apas to choose from. they are a great way to share food and drink, converse and socialize. to spaniards, "tapear" is a verb that means to get tapas and wine or beer and talk. they never drink without eating and never eat without talking; it's a culture after my own heart.in granada, one of my favorite cities in spain, the tapas come free with every drink. you order a coca-cola and a few minutes later the bartender brings you a free snack - it is the best way to go out with friends for little money! the trick, though, is to know where to go to get the best food. some bars just put bread and olives or small portions of ham, but we discovered bars that were famous for their gourmet tapas - with masterpieces such as grilled salmon on potato creme with parsley garnish, coconut-lime chicken, and caramelized onions with fresh goat cheese. this last one is something i order wherever i can, so my host family has proceeded to bring home different types of cheese every week and tease me about how i am a rat. i don't even take it back!
in mérida, a city about two hours north of sevilla, kurt and i got an amazing lunch we will never forget. we ordered the menú del día, which comes with bread, two courses, a bottle of wine, and dessert all for a mere 20 euro. we ate so well: here's a picture of me enjoying my mushrooms in olive oil with ham, a very common dish in southern spain. in the foreground is kurt's first course, migas, an Extremaduran dish of bread crumbs and sausage mixed with vegetables. and our wine, which shows you how truly amazing this lunch was. our dessert was a portuguese rice putting, which we ordered because we envied the dessert the portuguese couple next to us was eating. we started talking to them, and had a wonderful conversation in a mixture of spanish, portuguese and english. they ended up giving us their contact info and inviting us to their native city of Lisbon. and the portuguese rice putting, they said, was not the best. you must try it in our country. :)the latest meal kurt and i shared was both the cheapest and one of the best (my kind of meal!).
we were in salamanca last weekend, tired of spending 24 euro on menús del día and looking at a beautiful forecast. we went to a market and bought goat cheese, chorizo (Spanish cured sausage), and fresh bread (still warm from the oven) for 8 euro. we then took a walk and sat out and had a picnic by the river. just to brag a bit more, we were about 50 feet away from a roman bridge built in the 1st century and looking across the river at two cathedrals of salamanca. apart from my personal studies of spanish food, which are going very well and being supplemented with much walking and the occasional run, i am part of an interest group focused on the food and culture of spain. we have visited a cooking school in Sevilla, where the students fed us various innovative tapas and made us cocktails, had various lectures about the influences of different cultures of spain on the food culture, and next week we are receiving cooking lessons from "the best cook in sevilla" according to our group leader (her mother!). the first week of april, we are all going on a trip to valencia to learn how to make true valencian paella, a spanish rice dish prepared with saffron and supplemented with seafood and vegetables. i hope to bring back some of this knowledge and prepare some delicious dishes for all of you when i get home in may. right now, i'm off to my host-niece's baptism (sure to be an interesting cultural experience) and then to have some tapas with my host family!
