Patrónes y formas, Segovia

Roman Aqueduct in Segovia and Companion Buildings with traditional decorated walls

(altered photo)

PLEASE CLICK on this and other pictures to see the beautiful detail

It’s hard not to be awed by constructions that are this old. Especially for an American who’s accustomed to seeing only a few man-made creations even a hundred years old. Yes we do have missions in California, but they're an exception. According to Wikipedia, this Roman aqueduct still works and is the best preserved such structure on the Iberian Peninsula. It’s construction likely dates back about 1900 years.

Modern Apartment Building

(altered photo)

What really struck me in Segovia were the artful patterns on the walls. You see them everywhere, from the walls of the centuries old Alcazar palace, to clearly modern designs on buildings and above doorways. They’re cut into plaster with molds or simply pressed in with a firm instrument by hand.

Modern Detail above a Doorway

(altered photo)

View of the Tower from inside The Alcazar Palace

(altered photo)

I managed to communicate my interest in the artistic formas en las paredes to the woman who sold me my ticket to the Alcazar Palace. She replied in voluable Spanish, the gist of which I picked up. (I smiled when I understood her and repeated a lot of words and phrases to make sure I got her main points). She indicated that this is a local art form, specific to the that area. I replied that when my parents built a house in Ventura, California the one thing they did pay someone else to do was to form beautiful patterns in the plaster that adorned the house. We speculated that perhaps some of the ancestors of those artesanos Mexicanos might have come from the area around Segovia.

* As my parents had done a number of other times, they built that house with their own hands – they didn’t pay someone else to build it

The Alcazar Palace

(altered photo)

CLICK on the picture and Check out those walls!

Modern Edificios y Negocios (Madrid)

PLEASE CLICK on these pictures to see the lively detail.


Modern buildings and city businesses in an unfamiliar country, are just as intriguing as the historical ones. They look so similar to the ones I know at home but, then again, something tells me that I'm not in Kansas any more.

A Bit of Beauty from the Alcazar Palace, Segovia (printable tag)

Please CLICK ON THIS PICTURE to see the lovely detail.

The tag prints well on postcard stock and can be used for a gift, organizational or luggage tag.

I created this tag from a photo I took of a ceiling medallion at the gorgeous Alcazar Palace in Segovia. I wrote a bit about my day trip to Segovia in a previous blog entry, "The Rain in Spain, Stays Mainly in the Plane". The Alcazar is, of course, the palace where Queen Isabella retreated for safety's sake, shortly before she was proclaimed Queen of Castille. Modern western people tend to remember this queen more than others because she was the mother of Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, as well as financier of Christopher Columbus.

Isabella is one of those gals about whom I have mixed feelings. She sounds like a pretty strong woman, a good example of feminine power and strength. But she was also one of the main instigators of the Inquisition, a centuries long event of genocidal terror bent on stamping out religious tolerance among Spanish Jews, Muslims and Christens. Isabella wasn't the first ruler to think that her way was the only way, but she was a terrible crusader for her own cause. She left a legacy that continued from her time, in the late 1400's, in one form or another up until the 1800's.

The Mystery of Trenta (Madrid)

As always, PLEASE CLICK ON these pictures to see more lovely detail.

Window of Horno La Santiguesa

I looked all over the web for a recipe for a wonderful little braided sweet bread I found at this bakery on Calle Meyor, not too far from Palacio Real.* It's called 'trenta' (not treInta - the baker in the panaderia edited my hand-written note).

The only recipe I found was one for some Slovakian bread that is totally different. I know it was kind of like brioche but not as rich. It also had a little cinnamon twisted in.

the mysterious trenta

My search on recipes for "spanish bread" did turn up a wonderful recipe for camote, a sweet potato bread (recipe below). It was NOTHING LIKE THE TRENTA, but it is delicious. I found it in a great blog called Kusina ni Manang, which is a lot of fun to read. The author describes her entries as, A Filipina's unabashed chronicle of her adaptations in the American kitchen. The bread is extremely good. I made the dough - only, as I always do, in a two-pound loaf bread machine, then shaped it in pans, let it rise once more in a 200 degree oven, and baked it in a regular oven at 350 degrees. With the alterations I made to the recipe (removing the butter and increasing the sweet potato, changing milk and water to buttermilk) it baked very fast. Two loaves done around 25 - 30 minutes after the oven rise.

Another friendly-looking panaderia window

The author of Kusina ni Manang says about this recipe, "Camote is very cheap in the Philippines compared to flour, and the soft yellowish rolls they create will probably boost up sales and profit.

"

I don't know about sales and profit but the soft yellow bread is sure good.

The following is my re-interpretation of this recipe.

I run the machine on the dough cycle and bake it in the oven, so it bakes and looks like real bread.

