We found ourselves in Madisonville, Tennessee today so we HAD to stop at Benton’s. We’ll have to compare our 24-month-old Benton’s Country Ham to the Jamon Iberico we brought home.

In May, I got to visit my friend Juan for the first time in 14 years.  It was great to see each other again and we vowed not to wait so long before the next one.  Fortunately, this time it only took us six months.

And this time we added Susana and Maria to our gathering.  During my time in Madrid in 1998, Susana had been the secretary for the Eastman team.  Maria had been the secretary for the Intecsa team.  I don’t think I had seen either of them since my swan-song tour through the engineering office in December 1999.  We shared many memories and many laughs.  I think those two years were career highlights for all of us.

Spaniards love Christmas lights!  We got to see the lights in both Córdoba and Madrid.  The streets were full with families (and at least two tourists) that had come out to see the lights.

After our patios tour, we went to have a cooking with Mara’s boyfriend, Adrian Lopez, and her niece Barbara.  We learned a new dish (salmorejo) and we learned some techniques that should make Kim’s paella better.  We also laughed a lot too.

About two-thirds of the way through the paella lesson, the breaker tripped.  Barbara dutifully scampered up the stairs to turn the breaker back on.  A few minutes later, it tripped again.  After being plunged into darkness the fourth time, Adrian had to turn off his electric skillet to that Kim and I could finish our paella.  I have to commend him for being so cool under pressure.  I would have been freaking out.

Also, Kim gave Barbara the nickname Barbara de la Luz (Barbara of the light) in honor of her many trips to the breaker panel!

In addition to its blend of Christian and Moorish cultures, Córdoba is famous it’s flowered patios.  In fact, each May tens of thousands of visitors come to see the patios during their patio festival.  We were surprised to see some many flowers still in bloom on a cold, gloomy day on the fist of December. 

During the festival there are 50 patios open for tours, but at this time of year we toured only three patios in the San Basilio neighborhood.  I can only imagine how beautiful they are in May.

After we caught a glimpse of the olive harvest, we went to visit the Los Insensatos  Winery that is a new project in an old vineyard. 

Most (maybe all) winery tours I have been on offer wines made from a variety of grapes, but here all four wines we tasted were made with Pedro Jiménez (PX) grapes.  In spite of the wines being the same grape from the same winery, they each had a distinct flavor.  The different plots have different elevations from 1500 ft to 2100 ft.  Some grapes were grown on north-facing slope with others grown on a south-facing slope or on the valley floor.  The result were four very distinct wines made in a beautiful location.

In spite of a drought this year, Kim and I have been rained on during both trips to Spain this year. As far as I can tell, the rain in Spain falls mainly on me!

During this trip we had planned on visiting the de Miguel family farm to see the harvest and then visit the mill to see how the olives were processed into oil.  It rained so hard while we were there that the fields were mud and they were unable to harvest olives.  Without any fresh olives coming in from the fields, the mills were not operating because you can’t store olives while making extra virgin olive oil.  What is harvested is processed as quickly possible to minimize anerobic fermentation that can turn extra virgin olive oil into a lower quality grade of oil. 

Instead, we took pictures of olives with water dripping off of them.  Not exactly the images I was hoping to capture.  That was Saturday.

On Sunday, we went to visit a vineyard in Montilla.  Montilla is a town south of Córdoba that produces both olives and grapes.  As we were having a coffee on a chilly patio, Mara said that she could hear the machines that shake the trees to harvest olive.  It sounded like a chain saw to me, but we struck out in quest of this noise.  A few minutes later we caught up with a couple harvesting olives.  The man was holding a Sthil 4-cycle machine that he usedto shake the olives off of the three and onto a net below.  No wonder it sounded like a chainsaw! 

It was great to see the process and the views were fantastic.  Here are some photos from both days. I’m guessing you can tell the difference.

When Kim and I checked into our hotel on Wednesday, the room was warm so we opened the window and turned on the AC. After we returned from lunch the room was warmer than before. Turns out the AC is “off for winter” and the radiator was on. The open window caused it to come on.

We called the front desk for help getting the room cooled off and they sent a guy up. We will be without heat for the rest of our stay in Córdoba, but that will be ok.

A little later I went down stairs for have a Scotch and to send some emails. Turns out our HVAC Tech is also the bartender.

As we prepared for dinner I was ironing my shirt and the main breaker for the room tripped. We called the front desk and our Bartender/HVAC friend showed at the door with a ladder because the breaker panel is above the ceiling tiles.

Yesterday when we returned to a clean room, we had to wonder it our friend’s skills also included housekeeping

Today we visited a dehesa about an hour north of the city of Cordoba. What is a dehesa? It is a large farm with an abundance of oak trees. The pigs are free to roam and the acorns produced by the oak trees are the main food source for the pigs. This diet produces the unique flavor of Jamon Iberico.

After having the pigs run from us at the beginning, we found ourselves surrounded by pig at the end. We also loved how Juan called the pig. It’s a far cry different the Woo Pig Sooie, and it has infected our conversation all day! (I’m still looking for a way to upload a video of his call)

Back at the main facility we toured a celler with 30,000 legs of ham and sampled four different products that come from these glorious animals! Que buen dia!

On our first night in Córdoba, Mara and Adrian took us to several different bars to sample tapas and wine. We finished the night at El Churrasco Restaurante which has agruably the best wine cellar in Córdoba. The steak was pretty good too. Also, don’t mess with Mara’s fries!