FIESTA 3

According to our festival program, a large portion of the events were set to go down at the Ayuntamiento plaza. We walked eastward along the main thruway of the center, a narrow street paved with pale stone bricks that's walled in by archways and colonnades and is overshadowed by the outward jutting balconies of the old apartments above the street, enclosed with glass and painted wood here in the northern half of Spain. We passed the cathedral whose towers never stopped arresting me and then a cross street we'd walked down several times already in the dark, without ever seeing the vista it pointed to.

The brown and black mountains rising like waves in the impossible distance nearly drew us out of the town, like sirens calling to forget indulgence of the flesh and blood. Nearly.
We continued and, as the crowd swelled around us, we got it into our heads to get our heads into the moment and suit up properly. Each traditional festival in Spain has a concomitant chromatic uniform, usually a colored scarf on some pale shirt and pants. The Riojana scarf is an apt burgundy red, and we ducked into a souvenir shop to get a pair. A minute later we were back on the street cursing the man smiling in the doorway who'd asked for 8euros each. That's fine, we declared, we would have as much fun unscarved. Even more so to spite him. Onward as we left the old streets behind and walked along wider paved ways where more people converged and we passed groups of teens sitting, standing, or shuffling together passing hydrant-sized bottles of cheap wine and soda cocktails in circles. The bars were already loaded and the patrons were not far behind. I walked into one to wash the rich grape residue from my fingers and stood for a minute watching an old man staring into a mirror wall in the dark vestibule between water closets, hovering both hands in front of the glass in hesitation. His eyes were baby-blank until I pulled him from his trance and pointed to the door marked caballeros.

As we passed the chaperones preventing booze-laden entry into the plaza (as well as the half dozen groups of people sipping from bottles and jugs 3 meters in front of them), we were immediately courted by jovial maidens attaching those burgundy scarves to every bare neck. HA said our eyes and mouths as we looked to one another, newly berobed and well-inducted. That sour vendor must be weeping in his empty shop by now! We would see to it, strut in feigning interest in postcards, rest our weary thumbs on the tension of the fabric adorning our necks. But there was no rush. In fact, as we looked around, it seemed there was plenty of time to do any number of things. The hour had just recently broken eleven, and nothing was set to start before noon. In the still largely empty plaza, groups stood around amid the general hum of a forming crowd, battered by the loud bursts of sound-check from the stage at the far end like some despotic radio malfunction. Three helium tanks and the burgundy balloons rising rhythmically formed the head of a line possibly forty people long and we assessed with mild disgust that this was another case of the Spanish penchant for waiting around. Well, we'd found the Ayuntamiento - mission accomplished.

Back in the center we concluded there was nothing but to start the fiesta on our own time. Where to kick off such a momentous go-down? No. Not there. Um, what do you- no not here. Maybe, no. How about here? Sure, let's do it. Oh man, they're all drinking coffee inside. Fuck them; we'll show them how it's done.

Two chilly glasses of ruby red glory and we'd begun what we came for. We took out our tapas charts, program guide, and bar suggestions and ruminated again over our next moves. The wine was refreshing, fruity, and vivacious. Crianza means good but not great, and certainly not young. But there's plenty of it to go around in a place like Logroño. A glance at the time showed the hour's last quarter and we realized the street had become a river of red flowing back in the direction whence we'd come. We finished and left, and for a moment considered joining the mass. But the plaza was distant, and the bars were near. So we parted the waves and staggered westward, toward streets whose every door housed another delight.

