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…just look at the logo of this soon-to-be-opened baby/children’s store in Guadalajara, Spain!

At first I thought, “Looks like a mouse on a mouse pad…must be a computer shop.” Then I read the name more closely. “Somos Papás” translates to “We Are Parents.” Then it dawned on me. That’s not a mouse! That’s a sperm cell fertilizing an egg!!!

Now…I don’t know about you folks, but I’d be reluctant to go shopping for my two year old daughter in a store with this logo. What’s next? Buy 50€ worth of diapers and get a free lap dance?!

This must accompany the infamous Prawnography photo in the Virtual Tapas Bar Marketing Hall of Shame.

Roman Catholic nuns have many talents—not all of which involve the infliction of corporal punishment. In Spain, at least, nuns wield a wooden spoon as skillfully as they do a wooden ruler.

Perhaps I should clarify that last statement.

Cities and towns throughout Spain are dotted with cloistered nun convents. Most convents run some sort of commercial venture – e.g., charging admission to view their art collections, or selling needlecraft and other hand-made trinkets – in order to support their existence and charitable endeavors. But the most common (and popular) way for nuns to raise funds is to make and sell sweets.

Nun-made sweets range from almond-based cookies (like the Rosquillas de Almendra pictured above) to jellies and marmalades to moist little buttons of sugar and egg yolk called yemas. Some convents specialize in one or two items; others offer of a long list of choices. Offerings are typically influenced by the availability of local products—and donations. Yemas, for example, are often available at convents in wine regions. Why? Because many wineries use egg whites to clarify their wines, then donate the yolks to the nearest order of nuns.

But it’s not just the sweets that cause me to seek out convents whenever I visit a new city. I get equally excited by the transaction itself. Suffice it to say, a certain etiquette must be followed when buying from nuns. Let me tell you what it is.

When a convent is open for business (typically between the hours 9am to 2pm and 5pm to 8pm), the front door will be cracked open. Enter through the door and you will often find yourself in a foyer. Built into the far wall of the foyer is a Lazy Susan-type revolving tray. If you’ve seen that famous M*A*S*H episode in which the doctors gave an abandoned baby to a community of cloistered monks, then you know what I’m talking about.

Mounted on the wall next to the Lazy Susan are a buzzer and (usually) a list of the sweets for sale. Press the buzzer and – sooner or later – a nun’s voice will chirp from behind the Lazy Susan. Now this is the important part. Before the transaction takes place, you must recite the following script:

Nun: Ave María purísima. [Translation: Most pure Ave María.]

You: Sin pecado concebida. [Translation: Conceived without sin. Don’t ask.]

Now you may place your order. Once you do so, the nun will tell you the price. Put your money on the Lazy Susan, and give it a gentle spin. The nun behind the wall will take your money, put the box of sweets that you ordered (plus your change, if any) on the Lazy Susan and spin it back to you.

And that’s it! The transaction is over. The nuns walk away with the money. You walk away with the sweets. And nobody’s knuckles get whacked with a ruler.

Pictured above is the “Lazy Susan” at the Convento Dominicas Dueñas in Zamora, Spain. I highly recommend the Rosquillas de Almendra.

Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care book contains no recommendation that toddlers should periodically visit Bar Alcázar. I find this omission puzzling.

After all…“Ring Around the Rosies” and “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” are fine diversions, but nothing develops a two year old child’s hand/eye coordination like a brisk game of video poker.

If you don’t believe me, then check out the latest report published by the Wayne Newton Center for Pediatric Studies.

Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like the effigy of a man defecating behind a manger.

But strange as it may seem, Christmas in Spain’s Cataluña region simply would not be Christmas without the Caganer.

A Caganer is a little figurine of a man – typically carved from wood or molded from clay – with his trousers around his ankles doing “number 2.” Catalans hide the Caganer in their private and public Christmas-time Nativity scenes, and children delight in trying to find him. This has been a tradition in the region for hundreds of years.

