Cooking in Iznajar

Friday 2^nd March

I spent about 5 hours administration on my Bristol house purchase, using fax, e mail and phone calls in several Locutorios to my Solicitors, Bank, House Insurers etc…..quite a hassle buying a house from Spain !! J was getting itchy feet by Noon, as we due to leave for my cooking course weekend in Iznajar, and as I didn’t finish till after 1 pm, after faxing off final instructions, she was not happy !! Our departure was not helped by a contretemps with Tommy re tile cement ….a debate on the colour….J wanted brown and Tommy just wanted to use grey cement. As J was in no mood to discuss, I suggested he did brown cement matching brown edge tiles or leave it until Monday.

It took about 1½ hours to drive to Iznajar, a small town by a large lake in the mountains, on the edge of the Subbetica National Park. This is south of the olive oil capital of Baena, and all one can see for miles around are olive trees …..hundreds of thousands of them in this area alone. We arrived about 2.30 pm to a warm welcome to Finca Las Encinas , a cookery school run by a charming couple C and M, with P the other cookery student, who had arrived from London the previous evening..

After a delicious chicken salad for lunch, P and I got straight down to the cooking, kneading the facaccia dough P had made earlier, and putting it in a flat pan swimming in quality virgin olive oil, vegetable preparation for the Paella de Valenciana, and juicing the lemons for the Tarta de limon., washed down with plenty (1.5 litre bottle) of Rioja ……a bit “Keith Floyd” for cookery programme addicts with long memories.

J, who was not doing the course, sat out on the terrace reading. After a break, tasting the freshly baked facaccia bread with olive oil, and some morrocan seed bread P had made earlier, we re-started about 6 pm and scrubbed the fresh mussels, prepared and sliced the squid, peeled the king prawns, and cut up the rabbit and belly pork for the paella.

After a long evening of cooking the paella, we all sat down about 9.30 pm for a superb meal of Ensalad de oruga, cilantro y esparragos (Rocket, coriander and wild asparagus salad), the paella and the tarta limon, followed by brandies and a long chat, getting to bed well after midnight.