EARLY STILL, so many doors shut. Our original plans of mushrooms and shrimp and sausages and cheese were cut off like bad jokes and we struggled for some minutes to find a place that would take us. But down narrow street beneath dark scaffolded passage E pointed to a door and said
Hark, good friend. There they shall provide.
Inside the narrow room of ochre tile and low wooden roof, we took our pick of position at the empty bar and made an order of two reds and the house specialty - patatas bravas. Fried potato cubes in spicy sauce sounds understandably less than original, until one notices that beyond the obvious fluctuation in potato quality and depth of frying skill, the variations of house sauces can bring tears of joy. These came dressed in two: the spicy red and a creamy white counterbalance. The potatoes themselves were both wonderful and wonderfully fried, achieving a near perfect texture and taste. But the heat was diminished by the slightly chilled sauce (-10pts) and the ratio of spice to white was off (-5pts). One thing for a given tapa but another for a paid-for dish in what's independently heralded the best bravas bar in Spain. So we gave the plate back and asked for a readjustment in sauce. Much improved and nearly perfect though the initial stigma of too much cream sauce was never fully corrected. Still, they were the best bravas either of us had ever had, and we concluded that such lofty claims need to be considered in the context of their respective dish, such as, in this case, spicy fried potatoes. In retrospect, if we were afflicted less by gourmet gluttony and more by a general set of munchies, we may have stayed for another serving each. They were, after all, damn good potatoes.

During our judgement the bar had taken on quite a few more patrons, and when we left to reenter the street, the scene had entirely transformed. Up and down, the bars had rolled up their steel curtains and rolled out their great oak barrel street tables. Groups and small parties had already occupied all these, and the center aisle formed between them was an increasingly slippery shuffling mass of lip-smacking wild eyed crazy faces bobbing out of maroon bandanas. Great sounds of revelry and mirth mixed with the constant clink of glass and we hurried among it all to check out our first destinations. Holy shit still closed, the only ones left. We turned down a few streets looking to find others but lost our way, marveling at the instantaneous and universal city-wide answer to the call to imbibe. Everywhere the streets swelled and swayed and bars pulsed and radiated sounds and smells. It was, as we later realized, the fueling-up hour.

Somewhat away from the rising din we found another of our destinations, a chic place with hard grey and black interior surfaces and sexy women taking orders making drinks. Here we went immediately for the specialy: grilled foie with a Pedro Ximenez reduction. Two more chilly young reds as we waited and watched some of the most gorgeous people we'd ever seen walk in out and around. Still reeling, the bartendress snapped us back as she yelled for the food to be collected. Seared pink flesh with pools of thick black sweet glaze and small crystals of sea salt. We took it a bit and could neither of us speak. Everything was strong and wild like a seaside storm. The texture of the foie was one of the most exquisite to be had, and the flavor of the reduction was perfectly toasted to balance its inherent sweetness. There were even some bites where the salt was in perfect proportion, at once extracting and lending flavor to the chew. But for me the aftertaste of the meat was unpleasant, and there was nothing to  be gained from the pairing with such a young and feisty wine. I decided it might be exquisite and certainly a grade above the standard tapa or even pintxo but not for me. E was more impressed.

We turned back to the bacchanalia and this time into a much larger bar with green walls, brick columns, and high ceilings. Behind the large oak bar an aproned torso topped with a wide fleshy face asked us to tell him, and after a quick scan of the offerings beneath glass cases we called for two peppers stuffed a la Riojana. We stood in the open and airy space still commenting on the previous place and then wildly imagining aloud what we would eat next if we were somehow stuck in that particular bar. So many stuffed peppers, and that was before even considering the sausage, egg, fish, mushroom pintxos. As we sliced our peppers and savored the soft pureed medly within, I finally found myself fully satisfied, washing the hearty spice flavored potato and meat with still more of the regional red. These went perfectly with the grape drink, and while the first two were by no means bad, the pimientos riojanos made up for any and all shortcomings experienced thus far.

By now we were sated, though sadly so, and Erik thought it a perfect time to contact his summer-in-France friend who hailed from the city. I, feeling warm cheeked from the servings and inflamed by my surroundings, thought it a perfect time to buy an unmarked bottle of local red from a proprietor we'd visited in the morning who swore by its value. Fortunately neither activity was mutually exclusive and he used the relative calm inside the store to arrange a meeting while I prevented myself from buying artisanal local vermouths and brandies along with the 5euro bottle of grape-soil-sun-man lifeblood. We opened it in the same plaza where we had discovered grapes for the first, and waited among hundreds sipping, debating, and unknowingly slipping anonymously into the organism that the festival was slowly but determinedly becoming...