Saint Elmo's Fire
June 21-25, 2018
If you look at a satellite image of Almería, you might think from the massive white areas that the region is covered in snow. Situated on the southern coast of Spain with monthly winter temperature averages never dropping below 60° F, snow is never in the forecast here. All of that white is actually plastic from greenhouses – Almería supplies Europe with the majority of it's vegetables, and tomatoes specifically. We were shocked as we drove from Málaga to Almería at what our friend Jesus referred to as "the Sea of Plastic." The greenhouses seemed to stretch forever in all directions, blanketing the landscape in white. It was impossible to capture it properly in a photograph from the moving car.
Jesus had just spent an entire year living abroad in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and was finally returning home to see his friends and family. We were thrilled when he asked if we wanted to tag along for a personalized tour of his hometown. He was instrumental in helping us plan our trip to Andalucía the year before, but he was adamant that none of the towns he had recommended held a candle to Almería. To experience the area properly, he strongly suggested that we rent a car. Kirb hates driving and repeatedly asked not to be responsible for anything pertaining to an automobile, but was forced to take action when Jesus realized his driver's license was expired and German bureaucracy had declined to send him an updated card while he was abroad. Thankfully, Spanish attitudes towards rules are much more lax than German ones, and when we arrived at the rental car agency at the Málaga airport, the employee there was fine adding Jesus as a second driver with an expired license, with Jesus' assurance that he'd get it renewed as soon as he got home. Jesus also had no qualms driving around with an expired license in Spain, as apparently it's just not that big of a deal there. Kirb was off the hook.
The first stop when we reached Almería was lunch with Jesus' mom and aunt at the tapas restaurant where his brother Adrián is a chef. Almería exists in a small section of Spain along with Granada where tapas are not only an integral part of eating out, they come free with every drink. But the greatness of Almería, Jesus insisted, is that you don't just get a random dish provided by the restaurant. No, in Almería you have a whole menu of choices for your free food. As long as you buy a small beer with slightly inflated prices, you basically eat for free, provided you want to drink several beers (who doesn't?).
Jesus is something of a picky eater, and having spent the last year in Asia with food he particularly didn't care for, this homecoming was an excuse to have all his favorite foods again after a long absence. We let him take the reigns and order whatever he thought was best for the three of us: anchovies on toast, marinated and deep-fried bits of shark, morcilla (Spanish blood sausage), and on the request of his brother, a large "ration" of avocado and tuna tartar made with fish caught in nearby waters. After several beers and delicious plates, we finished lunch with a Basque liqueur called Zoco made by steeping sloes, coffee, and vanilla in anisette, creating a sort of fruity version of ouzo.
One of Jesus' other aunties had kindly agreed to let the three of us stay at her place, as her kids were grown up and moved out and she had plenty of spare rooms in her apartment. After getting settled in and having a brief siesta, it was back to tapas. Jesus insisted this was normal here: it was so cheap and easy to go out and feed yourself just by having drinks that most people he knew hardly ever cooked for themselves. His buddy Bari picked us up and drove us down to the waterfront, where we met up with friends who had already scored a table at a popular spot. We leisurely drank and snacked as the sun went down, enjoying more morcilla, clams, pork loin sandwiches, and even hamburgers that came complimentary with our beers. After two hours, three beers, and plenty to eat, the bill was €9 a person. We started to understand how this lifestyle was indeed very sustainable (for the consumer, at least).
One of the reasons Jesus wanted to come home this particular weekend was a holiday called Saint John's Eve. On Saturday there would be huge bonfires and parties on the beaches all along the coast, but there were festivities in Almería for basically the entire week. Jesus had been telling us about the holiday for months, but we kept forgetting its name while we were planning the trip (there are so many saints!) so we just started calling it "Saint Elmo's Fire." For Thursday's revelries, a large stage had been set up on the beach downtown for a concert by Spanish indie-rock band Lori Meyers. Our group grabbed six-packs of cold beer from a kiosk and made its way down to the waterfront, where thousands of people were singing along and dancing to the band. They sounded somewhere between Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and the Gin Blossoms, making their namesake a tad bit confusing, but they were fun for people like us who had never heard of them, and even fun for Jesus, who doesn't like that type of music. Immediately after the show ended, the sky behind the stage lit up with fireworks and the party seemed to spread in all directions down the beach and into the streets.
We were whisked into the back seat of a car, and Jesus gave us a detailed tour of landmarks and funny stories from his adolescence as we drove. Metal was playing on the stereo, and Kirb asked, "Is this Iron Maiden?" "Of course," Jesus responded. Incredibly, without asking or trying, our strange request from Stockholm had been fulfilled in Almería.