The “classic” Caganer is that of a bearded peasant wearing a floppy, red hat called a “barretina” and smoking a pipe. But this is not the only model. Caganers now come in all shapes and sizes; the most popular being likenesses of celebrities, politicians and sports stars – ranging from David Beckham to George W. Bush to Osama bin Laden.

Caganer spectators typically fall into one of three camps: the amused; the repulsed; and the outraged. I obviously fall into the first camp. My in-laws (curiously enough, considering their surreal senses of humor) fall into the second. Catholic groups in the US fall into the third. Allow me to elaborate on the latter.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights – a New York-based group representing 350,000 members – went positively ballistic in 2001 when it learned that an exhibit at a California museum by the Spanish artist Antoni Miralda featured Caganers in the forms of nuns, angels and Pope John Paul II. The CLRCR wrote a snarling letter to the museum, complaining that the exhibit was offensive to Catholics. But alas, they don’t speak on behalf of all Catholics. The Roman Catholic Church in Spain, it should be noted, doesn’t complain about Caganers. They wouldn’t dare.

So, what is the point of the Caganer? How did it come to be? I’ve read various theories about this; the most prevalent being that the Caganer symbolizes fertilization of the earth and thanks for the sustenance that it bears. Put another way, the Caganer represents the poor farmer who, having taken the earth’s agricultural bounty during the harvest, lovingly returns the favor through the gift of his own, man-made fertilizer. Sort of a stinky quid pro quo, if you will.

Now…no offense to the farmers of Cataluña – and in particular, to those who prefer to drop their loads al fresco – but this explanation strikes me as the type of pretentious baloney that one might read in a Ph.D dissertation. Fortunately, however, I have my own theory about the origins of the Caganer.

Hundreds of years ago in rural Cataluña, a poor farmer named Jordi Puig (everyone in Cataluña is named Jordi Puig) became fed up – once and for all – with the local priest and his meddling ways. The priest had, for years, forbade Jordi from eating meat on Fridays. From drinking alcohol during Lent. And then, there was that pre-marital sex thing on which all priests are so fixated. Having reached the limit of his tolerance, Jordi decided that a bit of revenge was in order.

It was December, and the priest had set up an elaborate Nativity scene in the town center. Jordi, working at his kitchen table, carved the world’s first Caganer out of a two day old chicken croquette. Under cover of night while the town slept, Jordi placed the Caganer discretely behind the three wise men’s camel.

The next morning, the priest awoke to a crowd of excited children laughing and dancing around the Nativity scene. He pushed through the crowd to see what the hub-bub was about. And what did he find? Blasphemy!!!

Well…the priest was so outraged and distraught that he was unable to cook his own meals for six months thereafter. Or maybe it was six years. You know how priests are. In any event, a Christmas-time tradition had been born.

Now, I readily admit that I have no historical evidence to support this theory. Truth be told…I made up the story last Friday while drinking a café con leche at Bar Gema.

But you must admit that it sounds a lot more plausible than that “thanking Mother Earth for her bounty” nonsense.

Spain has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe. But you can’t blame that on a lack of storks.

If you look up any church bell-tower in central or southern Spain, you will likely see one. Or two. Or more. Pictured above is a white stork that I spotted on a church in Zamora (Castilla y Leon) last weekend.

Of course, storks are easy to spot…because they are enormous. They have six-foot wingspans. And if you think the birds are big, you should see their nests. I would not be surprised to learn that some stork nests sport a wet bar and home cinema. Rumor has it that Bruce Willis may buy a vacant one in Marbella for use as a winter home.

Spaniards seem to embrace the stork. Churches and other towering municipal structures actively encourage their presence by erecting platforms on which they can more easily build their nests.

Spanish tourists embrace the stork, as well. When my friend “Scott the Texan” visited last year, we took him on a day-long walking tour of the Madrid-area’s historic sites. And what’s the only thing he remembers from the tour? Storks.

Spain’s storkification does, however, require some caution. Specifically, I would not recommend standing too close to a church bell-tower. My grandmother once told me that being hit with a bird dropping is good luck. But where storks are concerned, there is arguably such a thing as too much good luck.

