Posted by Loulou on Apr 8, 2015 | 4 comments

Mama loves helping people who are planning to go to Europe and spend time in Spain or Italy or France, so if you are one of those, feel free to ask questions in the comments on my blog. She actually has a few pages she will email to anyone about to travel to Italy, and they give an idea of places to see and what to eat and a little Italian lesson to start off your trip off right!

Mama’s and papa’s modus operandi, for example, for finding good little inexpensive restaurant in any country is to pick out someone when they are out in the streets, someone who is not fat or thin but well-fed and healthy-looking, with an open nature and dressed fairly well (almost anyone of a certain age IS dressed well as neither the French, Italians or Spanish go about in old sneakers and torn jeans, if you get my drift), and they go up to the person, usually a male, and say, Excuse me, but where can one eat well for not huge sums of money? They know how to say this in three languages, which helps, but often English works just as well as there are many who speak our language.

This man knows where to eat, believe you me! An example of what to look for…

And almost always they have found little out of the way places or at least a good recommendation for a popular restaurant that could have been classed as ‘touristy’ but is actuallyl good anyway. Hence the tourists!

Now you may be wondering, as I did, why mama and papa mostly pick out men. That’s easy. In the past when they have stopped a nice, rounded, healthy woman of a certain age, she almost always says, “My house!”

During semana santa in Spain, people actually invite you to their houses on a certain day, but alas, they don’t serve dinner!

And I’m not sure they would have Purina, either…

That’s a Spanish table, but I’m NOT in Spain!!! And that’s Purina in jelly…num, num