Sorry for the lack of photos, despite my promises. It has been a busy week: we had to get out of our apartment and wrangle with the realty agency to get our deposit back, we were planning a trip to Italy, and Leah done got herself a job. Maybe soon I will get a job, too. And tomorrow, we fly to Rome for 10 days. If we don't spend the following week traveling, we'll get some pictures and stories from the journey up here in the beginning of August. This is an old one (maybe a month) that never made it up due to our technical difficulties. It is about veal.

Saturday morning, 11 a.m. Hottest weather Catalunya has seen in 30 years. Beaches are packed; the next day’s newspaper will run photos of people at the beach holding all their stuff, standing in ankle-deep water – there was literally no space to plunk down a towel. The normally pleasant breeze that filters through the apartment felt like something vented off a dryer. And I headed downstairs to Gloria’s. It was time for cooking lesson #3: fricandó. For those of you who don’t know Catalan cuisine and are trying to think of what Gloria might have in mind to accompany this lovely weather, we would be making, essentially, veal stew.

I was thinking of all the other things I would rather eat when it is 95 degrees out than veal stew - watermelon, maybe, or coleslaw, or stale bread – when the elevator stopped abruptly at the 3rd floor. This is where the pensión is, and I was greeted by Gloria, holding a piece of wood with about six holes drilled through it.

“I was just on my way down,” she said. “But now, you can help us with something. Come on, come on.” She hustled me into the empty pensión, where her daughter Sara was standing on a chair trying to screw another piece of wood into the top of a doorframe. She was essentially working upside-down, trying to get a screw about five inches long to go straight into a crookedly drilled hole, and she was not having much luck. The door, which would eventually hang from the piece of wood, leaned on the wall. “It needs another hole,” said Gloria, taking the piece from Sara. “Come on.”

The three of us went into the kitchen, where an ancient Black and Decker drill, referred to as “El Black and Decker” sat on the counter. The double sink was full of sawdust. Bits and chuck keys were spread out on the tiny table. “Hold it,” said Gloria, motioning me to the end of the piece of wood that was not to be drilled. My job was to aid Sara in bracing the wood against the counter while Gloria used El Black and Decker to make some more holes. They had eyeballed the locations for these holes and marked them in ballpoint pen. She fired up the drill and the bit spun in a wild cone: it had been put in at about a 20 degree angle.

“Stop, stop, stop!” I said. “You’ll break it.”

“Don’t worry,” said Gloria, revving the drill again. “The key doesn’t work. It’s stuck; it’ll stay.” I unplugged the drill, reluctant to get shards of drill bit lodged in my eye, so soon before my fricandó lesson. “Hey,” she said. “Plug that in.” Instead, I picked up the key and loosened the bit, then replaced it straight. It went almost entirely through the wood, as they had hoped, and they finished it by smacking the screw through it with a hammer. I made a mental note to go easy on the door if I was ever staying in the pensión again.

The holes finished, Gloria announced that we were done – meaning she and I – and we left Sara to finish hanging the door on her own. I told them to let me know if they needed any more help, and they laughed, insisting that they did all the repairs themselves. In fact, about two weeks later, they did take me up on the offer, when they were having a new floor put in and had about a thousand pounds of concrete and old ceramic tile that they needed removed from their apartment.

We headed down to her apartment, where she picked a battered mop bucket up off the floor, set it on a chair and instructed me to look at its contents. At first I assumed it would be some kind of food product that we were about to cook, since I had become accustomed to finding ingredients in places other than the refrigerator and cupboard since I had begun the “lessons.”

Instead, it was a baby bird. A swallow, to be exact. Gloria took it out and sort of cuddled it a little, as much as one can with a bird, and explained that she had found it on the ground and would be taking care of it until it could fly. She played with the bird a little and then replaced it in the bucket, announcing that we were ready to beat the heat with stew.