My parents – who were in Spain for a visit last week – come from a long line of great wine drinkers. This should not, however, be confused with coming from a long line of drinkers of great wine.

My paternal grandfather made homemade wine in the basement of his Utica, NY home. This booty was often enjoyed by my father and his teenaged friends during the 1950’s – then dutifully topped-off with tap water for reasons of stealth. In a similar vein, my maternal grandfather attributes his longevity (89 years old and counting!) to a lifetime of moderate jug-wine consumption. That, and managing not to get blown up during World War II.

It therefore made perfect sense that, during last weekend, I should take my parents to my now-favorite Spanish wine region: Toro.

The city of Toro – and its surrounding areas in which “D.O. Toro” wines are produced – is located in Spain’s west-central province of Zamora (Castilla y Leon); just a grape’s throw from Portugal. The terrain is flat – dare I say, monotonous – with sand-colored soil and a cool climate. The city is dotted with convents, monasteries, arches, palaces and thirteenth century churches. But we didn’t go there for the architecture. We went for the wine.

Toro’s wines are made primarily – if not entirely – from Tinta de Toro grapes. They are rich, dense, purplish wines with intense flavor and high alcohol content. They are also ridiculously inexpensive. We bought bottles of fairly good Toro crianza (i.e., moderately aged) wines for approximately 7€ in shops and 12€ in restaurants.

Listed below are the wines that we drank during our visit:

Muruve Crianza

Finca Sobreño Crianza

Colegiata Fariña Joven

Gran Colegiata Fariña Crianza (my favorite of the bunch)

Toro’s wines are amongst Spain’s rising stars, and are gathering a following throughout the world. Just yesterday morning, a friend from Denmark informed that he and his crowd often drink Toros to the exclusion of other Spanish wines. Likewise, I’ve read several recent articles in US publications praising the impressive price-quality ratio of these wines.

One Washington Post article, in particular, reported that the more well-known and well-established Rioja wine region is feeling the heat from Toro and its muscular brethren. It seems that many connoisseurs of Spanish wine are starting to poo-poo the notion of paying more for a less flavorful Rioja. The article further states that Rioja – in quasi-panic mode – is now gearing-up for production of more Toro-esque wines. This may seem like a logical strategy, but I see a flaw. Even if Rioja’s wineries succeed in boosting the octane of their wines, I doubt they’d be willing to match Toro’s pricing. Or perhaps I’m just biased in favor of the underdog.

In the interest of even-handedness, I suppose that I should say something negative about Toro’s wines. Let me think…

A-HA!!! If Toro’s wines have a drawback, it’s that they don’t pair well with Dover Sole. Hmm…then again, who the hell wants to eat Dover Sole in a region that specializes in such delicacies as Arroz a la Zamorana (i.e., rice flavored with pig parts that US kitchens typically throw away) and suckling lamb roasted in a wood-burning brick oven?!

Perhaps it’s best to leave even-handedness to those wine critics who actually get paid.

Back to the trip. Our visit to Toro was enjoyable not only because of its wines, but also because of its wine culture. Most bars we visited served more than a dozen different local wines. And they served them correctly; from bottles extracted from temperature-controlled chillers. Similarly, shops and markets were teeming with botas, barrels, miniature grape presses, cheeses and other wine-related paraphernalia. It was – pardon the pun – intoxicating to be in a place that showed such reverence to my favorite drink.

That’s not to imply, however, that my home town of Cabanillas del Campo doesn’t have a wine culture. It’s just that the wine culture here entails choosing between wine decanted from a red Tetrabrik® box versus a green one.

Whenever I’m feeling insecure about my language skills, I need look no further for reassurance than the nearest English-language advertisement in Spain.

Pictured above is a restaurant coupon that my parents picked up during an outing in Toledo (Spain…not Ohio) yesterday afternoon. Take a moment and read it.

Apparently, the restaurant is offering them two free drinks with their meal. Then again…one might also interpret that the coupon is inviting them to witness the bizarre spectacle of a living, breathing beverage – no doubt brought to life by means of some devious scientific experiment – that not only cooks meals at the restaurant, but eats them as well.

