Café Culture

“To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late”, according to the American writer Elin Hilderbrand.

It’s an excellent principle, but like so many, one I aspire to rather than generally attain. Something I know I ought to do rather than something I achieve. A bit like Boris Johnson and telling the truth.

The reality of my life is much more like the wall clock in our kitchen, which sums up rather well the chaos in which I live.

Our kitchen clock sums me up rather well

Still, a while ago, while staying with one of my sons and his family, I decided to do better. They live in the hills outside Madrid. I say ‘hills’ but they’re at a 1000 metres, an altitude which in Scotland would earn the proud title of ‘Munro’ (a ‘mountain’ over 3000 feet high).

One day, I went into Madrid itself to meet my other son Michael and our daughter-out-law Raquel for lunch. 

Spain often ignores the calendar (though the Spanish are less inclined to – more of that later) when it comes to the weather. It may have been a November day but the sun was bright and the temperature appropriate for shirtsleeves rather than jackets.

For once, I went in good and early. That meant I could satisfy a craving I had for a coffee at a terrace table in the Plaza Mayor. That’s a square, as I’ve found in a small number of cities, which creates a magic environment by being perfectly proportioned, and surrounded by stone buildings high enough to enclose the space gently, but not so high as to be claustrophobic.

The Plaza Mayor in Madrid. A lovely place
Sadly, I’m not alone in thinking that

It has to be said that the square owes its attractive qualities to some fairly nasty history. One king decided that he wanted a large square and kicked a bunch of people out of their houses, which were then demolished; his son decided it wasn’t big enough, so he repeated the exercise. The inhabitants were collateral damage to the pursuit of aesthetic excellence, an aesthetic excellence we still enjoy today, but at their cost.

The trouble with such places is that plenty of people appreciate them as much as anyone else, so thousands of visitors are constantly flowing through. That means that the cafés mostly rely on passing trade only. The staff have no incentive to build up a long-term loyal customer base, or therefore to provide a level of service as impressive as the setting.

I sat down and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally a waiter within what a sailor might call hailing distance of my table, so I called out that I was after a coffee. 

“No,” came the reply.

What? I thought. And, indeed, said.

“No coffees now.”

I’d had this experience before in certain Spanish café-restaurants, though only those that target tourists. Come midday, they decide lunchtime is nearly on them, and refuse to serve coffees anymore. It’s odd, since they’ll serve other drinks without a meal. Indeed, though a few tables were set for lunch, most of them weren’t.

I ordered a sparkling water instead, or a “water with gas” as the Spanish rather unappealingly call it (they don’t generally like the stuff.) That allowed me to spend an hour in the inspiring setting, tapping away on my laptop, as I rushed on to completing my book of extracts from the diaries surprisingly kept our cat and our two toy poodles, Paws for Reflection. With some relief, I can announce that the effort was worth it, since I’ve finally managed to publish it on Amazon. And the time in the Plaza Mayor was a reward for my being so timely, just for once.

When Michael showed up to collect me for lunch, I proved just as problematic to attract the waiter’s attention long enough to pay for my water. In the end, I simply walked right up to him, as he was standing in a doorway doing nothing. I asked for the bill. He refused to make eye contact, but after I’d asked twice, he sighed at my rudeness and called into the interior of the café for a colleague to charge me the excessive price of my drink. 

All this reminded me of other notable table waiting experiences I’ve had. 

The best, I think, was in Paris, which is notorious for its rude waiters, though this one wasn’t. The café was a few doors away from the old French national library, where I was ploughing through eighteenth-century books and manuscripts (mostly letters) as part of a PhD study on the thinker and scientist, de Maupertuis. I was alone and lonely. Like most students, I was also broke. Some kindness was what I needed, and the waiter provided it by dropping off on my table the unemptied baskets left by customers when they finished their meals. That added helpfully to my cheese omelette, the only dish on the menu I could afford.

Michael also worked as a waiter, during his summer holidays in Strasbourg, where we lived while he was a student. He developed his own characteristic style. of waiting. When one customer snapped his fingers at Michael, a gesture most waiters loathe, he responded by barking at him (yep, like a dog).

The reaction earned him a great tip. It seems that sometimes facing down arrogance is a great response, appreciated even by the arrogant.

So now back to the excessive respect for the calendar I mentioned before many Spanish display.

Puerta del Sol
Left, in La Cañada; right, in Madrid

The main square in the village of La Cañada, where we live, is called the gate of the sun, Puerta del Sol. It’s tiny, many times smaller than the rather better-known square of that same name in Madrid. But it does contain a lovely little café which makes remarkable ice creams. That’s a major asset for me, ice cream fan that I am.

I have to say that my relationship with the café owner got off to a rocky start, as I knocked a glass bowl full of sugar packets off the counter while I was waiting to pay. The bowl, naturally, smashed into a thousand fragments. He took it well, assuring me that I really didn’t need to keep apologising, though every time he sees me now, he does point out that he’s quickly going to move all glass objects out of my reach. 

I happened to be in our Puerta del Sol the other day and thought I’d like one of his excellent ice creams. Imagine me already looking forward to enjoying some more of Spain’s rightly famed café culture. Now imagine my disappointment when I discovered that November for this café means no more ice cream. Indeed, the tubs in ice cream counter have even been removed and replaced by turron, Spanish nougat, and similar things.

What, no ice cream?

Ice cream? There’ll be none before spring.

Café culture’s wonderful. But even it, sometimes, lets you down. Which, I suppose, is a useful object lesson in the nature of life.