April 2008
6 posts
Journey to the Center of my Tastebuds
Tomorrow morning I will be renting a car with four good friends and traveling seven hours north to San Sebastian, a small city on the northern coast of España. I am paralyzed with excitement. In case you didn’t know, San Sebastian is a sort of food-lover heaven located in Pais Vasco or as it’s better known in the States, The Basque Country. The region is world-renown for its food, beaches and...
Yet Another Spanish Food Festival
I grabbed a copy of the free paper El Micalet the other day while I was heading to the market to chitchat with cheese lady Carmen and purchase some goodies. After picking up some cheese and discussing the political probems of Pais Vasco with a pleasant old man at the cheese counter, I returned home, made up a plate for lunch and opened up the paper. The El Micalet is great because it comes out...
A Love Letter to Good Bread
A special dedication to stone-ground flour, water, yeast, honey, salt and all the bakers who go to work at 1 in the morning and the kneaders who start their days at 4am. I just received news via email that the bakery I worked in before I came to Spain has officially closed its doors. That’s it; the Great Harvest on Vestal Parkway is dunyuns. I’m not going to lie; I am a little upset. I don’t...
El Feria de vinos, cavas, licores y alimentos...
Last week there was a week long celebration of Valencian alcohol and food. Needless to say I was drooling. This food festival was similar to the one I went to in Requena, but a lot bigger. There were over 100 stands with much more selection and only the whole shin-dig was only1 0 minutes from my house. ¡Vale! First off, I want to put an end to the notion that Europeans—not in the U.K., I’m...
Attack of the Killer Figs
After pleasing my hunger for meats, I turned my attention to goal number 2 of my trip: dates, figs and other goodies. I was sure that goal number 1—to eat a goat whole roasted under ground—was impossible, so once I met my guide MoMo in the old city of Fes, I set out to find my fruits. MoMo assured me that the dates from the street vendors were safe to eat, but he promised to find me a good...
Tangine (A Slight Return)
My trip to Morocco was busy, busy, busy… I didn’t stay in the same hotel or camp for more than one night and spent lots of time traveling the country in a cramped van or bumpy jeep. I slept in the Sahara desert, I rode a camel named Zeus, I saw a couple of sunrises and many sunsets, I ate lots of tagine and I may have gotten a lot of people really sick. Before even getting on the plane...