Cities, Bikes, & the Future

I live in the heart of a major Spanish city with a population of something like 800,000. If I had to be specific I would say that my apartment is closer to the northeast side of Valencia, yet it takes me less than ten minutes to pedal to the southwest side of the city when I ride to the Albufera nature reserve. There are no suburbs amended to Spanish cities. The change from city to country is rather abrupt. You go from eight story apartment buildings to open fields. The population density of the city means that this many people take up very little room when compared to cities with a lot of single family homes. Many American cities with one tenth the population of Valencia cover a land area ten times larger.

The dense urban climate is more suitable to my tastes; it’s much like where I lived in Seattle. I love the fact that I can get on my bike, follow the bike path down to the Turia Gardens park, take that bike path to the other end of the Ciencias complex, get on yet another bike path, and I’m out of the city limits, as I said, all in about ten minutes.

It is Semana Santa so everyone else in Valencia is trying to get out of town, but most of them in automobiles. I was able to make better time on my bike yesterday than all of those people stuck in traffic on the southern flank of the city. The weather has been a little less than ideal so there wasn’t the usual horde of cyclists along this route. I was going to say that the new bike trail is complete but it is an ongoing project with a lot still in the works. I can say that the new bike bridge is complete, and a whole new section is now open that used to be one of the more perilous parts of my route south to the Albufera.

Bikes are very popular here but not as popular as they are in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Zurich, or even Barcelona, not yet, anyway. It is obvious that Valencia is rapidly making room for bicycles in their future. There is no down side to bicycles. They are clean, efficient, safe, and promote fitness. Not including bikes in your urban transportation model is not just short-sighted, it’s incredibly irresponsible.

Valencia and other metro areas in the province have begun a new program that is popular in other European cities. Bicycles are provided for commuters at kiosks around the city. They are not up-and-running yet here, but from what I have read about them you will be issued an identity card like at the library which will allow you to borrow a bicycle from a station and then return it at another station. So you can get off a bus or train, or park your car in a lot, and then complete your commute on a bike. It is a fairly simple an inexpensive solution to at least a fraction of the transportation problem all cities face.

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The density of urban areas like Valencia make bicycle commuting extremely attractive because the distances to travel are fairly modest—even from one end of the city to the other. I couldn’t imagine traveling by automobile in Valencia. I would lose my mind trying to find a parking spot. Lots of people do rely on cars to get around here, but bikes are starting to get folded into the transportation mix. You can tell that bikes are relatively new because they are used mostly by younger people. In Amsterdam you see people of all ages pedaling around town and they all look good doing it.

About Last Night

After the first round of matches in the quarter finals of the UEFA Champions League, four of the remaining eight teams are at a distinct advantage going into the second and deciding match. Valencia is in this group but has the least advantage out of those four. Here’s a quick rundown.

Liverpool all but clinched their bracket with a 3-0 victory over PSV Eindhoven. This means that Eindhoven has to win at Anfield with more than a three goal margin.

Bayern Munich managed a 2-2 draw away at AC Milan. They can advance with a win or a 0-0 or a 1-1 draw.

Roma defeated Manchester United 2-1 in their Stadio Olimpico so they have a clear advantage when the next game is played at Old Trafford.

Valencia and Chelsea battled to a 1-1 draw with an amazing left-footed golazo by David Silva and an almost circus-worthy header by Didier Drogba. When they return to Mestalla next Tuesday they need to win or secure a 0-0 draw to advance. An early goal by Valencia will save a lot of heart attacks among fans here.

By the Time You Read This...

...I may already be dead

No, I’m not planning on committing suicide; at least not in any kind of direct, uncowardly (according to MS Word this isn’t even a word), or manly fashion. I’m just thinking that with the prodigious amount of pork products I have been ingesting since I arrived here in Valencia, combined with the added stress of tonight’s huge-alacious (Yes, Spell-check, I know that isn’t a fucking word) football match against Chelsea in the quarters of the Champions League, I may just keel over right in the Plaza del Valencia CF where I plan on watching the match. I’m going to take another long bike ride in the morning to clear out the old system, but I’m just playing catch-up in the race against arterial plaque. I’m eating so much pig that when I burp it sounds just a little bit like an oink.

Why are we talking about my personal health? I don’t even care about my personal health, especially now during the quarter finals with Valencia in the heat of it. Do you have any idea of just what is at stake here? Do you read the newspapers? Well how about the half a dozen daily football rags that litter the tops of every self-respecting bar in Spain during the temporada? Do you remember when the Titanic sank? That wasn’t shit compared to this, OK? The Titanic was just a bunch of rich jerks and illegal immigrants who couldn’t swim while this is Valencia CF up against Chelsea to see who advances in Europe’s football league. Understand? Great, I’m glad we could put things into perspective for you.

