Celebrating the summer

Looking forward to seeing you soon for a glass of wine, maybe a tapas dish or two?

Let's celebrate

Hola! Everyone.

We’ve been waiting for this day for such a long time – we can finally open our doors and welcome in diners!

Throughout the winter and spring we’ve been running our Weekend-Tapas-Take-Away which has been a huge and delicious success: this week we have chicken and chorizo paella, hake fishcakes, aubergine Parmigiana, Andalusian peppers and sweet potato, spinach and chickpeas on the menu. And, we’ve been tempting visitors to Picton Castle Gardens with take-away picnic platters to enjoy in the grounds, which are stunning at this time of year. But it’s not the same as having a restaurant full of people and chatter, we’ve missed everyone. Obviously there are still some Covid restriction in place such as limited table numbers and social distancing.

During lockdown, the team have been busy. We’re collaborating with the Castle to offer wedding packages. Couples can hold their wedding ceremony in the castle and celebrate with canapés and champagne reception before moving on to their wedding breakfast held either here in our restaurant if it’s an intermate celebration (up to 30 guests) or in a marquee in the grounds. We’re very excited to be creating bespoke menus for couples for 2022, from an intermate reception for 30 with sharing platters to a three-course sit-down celebration for 150 guests.

Our outside catering services are in demand as more people choose to hold their celebrations at home. We offer a range of hot and cold dishes freshly prepared and delivered to your chosen venue. We offer an extensive wine menu and can provide waiting staff for any event from private dinner parties to weddings.

At Maria’s has had a make-over

we’ve got a fabulous new logo,

an exciting new menu and even new aprons!!!

Don’t we look the part?

And one last bit of exciting news...

Helen and Maria having been working on a memoir of Maria’s life and experiences. A Pinch of Paprika was entered into the international Fish Memoir competition and was long-listed in April! Below is an extract…

To be continued...

Written, designed and photographed by Helen Lewis. www.helen-lewis.co.u

Warm-up

Happy new year

Traditionally it’s downtime At Maria’s during January – everyone catching their breath after December’s hectic round of Fiesta Evenings, Wine Tasting, catering for Christmas parties, preparing hampers…but like everyone and everything else, this January is very different.

M: “At least we had a little wine tasting! It was a lovely, lovely evening – not so many people, but we had a really, totally, lovely evening. The best we could make it, no?”

H: “Yep, we certainly did.” There was nothing little about the evening, six courses, six wines and two sherries to taste! “I loved it, can’t believe you converted me to smoked salmon!”

M: “Ha Ha ha. You are very strange, no liking fish!.”

H: “That, I am Maria!”

M: “This time last year I was back in Alberique, the sun was shining, you were on the plane… I think you bought the storm with you. Oh the snow, you remember? I did not believe it, we woke up in Vallada and it had snowed! And the rain, when we went up to the mountains? We have never see anything like that! Not in ten years!

“It was so cold. Like here today, it is so cold!”

H: “It’s freezing! We’ll be putting brandy in our coffee, if it gets much colder, just like your nephew did when we went to his bar to get out of that rain!”

M: “Ha ha! Yes Brandy with everything! That is the Spanish way! Coffee and brandy, even if they aren’t drinkers! They have a little Carajillo. Cara-ji-llo, it is coffee but you put a brandy in, with sugar, OK, and then you put hot coffee, see, and that is a Carajillo.

H: “Don’t forget to set fire to it too!”

M “Yes of course, the fire, never forget the fire! Ha ha ha.

“I remember, many years back, when Paul and I were in Vallada. We lived in a flat with our three children and we have a lovely, lovely set of friends – life was good – it was the high society of Vallada!

Our friends all had successful husbands and wives that did not work – they were the first lot of Ladies that lunch!

Most of them had a second house in the country – up in the mountains. On Sundays, especially in the winter, we all met at one of these houses. We made a fire outside and when it had died down, we made a big, big meal for everyone, sometimes a paella, but mostly we just barbequed meat – like the cowboys!

On this Sunday, I remember they said “Maria, you make the coffee!” So I was making the coffee, as you make it, in a big pot for everyone. I put in half a bottle of brandy and sugar and then the coffee, of course. One of the husbands who was helping me started laughing, and said “Yeah just put in a lot of sugar!”

You see, the wives, they never drink – I don’t think it was the thing to drink then. Normally, at the weekends after lunch, we went for a walk and met our friends and finished up at a bar. We might have a tapas there, but the ladies, the wives, only had a Coca-Cola or orange juice, never wine, although the husbands did! Sometimes we stayed in the bar quite late, maybe eight, nine o’clock. Then someone would shout:

“Oh! what shall we do for dinner?”

We all rushed to collect our children and grab something from our fridges and then met back at one of the houses to make a big meal from all the different ingredients!

Anyway – the barbeque, so, I go out to the fire with the pot of coffee, I give everyone a cup and it was hilarious! Oops! Because these wives, they never drink! Oh my, I forgot! But we did have a lovely lovely, lovely, time though. And it was a different kind of life to the one we have here. But still... beautiful.

Stay well. Stay safe. Stay tucked up inside! Speak soon. M