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HIDDEN VALLEY: The subtle and mysterious art of mushrooming in central Spain

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In the latest serialisation of seasoned travel writer Paul Richardson’s new book, Hidden Valley, he reveals how he spots the perfect wild mushroom in the forests by his idyllic home in Extremadura – and how to cook them

IN the damp afternoon after a rain shower I go to the woods to walk, and also to forage for wild fungi.

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Mushrooming is a subtle and mysterious art. The mental attitude required is a via negativa, a not-wanting-too-much, a not-looking-too-hard.

Synoptic vision, casting your whole eye over an expanse of ground, ready to pick up the signals, the curve of the cap, the colour a shade or two away from the surrounding variants of brown, a fungal aroma your nose detects.

When you see one there’s a tiny charge of pleasure in the brain, like the dopamine hit a new email in your inbox is meant to produce.

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It’s a knowing before you even really know; a prescience. Or perhaps a reverse déjà vu: you imagine you knew it was there, how could it not have been?

The tell-tale way the mushroom has pushed up the leaf layer then again, you’ve poked carefully with a stick or your foot at dozens of such tell-tale liftings and found nothing underneath but a tussock of grass that has pushed through a wodge of dry leaves and raised it slightly, and even as you did so something told you it was a waste of time, so there’s hardly a cast-iron logic there.

Yet this time it’s textbook. The hard, round cap the russet brown of a Hovis loaf; the thick bulbous stem white as marble.

When your fingers reach around that cool, dry pillar, that’s when you know you’ve found your perfect Boletus edulis. That’s the first satisfaction.

The second comes soon after, bundled up with the first. I like them best baked with potato and garlic, with buttered eggs, a rich autumnal rice with rabbit and pumpkin, and raw in carpaccio-thin slices dribbled with olive oil and scattered with parmesan. 

Tonight Nacho makes a salad in the scattergun inventive manner of his cooking, and it’s a palpable hit.

Peppery rocket and carrot julienne and crisp sweet apple and shavings of raw cep, which imbue the dish with their insinuating perfume; a memory of damp leaf mulch; a whisper from the woods.

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Brazilian legend Ronaldo, 47, marries third wife, model Celine Locks, 33, in modest Ibiza ceremony

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THE low-key wedding of a struggling second division football club president in Ibiza turned more than a few heads over the weekend.

But that’s not surprising when the Spanish football club in question, Real Valladolid, is owned by none other than footballing superstar Ronaldo (the real one).

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He was getting married to his blushing bride, Brazilian model Celine Locks, 33, in the small village of es Cubells, just southwest of the island where Ronaldo, 47, owns a luxurious home.

The couple’s engagement, which had been announced in January during a romantic Caribbean getaway, culminated in a picturesque church wedding – the World Cup winner’s third time tying the knot.

Brazilian Ronaldo gets married wedding
Ronaldo’s bride beams as they leave the chapel to clouds of confetti. Instagram/celinelocks

As Ronaldo and Celina left the church, showered in confetti, they shared matching Instagram posts, proclaiming: “Today we brought our families together for an intimate religious celebration and thus marked the beginning of a week of many celebrations.”

The newlyweds are reportedly planning a grand celebration for 400 guests at Ronaldo’s home in Cala Jondal.

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The love story began seven years ago when Celina, a successful businesswoman and model, first started dating the former Real Madrid and Inter Milan striker. 

One of the first people to congratulate the happy couple, who are holidaying in the Dominican Republic, was Ronaldo’s ex-wife Milene Domingues.

The former footballer wrote: ‘I’m happy for you. God bless and protect you always. Long live love.’ 

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Page not found – Olive Press News Spain

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Main switchboard – Newsroom/Sales & Admin:
+34 951 15 48 41

To contact the newsdesk out of regular office hours please call +34 665 798 618
We are available over the Christmas and Easter holidays

Voted Spain‘s number one expat newspaper and ‘second in the world’, by 27,000 people polled by UK marketing group Tesca. Also dubbed “The best English newspaper in Spain,” according to the UK’s Rough Guide. The Olive Press is the English language newspaper for Spain. Local news, in particular, from the Costa del Sol, Andalucia, Alicante, Murcia and Mallorca, plus national news from around Spain. A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press launched in 2006 and represents the huge and growing expatriate community in Spain – with over 100,000 printed copies monthly, 50,000 visitors a day online we have an estimated readership of more than 500,000 people a month.

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Shakira faces new tax fraud allegations, as public prosecutor accuses her of evading €6m in 2018

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COLOMBIAN singing superstar Shakira evaded another €6 million from the Spanish taxman in the year 2018, as well as already having defrauded some €14.5 million in her early years in Spain. That’s according to the Spanish public prosecutor, which has just released information about this second accusation against her. 

News about these allegations first surfaced in July of this year, but now the details have emerged of the wrongdoing that the public prosecutor believes it has uncovered.

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This includes a scheme to ‘fake’ the transfer of her music rights to a ‘web of firms’, which allegedly turned out to be shell companies with no employees or activity. 

The fraud includes €5.3 million of income tax (known as IRPF in Spanish) as well as another €700,000 in capital gains tax, according to media reports about the prosecutor’s findings. 

The public prosecutor has called on Interpol to advise the singer about the lawsuit and a court summons for her to be questioned, Spanish daily El Pais reported. 

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Shakira and Piqué
Shakira and Piqué at the David Cup tennis tournament in 2019.

Shakira has been living in the United States since moving with her children from her former home in Barcelona, in the wake of her very public break-up with former FC Barcelona football player Gerard Pique. 

This latest accusation comes just two months before Shakira will be in court over the first case, in which she is accused of evading paying taxes in Spain by claiming that she was not properly resident in the country during the early years of her relationship with Pique, from 2012 to 2014. 

In that case she could face up to eight years in prison and a fine of more than €23 million.

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