Serves 6
175g (6oz) dried chickpeas
350g (12oz) chorizo, diced into cubes about the same size as the chickpeas
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped or crushed
2 tbs olive oil
750ml (1.3 pints) chicken stock
1 bay leaf
Pinch of dried thyme
3 or 4 cloves
1 stick of cinnamon
1 tbs flat-leaf parsley
Cover the chickpeas with water in a bowl and leave to soak overnight.
Drain and place in a large saucepan with the bay leaf, cloves and cinnamon stick. Add the stock and enough water to cover the peas completely.
Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer until the chickpeas are tender, approximately 1 hour. Do not allow to go soft or boil dry. Add more water if necessary.
Drain and remove the herbs and spices.
Meanwhile, medium heat the oil in a frying pan, add the chopped onion and cook gently until soft.
Add the garlic and thyme and cook for about a minute. Turn up the heat a little and add the chorizo.
Cook for about three minutes then add the chickpeas, mixing well. Cook for just long enough to heat it all through. The oil from the sausage will turn it all a red colour. Remove from the heat and stir in the parsley.
Serve with crusty bread.
Note: This dish was inspired by the Moors who introduced the chickpea or ‘garbanzo’. It is best cooked using the ‘picante’ (hot) style of sausage to give it a fiery little Moroccan kick and is a very common tapas dish found throughout Spain.
CHAPTER 16
EGGS
For the next couple of weeks work on the house suffered. The punch-ups were so severe that we felt obliged to go into the orchard on ‘playground duty’. At least that way we could break up some of the fights. But I suppose we were lucky as the orchard was big and had plenty of hiding places. No chicken was ever badly wounded. And as the little ones grew in size and confidence the confrontations dwindled.
Weeks drifted by and we had still not seen an egg. All the girls now had handsome red combs and had grown considerably. Bugger and Fuck, the two black girls, were particularly beautiful. When the sun caught their feathers they shimmered blue, green and purple. Their names were unfortunate, not intended, but just kind of stuck. Little Grey, once the smallest, had grown into a huge chicken, towering over the others. She became bad tempered and rose in the pecking order. We renamed her Attila the Hen.
The Internet advised us to provide a dark, quiet box for laying. They suggested we place some golf balls inside to give the chickens the right idea. Joe found an old discarded wooden trunk and cut an entrance in the front. The girls explored it thoroughly but no eggs were forthcoming. Every day we lifted the lid of the trunk hopefully and every day we were disappointed. Perhaps they were hiding their eggs around the orchard? We bribed Little Paco and the village children, a euro for every egg found. Still no eggs.
One day we entered the orchard, with treat box, and were mobbed as usual. All seemed fine except that Ginger was behaving in a very strange fashion. She was agitated, nervous, obviously troubled by something. We sat down on the sofa, and Ginger hopped onto Joe’s lap and buried her head under his arm. Then she tried to get herself inside his jacket, it was most peculiar.
“Do you think she’s ill?” I asked.
“I think she might want to lay an egg,” Joe said. He carried her tenderly over to the wooden trunk and popped her in, blocking off the exit. She scrabbled about at first, then went completely quiet. Half an hour ticked past, then the scrabblings started again.
“I’ll let her out,” said Joe, and unblocked the entrance hole of the trunk.
Ginger came out, blinked and stood still. Then she stretched herself very tall, pointed her beak to the sky, and sang. Well, perhaps not everybody would call it ‘singing’, chickens not being the most tuneful of creatures. But it was a song of sorts, a ‘bok bok bok bok BOKKKKKKK!’ sort of song which later became very familiar to us. It was the triumphant Egg Song.
And sure enough, snug in the straw, still warm, so precious, was a perfect little egg.
We were inordinately proud of Ginger and her first egg. I shot off emails to all my friends and family, headed ‘We are grandparents!’. I took our little egg next door to show Paco and Carmen-Bethina. They admired it politely, but rolled their eyes when they thought our backs were turned.
