The Spanish have an intriguing habit of wearing red underwear for luck on New Year’s Eve. Carol proudly donned hers but mine are all a little more soberly coloured. There’s an alternative way of encouraging luck on New Year’s Eve and that is to eat one grape at each chime of the bell at midnight. I’d stand a little more chance of following that superstition.
Since the weather was, once again, decidedly uninspiring, we started heading for Denia just for something to do. Maybe we’d be able to find some details of the twelfth night Three Kings celebrations a the tourist information, if we could find it. However, we got distracted by a new shopping complex called La Marina and never actually made it to Denia.
La Marina has more shoe shops than you could shake a big toe at. It also seemed to be particularly geared towards ex-pats; there was one entirely British staffed and stocked book shop. For once, though, it was not just Carol who wanted to nose around in a shopping centre. Spain has a chain of Russian supermarkets called Eroski that I have been wanting to investigate for some time and there was a shiny new example at La Marina. It turned out to be much more like a French hypermarket than a Spanish supermarket, which are seemingly more limited. I didn’t see any particularly Russian items, such as caviar, but it was very well stocked with a mouthwatering array of food items as well as other non-food stuff. It also had plenty of space between the aisles and was a decidedly “pleasant shopping experience”.
Eroski may be Russian but it was clearly targeted at the Spanish. There, in all their glory, was a dazzling array of bright red underwear, including briefs for men. It had to be done – we bought me a pair. Where better to buy red underwear than from a Russian supermarket?
There was one more purchase that was just begging to be made. Carol had spotted some packets of baby eels including some with garlic oil and a few prawns. We just had to try some for lunch so into the Russian shopping basket they went, along with some rustic bread.
After the checkouts, I wandered into the restrooms and changed into my new red knickers as soon as possible to maximize the amount of luck I might get for 2009. Unfortunately, either Spanish or Russian large didn’t appear to be quite as large as an English large. No matter, I could stop strangling myself after midnight when their job should be done.
Deciding that Denia could wait for another day, we returned to the ranch for our latest culinary experiment. A swift reheat for a minute and the tiny baby eels were ready. Even Carol, skeptical at first, pronounced them delicious. These, I most certainly would seek out again.
I think I’ll pass on the red underwear next time, though. 😉
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