Dinner With My Uncle Jose

Wowee! Another late night in España! Met up with my uncleJose who lives her for the last two decades. Holy cow! Told Teo that we would probably go to inner and then be home in time to get a good, our first her, night sleep. Not!

We met at a bar called Cervezeria Alemana at 9:30, at Plaza Santa Ana, a place that my uncle knew well, having moved here as a twenty something year old many moons ago, living in a hostel-y-night/brothel-by-day cheap place to stay circa 1973, as a young man looking for a new way to be. At a table in the Plaza we had a caña, a small glass of beer, maybe five ounces, served in all bars in Madrid, before moving across the Plaza for a meal.

The establishment that he took us to was a 'bull fighters' place, a spot where the matadors come when they are In town. We had Rape de Toro ( Ox tail) and a perfect, very rare filet mignon, with three appetizers (croquettes, fried eggplant, and very thinly sliced pieces of cured, smoked jamon ( ham) ), washed down beautifully with two bottles of Rioja tinto, red wine from La Rioja, Spain's most famous wine region (where, incidentally, Teo and I shall be walking through in about one week). The meal was a culinary masterpiece, the company equally brilliant. It was really grounding to reconnect with Tio Jose, my mother's youngest brother.

After the meal we three walked a block or two to a local jazz bar to hear live music, and to put away a couple more cañas. On to one more place for another round. It was about midnight at this point and, I was figuring, about the end of the night as well. Wrong. Jose called his good friend of thirty years, Jose Luis, who we then met up with at small bar around the corner. With Jose Luis was his girl, Rocio,  a Flamencan dancer by trade. Jose Luis and my uncle met while both lived and worked in Boston in the eighties. He is a rather diminutive man, but only, I assure you, in stature-not even a little bit diminutive in personality or panache.

We five sauntered to the apartment of Jose Luis, not far away, through the narrow, streets lined with wrought iron balconies and window grates, the yellow light of the street lamps reflecting softly off of the worn cobblestone underfoot. His place is small but, like the man himself, intricate, artistic, aesthetically sound. We had drinks, danced a bit, laughed a lot until three.

Jose caught a cab home. So did we.