ISLA Txoko

So what is the purpose of Txoko? Salsa lessons, conferences, movies, social gatherings and cookings lessons­ hence the Basque name "Txoko" which means Gastronomic Club. Happily, unlike some rather macho txokos where men are men and women wield mops, our multi purpose txoko is multi gender& multi national.

For those of you in the know, this is where the old fruit shop was, opposite our favourite café the "Vino Diario". We have had a nice month gutting it and painting it old Havana colours (blues and purples), sticking up a ceiling to floor mirror, kitchen, and the all important DJ station.

Photos of ISLA Txoko can be found here

Blimey, I thought when I saw the size of the sangria pot. Is that to sip from or take a bath in. The runners had done sterling work uncorking bottles, chopping fruit, lighting candles and draping the worm lights around. Dieter was ready with Spotify and his new boom boom speakers.

As usual the first to show were the new students, shyly poking their heads around the door of the Txoko at nine pm on the dot. The girls with floaty summer dresses and swishy tresses. The boys with clean shirts and hedgehog hair. . . Later came the the old hands, or those at least one week old at ISLA, noisily confident, eying up the new talent and straight for the bar.

To misquote Whisky Galore, it is a well known fact that some of us are born a couple of sangrias below par. And Dieter's sangria slips down remarkably well. Quickly the atmosphere went from hesitant to humming, and as the sangria pot went down the noise level went up with cheery students shouting above the music. It was like a Sangria Olympics. India, China and Brasil. Germany, Italy and England. Austria, Korea and Russia. The States, Canada, Denmark. Holland, Taiwan, Japan. Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland. Norway, Belgium & France. And, of course, Scotland! I confess to picking up the bronze for the jocks with Markus nabbing the silver for Germany and Karry the undisputed gold medal winner for Hong Kong.

At the stroke of midnight and down to the last drop, happy groups of students peeled off into the Salamanca night. Come with us, they said sweetly. We demurred. We'll pump up the tyres, you ride the bike.

On Tuesday 26th of July 15 students joined Dieter in Txoko for a wine-tasting.

To begin the evening we enjoyed a glass of cava, and afterwards tasted a white wine from the Bierzo region (a Gewürztraminer and Chardonnay coupage) which was quite a hit among the participants. Dieter made a presentation about Spanish Wines (wine producing zones, classification of wines and wine-making tricks). To mop up the red wines that followed there were some rather good tapas (tortilla de patata, jamón ibérico and Manchego cheese).

Next, the contest! There were 10 questions about wine in the first part, and then a "blind tasting" (the bottles had been wrapped up in newspaper), in which we had to guess the price of the 5 red wines that we had tried. The wines cost respectively 1 €, 5 €, 10 €, 20 € and the last one was without a price as it was Dieter's own wine. The winners of the competition were Jørgen from Denmark and Markus from Germany who got most of the questions right and guessed all the correct prices of the wines! Connoisseurs! They got a Sevillana apron as a prize. Saucy!!

The wines selected by Dieter: for the tasting were:
White wine: Uvea (Bodegas Albares, El Bierzo) (Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay)
Cheapest red wine: Elegido Selección, a wine not from a Controlled Labelling Zone.
Second cheapest: Viña Vilano 2010, Young red, Tempranillo, Ribera del Duero.
Second most expensive: Val de los Frailes, Selected grapes (Cigales).
Most expensive wine: Mauro Crianza (Castilla-León; Tempranillo y Syrah).
Dieter's wine: Tinta de Madrid (Toro), 12 months in French oak and 1 year in the bottle.

Tuesday Surprise.
There´s nothing like shuffling out of a Spanish class with low blood sugar levels and a head stuffed with verb conjugations to be greeted by some lovely Isla runner girls handing you a delectably cool, delectably calorific milkshake - especially when you weren´t expecting it. At least that´s what we were hoping to achieve this morning as runners were frantically shoving bananas, strawberries and 10 litres of ice cream into a battered smoothie maker we weren´t entirely sure was going to work. But what a sweet result it was- not just one, but 3 flavours (vanilla, banana and strawberry, chocolate and oreo) to whet everyone´s appetite, served up in cheap plastic cups made to look semi-professional with the addition of a comparatively glamorous wafer artistically dipped in to top them off.
And the students couldn´t get enough of them. Whether it was due more to the fact that it was unexpected or the quality of the milkshake I couldn´t say, but here at ISLA we care about the little details which prevent each day from becoming monotonous, and lacking in milkshake.
So it was with renewed energy, sticky fingers and a third helping that everyone skipped back to class 15 minutes later, wondering what they will be treated to this time next week.