This is a story about a girl and her salad. And wine. Lots and lots of wine.
Spaniards can legally start drinking at 16, but like 24-hour pharmacies closed on Sundays, rules about alcohol are flexible. Drinking isn't reserved for mealtimes, though. When I stop for my 7:30 a.m. Cola Cao (hot chocolate), I never fail to see him: the friendly neighborhood old man Spaniard, getting his little morning shot of something. In the U.S., we would call this alcoholism.
Last week I stayed in a church-run albergue (hostel for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago) that had posted signs EXPLICITLY FORBIDDING ALCOHOL on the premises. Later that night, the hospitalera running the albergue served copious quantities of wine with dinner.
In the river town of Portomarín, in a little pizzeria that's half diner, half sports bar, I met my ensalada mixta. I moved my quivering fork toward the nests of red shredded beets, glistening like rubies amid the bountiful fields of fresh greens and crisp lettuce. Thick slabs of tomato rested alongside mounds of salty tuna and crystalline slivers of onion. The smooth white stem of the asparagus blanco shone moonlike above the rest of the sparkling treasure chest, all of it drenched in olive oil and...
A realization interrupts my enraptured reveries: this dressing isn't vinegar. A pungent punch of alcohol suffuses every bite. Red wine? I get fellow pilgrims to verify, and we conclude that, indeed, my salad is soaked in wine.
Love means never having to say you're sorry.