At Home, part 5

So Sunday we followed the directions to the village where Marino had grown up. Pilar was from another village close by. We found the house and met Marino’s mother, a strong-looking, slender, gray-haired woman.

“Let’s go right out to the olives,” Marino said. We piled our two kids and their four into two cars and drove a short way out of the village.

Marino set us up with buckets and showed us which olives to pick—not the green ones, but the ones that had ripened to a dark maroon color. Pilar told me that they weren’t edible yet—they would have to go through a curing process first, or to be pressed for oil.

The kids had a great time picking from the low branches while we worked up as high as we could reach. The grove was a small one, but it provided olives and oil for the family’s use. Marino also pointed out the low clumps of asparagus that grew wild on the property. We took some pictures of the rosy-cheeked kids that cloudy, chilly morning.

Then it was back to the house, where Marino’s mother was already preparing baby lamb chops for us hungry workers. Marino sliced a cured lomo (pork loin) for us to snack on while we waited. Like all the best Spanish meals, the lamb was simple and perfectly prepared—just a little salt and a quick sauté in olive oil—and it was delicious.

Afterward the kids kicked a ball around on the rooftop while Pilar told me her latest news. Juan Pujadas, the Price Waterhouse partner who had engineered our move to Spain, was trying to get Marino to move to the States. There was some business Juan thought Marino could develop in Latin America, and Marino was trying to figure out if he wanted to be based in Miami or New York.

“Be sure to ask now for what you think you need for the move,” I advised her in Spanish. “If you think the kids need private school, say so. If you need English lessons, ask that they be paid for.” I couldn’t help thinking that it seemed wasteful to move us to Spain and them to the U.S.—as my grandmother would have said, why didn’t everybody just stay home?

After a while we all took a walk down to the neighborhood bar, where used napkins and olive pits littered the floor. Julie was getting along particularly well with Marino’s daughter Raquel, who was a year older than she. “I want to see her more,” Raquel told her father.

Marino stopped at a doorway to acquire for us some of the local specialty—mazapán, or marzipan, an almond-paste candy that was completely addictive. Different from the colored marzipan we usually saw in the States, this was a simple, lightly sweetened confection that I couldn’t resist.

Before we left we stood in the hallway of Marino’s mother’s house while he went to the cellar to get us some homemade madre de vinagre, the yeasty potion one added to wine to turn it into vinegar. We looked around us at the beautiful old furnishings, and Mike pointed out the heavy wrought-iron chandelier above us. “I have an uncle who makes those,” Marino said as he came up from the cellar.

“Really?” Mike said. “I think they’re gorgeous.”

“You like it? I’ll have to take you to his workshop,” Marino said. We thanked them for a wonderful day and got on the road back to Madrid.