Marvelous Meal in Malaga

Our wonderful friends here invited us to their beautiful home for a scrumptious meal and a relaxing visit last Sunday. They really are just the sweetest people and we are so lucky that they have come into our lives. Mozart is very fond of their two beautiful children (who are being raised as tri-linguals in English, Spanish and Italian) and likes to think of them as her “little sisters”. She wants to bring them to school and pretend they are her sisters.

As I have mentioned before we met quite by accident online before we left America when I was researching information on what digital piano to buy. It happens that they live less than an hour away from us. Since they are well traveled and lived for years in Great Britain, they speak perfect English which is a godsend for me since my Spanish is so poor.

They are both from Cordoba. Well, more accurately, he was born and raised in Cordoba, Spain and she was born and raised in a little town outside of Cordoba, Argentina. Her mother’s side is Italian and she has lived in Italy as well as a young adult. She talks to the children in Italian and he talks to them in English and they talk to each other in their first language...Spanish. What a language rich environment, but we also talked about the challenges of raising multilingual (thus multicultural) children. It’s a lot of work for the parents!

She loves to cook and it shows as she makes it all look so easy. You might imagine with her lineage and life experience that she would be a great cook and you would be right. We had one of the best meals of the trip so far and I think she should open a restaurant and told her so. It is now a few days later and my mouth still waters at the thought of it.

We had perfectly baked salmon with an out-of-this-world blue cheese white sauce to top it and perfectly baked sliced potatoes with rosemary and onions. Two great green salads and a yummy orange and dried cod dish that was his mother’s recipe and a typical Cordoba, Spain specialty. We had lovely Spanish cheese and nuts to munch before we began, then a mellow white wine and two delicious breads with dinner. We had “ooey”, gooey luscious chocolate brownies with nuts for dessert with a big container to take home with us. Yes, indeed, we were very spoiled!

They had just returned from a long trip over the holidays to Argentina to visit her family (first visit home in five years) so that provided interesting conversation  and later we enjoyed seeing their pictures from the trip. I had never heard about Mate, so we learned about the Argentine custom of using herbs to drink a special brew in a unique cup with a kind of straw.

We got to tour their lovely three bedroom, three bathroom home with a guest room downstairs and a piano playing play space on the top floor that they had worked hard to create. It is only two years old so everything is beautiful and I coveted their new kitchen and large bathrooms (including the one in the
master suite).

We have really enjoyed our ancient village house, but perhaps we will go for a new one next year or at least one with a good, modern kitchen and bathroom. I read about one with central heat recently which was very exciting because that is so rare here. Maybe we will even try country life which is different still. Our old village life is very different to their new suburb (just outside of Malaga) village life. There are many ways to live in Spain and we are looking now to what we will pick next year, altho we might return to this home.

We had such a marvelous time that we ended up staying quite late. The kids got to play and color (and switch languages right and left) and we were happy to hear a little piano playing. Then he was kind and gracious enough to guide us by car to the entrance of the freeway as it was difficult to explain.

We are planning to all get together in Cordoba for Holy Week when we leave here which will be a real treat. Cordoba is known for the best food in Andalusia and they know all the best local spots. What a blessing to have such special friends in Spain!