Sal DeTraglia

Photo credit: The cardiologist in the next booth.

My sister, Nina—concerned that I might be starved for American culture—sent me this photo of two men (undoubtedly tax partners from a large law firm) preparing to enjoy their Last Supper.

They are at a bar called Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. For $30, Denny’s will serve you THIS—a 15-pound hamburger.

I’m not sure why anyone would want a 15-pound hamburger, but have long-suspected that if such a person did exist—he’d likely be living in Pennsylvania. This is, after all, a place where the first day of buck season is designated a state holiday.

What? You think I’m kidding?!

Certain people might cite this as a prime example of why the US has such a high rate of obesity; but I disagree.

A 15-pound hamburger is not responsible for the Airbus®-sized girth of Americans. More likely, it’s the 15-quart mug of beer that comes with it.

Theoretically-speaking, there are two kinds of barbers in Spain—those that talk a lot, and those that don’t. The reason that I say “theoretically” is because there are, in fact, no barbers in Spain that fall into the latter category.

But it gets more complicated still. Within the former category, there are two subgroups—those barbers that actually cut hair while talking, and those that don’t.

Sonia—who is my barber—don’t.

I go to Sonia for a hairtalk—I mean, a haircut—every four to six weeks, and each lasts at least thirty minutes. Now, this may not seem like an excessive amount of time for a haircut—until you realize that I only have about four hairs on my head.

Mind you, I certainly wouldn’t mind a little chit-chat in the barber’s chair—and in fact, it would be most beneficial for my abysmal language skills—if each sentence were punctuated by the sound of snip, snip, snip. But alas, punctuation isn’t her strong suit. And no matter how fidgety, dour or fatalistic I try to appear, it makes no difference. If Sal won’t talk to Sonia, then the lady on the left will. And the lady on the right. And the lady who just walked in the door. And the lady who has just called on the telephone. And the lady who has not just called on the telephone, because Sonia took the initiative to call her first.

I had my hair cut this morning, and arrived at Sonia’s ready for research. Tucked stealthily under my shirt were a pad, pencil and calculator—and yes, that *was* a slide-rule in my pants. I took diligent notes and, having just finished analyzing the data, hereby report that this morning’s haircut yielded one snip of the scissors for every 27 verbs, 14 predicates and 6.7 reflexive pronouns. If that’s not statistically significant, then I don’t know what is.

My wife says that I’m being an ass, and that I shouldn’t let any of this bother me. It is, after all, a “cultural thing.” We Americans put a high value on time, and are loathe to waste it. In this respect, we are like the Germans—except with much better taste in eyeglasses. But the Spanish, true to the stereotype, are a mañana, mañana, mañana culture—and no amount of pleading on behalf of an asymmetrical set of sideburns is likely to change that.

But after spending far too much time thinking about this (and on a vacation day, no less!), I’ve concluded that—perhaps for the first time ever—my wife may be wrong. Perhaps the reason behind the endless Spanish haircut is not a cultural one, but rather a business one. And a brilliant business one, at that!

Just think about it. By the time Sonia finishes my haircut, I’m in need of another.

It has happened again. I’ve just had a five-minute conversation in Spanish, without knowing what the hell we talked about.

This time it was with Sonia—the woman who owns the beauty salon in downtown Cabanillas del Campo. She snagged me as I passed her storefront, en route to Bar Gema for a café con leche. This much I know—she wanted me to relay a message to my wife regarding a scheduled massage. But that’s all I know.

Our conversation went—more or less— as follows:

At least, that’s how my brain processed the conversation. I can’t speak for Sonia, however. She seemed—much to my surprise—thoroughly satisfied with the outcome of our chat. She smiled appreciably and displayed none of the eye-rolling or tongue-clicking to which I’ve grown accustomed during past flirtations with conversational Spanish. Perhaps I unwittingly complemented her on her clarity of skin and firmness of thigh.

Anyway…the point of this tale is to illustrate that, after five years of total immersion, my Spanish-language skills remain almost as bad as those of President Bush.

I used to joke about this. When people would ask how my Spanish was progressing, I’d say, “Right on schedule! I’ve lived here for five years, and speak Spanish like a five year-old.”

But alas, the joke is on me. And humiliation has come from a most unexpected source: my two year old daughter, Inés.

For the past month, Inés has been giving ME vocabulary lessons. I knew this would eventually happen—but not so soon! The first hint of my impending doom came during a recent trip to Cantabria. We were hiking along a muddy trail, when the following conversation ensued:

Inés: Papá! I want to play in the charco.

Sal [whispering to wife]: What’s a “charco?”

Wife: It’s a puddle. You might also be interested to know that “hola” means hello and “adiós” means good-bye.

But the humiliation hasn’t ended with vocabulary. Inés’s mastery of Spanish grammar—including verb tenses and reflexive pronouns—surpassed mine around the time that she graduated from diapers to underpants.

Such is my dilemma. But what is the solution? My wife and I have slightly different opinions on how to address my linguistic shortcomings.

Hers is that I should enroll in Conversational Spanish lessons at a nearby language school, and also participate in our local library’s Spanish-language reading group.

Mine is that I should give up.

And Inés’s? Well…she told me her opinion last night during dinner. But to be honest, most of it went over my head.

Just another quirky delight of living in Spain.

Where else can you look up while stopped at a red light, and see a huge rotating billboard touting suckling lamb and pig roasted in a brick, wood-burning oven? To go!

Thanks, but you can keep your McNuggets®. I want a hunk of that pig!

