Spanish views from a small town

When I was a little girl Sunday dinner was important. It was then that my mother would make a big meal, almost always something Spanish, like empanada , a type of meat or fish calzone typical of Galicia. Other Sundays, especially on cold Sundays, caldo , a stew of potatoes, cabbage, navy beans and salt pork that has a dozen variations depending on which town in Galicia you visit. Any important event was also celebrated with food. My First Communion had my mother making food practically all morning and early afternoon. I suppose it's something Mediterranean. All the movies with the good Italian and Greek families show them sitting together at a table strewn with plates and platters of food. But I think my mother and most women her age always went a little overboard with food. After a festival such as Christmas there would be leftovers for a week in the fridge. My mother had a fetish about not letting anyone go hungry. If someone wanted seconds or even thirds, she made sure there w...

Last week, I travelled from our green little corner of Galicia down to Madrid by car. My daughter had to take an exam in Madrid in preparation for college applications so I drove her down and we did some sightseeing at the same time. We had already made the same trip at the end of May and had been surprised by the endless fields of green wheat stretching away under the relentless blue skies after we had left the mountains and arrived at the "meseta". I remembered as a child flying from Santiago de Compostela to Madrid and looking down at brown fields, with little towns from which radiated long, straight roads. The green that surrounded us belied that memory. This time, though, it was the last days of August. The wheat had been harvested and the fields were being turned over, leaving the rich, brown earth on view. The grasses covering small hills and the side of the roads were golden. The only green came from the occasional tree next to streams, some fields of sunflowers and...