The destination was Jesus' favorite watering hole, an American-themed dive bar called Alabama. We're not generally wistful for things that remind us of home, especially when we're experiencing great new things in places like Southern Spain, but walking into Alabama hit a lot of nostalgic pleasure points. Though the basketball season had ended, a Portland Trailblazers home game was playing on the bar TV – a game where they handily beat the champion Warriors. The walls were covered in pictures of country icons like Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, and Patsy Cline. The plate of snack mix that came with the beers was a bizarre but delightful combination of nuts, crunchy things, and sour gummy candies. We drank and played darts until 4 in the morning, when thankfully the stumble back to auntie's house was only down the block.
Jesus hadn't hosted many non-Spanish visitors in Almería, so he was excited at the opportunity to play tour guide for the Americans visiting his hometown. He was full of interesting information regarding the history of the city, it's architecture, and the landmarks, with lots of fun stories peppered in like the time he had to deliver a pizza to the Mafioso kingpin of the crime-ridden Gypsy neighborhood. This region seemed to be especially proud when celebrities came through – there was a Hollywood-style walk of fame with stars commemorating actors who had spent time in the city. A huge number of films have been shot in the area, including A Fistful of Dollars, Conan the Barbarian, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to name just a few. John Lennon wrote "Strawberry Fields Forever" in Almería so they put up a statue of him playing guitar on a bench downtown.
Like most large European markets, the Almería Central Market had just about every sort of fresh, delicious thing you could want to eat. But this market offered something we had never seen before: you could buy fresh seafood from the vendors downstairs and then bring it up to the restaurants upstairs and they would prepare it for you for a small price. Jesus had been raving about the giant red prawns specific to the region, so we ordered half a dozen along with some clams and squids. At the restaurant, the "tomato salad" Jesus ordered to start the meal turned out to literally be a plate full of tomatoes. Kirb is generally not a fan of raw tomato (it's the texture, man), but seeing as how he was in the place that supplied 80% of Europe with tomatoes, he dug in and was pleasantly surprised with how crisp and flavorful they were. All the seafood was cooked as simply as possible, letting the natural flavor take center stage. As Jesus had promised, the red prawns were exceptional, and we wished we had ordered twice as many instead of getting the squids.
Almería is home to a special type of hot cocktail called an Americano that is served at one specific kiosk, the origins of which have become urban lore with no way of knowing the real history. The story Jesus had heard was that an American actor came to town while filming a Western in the 60s or 70s and asked for the cocktail at the kiosk but the barista was unfamiliar with the recipe. The actor taught it to them and returned to drink it regularly, and thus the drink became known as "the American." The barista at the kiosk when we showed up could neither confirm nor deny this history. None of us were dying for a hot drink in the 90-degree afternoon, and Jesus had never actually tried one before, but we figured we probably needed to drink this weird thing. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what was going on in the drink: there was lemon, cinnamon, hot milk, and some sort of nut liqueur, so it was sweet, sour, and savory all at once. It was strangely satisfying, and unlike any American cocktail we'd ever had, but people were into eating some pretty weird stuff back in the day so I guess an American cowboy craving a hot milk cocktail isn't too hard to believe.
The food tour continued at another of Jesus' favorite spots, a little hole-in-the-wall called Bodega Morata. Though the outside was completely nondescript with no signage whatsoever, the inside was packed out with customers. The go-to drink here was the refreshing tinto de verano, "summer red wine," made with soda water and some secret dark brown liquid squeezed out of unmarked plastic bottles, served on ice. This place also had two unique tapas that Jesus said you probably couldn't find anywhere else, and if you could, they surely weren't as good. Queso a la Plancha was a specific type of thick cheese, not so dissimilar to halloumi, grilled and served on toasted bread with olive oil. The Jamon al Horno, or simply "Baked Ham," was drenched in a lemony oil and coated in black pepper, served with olives and bread. This combination of iced wine, grilled cheese, and ham put Jesus directly into his happy place.
The sightseeing tour ended with a view from the top overlooking the city, ocean, and the Alcazaba of Almería, a fortified complex built by Arabic inhabitants of the city in the 10th century. Though we talked about it, we never actually found the time to go inside the Alcazaba. We were honest with ourselves though: we weren't really here for history or sightseeing. We were here to eat and drink delicious things for 5 days straight.
