The Spanish Table...Mill Valley!

Yo yo yo babypops... so I went to the Spanish Table today! In Marin! Whoo-hooo. First off, the Spanish Table is a "chain" store with like three other places in upscale towns... Berkeley, Santa Fe, and Seattle. They specialize in all things Spanish. The author of the book that we are working on for this month's Kookbook Klub recommended it, so I was looking forward to going. I needed to buy some 'cheap' Spanish wine for the Sangria and I wanted to get some nice olive oil.

I went during work hours. I work with developmentally disabled people, and part of our philosophy is getting people with disabilities out there in the real world, not holed up in some gym doing a jigsaw puzzle all day. So, in short, I can do errands at my job, so long as the clients help me find things and are active participants. Boy, did I have active participants! First I had Lisa, who has Downs Syndrome and was voted Down Syndrome Woman of the Year in the 90s. She got her picture taken with that Corky guy from Life Goes On, pretty much the Marlon Brando of Downs. So she's rad. Then I had Alex, who has, jeez, I dunno... he is just kinda strange. He makes dolphin noises "eek eek eek!" and calls random people "fool!" when we pass them. He's of Chinese descent, rail thin, and totally blind. He loves it when i sing that ditty from Saturday Night Live with Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra: "You are black and i am white! You are blind as a bat and I have sight!" So he likes to be teased about not seeing shit. He loves to be taken to knew places, especially if you walk him through it, physically and verbally. I knew he would dig The Spanish Table, and that Lisa would dig it too.

So here's how the joint is set up: There's a big ol' wall of wine, for starters. I'm not really a wine person, but if I was I'm sure I would enjoy it. Then there's a big ol wall of olive oil, sardines, anchovies, octopus... all sorts of things in tins. Then there is the Pimenton, and saffron... stuff like that. They have the world's biggest paella pan. Seriously. It's like five feet across. Now that, my amigos, is La Paella.

The lady who worked there was really nice and I showed her what i wanted to make in the cookbook. She pointed out some nice wines for sangria, since I have decided to make all the sangria since I am the host. One was called Tres Ojos. I asked Lisa if she knew what that meant. She said nope. I said "three eyes." What a freakin' cool name, for anything! Then I said to Al, dude, three eyes? You got no eyes. And he laughed and made dolphin sounds.

My favorite thing about this store is the aprons. They are flamenco dancer style, with flouncy ruffles at the bottom. I put one on Lisa, a red one with big white polka dots. She looked like Minnie Mouse. It was really cute.

After that we went and got ice cream. I was sort of pissed. I asked the teen behind the counter if they had kid's servings. She said "only for kids," I'll have to charge you full price." OK think about this.... what is the fucking difference if I am a kid or not, or if Lisa or Alex is? A lot of disabled people cant eat all that. Anyway, this policy is INSANE. I'm writing a letter. I mean come on, what are they losing by giving us a child's portion and charging us for a child's portion? Grrrrrrrrr. Yeah this has nothing to do with La Paella. It just pisses me off.

Over n Out...

La Katy