On the Road with L'il Z

My sister Jody arrived in Barcelona on Tuesday with her partner, Matt and their almost 7-month old baby, Zadie.  It’s kind of criminal that I haven’t written since they got here.  We’ve been busy.   C.C. and Milo were so excited to meet their cousin for the first time.  They were enchanted by the video clips Jody had been sending, and making plans for where she would sleep, what she would play with, what she would eat.  So far, Miss Z. has lived up to the hype.  They love to sit and hold her on their laps.  Milo in particular is incredibly sweet with her—he reads to her and strokes her head.

On Thursday we rented Hooky Van Junior—a smaller version of the original hooky van—and, after a lengthy, sweaty struggle to fit our gear into the minimal storage space, we picked the kids up from school and set out for Rioja.  It’s a four hour drive with no stops.  Once you factor in puke threats, bathroom stops, diaper changes and the like, it’s considerably longer.  But everyone behaved and we pulled into the small town of Arnedillo, the site of our hotel, tired but in good spirits. 

Unfortunately, we hit a snag within spitting distance of our lodging.  The streets of Arnedillo—as in many small, old towns—are narrow and winding.  Following Dolores’s instructions (she is our GPS), we ventured down one street that was a tad too narrow and winding.  And we got stuck.  At the bottom of a steep hill, we practically got Hooky Van Jr. stuck between two old walls, and had to back up to get out.  This was no small feat.  Our lovely innkeeper assisted us, Alec kept his cool, and Jody and I tried to muffle our hysterical laughter so as not to aggravate a difficult situation.  And in the midst of it all, that happy little baby just hung in like a champ.  After we got out of the worst of it, the womenfolk and children unloaded in order to move the kids toward bed.  Eventually, Alec made it out.

The hotel, Las Pedrolas, is a lovely, renovated house dating from the 1760s.  The current owner transformed it into a hotel about three years ago and its seven rooms are sunny, comfortable, and tastefully furnished. So far we’ve had the place to ourselves, which is a good thing because we are not exactly the quietest travelers.

We had never been to Rioja, and we chose it for this road trip because we had heard that it is beautiful, the reputation of the food and wine is exceptional, and it is an important paleontological site. Yesterday, we covered the dinos and the wine, with a couple of good meals thrown in for good measure.  After a tasty breakfast of bread with local jam—strawberry with the scent of orange, peach with cinnamon—fresh fruit and omelette, we drove the short distance to Enciso.  Enciso houses the local dinosaur museum.   We explored it and picked up a map of the dino route.  There are 58 stops on this route, so it seems you can spend days in this area doing nothing but checking out the dinosaurs.  We went to one, but it was a very special one, where we saw actual dinosaur footprints in situ.  And I have to say, it is different just seeing them out there in nature than it is seeing them in a museum.  You can almost imagine what it might have been like, so many million years ago.

After that it was time for lunch, so we got a table at Petra, where we could sit outside in the shade.  It is artichoke and asparagus season in La Rioja, and we ordered artichokes with mushrooms, artichokes with jamon, fried artichokes with a romesco dipping sauce, white asparagus in vinaigrette with a creamy horseradish sauce on the side.  We were full before our main courses arrived.  The corner of the patio housed a wood-fired grill over which most of the meats were cooked.  We ate fresh, local strawberries with whipped cream for dessert.

We had to hit the road to make our afternoon appointment at the Palacios Remondo winery in Alfaro.  We figured we should hit at least one winery since we were in Rioja, and I had chosen Palacios Remondo because it’s run by Alfaro Palacios, one of Spain’s hot young winemakers.  He’s one of the people responsible for putting Priorat on the map—and I’ll be headed there on Monday.  Anyway, the family winery in Rioja was started by Alfaro’s father, but he is a fifth generation winemaker.   It seemed like a good place to check out, and I figured I could write a short piece for the i-wine review that would link to the priorat work (more on that some other time).

We expected to arrive at a winery set among fields of grapevines, and we were confused when Dolores led us to a building in the middle of town.  It turns out she was right, and the building is, in fact, where most of the wine is made, aged, and bottled.  I had warned Isabel, our guide, that I would be showing up with a posse that included two young children and a baby.  The baby was fine, but the children were in rare form.  Too much time in the car had juiced them up and they raced around among the enormous aging barrels and tanks.  It’s hard enough for me to act professional with my minimal wine knowledge.

After the tour and before the tasting, Alec peeled off with the kids to find a park where it would be socially acceptable for them to run around.  We all met up there eventually, and I fell asleep on a bench in the sun. 

By the time we got back to Arnedillo it was pretty late.  The kids were filthy, so we dunked them in the tub.  After our enormous lunch, Alec felt no need to eat again, but Jody, Matt and I needed a little something.  C.C. and Milo were on their way to sleep but Zadie was wide awake, so we left her with Alec and trekked into town for some sustenance. 

It was after 10 pm, but a restaurant called Florida was still open.  We shared a tasty salad topped with pimientos da padron and miniature octopus, perfectly fried.  We also got some peppers stuffed with shrimp and squid, and Matt and I had stew-y white beans with chorizo.  For dessert we shared a sort of fancy French toast—sweet bread soaked in egg, milk and cream, then deep fried, topped with sugar, and served with vanilla ice cream.  Super tasty. 

I realized about halfway through dinner that I had left my phone in the room, so if Alec had needed to make a mayday call, it would not have reached us.  But as we approached the hotel, all was quiet.  When we got to our room, Alec was reading on the bed, with C.C. and Milo sleeping in their bed and Zadie asleep in her carseat on the floor.  He’s still got it.