El Rey Leon

I just wanted to mention that one of the best times I've had in Castellon was tonight. What made it great was listening (and participating) to a group of college folk singing along to The Lion King, in at about four different languages all at the same time. :-)

Pancakes, Paella, and Pesto

To follow along the theme of food, I will talk of today and its culinary events. This morning I made pancakes! There were rather tasty considering I used a recipe I had never tried before and then didn't follow the directions ("umm...I don't feel like opening another bag of flour, so how about I replace half of it with oats...and I think I should add more flavor!" extra sugar, a splash of vanilla and a healthy amount of cinnamon....and "I have no shortening and don't want to replace it with butter because that is expensive...oil!"). Anyway, they were quite edible, the first time I had had them in six months or so, and it was small enough of a portion that I didn't get tired of flipping them before the batter was used up. :-) Yay for a proper breakfast!

Next...paella! While I have eaten this Spanish dish a number of times during my stay here, I have not in fact made it (excepting the times in Vermont with Joel's family and those weren't quite the "traditional Valencian paella" though they were tasty, too). So, today was the paella festival in my university. All classes were cancelled and everyone gathered in groups varying from six-ish to eighty (I think our group was the only one anywhere near that size, actually) out in the fieldish area behind all of the university buildings. The little tent handed out bags of rice, wood, and iron ring-stand things while everyone brought the other ingredients and of course, the ingredients for sangria, this is Spain we are talking about. I convinced the paella maestro that I could be of help and began the feat of helping make two forty-person paellas.

First, the fire must be built. The paella pans are then set on the little iron stand things over the fire. Much oil is poured over them and the edge is sprinkled with salt. While the oil is heatingthe meat is opened and also salted. The meat for a paella valenciana is normally pork ribs, chicken, and rabbit (and sometimes meatballs, though those would be added later). The meat is placed in the oil and cooked. Then it is pushed to the sides to cook the veggies (snap peas, red bell peppers, and a bean that is large and white, kind of like butter beans maybe....). After these are nice and cooked they are also pushed to the sides. Now comes the tomato sauce and garlic. This is cooked until it has changed to an almost purple color and the texture has changed. Everything is happily mixed together and cooks until there isn't much liquid left. Then lots and lots of water is added. If you are using meatballs, this is when you add them. This boils until enough has evaporated to be the right amount for the rice (at least fifteen minutes). You add more salt at this point and test the liquid to see how it tastes. Then you add the rice and hope the fire is at the point where it is even and not too hot so that the rice doesn't burn. It burns anyway. Then you wait a tortuous twenty or thirty minutes while the rice cooks, keeping the fire even and hopefully not too hot (even though the rice already burned). When the rice is done, you take it off and let it cool for a bit, soaking in any leftover liquid. Then you serve, attempting to avoid the burnt rice and to not put the rabbit's head on anyone's plate (it is used while cooking to add flavor, but isn't actually eaten).

That's paella! It took about three hours once we finally got started. It was a lot of fun, but I was so tired by the time it was done that I didn't actually eat very much of it. And personally, I thought it had too much salt...oh well. :-)

Since I hadn't eaten that much, I decided to go ahead and eat dinner (this is rare for Spaniards to do after having eaten a paella). But dinner was simply spaghetti with a bit of pesto. I know, boring compared to the rest of the day. Still tasty, though. :-)

So that was today. :-) Now I think I might go to sleep. Ciao!

FOOD

I just found tasty yoghurt at Mercadona. It has bits of fruit and has flavors of desserts, like apple tart and lemon creme pie. It is very very tasty and worth the extra eighty eurocents.

Speaking of me eating yoghurt, I wanted to talk a bit about the "Mediterranean diet" and its claims of being the healthiest diet on earth. I must admit it seems to be having healthful effects, but I think that a lot of it has to do with the Mediterranean climate, and not just because of the growing season's length causing fresh produce to be more widely available. The climate is such that it is very very rare that it is not good walking weather. And the way that the city is set up, all of the dialy necessities are within walking distance of everything. There is no driving across town to go to Walmart or the like. You walk a block or two away. So, while the food is wonderful, I think the climate and organization of the cities has more to do with the healthful results than just the food itself.

But going back to food, I find that my tastes have been changing quite a bit. I now love olives, specifically green ones stuffed with anchovies. I buy pickles willingly. I have climbed trees to pick almonds and then ate them fried with a bit of olive oil and salt. I've eaten pizza topped with tuna and salmon. I really like salad! It's best with tuna and corn with a dressing of olive oil with balsamic vinegar. I understand how important bread is for life, :-) and rarely buy the sliced kind that is normally consumed in the States. Eating in a restaurant rarely rarely happens (a meal for one person is the equivalent of a week of groceries most of the time!). I'm starting to feel weird about eating eggs for breakfast... Brussel sprouts and cauliflower with bits of bacon can be considered a main dish and a tasty one, at that. Red bell peppers from the fruit stand a few blocks away are wonderful eaten raw. That's about all I can think about right now, but yeah...lots of changes.

I'm enjoying buying groceries now, but am still having problems figuring out how much to buy, in what sorts of amounts and how much I should spend. I haven't had to throw out much food yet (a tiny bit of a green pepper that got ignored a bit too long and there was some bread I probably should have thrown out but ate it with onion soup instead as it was conveniently the hardness of croutons). I ran out of bread Saturday night and couldn't buy any more until today (I didn't try hard enough to find an open bakery on Sunday. My Mercadona and Consum were both closed so I didn't think of other options). It's fun to deal with the responsibility of making sure I eat. Heh. Right. Zucchini is wonderful cooked in olive oil with garlic and lemon juice! Tuna is a staple.

So, that is my blog about food. I hope you enjoyed. I'm going to go eat a piece of chocolate (which is so much better than the majority of chocolate you can find in the States...yummy).