This is the view from my home-office window. Is it just me, or are my neighbor’s trees giving me the finger while I work?

I was watching Floyd Uncorked on The Travel Channel tonight, when I suddenly remembered this photo. It was taken after our 7th anniversary dinner at Restaurante Arzak in San Sebastian last July.

So I decided to post it. Simply to post it. Accompanied by neither entertaining anecdotes nor witty banter.

That it provides conclusive evidence of my left hand touching the right shoulder of Juan Mari Arzak—Spain’s greatest (and in the case of this photo, most demented-looking) chef—seemed reason enough.

This was my finest hour.

Some weeks ago, I posed the following question to my readers: Why do Spaniards place water bottles before the front doors of their homes?

Reader response—with explanations ranging from nocturnal water fairies to picnicing construction workers to canine potty-training—was both earnest and overwhelming! And, I should hasten to add, largely unhelpful.

Now, the situation has taken a sinister turn. Just look at the photo above, which I snapped while walking home yesterday afternoon. Warning: It contains disturbing images that may not be suitable for children!

You’ll note that two water bottles have (apparently) fallen victim to a lynch mob. Liquefied!—if you’ll pardon the pun. One minute, they were propped in front of a door quietly doing their jobs (whatever the hell those jobs are)…the next minute, these polystyrene martyrs were cut down in the prime of life—no doubt many months before the expiration dates printed on their caps.

Although I’ve yet to speak with Spanish police, I can only assume that this is the act of some ruthless vigilante group.

Perhaps a pack of territorial garden trolls intent on sending a warning to other inanimate objects invading their turf.

¡Por favor! Encourage your people to emigrate to Spain! We need your cuisine!

I’m damn serious. It’s very difficult to find a good, authentic Mexican restaurant here. I’ve tried many in Madrid and Barcelona and, thus far, have found only one to be worthwhile. The others were about as representative of Mexico as The Olive Garden® is of Italy.

Spain’s lack of good Mexican food would be tolerable if I had the option of making it myself at home. But I don’t have that option. It’s almost as difficult to find Mexican ingredients (e.g., dried/fresh chiles, cilantro, limes, corn tortillas, etc.) in Spain’s supermarkets as it is to find them on a restaurant menu.

This fact may be shocking to some people. Especially to the 76% of US high school students who believe that Spain and Mexico share a common border. The other 24% believe that they’re the same country.

It was certainly shocking to me when I first arrived here. I vividly remember the day that bitter reality set in.

It was 1999 and we had recently moved to Barcelona. We invited a couple of friends—one of whom was from Mexico—over for dinner, and I wanted to make a Lomo de Puerco en Adobado recipe from Rick Bayless’s Authentic Mexican cookbook. The key ingredient for its all-important sauce was chiles anchos.

Chiles anchos are easy to find in the US. So easy, in fact, that they’re probably dispensed from gumball machines in certain parts of Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. But no such luck in Barcelona. After combing the city from end-to-end, I remained empty-handed.

So I entered a popular Mexican restaurant in the city’s Grácia neighborhood, and engaged its owner (not Mexican, of course) in the following conversation:

Of course, I didn’t say that. But the sudden onset of a twitch in my left eyelid must’ve conveyed the same to this apron-clad charlatan—or, at least, revealed me as a member of Charles Manson’s gene pool.

Now, you may be tempted to ask, “Aren’t Spanish and Mexican foods similar?” This is indeed a popular misconception, to which the answer is…NO! Spanish and Mexican foods have as much in common as do matzo balls and chicken vindaloo.

That’s not a slam against Spanish food. To be fair, I believe—and, in fact, have stated many times in writing—that Spanish food is great stuff. Few nations could make a goat taste so good. But Spanish cooks have one bias that is polar-opposite to their Mexican counterparts—they disdain spice. The typical Spaniard’s spice rack more resembles a book rack, in that it contains one jar of sea salt and a bunch of rolled-up Hola magazines. No cayenne. No garam masala. No oregano. Even black pepper is black-listed—often treated with the same contempt that a Mississippi farmer directs toward a boll weevil.

Now that we’ve established that Spain is a Mexican food-challenged nation, we must ask…WHY?! Why is Spain so deprived of Mexico’s exquisite cuisine?

The answer is simple: It’s because Spain has few Mexican immigrants.

But…but…but…Spain and Mexico speak the same language—kind of. And the weather here is much closer to Mexico’s than is, say, Chicago’s—which has an enormous population of Mexican immigrants (and, not surprisingly, an enormous population of great Mexican restaurants). Why, then, aren’t there more Mexicans living in Spain?

Again, the answer is simple: Mexicans won’t move to Spain, because SPAIN DOESN’T HAVE ANY GOOD MEXICAN FOOD!

Maddening, isn’t it? That’s why I’ve written this open letter—hoping that this vicious circle might finally be broken.

In the meantime…I’ll just have to survive on chicken vindaloo. Extra spicy, Ali! ¡Por favor!

Hollywood movies playing in Spain are often hilarious.

No, not because of the scripts—which tend to be devoid of comedic value, unless you have a weakness for jokes about passing gas. Rather, what’s funny about Hollywood movies is how their titles are translated.

Pictured above is a billboard for Vin Diesel’s new movie, “The Pacifier.” Only, it isn’t called “The Pacifier” here. Its Spanish distributor re-dubbed it “Un Canguro Superduro”—which translates to, “A Super Hard Kangaroo.”

With a title like that, it sounds less like an action comedy and more like a Discovery® channel documentary. A documentary that can only be aired after 9pm.