On Saturday, Jesus' family was having a big BBQ at an uncle's house, though the uncle was off living in a camper van in the Pyrenees and other family members just used the house as they pleased. As we loaded up on groceries for the BBQ and our evening out at the beach, we noticed that the store was having a sale on jamóns. We'd been price checking everywhere we went, and Jesus had been talking with many a meat merchant about ham quality and prices on our behest. At only €32, we were clearly never going to find a better deal, and we simply cannot go to Spain and not come home without an entire jamón.
The special dish that Jesus' mom prepares for Saint Elmo's Fire is called Migas, though different places and families have their own versions. In Jesus' family, the base for Migas is made by cooking and stirring flour and water until it becomes crumbly and soft. On top of the crumbles you pile chorizo, morcilla, grilled peppers, grapes, olives, and other good stuff until you have a proper flavor pile. It was 94 degrees outside, so we all sat in the shade drinking ice-cold beers, with family members occasionally slipping into the pool for a soak. Most of Jesus' family didn't speak much English, so Jesus did his best to relay to us what the conversations were about. After one particularly long conversation, Jesus's aunt handed her phone to Mazz with a translation that just said, "My sister is a witch."
Jesus wanted to get out of the city for the bonfire festivities, as the beaches there would be packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people. We drove about half an hour outside of town to an area called Cabo de Gata, where we met up with Jesus' friends Bari and Carlos and settled on a stretch of beach that was situated so that the nearby town might help act as a barrier to block us from the increasingly strong winds that were picking up. We had to strategically weigh down the tent with coolers and large rocks to ensure it didn't get swept away down the beach. We could see people getting their bonfires ready all along the waterfront. The nearest and largest bonfire setup was a stack of wood pallets around 15 feet high.
All the bonfires were lit exactly at midnight, and nearly everyone on the beach rushed to the water either to jump in completely or splash water on their faces for good luck. The pallet fire was unbelievably hot, and you couldn't get closer than about 20 feet before the sand would burn the bottoms of your feet. Everyone was drinking and partying and having fun, and a dad-rock band was playing in the beach bar, but Jesus was stunned that there were so few people at the beach. Having lived abroad for so long, he hadn't been home for Saint Elmo's Fire in 9 years. He remembered this beach having a much more massive party, and couldn't believe the difference from the last time he was home. We thought the number of people was just fine; we had a stretch of beach to call our own and plenty of people to meet and hang out with.
The party went strong throughout the night, with more of Jesus's friends coming to join up and new friends made from different beach parties. Kirb was feeling good and playful, and when meeting new people who asked whether or not he spoke Spanish, he would reply en Español that he spoke perfect Spanish. Whenever someone would call him out on it, he would briefly compose himself and respond deeply and eloquently, "Donde esta la biblioteca? Vamos! Ir a la playa!" This joke was a big hit with the Spaniards, and Kirb got a lot of mileage out of it.
There were still nearly as many people partying on the beach at 6am as there were at 1am. The sun was starting to come up and we (Kirb and Mazz, Jesus never gets tired) were partied out, so we made our way back to the tent. By 8:30 the heat inside was unbearable, forcing Kirb out onto the sand in the area of shade created by the tent. The beach was now desolate. We packed up and made our way to Bari's house nearby, where he graciously let us sleep until we felt human again. Jesus had planned all along for the day after Saint Elmo's Fire to be spent laying around, and now we understood why. We were unable to do much more than drape ourselves across Bari's couch, eat pizza, and watch movies until the early evening.
For our final tapas dinner we saved the best for last. As proudly displayed on the sign out front, Taberna Nuestra Tierra was home to many award-winning tapas in Almería, one of which had been created by Jesus' brother Adrián when he worked at the restaurant. These were not the traditional Spanish tapas we'd seen but new and interesting fusions. The Crujiente de Morcilla was like a blood sausage wonton, served with a tomato marmalade. Adrian's dish, Boquerones Punk, had anchovies wrapped in a crispy fried birds nest served with a creamy herb sauce and fried seaweed. There were traditional tapas as well, like the Plato Alpujarreño, with slow-cooked potatoes covered in jamón, morcilla, and egg. Two of those plates would be a filling meal. It was a delicious and fitting end to our Almería tapas adventure.
Jesus would be staying in Almería for a few more weeks, so Kirb was forced to drive the rental car back to Málaga back through the Sea of Plastic. We stopped for lunch in the seaside town of Nerja and parked by the beach. We realized as we walked by the straw umbrellas and large German men in speedos that we'd spent nearly a month now on the southern coast of Spain and still never laid around on the beaches there. Saint Elmo's Fire was the closest we'd come to being beach bums, but in that case we were more like actual bums because we fell asleep on the beach after drinking all night. The sand and warm water and beach bars looked real fine. Hey, there's always next time.