A Cheery Break

When I first started my wedding obsession by reading blog post upon post, I kept reading things about planning being overwhelming, stressful and all-consuming. My first thought was "great" I LOVE weddings, so I'll love mine even more. My second was "these people must not be planners." Let me tell you, I'm a planner/organizer with a strong sense of what I like and this wedding planning is OVERWHELMING!
So, for a break from the wedding madness, my roommate and I threw a holiday shindig of our own. Now, I love throwing parties; I love rearranging the furniture in to the most mingle-able setting, I love browsing through appetizer recipes, mixing drinks, choosing serving platters and making the house look so elegantly "lived in." However, because we're both only 21, our collection of serving dishes, holiday decor and generally money is pretty limited, so here is our holiday soiree *on a budget* in three easy steps.
Is anyone throwing a holiday themed, wedding-y party? Wine and crafts? Holiday engagement? Winter bridal shower? Tell me...I LOVE to hear!

1. Candles! Votives are CHEAP, check out these at Dollar Tree (4 for $1) and glass jars are cheaper (do you buy pasta sauce, salsa, jam). We've been collecting glass jars to use at my wedding and figured, why not use them twice?! With all the DIYs out there, it so easy to find something festive...these are my faves. Psst, the first link has TONS of ideas.

one, two

2. Easy appetizers. What's easier (cuter, tastier...) than tiny potatoes wrapped in bacon? Add in a dipping dish of Dijon and you're ready to go. Also, brie was one of our splurgerier treats...but the stuff on top is just sugar and water!! P.S. Of our limited serving dishes, we do have a wood cutting board...perfect for cheese and crackers!

one, two

3. Simple, festive drinks (that you can make in BIG batches). We decided to offer two drinks, cider and nog (both of which were a HIT). The best part about these is that they are easy as heck, but still way classier than the usual 21-year-old party drink.

one, two

What do you do to break from the all-consuming wedding planning?
Don't worry, I'll be done with this hiatus next week, because this weekend I have my first WEDDING DRESS FITTING with my mom and all of my bridesmaids! I can't wait! Does anyone have any fitting tips?
P.S. I wish I could have a snowy, winter wedding...there'd be muffs and cider for all!

Comida

I haven't been very good about writing lately because I've been working on Comida, my senior honors project. Comida is a mix of academic, journalistic, and sometimes humorous reflections on Spanish culture through food. It is also an album of memories, a souvenir from my life in Spain. Enjoy!

Open publication - Free publishing - More barcelona

Tortilla de Patatas

My favorite meal while I was living in Spain was the Tortilla de Patatas or Tortilla Española, a quintesential Spanish staple. I had this tortilla all over Spain and I can guarantee that the tortilla my Señora made was by far the very best. So, during the four months I lived with her, I was able to learn some of her secrets to the perfect tortilla and I am ready to share them with you!

Tortilla Española (read about my adventures with la tortilla here, in an pre-release excerpt from my Spanish food magazine: Comida)

Ingredients:

Potatoes, any variety
1 onion
3-6 egg whites
2-4 egg yolks
Salt to taste
Extra Virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Pour 1-1.5 inches of olive oil in the bottom of a round-bottomed pan.

2. Peel and slice potatoes in to approximately 1 cm thick rounds. Place potato slices in warm oil until pan is about 2/3 full of potatoes. Oil should not be boiling.

3. Continue to turn potatoes for about 10-15 minutes or until all slice are soft. Potatoes should not brown.

4. Add salt to taste.

5. Grate onion in to potato mixture and continue to turn for about two more minutes.

6. Strain potato mixture, removing all excess oil (the easiest way is to allow the mixture to sit in a strainer for about three minutes).

7. While mixture is straining, beat all eggs together.

8. Pour potato mixture back in to pan and pour eggs over the top. Turn mixture so that the eggs are evenly dispersed.

9. Add salt to taste.

10. Allow Tortilla to cook for approximately three minutes, or until tortilla hold together when pan is shook.

11. Using a plate, flip the tortilla on to the plate and slide it back in to the pan allowing the other side to cook.

12. Cook for about three more minutes and carefully slide on to serving plate.

13. Allow the tortilla to sit for at least 30 minutes before serving so that it holds its domed shape.

14. ¡Buen Provecho!

To learn more about my time in Spain, visit: taylorqchat.blogspot.com

High Tea, Transvestites in Australia and a Pleather Jacket

I just got back from London and it was so refreshing. It was nice, first off, to speak english, all the time, to everyone. I could ask for help from anyone at anytime...what a relief. It was also nice to be taken care of, to have Taylor (Lunsford, I'm not referring to myself in third person) lead me throughout the city. I was so happy to simply follow along behind her goggling at clock towers, theaters and store windows.