The Egg Song was heard increasingly as the No-Name Twins, Mala, Blanca and the others followed Ginger’s example and started laying. We discovered that brown hens lay brown eggs and white hens lay white. Obvious really. We wondered what colour eggs Speckly and Attila the Hen would produce. When their time came, a few weeks later, they laid pinkish eggs. Attila the Hen’s were huge and often double yolkers. Bugger and Fuck, the two black hens, laid darker brown eggs.
It became a daily pleasure to lift the lid of the trunk and reveal that clutch of perfect eggs, like finding treasure in a pirate’s chest.
The trouble was, we hadn’t done our sums. A quick session with the calculator revealed that sixteen chickens, laying one egg each per day, lay a total of one hundred and twelve eggs a week. That’s four hundred and forty eggs a month. Let’s be fair, and allow the chickens a day off every few days. That still amounts to about four hundred eggs a month. An awesome amount of eggs.
Joe took a dozen eggs with him to Marcia’s shop to give away. It was the weekend and the bread van happened to be there surrounded by village ladies.
“Would anyone like some eggs?” he asked. He was almost trampled in the rush. The eggs were snatched out of his hands, and orders were placed for more. One of the Smart Ladies advised Joe to charge 70 cents for half a dozen in future, and so our unplanned business was born.
Joe put up a ship’s bell outside our garden gate and our customers rang it constantly. It was good that there was a regular demand for the eggs and that the income paid for the girls’ grain. And it was pleasant to chat with the village ladies and practice our Spanish. We got to know our regulars quite well as they’d often stay for a natter. They’d always begin by saying how fresh and tasty the eggs were, then tell us their family news and village gossip.
My favourite ‘Egg Lady’ was Pepa, a buxom elderly lady with dyed red hair and naughty crinkled eyes. She would ring the bell, then pant her way up the garden path and collapse in a chair under the vine while I fetched the eggs. Then we’d both agree how fresh and tasty the eggs were. Formalities over, she would lean forward conspiratorially and tell me what was going on in the village. I didn’t understand everything she said, but I gleaned some juicy snippets worthy of a soap opera.
“Have you met Antonio, your neighbour?” she asked, her face inches from mine across the table. She kept her voice low as though there may be people listening.
“Yes, he seems like a nice man,” I said.
“Well! Sí, he is my second cousin and you’re right, he is a nice man,” she said, chins wobbling as she nodded agreement. “But do you know his history?”
I shook my head, curious now. I liked Antonio. He was a small, dapper gentleman who rarely smiled but always greeted us if we passed in the street.
“Antonio used to be a taxi driver in Almería,” she began. “A real hard worker. He specialised in taking people across on the ferry to Morocco. Our family was very proud of him because he soon sold his taxi and bought a lorry. Soon after, he bought another lorry. In no time at all he had a whole fleet of lorries!” Dramatic pause which I felt I needed to fill.
“He was doing really well, then?”
Pepa’s eyebrows twitched into her red hairline. “Doing well? Very well! Too well!” she said. “Our family was amazed at how well he was doing. He bought a smart house in Almería and married a Moroccan lady. Not that we ever met her, she stayed in Morocco.” She paused for effect and I sensed the punch line was coming. I wasn’t disappointed.
“He was arrested!” s
he said. “¡Madre mia! He’d been smuggling drugs from Morocco for years. The police had been watching him, and then they caught him.” She sat back, deflated, shaking her head sadly, setting the double chins wobbling again. “Seven years in prison he got, seven years… Lost his house in Almería, lost his fleet of lorries, lost everything. All he’s got left is his house in the village. He had to go back to working for a company, driving a lorry all over Europe.”
Quiet, courteous Antonio an ex-drug smuggler and convict? I was fascinated. I began to look forward to Pepa’s visits and her colourful stories.
“The elections for the new Mayor are going to be held in a few months,” she said one day.
“Oh, really? Who are the candidates? Who do you think will win?” I asked.