It’s kind of like the Battle of Thermopylae in which a tiny Greek army (Valencia CF) goes up against the countless legions of Persian mercenaries (Chelsea). Valencia is mostly made up of Spanish players—with a few exceptions—while Chelsea is led by the goal-scoring machine, Didier Drogba, from the Ivory Coast and the German midfielder, Michael Ballack. But I don’t like this analogy because the Greeks eventually got stomped in that one. Instead of rewriting the Wikipedia entry so that Valencia CF defeats Xerxes’ horde at Thermopylae I’ll abandon the historical analogies. Besides, everyone knows that the ancient Greek historians were even less accurate than Wikipedia.

I have to get out of the house and do something to take my mind off of the game tonight.

Tortilla de Calabacín

A good way to take your mind off an upcoming football match is in the kitchen. As much as I love tortillas de patatas I thought that I’d expand my horizons with another flavor of this Spanish staple.

6 eggs (beaten)

1 Zucchini

1 Onion

Olive oil

Sal and Pepper

Slice the zucchini as thinly as possible. I had to put a good edge on my cleaver to accomplish this. Dice the onion finely. Sauté the onion in a lot more olive oil than you need because when the onion becomes translucent you will add the zucchini. Mix to coat the zucchini with the oil. Cover the dish and let it cook without browning the vegetables. When they are well cooked, add the beaten egg and stir gently to mix the egg and vegetables. Cover and cook on low heat. Use a spatula to check the consistency of the bottom and when it is fairly solid, cover the pan with a plate and flip it on to the plate and then return the uncooked side of the tortilla to the pan and finish cooking.

Playa Siempreviva

Playa Siempreviva


I saw that it was supposed to be sunny and warm on Tuesday so I thought that I’d go to bed early the night before, get up early, do some work, and then take an extended bike ride to make up for a week of rain. I did go to bed early but got up a half hour later, turned on the light, and read until 3 a.m. I picked up a Spanish translation of Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms ( Adiós a las Armas) at the Sunday flea market for 1€. I don’t care if that flea market is a den of thieves as many people claim; I get some good stuff there.

It was very easy for me to read and I must have ripped through 100 pages or so before I passed out. A lot of that is dialogue which is really easy, but still, can’t you just let me be a little proud of myself? The only word that I bothered to look up (acaparar = to horde, corner, monopolize) I came across this morning again in an article in El País and I couldn’t remember what it meant. I really fucking hate that and I think this means I’m some sort or idiot (algún especie de idiota).

So I didn’t get up early and now it’s already 11:30 a.m. They weren’t lying about the weather but with the time change I really don’t need to get out of the house so early for my rides. The warmest part of the day is a lot later and I have light until well past 8 p.m. I’m trying to calculate how long I’ll have to ride to go from “Fat, lazy slob” to “Buff stud.” If you check actuarial tables you will see that it isn’t possible, but I’m going to give it the old college try.

I have less than a week before my five month anniversary here in Spain and I really want to feel good about my Spanish when I reach that milestone (hito, now how did I pull that word out of my culo?). The words just keep piling up and as unsatisfied as I am with my spoken Spanish, I can read the stuff pretty well these days. I hope that my speaking will catch up.

I have decided that I haven’t been working nearly as hard at Spanish as I could (although I think that I work harder than any illegal immigrant at learning the language of the host country). I need to watch more TV. I am currently reading Plenilunio (Full Moon) by the very talented Antonio Muñoz Molina.

The good news is that the bike trail is finished all the way to Pinedo beach, which is about 10 kilometers from my place. The hardest part of my bike ride when I head south is dodging cars and buses, and playing chicken with mopeds on my way out of town. Now I can get on the bike path at Aragon Avenue, which is about a half a block from my front door, and stay on it until the end of Pinedo beach. From there you have to get back on the highway—at least until the next stretch is finished. I really don’t mind the highway down there because it has a wide shoulder and the drivers are used to plenty of cyclists.

There is a wild flower that is all over the dunes on this section of the coast. I remember them from living in Greece, although I have long since forgotten the Greek name. They have a sweet aroma like pancake syrup. I took a picture of the plant so that I could look it up when I got home. My roommate not only knew the vulgar name for it, but also the Latin. I’ll stick with the vulgar, as I’ve already forgotten the Latin. It’s called “siempreviva,” or “always alive.” I call the beach in this photo “Playa Siempreviva.”

Pollo en Pepitoria

Another Spanish Specialty

Almost every meal I make happens spontaneously, kind of like a car accident but usually a lot harder to clean up after. I rarely say to myself, “I think I’ll make chicken cacciatore tonight,” and then go out and make it happen. I usually start out by thinking to myself, “I can probably get enough nutrients from the beer I drink and the free peanuts that come with it and skip cooking,” before I devolve into whatever meal planning I eventually stumble into at some point in the evening. This could mean some dried figs and a glass of milk or a full-blown cooking orgy—depending on a host of variable factors that even I don’t fully understand.

