The story of Feisty Tapas

*Originally published in 2011, modified since then as life has lots of twists and turns, doesn't it?*

Feisty Tapas is not just recipes for your kitchen gadgets (air fryer, pressure cooker, Thermomix, etc), Feisty Tapas is a way of life. Feisty Tapas was made through grit, literally feeling that grit between my teeth, let me tell you the story... of me and of how I ended up with a different face and a chronic pain condition.

The story of the day my life changed forever, in ways I am still counting over 30 years later.

Tara Cain at Sticky Fingers used to host The Gallery every week, I had never participated but I did love reading everyone's posts every week.

When she announced a particular weekly theme, Faces, I immediately knew that I wanted to take part but what photographic face would I choose?

First I thought of the faces I miss, faces that have played a big part in my life and that appear in plenty of my photos but that, unfortunately, are no longer with us.

I thought of a particularly special face I lost at the beginning of that year, my grandad's.

I also thought of that ecstatic first photo taken when my baby was born and handed over to me for the first time...

I even considered unknown faces that I have photographed in my travels, fantastic faces that hide mysterious stories.

Then I looked in the mirror and realised which face I wanted to write about: mine.

I am, after all, a woman of many faces.

My face comes with a soundtrack, so press play if you fancy a bit of music to go with this post, or just hear it at the end to understand me better.

This track, Brandi Carlile's The Story, was the soundtrack to my life for a while (I still can't hear it without tears in my eyes), along with the fantastic tune that is I will survive, but that one doesn't make me cry, that one makes me dance!

I actually left a conversation half-way once, literally: I apologised to the poor girl who had never before met this crazy woman before telling her "I'm sorry but this is my soundtrack" and ran to the dance floor to dance to Gloria Gaynor's fantastic voice.

When I say I am a woman of many faces I don't mean that I am two-faced, false or hypocritical (far from it), I literally mean that I have had many faces.

This was my first face:

Wearing a very 70s outfit on the left and with my grandad on the right

I grew up in Spain with that face.

I lost that face on July 26th 1991 at 1pm when a shiny bullet of a car ran me over on a pedestrian crossing after appearing out of nowhere at high speed.

Unfortunately, I am not bullet-proof.

In honour of that moment the mirrors were covered in the house for a while.

No, it's not a Spanish tradition, my face was hurt quite badly and my parents chose for me not to freak myself out every time I went to the bathroom, not that I would have since I needed help anyway but they weren't ready to chance it!

There are photos of that face but I would much rather not see them, instead here you have one from a few weeks later that is a bit blurry (probably better that way) as I had to dig hard for a photo of that time and I have downloaded it from a friend's Facebook page and then cut it because it was a group photo taken at the beach, taken with my camera though but I have probably buried it somewhere.

A few minutes after this photo was taken we boarded one of those long inflatable devices towed by a powerboat (you know what I mean, right? No? It's the sausage towed by the speedy boat... still no?).

Anyway, it was great fun and the start of a new face as the main scab fell, if you're going to lose a scab you might as well lose it in sea water falling from a big sausage.

This must be one of the few photos without a wide-brimmed hat and huge sunglasses taken that summer, I wore total sun block and had a white face for weeks, I don't mean pale, I literally mean white from the cream.

When I went out at night guys used to ask whether I had been in a fight, worst chat-up line I have ever heard, repeatedly!

One minute I was a seventeen year old sometimes having deep conversations with friends (we always did), sometimes superficial ones like whether we would ever have plastic surgery and what bit of us we would change (I always said my nose because I had smashed it against a girl's bony shoulder at school when I was 8 and it had a bit of a bump but always following with "I know it gives me personality though" and my friends always agreed) and the next minute I was wishing I had my other older nose back!

My whole face back! A whole of a millisecond back so that it would all be just a nightmare.

I had to spend about 16 months with that face, a Picasso face, until the day of my reconstructive surgery, I was 19 then and I didn't sign it off until just before I had to go in, in fact the night before as I headed to the hospital for an early morning start I still wasn't sure whether I was going to sign on the dotted line.

After all, I had just got used to my new face, finally, what if something went wrong, what if I didn't wake up, what if...

In the end I got all feisty and I did, six hours later (much longer than they anticipated), I came out of surgery with:

- half a face lift (to level my right eyebrow with the left as I looked a bit wonky)

- a cast on my nose (which they had to file down a lot more than they hoped as they found a lot more damage on my face than they expected, hence the longer surgery)

- implants on both my cheeks and on my chin

- and other things that my surgeon tried to explain to me the day before but that I wasn't ready to listen to, otherwise I would have never authorised the surgery

The mirrors were covered again in the house, my face was all bruised and swollen from the surgery.