It was an accomplishment to simply get to London by myself on Easy Jet, a somewhat sketchy airline. After walking out on to the tarmac (something that I never do) and an easy ride on the aptly named easy jet, I arrived in London Luton airport. I killed the time during my 55 minute bus ride in to London by listening to The Beatles and Kate Nash (the two most British groups I had on my Ipod) and was truly enchanted by the empty and dark London streets. It was amazing to me that at 1am the streets were quiet, in Barcelona, people don't even begin going out until 2am.

Taylor met me at my bus and we slowly made our way to her flat on the inefficient night busses. A brief stop at Star Kebab, an indian restaurant, for chips with curry finished the night and I QUICKLY fell asleep on the couch.

In the morning, we ventured to Hampton Court, on of Henry VIII's palaces. My excitement for the trip grew once I found out that there were not only costumed actors at the palace, but that we were also able to wear robes and join in on activities like a courtly dance class and a meeting with the queen and her advisors. After getting lost in a perfectly manicured bush maze, we stopped for a quick lunch of tomato soup and crusty bread. Mmm, what could be better on a chilly day than tomato soup in a royal garden.

That night I was able to visit Alex at her apartment which was, unfortunately, on the opposite side of the city. After riding on the most tightly packed subway you can imagine for 11 stops, I finally arrived. It was so fun to just hang out at Alex's apartment, we cooked a long and simplified version of chicken parmesan for dinner before heading out to some pubs for cider. The cider was wonderful, but the BEST was strawberry beer. Who would ever want to drink beer when cider exists? It blows my mind.

Saturday was quintessentially British. After pad thai for lunch, we headed downtown to see the sights. We made quick stops at everything I needed to see, including Buckingham, Big Ben, the Globe...and finished the afternoon with my favorite part of the trip, high tea.

The tea was in an old and slightly stuffy hotel, we were seated in the drawing room where small groups of ladies chatted and snacked. Our tea came with complementary champagne and from the time the champagne arrived, the fanciness never ended. I chose a black currant and hibiscus tea which was served in an adorable individual tea pot. We were also given a selection of sandwiches, scones, candied apples and pumpkin tarts. The food was amazing. I've always loved scones, but I feel that I can say I had never had a truly great scone until this tea. We slowly ate and drank until our bellies were full and tastebuds were exhausted.

We had some time to kill before heading to our musical, so we pit stopped at Harrods. Something that I didn't think I would be that impressed by was simply amazing. We turned the corner to find Harrods sparkling with tiny lights, but the exterior opulence was minimal compared to the floors of decadence inside. We wandered aimlessly from floor to floor admiring the vogue clothes, home goods and food, as well as the people who were able to buy them.

Our musical, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, was more extravagant than any show I've ever seen. It focuses on 3 transvestites as they journey across the desert in a bus named Priscilla. As you can imagine, the costumes were over the top in the very best way. Every song that you would expect to be sung, was, including I Will Survive. I can't imagine a more fun musical to attend!

My last day in London was filled with markets. We first went west to Portabello Street, a collection of antique vendors selling everything from magazines to fur coats. We left empty handed and headed to Camden Market, a gigantic intertwined maze of vendors. You can buy anything at Camden Market, from craftsman jewelry, to antique luggage to pleather jackets (which I purchased). You can and should also buy the trashiest of trashy chinese food. The asian woman lure you in with a sample and then give you a "special" price, which, if you're like me, you won't be able to pass up. Three pounds for a overfilled bowl of, well, whatever the woman decides to give you which could include, chicken, veggies, noodles and, my favorite, a sort of tempura fried dough ball. I ended the night with my 20 pound pleather jacket in hand (I worked the guy down from 35 pounds) and in severe need of fruit or some other healthy snack.

I adore London and absolutely can't wait to go back! I was sad to be home in Barcelona, but the weather today is sunny, my Señora fixed a wonderful dinner last night and I feel very European in my pleather jacket. I guess Barcelona isn't so bad.

Fish Heads

This week I was able to take a cooking class through my Food and Culture class. I was excited all week because, number one, I love cooking, and, number two, my teacher told us that we would be cooking something exotic. I was picturing fruit combinations with unheard of spices. Little did I know, that exotic meant sardines.

Yes, SARDINES. Eww.

Come to find out, not all sardines are pickled in salt and oil. They were actually just small fish.

The cooking instructor eased us in to the idea of cooking sardines with a wonderfully tasty Romesco sauce, made from peppers, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, hazelnuts and almonds. Just when the room was filled with the wonderful Romesco smells, the teacher pulled out the slimy little full, eyes-in, scales-on fish.

