It was too late to go looking for one of the many fabled casas particulares – private rooms in turn-of-the-century homes with high ceilings, lazy fans and big windows – so a small box room on the seventh floor of a bog-standard 1960s hotel would have to do.
"I just thought he had a recurring ear infection like many children," Ms. Casas said.
"Speculation has led to so many rent rises," said Casas, "and now we can't afford to live in the neighbourhood our grandparents lived in.
Mrs. Casas wrote many influential books on Spanish cooking, beginning in 1982 with "The Foods and Wines of Spain," which is considered a classic and is in its 12th printing.
For the past three decades or so, American home cooks have increasingly taken their guidance from experts, people more precise and didactic than Elizabeth David, in the simple methods of places like Italy (Marcella Hazan and many others), Spain (Penelope Casas), Greece (Aglaia Kremezi), Morocco (Paula Wolfert), Provence (Patricia Wells), and the Mideast (Claudia Roden).
This method was championed by prominent Franciscans such as Toribio de Benavente, known as "Motolinia", and Las Casas made many enemies among the Franciscans for arguing that conversions made without adequate understanding were invalid.
Last week, a micro-adventurer set herself an endurance event: to check out as many maisons and bayts and casas as possible in one day.
Las Casas returned to Spain, leaving behind many conflicts and unresolved issues.
The material contained in the Apologetic History is primarily ethnographic accounts of the indigenous cultures of the Indies – the Taíno, the Ciboney, and the Guanahatabey, but it also contains descriptions of many of the other indigenous cultures that Las Casas learned about through his travels and readings.
Casas' first book, 1982's "The Foods & Wines of Spain," introduced many Americans to Spanish cuisine.