This meal began with a cup of coffee. I went to my usual hangout for a cup of café Americano. I like to sit outside and read their copies of the fine Spanish magazine called Magazine. I read this week’s edition from cover to cover, finished my coffee, and headed home. I stopped short after a few steps after remembering that my favorite butcher shop, located right next door to the café, is open on Saturday evenings. I needed something for Sunday’s meal. I did an about-face and walked into the shop.

My butcher was taking care of a woman customer who was buying a truly prodigious amount of meat—my kind of gal. My butcher loves to talk and he was going a-mile-a-minute when I walked in and closed the door behind me. The woman was from Ecuador and he told her that his wife was from Colombia. They went back and forth over her meat order as he talked about his visit to Colombia and what shitty drivers they are there and how the cocaine dealers run the country and how the food is really good but they don’t have very good pork there like in Spain.. I don’t think that he even came up for air as he kept up an admirable stream-of-consciousness monologue about meat and poultry, the political situation in Colombia, all the while pumping her full of questions about her native land.

She ordered a half of a gallina and I told him that I’d like the other half in an effort to spare him the trouble of putting away the other half, but he was too involved in the story he was telling to pay me any mind. The woman looked at me sympathetically because it was obvious that he wasn’t listening. He was telling her about the time he was in her country. He said that he was in some city named after a saint but he couldn’t remember which saint. He began to rattle off a list of names in an effort to jog his memory of the patron of the Ecuadorian city he had visited, “Antonio? Juan? Jose? Jaime? Cristobal? No, era Cristobal.” She looked at me and I at her. I think we both realized that this guy was slightly nuts. I gave her a frightened face and she almost cracked up laughing.

I always welcome the wait when I am in his shop and I will often let someone go ahead of me so that I have more time to decide. I also learn from the way other people order. The Ecuadorian woman finished her order and I was ready. I got some dried sausages and the other half of the monster chicken that she had ordered in front of me. I’d worry about what I would make with it later.

That’s usually the way it works here. You buy whatever looks good that day in the market and figure out how to cook it when you get home. Today I had a gallina, or hen, or chicken on steroids. I wasn’t really sure what it was but it looked good and my butcher assured me that it was great in stews and soups. I trusted him as I always do.

When I got home I came across a recipe for Pollo en Pepitoria at www.notesfrompain.com. I couldn’t very well copy their recipe verbatim without feeling like a plagiarist so I looked up about ten variations of this traditional Catalan dish and morphed them all into the one I eventually used.

To accompany this dish I made lentils which are a staple of my diet. I pre-soaked the lentils earlier in the day in cold water. I diced an onion, some garlic, green pepper, and some long red pepper thing in olive oil. After cooking them for a few minutes I added the lentils along with some chicken stock. I seasoned the dish with salt, pepper, cumin, and a bit of oregano. They were ready in a few minutes and turned out very well. I can cook beans in my sleep as I’ve done it for so long.

I also wanted rice to go with this dish and I bought some sort of brown variety at the local market. I have pretty much lived on rice for most of my life but I have never, not once, cooked it myself. I have made risotto and other types of dishes that require rice, but I have never just cooked a pot of plain rice. I have relied on a rice cooker as does every self-respecting Asian. I have had nothing but perfect rice ever since my family bought its first rice cooker when we lived in Hawaii when I was 15. Now I was forced to cook rice without a rice cooker. I’d rather walk a tightrope without a net.

I actually had to Google how to cook rice. I was fairly overwhelmed by all of the variations and after reading through about ten recipes I became extremely intimidated. “It’s fucking rice,” I thought to myself, “How hard can it be?” I’m so used to dumping rice into a rice cooker, adding double the amount of water, pressing a button, and having perfect rice a few minutes later. Note to self: find a fucking rice cooker here in Spain.

The rice turned out OK. I’ve definitely had better—like every other time that I have made rice using a rice cooker. It wasn’t anything a lot of butter couldn’t fix. Now all that I had to do was to make the main dish.

Pollo en Pepitoria

Chicken cut into pieces

1 onion finely chopped

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

Flour

Olive oil

12 toasted almonds (ground)

2 hard boiled eggs

1 cup white wine

1 cup chicken stock (or water)

3 Bay leaves

Salt + Pepper

Saffron pinch

Wash the chicken pieces, allow to dry, season with salt and pepper, and then cover with flour. Heat about ¼ cup of olive oil in a deep skillet and when it begins to smoke, brown the chicken pieces a few at a time. Remove the chicken when browned. Pour off some of the oil and sauté the onion, and garlic in the same pan. Add white wine, stock, bay leaves, and saffron. When the pan comes to a boil, add the chicken pieces. Allow this to simmer at low temperature until the chicken is tender. Crumple the hard-boiled egg yokes into the pan along with the ground almonds and saffron. Just before serving add the chopped hard-boiled egg whites to the pan.