There are photos, I have seen them, that face wasn't pretty.

About a month after the surgery they had to remove the implant on my left cheek as they had not been able to stop the infection it caused, the left side of my face was just too damaged to accept it and so decided to reject it.

During Christmas 1992 I had a swollen face, I must have scared the crap out of a lot of people in Disneyworld Orlando with my balloon-like face.

Disneyworld, Orlando (US), Christmas 1992

By the beginning of 1993 I looked normal again and people were telling me I looked like when I was a kid!

The surgeon had asked for lots of photos of me from before the accident so that was quite reassuring to hear and it was good that people could recognise me as me again.

I don't particularly like my new nose, it is too goody two-shoes, which doesn't exactly match my fiery personality 😉

And the fact that they had to take one of the cheek implants out means my face is still rather asymmetric but the overall effect is good, no visible scars thanks to my magician surgeon who was with me pretty much from day one.

This, of course, means I can blend in much more easily and not stick out like I did for a while.

Why did I have the good luck of having one of Spain's most brilliant reconstructive surgeons by my side from day one?

That was down to my feisty grandma (it does run in the family), poor guy was holidaying near where we were with his new girlfriend at her parents' beach house when my grandma, who was great friends with his girlfriend's mother, heard of my accident and hired him on the spot, he came to visit not long after and immediately gave me some brilliant advice to save my left eye from an unsightly scar (I am shortsighted and was wearing glasses when I had the accident).

He once called me his work of art, in the next breath he told me it would be easy to reduce the size of my saddlebags (which were and still are fabulous thankyouverymuch), I never went to his surgery again!

Summer 1994, once everything had gone back to place

With my new face there are bad days and good days, I was out of the hospital quite quickly after the accident because someone missed something very important that was going on underneath all the burns and bruises.

I managed not to break any legs or arms, although they thought I had broken them all, I have good strong extremities me!

However, my jaw injuries never healed properly and so I am in pain on a daily basis.

Because of the implant rejection one of my dark circles is deeper than the other (above all on a bad day) and one eye is different to the other, it even looks more opaque in the photos (see above).

But no one seems to really notice these things, just me.

However, that day, that accident, that pain have made me who I am.

They made me determined and strong (the true meaning of feisty) and they made me realise what I wanted and did not want in my life.

I am pretty sure that, had I left the house a few seconds later or earlier that day, I would not be writing this as Feisty Tapas, I probably would not live in England and the chances of me running a cooking website or even cooking as much as I do would be very slim.

In fact, the chances of me having remained any sort of feisty or fiery would have been very small.

My life would be very different.

In fact, life is different now again, I got really unwell again in my late forties and this dip has been difficult to shake off. To the chronic pain I can now add ME/CFS, Ehlers Danlos.

I have been housebound and very much bed bound at points since 2023, which is crazy for someone as driven and motivated as me. There are days all I can do is be horizontal and hope for the best.

Turns out I am really bad at resting, like really really bad! I don't know how to fully rest or disconnect.

There is a walking stick in my bag now just in case I need it the few times I venture out and here is a shower chair (more of a stool) in my bath, I should have bought these things months and months ago to make my life easier but I am stubborn (and embarrassed!).

This year I have discovered a new soundtrack. It has swearing, it has anger, it has grit and it's totally not my style which always has my now 14 year old daughter in stitches but there you go.

If you've been through trauma like mine, it might bring all the emotions in you and some grit to go with it and the end, that end, that's me grabbing those too!

There you go, this is my story "through the faces". It has all come full-circle now: my girl shares my first face, she does in fact look exactly like her mummy at her age, before the bruising, the broken nose and the broken face. A second chance for that face that didn't last long. I just hope that inside she has everything else that matters: kindness, grit, resilience, strength and a beautiful soul.

I have managed to include a photo with my grandad, who passed away not long before I originally wrote this.

I leave you with the words of the brilliant Brandi Carlile:

All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am...

Now, do me a little favour and go to a mirror near you, look at your face, admire every single detail, line and frown and today, just today, toss the eye cream, smile and enjoy the face that you were given because, I can assure you, it is a lovely face.

Maria

PS- I have chosen "good" photos as I would not want to scare anyone!

Looking for recipes? I have lots of Instant Pot recipes as well as recipes for other gadgets like your air fryer, your Thermomix and even easy gadget-free recipes, feel free to have a browse, the home page links you to tons of ideas and is a great place to start.

And on my YouTube you have videos from back when I could stand. I hope I can film again one day, watch this space! I won't allow my health to keep me down for long (I mean it's been more than a year but... I know that this time I need to recover properly, because this time it's different and it's a battle that I shall ultimately win, just with different tactics this time).

And all because I crossed a road... ditch the eye cream and be careful crossing roads!