Our guest today: Carlos Ruiz Zafon

This blog is about 5 friends, their offspring and their dogs. It’s about getting together, laughter, cooking and wine. It’s about seeing faces. But mostly it’s about inviting an imaginary guest to our table. This guest then sets the mood for the day. Today I have invited Carlos Ruiz Zafón to our table and in doing so we travelled to Barcelona, Spain. 

I fall in love easily. Especially with writers. And falling in love with Carlos Ruiz Zafón was no exception. From the moment I imagined his hand moving over paper and creating The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, I loved him. Deeply. I had a black and white pic of him framed and hung it on my wall.

I got to know Carlos Ruiz Zafón through my friend Naomi who gave me his first book in the series a couple of years ago. I read The Shadow of the Wind without looking up once. I know many think it’s the best book ever written, and normally I wouldn’t be one of the masses, but with The Shadow of the Wind, it felt as if I was the only one who had ever read it. The only one who loved him and the world he had created. Every year I re-read it. Last year I started reading it again, after visiting my friend Naomi on her deathbed. She was in a hospital in Port-Elizabeth. The wind didn’t blow. In the early mornings I would swim in the sea and think of Naomi, dreams, love, books, words and Carlos. And then I would take the old Merc, and drive to the hospital, opposite St George’s, where my wedding pics were taken. And I would remember a million things about the Shadow of the Wind, and Naomi, and how she echoed so much of Daniel Sempere, the main character in The Shadow of the Wind.

 

Naomi was 46 when she died. Brilliant, humble, unique and a free thinker. A walker, an engineer, a writer of poetry, an artist, a friend and always winning on humour, dry wit, and keeping it real. Now she was losing. 

 

Today she said yo

(sleep) lets go to (sleep) Iceland

(Sleep) for the big lights

 

I said yes bru let’s  

go and she said it’s on my 

bucket list (I cried) 

 

And then almost a year later, during Covid19, Zafón died too, aged 55.  Cancer of the colon they said in the papers. I closed my eyes and imagined all his books, covering me, like a grave. And I sobbed. 

 

So when the opportunity came to start this blog in this fuck-upped year, this year of masks and fear, this year of walking birches around friends and strangers, I wanted Naomi, the person who gave me Zafón. And I wanted him, Carlos and his Barcelona. I wanted to taste him through food. I wanted his dreams. His wonder. His belief in words, books, reading and writing.  I wanted food and friends and laughter. I wanted wine. Lots of it. I wanted to sit outside, and imagine a life beyond my own. 

 

And with Naomi and Carlos, the Eating is believing travel Through Food and Fantasy Club, and this blog, was born. (Thanks to Fred de Vries and AllAboutWriting who gave me a free Travel Webinar during lockdown and who inspired me to start this blog) 

 

 I moved the picture of the writer from my wall. I hung it in the trees, where we were to have our al fresco lunch. 

Carlos watched me as I set the table. His picture told me that not a single book of his would ever be made into a movie or a series.

“Let them read, god-dammit, let them read.” His voice was soft like a ghost’s.

I smiled and nodded. I put on the Spanish playlist I had made, and I swayed to the music, inviting my writer to dance, while I waited for the other guests to arrive. 

 

We talked about that grand opening in The Shadow of the Wind in which the 11-year old Daniel Sempere is taken by his book-loving and selling father to the Cemetery of Forgotten books. A grand and ancient place, that holds books, knowledge, beauty and ideas. And in here you can choose a book, to treasure. But then, truth is, that “a book actually chooses you…” Daniel finds The Shadow of the Wind, and reads it that same night. This leads to mystery… and in this meta-fiction, the book is structured like a Russian Doll. The one mystery opens into another, and the one character leads to another. But then the real guests, the flesh and blood ones arrived. 

 

Here they are, yours truly included: 

We immediately opened some Marques Riscal under the trees, which made shadows over us. We toasted. 

  My husband, Mauritz, who had gotten up early to chop wood, started brazing the chicken and the rabbit on a slow fire. A ritual began, a thing of beauty, Zafón approved of it, I could see. He watched from his branch. He was a sucker for beauty. He stared at the flames, he watched as Mauritz added the green beans and tomatoes. He approved when we all started shelling the broad beans too. The fire grew when the liquid was added, and then the round rice, and lastly the saffron... (Making Paella is like making love, slowly and with care, says Toni, the chef whose recipe Mauritz followed) 

 

We poured more wine and my dear friend Zenobia whom I met at Rhodes University more than 20 years ago, went into the house and came out with her starters. Braised marrow bones, olives from a farm in Spain, hand made vinaigrette peppers, bread sticks and sosaties that sizzled with colour and with the kind of love that Zenobia always puts into her food. 

Our delicious starters

In the meantime, while the meat sizzled, we read our favourite Zafón quotes. 

Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. 

And this funny one! 

 

People talk too much. Humans aren't descended from monkeys. They come from parrots.

 

 We opened the Spanish champagne (Cheers Zenobia who got hold of it) and we toasted again: to the picture in the trees. It was time to feast! 

Our feast, with light...

Salata Mixta, like a painting 

Perfect Paella 

We couldn’t speak. None of us. We were silent. Like the man behind glass. We traveled. All of us. To a Barcelona of dreams. Our eyes closed. Our tongues tingled. The dogs wagged their tails and sniffed at the smells. We toasted again. To Naomi. We ended the day with more Spanish wine, and a dessert of sabores, blood red strawberries and a salted caramel sauce made by Helen and her daughter. 

Sabores and strawberries! Those colours! Salted caramel missing in action.

Zafón watched from the trees. And after everyone had left, I kissed him, and hung him back on my wall. 

Additional info on Carlos Ruiz Zafon:

1964-2020
Spanish dreamer and believer in ideas, beauty, memory and the power of words.  The Shadow of the Wind was his first book for adults and made him world famous. (15 million copies sold!)  He then continued to write 3 more books to form a quartet known as The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. They are all magnificent, and can be read in any order... but nothing comes to that Shadow... 

Pic from Spain: Arts and Culture Washington DC

Read more about our day: 

Mauritz followed Toni's recipe here. It made me cry. 

We listened mostly to Paco de Lucia. Be taken away...

If you can get to Spain, and you loved The Shadow of the Wind, go Walk in the footsteps of Daniel Sampere, Barcelona

Lastly, watch us drool over the paella: 

(And sorry Hannes for being caught with a mouth full!)