Now, in my book, fussy though it may be, birds are like rats. They stay outside, and they are not touched, owing to their filthiness. I got a little panicky and decided that I would wash my hands, making a big fuss about it, and she would be shamed into washing hers, too. When she saw me trying to find hand soap in the kitchen sink, she shuttled me off to the bathroom, saying, “What? You want to wash your hands?” before returning to the kitchen to get the meat out of the fridge.

She was about to start cooking. I had to move fast. In a fit of inspiration, I lunged towards the dishes in the sink. “I’ll start washing these,” I said. “While you get the food set up.” It worked like a charm, since, despite numerous attempts, we have never been allowed to wash a dish after any of the numerous meals Gloria has given us. She yanked the plate out of my hand, picked up a rag, and whipped through the little stack. In the process, I decided to assume that her hands must have gotten de-birded. The fricandó could begin. In terms of ingredients, we had the following:

• 2 pounds of veal, not that weird milk-fed stuff we use, but normal veal, sliced into thin pieces across the grain.
  
• flour, enough to coat the pieces of veal
  
• an onion
  
• some white wine
  
• 2 tablespoons tomato sauce from a can, or raw tomato, diced, with seeds and skin removed
  
• about 5 carrot sticks, like you used to bring to school, and 5 celery sticks in the same style
  
• a few leaves of laurel
  
• some sprigs of fresh thyme
  
• leeks, cut into pieces the same length as the traditional school-lunch carrot stick, if you want, or bay leaves, or other herbs you like
  
• about a half-pound of mushrooms. We used plain white ones, and the snooty Catalan cookbook insists on rossinyols de pi, a kind of wild mushroom found near pine trees. Whatever you use, cut them up into quarters.
  
• two cloves of garlic
  
• salt and black pepper
  
• cinnamon
  
• a small pot full of water, ready to heat up
  
• a mortar and pestle
  

And here’s how you turn this list into a delightful summer fricandó:

So first, you wash your hands, even if you weren’t playing with a bird you found in the street, and put each piece of meat in the flour to coat it. Shake it a little to get the extra flour off. Heat some oil in a skillet, then put the floured meat in there carefully. Don’t get hot oil splashing all over yourself, for God’s sake. When the meat is brown on both sides, and feels just about done, take it out and set it aside.

Start heating the pot of water.

Next, pour the dangerously hot oil into a big stew pot. Not quite sure how you are going to handle this; personally, I let Gloria do it. In fact, the cooking lessons are not all that participatory to begin with. Gloria has such a deep fear of seeing anything bad – like, say, incorrectly cooked fricandó – happen to me or Leah, that I am not allowed to touch much of the stuff we cook. It’s more like a cooking demo followed by lunch. If you don’t have a Gloria handy, you could maybe ask your dad to help, if he’s any good in the kitchen.

By now, you should either be on your way to the emergency room, or the oil ought to be in the stew pot. Keep the flame low. Grate or dice the onion and toss that in there. Tie the carrots, celery, and herbs together and toss that in there. For the record, that’s called a bouquet garni. Move the stuff around for about ten minutes, until the onions are translucent. Pour in a cup or so of wine. Or more. I’ve never actually seen a measuring implement in Gloria’s kitchen, so it can’t be that important.

While the wine is cooking away, add the tomato. About two minutes later, you can add the meat. Add the hot water until it covers all the meat and shake the whole thing around. Cover it and let it sit.

In the meantime, slice the garlic and throw it in the pestle/mortar with some coarse salt, black pepper, cinnamon, and a little broth from the pot. Crush it with the mortar/pestle. Pour the mixture into the pot. Wait an hour. You don’t need to stand around watching the pot during that time – very little can possibly happen, unless you have a tiger in the house. Tigers have a keen sense of smell and are attracted to bouquet garni, and so a stray tiger will most likely get into your fricandó. Barring an infestation of tigers, you are free to go watch football on television or play in the snow, since I am sincerely hoping that you are not suffering through this recipe in the summer.

After an hour passes, add the mushrooms. Cook about 15 minutes more and taste the broth. If it tastes good, it’s done. Let it cool and put it in the fridge. It will be better tomorrow, assuming it is not 97 degrees tomorrow.