Hasta luego, España

Tomorrow morning we'll be getting on the plane and leaving this lovely place.  I'm sad that the adventure is over but I'm also already excited about the next one. Also, I'm excited to sink my teeth into a Chipotle burrito. And to not have to wake up every morning and check the paper to make sure the currency in my wallet is still worth something.

I'll miss the fruit market, and fresh persimmons, and paella and Manchego cheese. I'll miss Claire and my friends, my students at school and their grubby adoring little hugs. I'll miss the beach being outside my front door, and I'll miss the nighttime walks along the waves with The Mister. I'll miss the everlasting sunny weather and siesta and the way the shops are closed on Sundays.

But after all the adventures over the last two years, after Italy and Jordan and France and Scotland and Ireland and Morocco and Portugal and Sweden and all the rest, I have come to this timeless conclusion:

There's no place like home.

Bullfight

I went to a bullfight yesterday. Oh yes, I did.

Saturday night The Mister and I were hanging around, getting ready to meet friends for dinner, when we started talking about things we hadn't done in Spain. Seeing a bullfight was pretty high up on the list, and we both remembered walking past lots of posters in the past few days advertising a bullfight in our local ring on Sunday. Hmm, we thought -- destiny?

And so we went, dutifully punching in our ticket to this particular cultural oddity. Now I know this subject can be controversial: there are the "HELLO ANIMAL CRUELTY" people and the "JUST A CULTURAL THING, NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLKS" people, and I'd say we fall right in between. I didn't grow up on a farm or anything and I'm not around wild animals that much, so I'm not exactly used to seeing something - anything - die right in front of me. Killed right in front of me, let's be honest.

But I suppose the bulls have had nice lives munching grass and frolicking under blue skies and all that, which is far, far nicer than the life of your average American feed-lot guy. I mean have you seen "Food, Inc."? And I still eat cheeseburgers. So, yeah. I suppose I can't get on my high horse and judge. 

Annnnyway, enough philosophizing. For those of you who think this whole thing is terrible, see below: the bull got his comeuppance. Maybe we saw a crappy bullfight or something but I think there were four or five near-gorings, with men in tights and sequins hightailing it as fast as they could with a raging bull in hot pursuit. And one man fell off a horse and narrowly avoided being trampled by both the furious bull and the confused horse. I can't say I felt that sorry for the men - why can't the bull get in the action too? All's fair in love and war.

 

 

 

Photos from rural Spain

Adventures in Paella Making

A little while ago my friend Claire and I put our collective skills together and made a paella. Both of us have tried to watch and absorb paella-making lessons from Spanish friends, and we wanted to test our skills with a good solo effort. There were a few dicey moments but in the end I must say we came out with a pretty bitchin' paella, so if you're into trying to make one, take a peek at what we did:

First, dice up a tomato and a red and green bell pepper. Toss them in a sauté pan with a bit of rabbit (if you don't find yourself with a rabbit niftily in your fridge, go ahead and substitute chicken. We're flexible like that.) Sauté in a bit of olive oil on medium heat until the peppers start to get tender.

Meanwhile, let's make the broth for the paella. Find some fresh sardines and lop off the heads, tails and guts. Don't be squeamish. Paradoxically, these are the parts we actually want. The little filets...well, as far as this paella is concerned you can feed them to your cat.

Put all the heads, tails, fins and all that into a big pot of water. Also add in shrimp shells and heads from the shrimp we're about to put in the paella. If you are a.) squeamish  b.) fresh out of whole sardines or c.) not Spanish, you can go ahead and use a general fish broth for this part. I've even seen people use boxes of chicken broth. A good quality broth will make your paella better, but compromise is golden.

While all this is going on, you should soak some mussels. Nobody likes sand in their mussels. Then strain your fish broth so it's just the liquid. The fish and seafood parts have served their purpose and the broth should be thick and delicious smelling.

Return to your pan of peppers and meat. Make sure there's still a good amount of oil in the bottom, and if not add a bit more. We're in Spain here, olive oil is practically a religion. 