“Well…” she said, shaking her head and pursing her lips. “There is that Angelo Covas Sanchez. But he doesn’t stand a chance. He was caught in a broom cupboard with the cleaner at the Town Hall and his wife is threatening to leave him.”
“Oh dear. Who else is in the running?”
“Well, Manuel Gomez. He’s a member of my family.”
“Is he popular?”
“Manuel Gomez? Goodness, no. He made a terrible mess of the water rights for the village. And anyway, he married his first cousin.”
“Oh,” I said. “But what about Pancho Marcos Martinez? He’s the Mayor at the moment, isn’t he? Do you think he’ll win the election again?”
“¡Madre mia! Not a chance! They call him Pancho Pinochet. He’ll never get voted for Mayor again with that attitude.”
“How many candidates are there?” I asked.
“Just three.”
The mayoral elections were going to be interesting. I made a mental note to follow them closely when the time came.
But selling eggs was a mixed blessing. However much entertainment the sales brought, it also caused problems we had not envisaged. The ship’s bell would clang at all hours of the day, a constant interruption. Many a barrow of plaster or cement was ruined, abandoned while we served and chatted with an egg customer. Sometimes the bell would ring at eleven o’clock at night. Joe was not pleased.
And woe betide if I had no eggs left. “But it’s for the children!” the lady would wail as though I was a hard hearted witch to deprive them.
Sometimes the egg sales even caused fights outside our gate when two customers arrived at the same time. I could hear their conversation from inside.
“Oh, Maria! How are you?”
“Not bad, not bad. And you?”
“Fine, I’m just getting my eggs from the English.”
“Yes, me too. I need them for a cake.”
“I need them for the children.”
“Well, I was here first. The English know I always come on Sunday mornings.”
“No, Maria. I already told the English I was baking a cake today.”
The voices would be growing in volume and I’d nervously check our egg supplies. Then I’d go down and open the gate and let them both in. Their faces would be wreathed in smiles belying the fact that they’d nearly come to blows in the street. We’d all agree that the eggs were very fresh and tasty. If there were enough eggs, the purchases would be made and the ladies would leave triumphantly. If not, I would have to send Joe to the orchard to see if there were any more while the ladies sat glowering at each other and me. Sometimes the chickens simply could not lay fast enough, which resulted in the two ladies not speaking to each other, or me.
Often, the Egg Ladies would give me instructions. “I need eggs next weekend. Keep them for me, please. Don’t sell them to that Maria.”
The next lady would arrive. “Keep a dozen for me next Saturday, I’ve got family staying. Don’t sell them to that Teresa.”
Egg orders had become complicated and my calendar was a hotch-potch of names, promises and reminders. Unwittingly, we had got ourselves into a situation that would be difficult to escape. Demand for eggs far outstripped our ability to supply. The only solution would be to add more chickens to our flock. And we couldn’t do that because our plans to build on the orchard were progressing. Soon we would have to move the chickens out, so getting more now would only have exacerbated the problem.
Joe once suggested (only half jokingly) that we buy extra eggs from the supermarket to make up the shortfall. That way we wouldn’t upset any of our Egg Ladies. And perhaps we could have eggs, too, as during that period we rarely tasted an egg ourselves. We never did resort to buying supermarket eggs, although it was tempting at the time.
Judith visited to view our progress with the house renovations and meet the chickens.
“Good Lord!” she said. “You’ve done wonders with this place! I hardly recognise it!”
We basked in her praise. We had chipped away at walls to expose the dry crumbling rocks beneath. We had cemented, smoothed, plastered and finally whitewashed. We had replaced doors, laid tiles, overhauled the electrics and plumbing. We were always exhausted, cut and bruised from our labours. A bit of praise from Judith was exactly what we needed to buck us up.
“Right!” said Judith, rubbing her hands together. “Now introduce me to those chickens!”
