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It's a Spaniard Thing

 I used to wake up every morning and look out the window at this: Oviedo, Spain.


I was fed 3 square meals a day. and then I fed myself a hearty few extras that included a chocolate cookie from the refridgerated vending machine at my language school (cold cookie=GENIUS), 2 scoops of ice cream at the park (which because of my terrible spanish I once accidentally ordered two cones with one flavor instead of one cone with two flavors. and yes, I ate them both) and then whatever pastry caught my fancy at the cookie shop off the corner of the main Catedral El Centro.  And my occasional break-in to the french bread drawer in the kitchen. So many carbs. Which is why I gained 15 pounds in 5 weeks.

omg. look at that chubby happy girl.  I have no regrets.

But really, my host mother fed me the most lovely meals.  such lovely lovely meals as seen in my original college blog.  I will copy and paste that one just so you can see it.  What I want to talk about, ever so briefly, is that fact that for all the fresh and delicious mediterranean food my host mother made, her fridge was almost always ENTIRELY bare. BARE! how did she do it? where did it come from? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?? And the answer was that she bought all the ingredients for every meal the same day that she used it.  and she bought in quantities that were perfect for a single meal for 3 people, and in spain that didn't mean going to Smiths, it meant going to the bread store and then the fish store and then the vegetable store and then the wine store.  It must have been exhausting! Why do it that way?

And that is EXACTLY how I have been buying food for my meals since I got back from Spain.  Even today, it makes no sense to me, but I love to go and get exactly the right thing fresh the day I think of it, and make a meal as I imagined it. Not making do, but making magic.  I relish it!  My kitchen style is in so many ways an omage to my time in that wondrous country.

But with less cookies. A true tragedy. 

Today I'm going to the market to get fixins for a creamy bacon pasta that will uplift my little kitchen after a long week of neglect.  Wish me luck, or, if you prefer, bueno suerte!!



Comments

Unknown said…
this sounds so amazing to me. how were you able to leave such a wonderland?
April 8, 2011 at 7:11 PM
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