Read the coupon again, and you’ll understand what I mean.

The irony is that the C.V. of this restaurant’s Director of Marketing surely boasts that his level of English is “fluent.”

On the bright side, however, my parents inform that the restaurant’s food was quite good.

And on that note, I desire to you all that enjoyment of a well holiday of Thanksgiving does arrive.

Pictured above is…my left foot.

No make-up, airbrushing, computer graphics or collagen injections were used to alter or enhance its appearance. Just my left foot…basking in the Iberian sun…as God intended it to be.

Now, you may be wondering why I posted my left foot on this blog. The reason is fairly simple: I had no better idea at the time.

It isn’t that I’ve completely run out of ideas. To the contrary, scribbled on a pocket-sized notepad at the left-hand corner of my desk is a lengthy list of ideas for new posts. The problem is that all these ideas are Christmas-related, and I am waiting for December 1st before I unleash them on the world.

So I needed something to spruce up the blog during this awkward, late-November period of lull. And since we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Spain, I had little choice but to call on the services of that faithful appendage resting quietly beneath my desk.

Besides, it’s not a bad looking left foot…wouldn’t you agree?

Is it just me, or is it impossible to find a pepper mill that lasts more than four months?

During the past seven years, I’ve bought countless pepper mills. I’ve bought them in Chicago, Madrid, San Sebastian and Barcelona. I’ve bought the classic, French-made, curvy, wooden type. I’ve bought a stainless steel, turn-the-handle-on-top, art deco type. I’ve bought a British-made glass and porcelain model with ceramic grinding mechanisms. And most recently, I bought a German brand from a saleswoman who – after I vowed to tar and feather her eldest child if I was dissatisfied – still assured me that it was “very well constructed.”

Mind you, none of these pepper mills were cheap. Each one cost $35 to $70.

But without exception, each of them ground flawlessly for exactly four months and then – for no apparent reason – stopped working. Just like that. It was as if a gremlin hit squad periodically invaded my kitchen while I slept, grabbed my then-newest pepper mill and filed its grinding teeth down to a smooth, glass-like finish. I could thereafter turn the knobs or handles until my elbows fell off, but no more pepper would come out.

Why?!

How?!

Somebody, help me to understand! Does the production of a reliable pepper mill pose such an insurmountable engineering challenge that no grad student at MIT, CalTech or University of Illinois dares to approach it?

Or are my expectations unreasonable? After all, I have for years been living under the delusion that the mechanics of a pepper mill are less complicated than those of – say – laser eye surgery, nuclear fission or printing the logo onto each individual M&M; the latter three of which, I should point out, have been scientific realities for quite some time.

Yet despite years of frustration, I remain optimistic. In fact, I believe that I’ve finally cracked this nut once and for all. And the solution came from a most unlikely source: pre-Colombian Mexico.

Pictured above – and I am NOT joking about this – is my newest pepper mill: A Mexican, lava rock molcajete. It crushes peppercorns effortlessly, reliably and to my exact specifications of coarseness. It adds a whole new dimension to popping sheets of plastic bubble-wrap, too.

Sure, a molcajete requires fifteen seconds of clean-up with a stiff brush after each use, but I consider this a small inconvenience in exchange for – what I believe is – the last friggin’ pepper mill I’ll ever need.

But if – four months from now – my molcajete tragically succumbs to the Curse of the Peppercorn, then I suppose I’ll have to lay down my pestle and resign myself to a pepper-free life…just like everyone else in Spain. It’s true. The people of Spain have a near-pathological disdain for pepper. They think it’s “too spicy.” If you go into any restaurant in Spain, I guarantee that there will be a salt/pepper/oil/vinegar caddy on each table…and I also guarantee that each caddy’s pepper holder will be empty.

So if misery loves company, then at least I’ll have lots of company. That’s probably a good thing, because I can imagine no greater misery than a life without freshly ground pepper.

Although a life without plastic bubble-wrap might come close.