Spain. We will go another day. Our friend Luis had a few suggestions but there was one that really piqued our interest. He suggested we drive into a small Andalusian village, Fuente Alhama, and have lunch in the house/restaurant of the only eatery in the area. This is a family run operation where mama does all the cooking and papa and his son do all the serving and clearing. It is in their home and they have two small eating areas inside and a big porch out the front door.

There is no easy way to get there…you just follow the map that Luis draws for you. We were given a note that introduced us and Luis said no need to worry about what to order, “You get whatever mama cooks”. We were excited to see what that would be.

We were given the table by the fireplace and near the opened front door. Here we could see the coming and going of the entire town. Numerous people came and went, often times on horseback. It was awesome to watch them ride up and tie up their horse before coming in.

We were given a couple cans of beer and then a plate of something we had never seen or tasted before.

It looked like a small pickled fig and it was delicious. We met a couple of men who sat across the table from us and they explained a few of the dishes. These were capers and they were huge! They would offer us some of their food, asking us to try something that had just been brought to them with an explanation of what it was. It was like family. We then got a plate of something that looked like bread dressing from Thanksgiving Day. It was very tasty and it was just thick, soft bread fried in olive oil. The main course was a plate of large fried potatoes with six fresh fried eggs on top of it. Along with that were blood sausages and chorizo.

It was delicious! Hot and cooked in olive oil. We ate as much as we could but left enough for four more people to have a complete meal. Next they brought us a huge plate of melon. Not so sure what type of melon it was but it was delicious.

We rested a few moments before that brought us an old coke bottle filed with homemade anise. We thought of our daughter-in-law Liz and wished we could bring this bottle back home for her. There was no lid on the bottle so that would have made it difficult. There is a city, Rute, south of here that is infamous for it’s anise. This was homemade and the best we had ever tasted.

They brought it along with four individually wrapped pastries, which I had to slip into my purse.

We sat for a while and while with hope that our food would digest, but we remained full for the rest of the day. It was unforgettable!

And by the way, I know what were going to have for Sunday lunch when we return!