Add in two handfuls of rice per person. As you can see, I measured it out in a very fancy measuring cup first. Sauté the rice for a minute in the oil, then add in a little salt and saffron (or, as they usually use here, paella coloring). Now add the hot seafood broth. Mmmmmm. The liquid should pretty much but not quite cover everything. There are different thoughts on this: some people like soupy, brothy paella and other people like drier paella, with a more fried-rice liquid ratio. I am firmly, firmly, I say, in the dry paella camp. I know someone will hear me say this and try to change my mind, but I will remain strong. But if you like the soupy stuff then add a little more liquid.

Put the heat on medium high so the liquid starts to simmer. This is the sweet spot. Don't stir the rice while it's cooking - the brown crusty bits on the bottom are a delicacy and the best part of the paella.

Scatter some shrimp around the top. You will have already peeled them and thrown the shells in your pot to make your seafood broth, remember? Also, get your mussels nice and steamed. Mussels like lemon as well, so why not toss a bit in there for fun?

When all the liquid has absorbed (add a little more broth if the liquid is absorbed but the rice is still crunchy), you are finished! 

Lay the mussels over top and add some cool slices of lemon. And then pour a cold glass of an adult beverage of your choice. And then it is time. EAT.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on leaving Spain: Going out on top

Leaving Spain is such a strange sensation. It isn't like a normal moving day, where you know you can come back and visit on occasion. I hope to come back one day of course, but it won't happen for a long, long time, and quite possibly not ever. These friendships will be stretched and wrung out under the strains of time and distance and cultural divergences and an ever-widening language barrier as my Spanish, inevitably, slowly leaks out of my brain. I will do everything I can to bridge these gaps, but I am not superhuman and the task will be impossible forever.

Part of me, I'll be honest, longs to go. I am American, and I hear the call of home. I'm yearning for absolute fluency in communication and cultural matters, Thai food, the sounds of an ice cream truck, salsa, buffalo wings, texts from my sisters, cultural cues to help me remember holidays, homes of family members in which to celebrate them in. I miss football (the real kind), Thanksgiving, cornbread, flavored coffee creamers, handshakes instead of cheek kisses, Fahrenheit. I miss fitting in and I miss modern small comforts – dishwashers, dryers, central heating and AC, carpeted floors. I miss being able to pick up the phone and call my mom without first subtracting nine hours to figure out if she's awake yet.

But oh, how I will smile when I look back on this season in Spain, and how nostalgic I will be for it after it ends. I know I sometimes talk about Spain on this blog as if it is all a never ending string of sunny days, good food and funny cultural experiences, but the truth is that for us, it really has been such a happy time and those will be my memories.

I know, though, that prolonging our time here for another year would rub off some of the magic. Things that seemed charming to us two years ago ("they never seem to be in a hurry! they really know how to enjoy life!") have slowly and perhaps inevitably morphed into frustration ("I have been waiting for twenty minutes for the check because the waitress is at the next table finishing her coffee. Just because she isn't in a hurry doesn't mean none of us can be in a hurry.)

My sister Emily asked me recently how I felt about leaving and I told her I didn't know exactly, that I felt a blend of excitement and happiness and nostalgia and loss. "Well," she told me, "it sounds like you're leaving at exactly the right time then. Not too soon and not too late."

And you know, I am pretty sure she was right.

Spanish cooking classes: Tortilla

My time in Spain is down to just a few weeks, so I'm trying to absorb as much as I can before I go. This means that I've been asking practically every Spanish person I know to teach me how to cook something. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Spanish food, which can sometimes be a bit bland to my taste, but there are a few things I'll miss back in the U.S.  One of them is a good homemade Spanish tortilla.

If you've never been to Spain you're probably thinking that tortillas are the corn or flour deliciousness that you wrap your taco in. But this tortilla is sort of like a big flat potato omelet, and it's a perennial favorite here in Spain.

