Friday, February 19, 2010

You Want Chorizo, We've Got Chorizo


South of Watford coming live and direct from Oviedo, at the start of what promises to be a weekend of gastronomic excess. We'll be meeting the same friends who participated in the last assault on the legendary chuleton of Potes. Last night I broke all Spanish digestion rules by mixing Pote Asturiano, a chunk of beef, and tarta de queso. But it's ok, because I had a digestivo. I have spent this morning splashing through the rain examining pre-Romanic churches. The price you have to pay, tonight the roadshow moves to Aviles and tomorrow to Gijon.

Little did I know that I was in the city at the same time as the moustachioed crusader! Aznar has provided further proof of the benefits of a strict religious education by outdoing Esperanza Aguirre when it comes to insulting people. I imagine Espe is already planning how to raise the bar just a bit higher.

11 comments:

Judith said...

Have you tried hot & spicy fabada asturiana for brekkie, rather than baked beans on toast? marvellous! Just the ticket after last night´s guzzling session, pigging out on chuleton and the like.

All this foreign food...this is the kind of unrecognised sacrifice poor expats have to put themselves through for the sake of a smooth relationship with their foreign better halves. I suppose some kind of recognition is in order here, perhaps an MBE? Deep down all those cocido-ridden expats crave second helpings of toad in the hole with a good dollop of bubble as a side dish.

cath said...

Enjoy your weekend in Asturias - and make room for more fabada (and maybe oricios?) by walking in the Picos. If the road to the Lagos is open the routes from the top are brilliant.

Graeme said...

@Judith

I haven't quite gone as far as trying fabada for breakfast yet, although I don't rule it out. I did have it for lunch today, followed by dorada a la sidra. I think an MBE is the minimum I deserve for such sacrifices, and all this is before my foreign better half has even arrived!

@Cath

The only walking that will be done on this trip is from the hotel to the restaurant. We have done the lagos on a previous visit but this time we have different objectives. I took the train from Madrid yesterday and the mountains as it crossed from León to Asturias looked stunning with lots of snow. Another time.

Pueblo girl said...

Name and address (well, just the village name will do) of chuleton restaurant near Potes, please!

Oh, and I actually saw that about Aznar in the papers before reading it here - for once.

Troy said...

I have absolutely no soft spot for the mustached one, but when watching the protesters I have to say that they were rather screechy.

A little imagination could have gone a lot further than the scenes of desperate attempts to crawl over shocked members of PP new generations in their Sunday best.

Scenes like that only serve to further convince these sociopaths that they are somehow in the moral right.

Tom said...

@Troy - the students were completely in the right, as far as I can see. They called him "Killer, terrorist, fascist" which seems to me a logically accurate description of the man. It's worth noting that right-wing activists drowned out student protests during the actual presentation, shouting "Presidente! Presidente!".

Lee said...

Don't know if you all lived in Spain under the (hateful)mandate of Aznar, but he fully deserved the student protest. A pathetic ass-kissing social climber who attached himself to Blair and Bush. Half-witted and vacant.

Tom said...

@Lee - If Graeme will allow me, I'd be happy to indicate my opinion of this Aznar fellow: http://www.thebadrash.com/2010/02/20/why-are-pp-members-so-effin-rude/

Troy said...

I think we'll all agree that the mustached one is less than agreeable, to put it mildly at best.

My point is that the protests to me came off as very contrived, almost like screaming fans trying to get their chance to touch Britney Spears...though in this case trying to prove their point that Aznar is a rabid fascist.

We've been there, done that, and know the dialogue, no?

Yes, he supported the Iraq invasion, YES, he still has no remorse and never will.

What I'm trying to say is that isn't there a more effective way to protest the inviting of a possible war criminal to your University?

ejh said...

I'd have thought the protests succeeded in showing up Aznar rather better than their participants could have expected.

Talking of arrogant rightwingers, I was working in Madrid last week and learned a certain amount of the process mentioned here, in which this blog's favourite person is attempting to bully a successful educational project into closing down so that it no longer rivals a less effective one which she controls.

Graeme said...

@Pueblo girl

www.hoteldeloso.com - in between Potes and Fuente De.