Off we trooped to the orchard, drinks in hand, and settled ourselves on the yellow sofa. Judith was enchanted by Ginger who perched on the arm, as usual, and told us all the latest gossip from the coop. The cicadas chirruped noisily, invisible in the bushes. Bugger and Fuck had uncovered an ants’ nest and were pecking furiously, like woodpeckers beating tattoos on a tree trunk. Mala preened her snowy feathers.
I sighed. “We’ve really made problems for ourselves selling eggs in the village. We never seem to have enough. And if we give them to one customer, we upset another.”
“Good heavens!” said Judith. “Don’t you let those women bully you! Give ’em an inch and they take a mile. Hell’s bells! First come, first served, I say… Or you could always get some more chickens.”
“If only we could,” said Joe, looking sadly round the orchard.
We explained our building plans for the orchard, and how, if we succeeded, the sale of the houses would leave us mortgage-free. It was a daunting project, one we would have preferred not to undertake. We loved the orchard and wished we weren’t forced to lose it.
We sat for a while longer, until Judith drained her glass, stretched and stood up. “Must go, dears. Mother will be wondering where I am. She’ll be fascinated when I tell her all the things you’ve done to the house. And your chickens are simply divine!”
We walked her to the orchard gate and exchanged kisses. Judith took a last look round the orchard. The girls were busily scratching in the dirt and carrying on with their chickeny business.
“Nothing quite like free range eggs,” she said. “So fresh and tasty. You haven’t got a dozen you can spare, have you? Mother is very partial to a new laid egg.”
Evidently dear Judith had become as Spanish as our customers.
∞∞∞
For a while nothing changed. We kept selling the eggs we had, doing our best to keep the sales fair. Nothing changed except, sadly, I lost my favourite customer and friend.
Lovely Pepa, with all her naughty gossip, still popped in for eggs most weekends. It was very gradual, but I began to notice a change in her. She started to lose weight which suited her at first, but when her clothes began to hang off her, I was concerned. Her colour changed from healthy to sallow and the dyed red hair grew thinner revealing grey roots. Her visits became less frequent and I was shocked at her decline.
One day she rang the bell and asked for eggs as usual. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any as I wasn’t expecting her that day. She looked terrible, weakness forcing her to grip the door frame for support. The wicked, dancing expression in her eyes had gone, replaced by a haunted, frightened look that tore at my soul. She explained that she had to go into hospital for tests and that she wouldn’t need any eggs for a while. Her eyes filled with tears and she admitted to me that she was scared. She was sca
red that she would never leave the hospital.
I never saw my friend Pepa again. She died in hospital. It’s a silly thing, but I so wished that I had had eggs to give her that last time.
Her grave is in the village cemetery, a stone’s throw from our house. The plaque says Josefina Maria Teresa Martinez Sanchez. But I will always know her as Pepa.
Mediterranean Eggs
Huevos Mediterraneos
4 hard-boiled eggs
50g (2oz) Roquefort cheese or similar, grated
100g (4oz) pitted black olives
1 tablespoon cottage cheese
3 tablespoons olive oil
A few leaves of the heart of a lettuce to garnish.
Shell the hard-boiled eggs and slice them in half lengthways.
Save a few whole olives for decoration and finely dice the rest. Save a small amount of the diced olives as well.
Mix the hard-boiled egg yolks with the cheese, cottage cheese the diced olives and the olive oil. Stuff the eggs with this mixture.
Put them on a serving dish, garnished with the lettuce leaves and whole olives, then sprinkle with the remaining diced olives.
Serve with the mayonnaise.
CHAPTER 17
THE EQUATORS
Renovating the house took up all our time and we had to admit that some projects were beyond our capabilities. We could knock down walls, build new ones and tile the floors. Joe could carry out plumbing and sort the electrics. But that wasn’t enough; we had set our hearts on creating two roof terraces. Old Spanish houses have no foundations and we had no idea if the dry crumbling walls would support the load of another floor. We needed expert advice and professionals to do the job. However, finding these proved to be no easy matter.
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools Page 13