too much oil isn’t always a nightmare………

We don’t use the television in our house unless there is an emergency of some sort.  But, my new friend, influenza, and I have become quite bored during our required resting period.  So, I took the advice of a dear friend and watched an episode of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey.  Just by chance, the episode that showed up first was titled Spanish Pavilion.  On Chef Ramsey’s first visit to the restaurant he ordered the garlic chicken or pollo al ajillo, a very well-known dish here in Spain.

The name of the dish first brought up a fond memory in a bar years ago when I was still a tried and true vegetarian.  My friend Cristi, also a vegetarian at the time, and I were out with a group of random people.  We ended up in a conversation with a woman who was completely dumbfounded by the mere thought of us not participating in any carnal consumption.  She went on and on for an extremely long time with every possible proposal to convince us to change our ways.  My friend and I nodded and smiled politely for as long as we could.  But when the woman, disheartened, expressed her true sadness that we would never try her “pollo al ajillo” we lost it and continued on laughing about it throughout the night and for the next five to six years.  Actually, we still laugh about it.

Back to the Nightmares. When Chef Ramsey tasted his garlic chicken at the Spanish Pavilion, he lifted up a wing and unveiled  about two cups of olive oil on his plate.  I almost spit my chamomile at the screen.  I was immediately taken to one of my favorite towns near Granada, Guejar Sierra.  The amount of olive oil on Chef Ramsey’s plate didn’t even compare to the amount of olive oil in the majority of the typical dishes in Guejar.  Pollo al ajillo being one of those.  The food is delicious in the town but my husband and I often giggle about the amount of oil used.   And one afternoon having lunch with my Mother along the river near Guejar we calculated 1 cup and a half of olive oil per dish that we ordered.  We have no shortage of olive oil here.  I need to take Ramsey to Guejar.