We got out to my family's little town twice during this trip - once for Torrijas (a type of bread pudding fried in olive oil that is served in Spain at Easter, Mark Bittman has a decent recipe here) and the next for a long, leisurely lunch at a local restaurant, where I was able to drink Spanish vermouth, or vermut.

My aunt's torrijas were spectacular - really, not to be missed.

But the big surprise was the vermut. This stuff was sublime. A beautiful red color, slightly sweet and slightly herbal, it was like nothing I had ever had. The Spirit World gives a good description of it here. I shared a couple of glasses with my aunt and uncle (and Marissa and Marla) while waiting for our lunch (and appetizers and pinchos) to arrive.

The wait was quite long, which is unusual. Just as we began glancing around, with that look of worry that somehow we weren't going to be fed any of the fabulous things we had ordered too much of, my uncle started to explain (in Spanish accented English),

"You see, it is because of the crisis. Because of the crisis, the restaurant lays people off. They say 'there is a crisis, we don't need so many people' but then a holiday comes and everyone gathers their family and they all come to the restaurant and they all wait and wait and wait for their food. Now that is a crisis."

The true crisis has been identified, and I hope it will be rectified.

Eventually our food began to arrive and we proceeded to have yet another epic Spanish meal. Juevos rotos, caillos, croquetas, on and on it went.

Crisis averted.