There are many ways to prepare for a trip to Spain. Grab a tourist guidebook, a foreign language phrasebook, start watching movies with Spanish subtitles and get the passports in order. While Jorge got wrapped up in Michener’s Iberia and Paul Theroux’s Pillars of Hercules, I chose to gather as many Spanish cookbooks and food adventure books as I could get my hands on and devour them all. From Colman Andrews’ classic Catalan Cooking to Claudia Roden’s encyclopedic The Food of Spain. For Spain’s complex history is traced just as easily through the ingredients found on its tables. Y para mi, it’s the best way to savor the past and experience it first-hand in every meal we are bound to try.
Mind you, we also bought the guidebooks and dutifully started practicing our language skills just to confirm that we are woefully inadequate, but willing. The “down-to-the-wire” visa application process was painful. It meant no trip to Canada for Purdy’s fried fish this summer but the labyrinth of requirements is behind us and we are anxious to get going.
With camera bag crammed to the max and those trusty guidebooks safely packed away, we are ready to take off for Alicante.
