Nerja and Frigliana

A visit to my friend Sherri who lives between Nerja and Frigliana in Spain seemed like the perfect time to hang out and catch up with what she’s up to and maybe learn a little more about Spanish cuisine. I’m not all that familiar with Spanish food and she promised to show me some of her favourite dishes.

Before we head the supermercado to shop, we go to the beach for a paella lunch with friends. Given the year round fabulous weather in Nerja, it’s no surprise that everything is outside – the kitchen as well as the tables. The paella pans are a metre wide and there are three or four of them cooking away. The restaurant probably holds 200 people and we have to wait for seats. Nerja is filled with British ex-pats who obviously love the paella. I’m not so convinced.

I’m much happier in the supermercado where I can wander from aisle to aisle discovering all kinds of new foods. In the fish section I find vacuum sealed packages of smoked and dried tuna along with boquerones, anchovies, sardines, dried cod, calamari and frozen octopus. The cheese section holds an equally awesome selection as do areas filled with olive oils and wines!!

We make our way home, laden with bags of ingredients and make incredible (and incredibly easy) tapas with the dried tuna, the octopus, the calamari and the sardines. We make an equally easy Torta de San Juan – a cake with lots of olive oil and almonds. It’s all accompanied by a passable bottle of wine that I’ve selected. Turns out I know even less about Spanish wine then I do about the food. You know it’s bad when your non-drinking friends are telling you how to choose wine!

Anyway, we enjoyed the tapas and the torta all of which I’ve since made at home. But that was about all I learned about Spanish food because the rest of our time was spent cooking from Sherri’s newly acquired Bonnie Stern’s Friday Night Dinners. I guess you can take the woman out of Canada but you can’t take Canada out of the woman – or something like that.