Valencia (EFE) the interior of Valencia and Castilla y León and who in this leisure time enjoys cooking for family crowds.
Gisbert (València, 1957) has been the highest fiscal authority in the Community since 2019 and the granddaughter of the last Republican mayor of the city, Manuel Gisbert.
“I am a Valencian from the capital, but in love with the town” -whose name is omitted in the interview-, explains Gisbert, who has no qualms about posing for a photo with one of her canned tomato jars.
Question: How is your summer vacation?
Answer: There are a lot of family gatherings, a lot of people at home, a big table… You can put up with it for four days, really, but it’s a lot of fun.
Q: Don’t you want to know anything about the beach?
A: We had an apartment on the beach for many years, until my two daughters got older and no longer wanted to come. But my husband (retired doctor) and I like village life better. We found a 19th century house and together we signed up for private classes to learn how to restore furniture. We endured a year with the town house, the one on the beach and the one in Valencia, but three refrigerators… In the end we sold the apartment.
Q: What do you like about village life?
A: Well, we don’t usually fail every weekend. There is a garden to take care of, chickens, rabbits… The truth is that I haven’t bought any vegetables for a long time, everything we eat comes from our garden, including olive oil.
Q: And the passion for preserves, is it a family tradition?
A: No. I had never done canning in my life, nor has my husband. He comes from a grain area. But in the orchard, especially in summer, there is a lot of production, we cannot let it go to waste. Now my husband and I are a team. He is great at taking care of the garden and I make preserves. After so many hours in front of the computer it seems that manual work is appealing, and we canned food of all kinds.
We have various types of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants (which become ratatouille preserves), fried green peppers, beans, fried tomato, sweet corn, and what is not preserved goes into the chest freezer, such as beans, broccoli , garlic sprouts, cauliflower… Everyone should know that frozen vegetables must be cooked without being thawed.
Q: And one of those summer Sundays with a lot of people at your house, what do you eat?
A: A Russian salad but in the style of León, without carrots or peas, with very little onion, tuna, olives and mayonnaise; some lamb chops, some sardines or a cuttlefish. And for dessert it could be a tiramisu (smiles).
Q: And as a diner, if you have to choose a favorite dish, which one do you prefer?
A: With the stew that my husband makes, or with some chickpeas from Fuentesaúco (Zamora) with cod that he cooks at Easter and they turn out great.
Q: Is there music playing in your kitchen?
A: Sure. Some time ago my daughters taught me how to make myself a playlist on YouTube. ‘Stay’, by Jackson Browne, is a vindication of the musicians unions against the imposition of the limited duration of the concerts; I like Pau Donés and ‘Eso que tu me das’, Serrat, Sabina… I keep putting Pablo Milanés or Nacha Guevara on. Of course, neither bachatas nor things like that (laughs).
Q: Any pending summer reading?
A: Yes, the Carmen Mola trilogy. And I really like biographies of women, I am an absolute fan of Agatha Christie, I have all the biographies of her. I think she had a spectacular life, regardless of what she wrote. I also love the noir genre, the detective novel, but sometimes after many hours in front of the computer I feel more like a movie or a series, as long as it allows me to be in bed at eleven o’clock.
Q: Any movie recommendations?
A: I expected a little more from “Dr. García’s patients”, based on a novel by Almudena Grandes, and I really liked “Love and Death”, an HBO series about a murder.
Q: Do crime stories look realistic through the eyes of a lawyer?
A: The most realistic I’ve seen is “Hierro”, with Candela Peña, set in a court like the ones I was in. Until recently in San Mateo or Vinaroz they existed. It is noted that they have been advised by the General Council of the Judiciary, the role of each judicial actor is very well reflected.
Last summer I read a novel, I don’t remember the title, which was phenomenal but you could tell that the author didn’t know what the Jury Law or Gender Violence Law is. There was a very interesting plot, but with blunders, which grated on me.
Q: We confuse real justice with those spectacular processes that we see in the courts of the United States, right?
A: It is possible that the distortion that many citizens have about the figure of the prosecutor comes from there, who in the US is more of a politician and his work has nothing to do with ours in Spain.
Q: Are you a traveler? Any destination that you would recommend or that has impacted you?
A: It depends. For a family trip to Rome, or Cappadocia and Istanbul that we did last year… or a trip to Ireland for three weeks in a van that we loved. Other destinations that I keep good memories of are Guatemala, because of the vegetation or the ruins, Cartagena de Indias…, trips where I went to give courses and came back enriched.
Q: What is never missing in your bag?
A: Typical. The keys, tissues, the purse…, and if I can, I’ll take some lip balm, mint candies… What’s not to be missed is a pen and a notebook. I am ‘marinotas’, I have a meal on Saturday and I already have the appetizer and the shopping list planned; I am one of lists, whenever something occurs to me, even at work, I have to have a pencil and paper next to me.