Here's how my friend Pilar taught me how to make it:

First, assemble and peel a couple potatoes. Five is enough for a nice skillet-sized tortilla. Chop them up into little flat squares, nice and thin. 

Then - and this is controversial - sauté about a quarter of an onion in olive oil. There is hearty debate about whether onions belong in tortilla or not, with each party believing fervently that their dish is the best. So if you are in the no-onion camp, skip this step. I won't judge. 

Now, this next step is going to take some real fortitude, so take a deep breath and gird your loins.  Next you dump the potatoes into your handy-dandy deep fryer. If you don't have one (please tell me you don't have one), fry them up in a skillet with a couple healthy glugs of olive oil. While you're doing it, think to yourself: "Mediterranean diet, my a$$"

For the record, I have never in my life been in an American home with a deep fryer on the counter (although I'm not from the South), but pretty much every single Spanish home I've ever been in has one proudly installed in the kitchen. When I express astonishment at this fact, my Spanish friends are bug-eyed that Americans don't all have deep fryers in their back pockets. "But I don't understand" they wonder, perhaps a touch untactfully, "how do you all get so fat?"

But anyway, on we march. When you've thoroughly cooked your potatoes until they're tender (I wonder if boiling them would also be an option to cut down on the oil?), drain them and put them in a bowl. Add your onions if you've got 'em.

Crack in your eggs: about one egg for each potato. Then mix it up! It should be goopy but not overly liquidy. Place it on a hot skillet that's filled with about half an inch of hot olive oil (yeah I said half an inch). Turn it after about 90 seconds or when it starts to solidify in the middle. Flip it using a plate and turning the skillet upside down. Let it sizzle on the other side, and then lower the heat to let it finish cooking a few more minutes.

And voila! You have made Spanish tortilla! Eat it cold, hot, room temperature, with mayonnaise or without, on a sandwich or with a fork. Bon appetit.

 

 

 

 

Eurovision

We need to talk Eurovision. If you have not sat through a Eurovision contest with a group of Europeans, you have only lived a half-life, my friend. And by that I mean that you have avoided something that would have inevitably dragged down the quality of your life, so good for you.

Eurovision is a music contest, in which every European country (and, inexplicably, many definitely non-European countries. Israel? Azerbaijan? Sorry y'all, the credited response is ASIA) sends a musician/treacly ballad singer to compete with the other countries. Votes are cast through phone lines in a 15-minute period at the end of the show, and you aren't allowed to vote for your own country. It's like American Idol with a passport and truckloads of trashy Europop. And no Simon Cowell (by the way, I hear American Idol is still on TV even though Simon Cowell left. How can this be, America? This does not compute. He was the one and only star of that show.)

Eurovision has been going on every year for fifty-ish years, and it's a Very Big Deal. It draws 120 million viewers, which is 10 million more than the Super Bowl record. Seriously. Every year, Europeans gather together in their homes to watch this strange spectacle made of equal parts trashiness, campiness, and mediocrity.

If you ever watch Eurovision though (despite my warnings) you should be prepared for the side sport: the Super Bowl's time-honored sister activity is eating buffalo wings, and Eurovision's is complaining about the fairness of the votes. Everyone votes for their neighbors, or so the saying goes. English speakers vote for English speakers, Ukrainians vote for fellow Eastern Europeans, the Portuguese vote for the Spanish and the Spanish for the Portuguese. Complaints abound. Everyone thinks that everyone else is voting against their act because of political reasons, but everybody's song looked equally awful to me. As an outsider with no skin in the game, I claim neutrality - everyone was equally embarrassing. Voting for political reasons or because you simply like the inhabitants of a certain country over another feels like a perfectly reasonable option to me when there is nothing else to distinguish by.

Anyway, if you have watched Eurovision and you think it's amazing, feel free to tell me in the comments. I thought it was amazing...ly funny. In a ridiculous sort of way.

Not that I didn't enjoy myself, that is.

Scenes from the pueblo