A Broken Strimmer And A Rather Nice Unexpected Lunch
I’m hoping not to bore you too much today but everything I’m going to babble about is all part of what goes on when you work the land and grow your own veggies. Pep’s strimmer (desbrozadora) broke Friday morning. Poor boy hasn’t had much luck lately with all his power tools and rotavators, the past few weeks haven’t been the best where petrol and diesel run gadgets are concerned. Everything always comes at once they say.
Pep has 4 rotavators (mulas, motoazadas, motocultores, take your pick), 2 smaller ones (normally called motoazadas) and 2 larger ones (motocultores). Recently the larger one in Pinos went wrong. It would have cost 1500€ to repair, I swear these things cost more to run than cars! So Pep and his brothers had to keep an eye open for someone willing to part with a second hand one. They found one somewhere inland of Valencia just before lockdown started. Now, these things aren’t cheap even when they’re second hand and we’re only talking about rotavators with 2 wheels here, none of that sit down business, then you are talking big bucks. The one they’d seen was around 1400€ and is quite an old model.
But with nothing else that had taken their fancy, off they trot to buy it literally hours before we were confined to our houses for a couple of months. Pep couldn’t go (can’t remember why) so he had to trust both of his brother’s judgement. The trouble was, desperation was setting in as the land was starting to get out of hand and the more you leave it the harder it is to cultivate (I wouldn’t know these things having never held the handlebars of one of these contraptions but I take Pep’s word for it) So, without much deliberation they loaded it on to their van and brought it back to Benissa.
Then it rained and rained and rained, even if they would have been allowed out of their houses there’s no way they would have been able to put the rather heavy miniature tractor in the field without it disappearing into the earth never to be seen again.
Eventually the sun came out, the fields started to dry and farmers were allowed to work their land without getting a massive fine. It was a rush to begin rotavating before the land dried out too much (it’s a very complicated business as I’m sure you’re starting to gather). All the brothers then have to decide who uses the “mula” (which means mule) first and how long they need it for, bear in mind that all the brothers have rather a lot of land scattered all over Pinos and only one of them has got a van big enough to fit the rotavator in, hence they all have to work out when is the most convenient time to move it from one plot to another.
While the first brother was using it he noticed that to keep it going he had to use copious amounts of oil, definitely not a good sign. Also it was incredibly difficult to manoeuvre. They made various adjustments to it to no avail, the blessed thing didn’t want to know. So they contacted the man who had sold it to them. He was adamant that it was working perfectly alright when he sold it to them (although he hadn’t used it for 2 or 3 years!) and that no way would he give them their money back. I expected that much. Although he did say that when the laws change and we can travel freely between provinces that he would come and repair it. I’ll believe it when I see it.
During all this time Pep got out the smaller rotavator as he has various “bancales” (terraced fields) in Pinos where it would be impossible to use the big one. All ok for the first couple of minutes until it decided to give up the ghost. He took it to be repaired at the John Deere garage in Orba where they cleaned it and sorted another couple of bits out but couldn’t see anything seriously wrong with it. Pep brought it back to our house, went to try it yesterday and it came to an abrupt halt in the middle of our “huerta”. He rang the boss at John Deere who will be coming over here this morning (Sunday!!) to see if he can fix it.
Back to the strimmer. Hopefully you haven’t fallen asleep yet. Someone (I won’t mention names) had not put the blade of the strimmer on properly. Pep hadn’t realised this and started strimming until the blade came flying out. Could be dangerous! When he checked the machine to see what had happened he noticed that the screw that holds the blade in place had snapped in half. After cursing rather a lot I should imagine ’cause lately the poor guy can’t seem to get anything finished, he rings me to see if I wanted to go to Orba with him. He always uses the John Deere garage there when any of his agricultural gear needs repairing, they seem to be the quickest and most reasonable.
It was getting rather late, they close at 1pm, so he zoomed down from Pinos, picked me up and we rushed off to Orba. We were lucky they were still open and even luckier that they repaired it there and then, the fewer journeys to Orba the better, he needs all the hours in the day he can get at the moment, hence why he gets rather annoyed when things keep going wrong. The boss told him that the blade hadn’t been put on correctly, that being the reason for the broken screw and the blade flying out the machine, and because of this the whole head had to be replaced. Another 140€. Oh well, it’s only money. He used it all morning yesterday and so far so good. Every time he came in the house for something I’d be dreading more profanities but thankfully that didn’t happen.