* Spray or oil the bread machine pan first. It's a sticky dough.

Put in the wet stuff.

3/4 cup 2% buttermilk (original was 
1 / 2 cup milk and 1 / 4 cup water
)

1 / 2 cup boiled and mashed sweet potato
 (this was about one regular sized sweet-potato, skinned and mashed with a potato masher)

1 large egg


Put in the dry stuff.

1-1/2 teaspoons salt


5 shakes from the cinnamon shaker (my addition)

3 cups bread flour (I ran out of bread flour and so did the grocery store. Regular unbleached works fine in this.)

Make a dent (well) in the top of the flour.

Fill with following yeast and sugar mixture

(sugar helps the yeast work, this position keeps yeast dry until wet ingredients are heated up to the right yeast-working temperature)

1/4 cup white sugar


1/6 cup brown sugar (not in original recipe)

2 tsp Fleischmann's bread machine yeast


* Let the machine run on the dough cycle

* Once the dough cycle has run it's course (1:30 on my machine), then shape into 2 greased loaf pans (or one loaf pan for a really, really high loaf)

* Put into a 200 degree oven and let them rise once more for 20 minutes

* Switch oven over to 350 degrees and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. A really, really big loaf takes about 35 minutes. I stick a knife right down in the middle to make sure they are done. Yeah, it leaves a hole but you know your bread is done. If you like to tap instead, go for it.

Very good with some healthy-type margarine and honey

* Yes, I carefully wrote down the address and location in comparison to other well-known buildings in the travel notebook I lost on the airplane home.

Impressions of Madrid, Historic Edificios

Please CLICK ON Each Picture To See The Lovely Detail

Gran Via

As an American, I'm not used to seeing really old, ornate buildings right where I live. I wrote in yesterday's entry about scheduling my trip around early morning and late evening walks.

Hace Calor! One Woman's Survival Strategy (Madrid)

Please Click on these Pictures to See More Lovely Detail
Madrillenos have their own techniques for dealing with the heat of the city in July.

Those who don't have a long commute back home may still have a big midday meal and an afternoon siesta before returning to work until evening. But many do commute. I imagine they take advantage of air-conditioned offices as much as possible.

A tourist wants to see things, but when it gets to be over 100 degrees, she gets more than hot.

After I more-or-less got over my jet-lag I had forced myself to stay out all day. I was just miserable. After I came close to passing out on the metro, I came up with my strategy for beating the heat. I developed a modified Spanish plan. I set my alarm and got up at 6:00 in the morning to got out walking different neighborhoods, and taking photographs. In the late morning I visited any museums or other tourist attractions. Once it got good and hot in the early afternoon, I went back to my hotel room, showered off the heat, ate my yogur y frutas and whatever I had scrounged from the mercado. Then I had a REALLY LONG nap, really the second part of my nights sleep. I got up really late in the afternoon and went out walking again. This always included hanging out in El Parque el Buen Retiro. That's where the locals were anyway. Once I got tired of walking in the park, I sat on various benches and read or sketched. I also hung out at the turtle pond and chatted to people. (See my previous entry, Getting Neighborly).

Madrid stayed light until after 10:00 at night in July. Several times I stayed out until past 11:00. The Plazas are well-lit and, since I saw other home-bound women walking home at that time of night. From the style of dress of the people I saw, I guessed that the walk back to the hotel was relatively safe. A casual supper in my hotel room, a little English language news on t.v. and I got in another 5 hours or so of sleep.

Early evening at El Lago in El Parque de Buen Retiro

Enjoying the Frutas (y Verduras) of Madrid

PLEASE CLICK on this picture to see more detail.

Towards the end of my week in Madrid, I found this nice grocery store about a three minute walk from my hotel right on the way back from the neighborhood entrance to El Parque de Buen Retiro, which I visited every day.

I waited my turn while I listened to this woman discussing the gazpacho she was going to make with the produce man. There, of course, the produce seller picks out everything for his customer. We don't sully the frutas or the verduras by touching or squeezing them with our fingers. They picked out everything she needed – tomates, pimentón, a little bunch of sweet, yellow cebollas and some nice heads of ajo. I can’t eat peppers, onions OR garlic, and it still sounded good, a nice cold vegetable soup in the ‘midst of Madrid en Julio. Most days it ranged somewhere over a hundred degrees in the afternoon.

La Senora made a friendly joke to me, about how long she'd taken and I told both of them how much I'd enjoyed listening to her cooking plans, since I was just visiting. That seemed to help me out of the tourist and into the visitor category.

This man handed me both a fresh cherry and an apricot to eat while I waited and, after he marked the price on each package of produce, he added in extras to each bag for this, clearly well-known, customer. Grocery shopping in another country is as enjoyable a cultural experience for me as restaurant eating is for the next woman.