Hi, Joy!

Thanks for the comment on the Gerber book. I will definitely look for your ancestor once I really get going with the reading!

I found out about A Drizzle of Honey while browsing through amazon.com one day. I then found it at a Border's bookstore, and bought it there with a coupon I had. I know you can get it on amazon. I keep picking it up and flipping through it - it looks so interesting - but I have to get through another week of major projects before I can really read it!

I met several Jewish families in Madrid, but they were all somehow connected with the Israeli embassy, and they weren't Spanish. Lucia Graves (daughter of poet Robert Graves) has written a really good book about growing up in Mallorca and later living in Cataluña. It's called A Woman Unknown, and it's just recently become available in the US. (I got my copy from the UK, but I saw it in Border's the other day. Amazon should have it too, now). Among other topics, she wrote a chapter about the Jews in Spain. She made an interesting comparison between the Sephardic Jews and the Catalanes, especially the Republican Catalanes at the end of the Civil War. Anyway, it's also a good book to read. She is a beautiful writer, and she even managed to get me all choked up about some of her experiences and thoughts about Spain.

Now if only I could get more time to READ!! (And the little voice says, Gee, Diana, maybe you should spend less time on the computer..... )

One more thing...

If you like books on Spain, food, and history, try to get a copy of The Heritage of Spanish Cooking, by Alicia Rios and Lourdes March. It's full of excellent recipes, stunningly beautiful artwork spanning centuries, and interesting history of food in Spain. It's a large, orange, coffee table type book. I never tire of flipping through the gorgeous pages, and I've tried several of the recipes, which turned out very well. The bad news is that it's no longer in print, but I've found it on bargain tables in bookstores (bought a copy for my mom a few weeks ago), so it's worth looking for. I've never tried one of those internet searches for out of print books, but you may want to try that, too.

Thanks for all the info, Diana. Enjoy! (And make sure you share your findings with us!)