SpiceLines

It doesn’t get much better than this.

Columns of shaggy, silver-leaved olive trees, surging over gently undulating hills, vanishing into a valley, then re-emerging as a geometric patchwork of tiny trees receding into the distance. Towering overhead, the rugged peaks of the Sierra Sur, washed blue on a cloudy day.

It’s a misty Sunday afternoon in April and the air is damp and cool.

But inside the house, there’s a sumptuous feast sizzling over glowing olive wood coals. Right now I’m devouring a tender slice of pork, drizzled with the most delicious olive oil, touched with lemon. On the table, there are buttery green olives, home-cured and stuffed with anchovies…

Starting point for an Andalusian feast: an olive tree, mismatched crockery, the
gazpacho-like salad known as pipirrana and a bottle of excellent olive oil.

Traveling is so broadening: If you’ve fallen in love with Spain (or maybe India), there’s always the temptation to try to recreate the lifestyle at home.

Usually this is a fool’s errand. To fill a big bronze uruli with floating marigolds, for instance, will probably cost you as much as dinner for two at Per Se, especially if you failed to buy the antique cook pot while you were in Cochin.

And that gorgeously embroidered flamenco shawl that lured you into a shady Seville alley after a few glasses of Ribera Del Duoro? Sure, I’ll figure out how to wear it over here, sometime soon….

Well, I fell into the trap once again, dreaming of the succulent lamb chops grilled over olive wood we ate at lunch in Melgarejo’s olive groves. This time, though, the memory was delicious…and so were the chops I cooked at home.

In the tasting room at Melgarejo, Dr. Marino Uceda warms a cup of extra virgin Picual olive
oil in the palm of his hand before inhaling its complex, fruity aroma. The blue cups prevent tasters from judging oils based on color.

“Green apple…banana peel…...”

We’re in the tasting room at Melgarejo, noses deep in dark blue glass cups, breathing in the aroma of Melgarejo Seleccion, a delectable extra virgin olive oil made from Picual olives harvested just a few miles away in the Sierra Magina, a mountainous natural park that is one of Andalucia’s 10 denominations of origin.

There are five of us seated around a table on the second floor of the almazara or olive mill: the amiable Blas Melgarejo, 34, a family member and operations manager, with rumpled hair and a radiant smile; Andres Martos, 38, marketing director and resident wit, who acquired his English at Empire State College in New York; and their friend and professor, Dr. Marino Uceda, who heads the olive research station at Jaen.

Here's what was in our CSA box this week: scallions, beets, lettuce, carrots, summer squash
cauliflower and lots of strawberries. Not shown: rutabagas from two weeks ago, still unused.

Amanda Hesser rapped Michelle Obama’s knuckles this morning (“The Commander in Chef,” The New York Times, May 31, 2009, The Week in Review, p. 10).

When asked awhile ago by The Washington Post for her favorite recipe, the First Lady unapologetically confessed, “You know, cooking isn’t one of my huge things.” Her refreshing reply to a young boy visiting the White House who asked if she liked to cook? “I don’t miss cooking. I’m just fine with other people cooking.”

Well. “The message was unmistakable,” fumed Hesser: “Everyday cooking is a chore.”