After all this palaver he was starving and decided we should go out for lunch. It had been a long time since we’d set foot in a restaurant and it would be nice to not have to cook for once. We decided on El Nou Portet near Murla. I’d eaten there about 3 times previously but Pep had only been once and always said that he’d like to go back again. We’re pleased we did. What I’m going to write now is solely based on our opinion, we’re definitely not food critics (although we are tomato snobs!) and can only go on our experience and our taste.
They have various different “menus del día” and also a la carte, you have to scan the little piece of card with the squiggly drawing on to look at the menu on your phone, one of the rules for the “new normality” (that term sends shivers down my spine). We both settled on the cheaper one, 14’90€ which includes 3 courses plus a little “tapa” to start, bread and alloli and one drink per person. The tapa was a couple of homemade onion rings which were very tasty.
I chose “hojaldre con verduras y queso brie” (puff pastry with vegetables and brie) to start. It was nicely presented and the ingredients were very fresh, I’m glad I chose it. Pep found it a bit harder to choose, two or three of the starters had cheese on and he can’t stand it and he’ll never have a salad when we go out, that’s what you get for growing your own lettuce and tomatoes! He’s more of a snob than I am! He settled on the chicken pate. He said it was delicious. You’ll have to excuse the photo of my starter. My phone’s camera is on it’s last legs and is super blurry. The rest of the photos were taken on Pep’s phone. I hadn’t got my camera on me because I wasn’t expecting lunch out.
For our main course I had the “dorada con verduras y puré de patatas”, sea bream with vegetables and mashed potatoes. Again very well presented and very tasty, the only thing I didn’t like were the carrots, they were the frozen kind that seem more like soft pieces of rubber than vegetables, but the fish and mashed potatoes were very good. Pep chose the chicken breast with bacon and roast potatoes. This is normally served with cheese but he asked for it without and they were happy to oblige. The plate was licked clean when he finished which I can only take as a good sign.
I had the lemon sorbet for dessert and Pep the coconut cake. My sorbet was drizzled in mint syrup which went quite well with the tangy lemon flavour. The sorbet wasn’t homemade (it rarely is in restaurants here) but it was still very edible, my favourite way to end a meal. Pep’s coconut cake was fine but incredibly sweet. I didn’t try it ’cause I HATE coconut, another thing that sends shivers down my spine!
Seeing as we were enjoying ourselves we decided to stay for coffees. We both ordered an “americano descafeinado”, a large decaf black coffee. Pep and I rarely drink coffee apart from the odd decaf “carajillo quemado” which I make at home with organic coffee (more on that in a future post), so if the barman makes a mistake and uses ordinary caffeinated coffee instead, well, we know about it. And that is what happened at the Nou Portet. All afternoon after our meal we were flying high, we came home and did so much on the land in a short amount of time (I’ll post about that in a couple of days) that if anyone was watching us they would have thought we were on some sort of amphetamines! Needless to say, we hardly slept that night either. Anyway, if you order decaf there just make sure they don’t make the same mistake!
Still, we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch, the mixture of not having to cook, going out for the first time in ages and being served lovely fresh food was a great combination. One more thing, for our drinks we ordered a bottle of water (500ml glass bottle, always nice when it’s not plastic) and 2 “tercios” (the 330ml bottles of beer). Both Estrella Galicia (another bonus), mine “sin alcohol”. They included both “tercios” in the menu price, only charging us for the water and obviously the 2 coffees. The staff were very friendly and on the ball (apart from the coffee!) and we sat outside on the terrace underneath the parasols enjoying the warm weather.
Well, that’s today’s post and if you managed to get through it without drifting off then you probably drink caffeinated coffee too!! I’ll be back soon talking about veggies and all the things that are happening in our “huerta” at the moment, exciting stuff. As always, any questions or suggestions then scribble us a few lines, either in the contact form or in the comment section below. Take care. Love Georgie and Pep xxx