It doesn't bother me to look at these gross little fish, but soon to find out, we would be doing a lot more than looking at them.

The teacher first showed us how to push our fingers backwards under the fish's scales to remove each and every fingernail-like, metallic scale. By this time I was starting to freak...I don't even touch the fish to give them to the dolphins at Sea World, much less descale a fish with my own hands.

But then came the kicker, the teacher nonchalantly explained how to push your fingers right in to the little fish's gills and squeeze until it's tiny head just pops off and its innards pour out. I was starting to sweat just watching her pinch of the fish head, but it wasn't over. You had to slide your finger in to the headless fish cavity and raise your hand up, splitting the fish down the center. Once it's open, you not only have to finish cleaning out the intestines, but you also have to break the large bones and remove them piece by piece.

My knees were tingling as I looked at the vegetarian in my class, he returned my horrified look of panic.

Once the instructor had finished cleaning her fish, she immediately had us form a line to receive our 2-3 sardines. I hung back and was happily last in line, hoping that they would run out of fish, but, of course, they didn't.

When I was handed my fish to descale, I almost couldn't touch it. But I knew I couldn't be the only one in my class who didn't clean a fish, so reluctantly I began peeling off layers of slimy scales. I was doing okay, until I hit a snag and one of the fish's fins popped out in to swimming position. I almost lost it. I'm terrified of fish in the lake, I don't even want them near me, much less to pull out a fish's fin. Once I had finished descaling the slippery little sucker, it was time for the debauchery.

I carried my fish to the table, which was now covered in fish blood, innards and some sort of brown gunk (I'm assuming fish poop). Not only was I disgusted by the task at hand, but I felt like I was covered from head to toe in fish scales, I had scrubbed my hands many times, but they're sticky and clear. I stood, trying to muster enough courage to physically rip a creatures head off, but each time I looked down at the little guy all I could see was his half-winking eye, asking me to please leave his head and his body together. I couldn't do it.

I don't know what gave it away, but the instructor sensed my overwhelming repulsion to the idea of dismembering a fish, walked over to me, grabbed the fish and within a second, my fish was headless.

She made me (quite literally moved my hands) open up the body cavity, pull out the organs and break the large bones out of the fish, a job that was only slightly less miserable than actually beheading the fish.

We fried the fish, and honestly they tasted decent. But, I will never again butcher or clean my own meat. I understand there is a certain pride in cleaning your own meat, but for me, I am going to leave it to the professionals.

This simply reaffirmed my want to have meat so well butchered and cleaned by the time I see it that it is unidentifiable as an animal.

I guess I'm glad that I got to doing something a little "exotic," but I can say confidently that I would never repeat this class.

The Men of Valencia

I took a short (less than 24 hours in the city) trip to Valencia this weekend and one thing stood out more than all others about Valencia, the men.

Everyone that we encountered was overly nice, talkative and friendly, even if it was sometimes creepy. This "friendliness" of sorts, was severely exaggerated when it came to the men of Valencia.

Firstly, there was an old man who came up to my roommate and I and talked to us in Spanish about how pretty we were and how we should forget about our boyfriends while in Valencia for a good 5 minutes. During the 5 minutes, an American family came up to us to ask for directions, we told them we were just visiting too and they left. On reevaluation of the situation, we think they might have been attempting to save us from the awkward situation, we were too naive.

Our second encounter was with a man in a jewelry and craft store. He insisted on fastening my bracelet and also fitting me with a scarf (although he was a creepy salesman, I mostly enjoyed the small talk).

A third man came up to my roommate and I, kissed our hands and tried to talk us in to coming to the beach...that was a definite "no." This encounter I enjoyed the least, actually I can say, I didn't enjoy this at all, I'm not really okay with anyone laying a dirty teeth kiss on my hand, much less a stranger in the street in Valencia.

Finally, the best, was our waiter at the restaurant we chose for dinner. We had picked this restaurant because they offered paella, an appetizer, dessert and sangria all for 11 euros, a pretty good deal. We sat down and the first thing the waiter did was take our drink order, my roommate ordered a glass of wine and the waiter replied "sure." She took this to mean "are you sure," and got almost a little sassy with the confused waiter until I explained that he was just affirming that she had ordered wine. Next, he brought us an extra basket of bread (which we were a little nervous he would charge us for, but we couldn't resist). Our three appetizers came out one by one, salad, patatas bravas, and calamari. When our waiter realized that we didn't eat the calamari, he brought us an extra plate of patatas bravas.

I realize you might be thinking this is normal service, but in Barcelona, the service is pretty much non-existent, we would never be offered a substitute appetizer or extra bread.

Finally, we received our paella, and dessert and ate them both happily. After we had finished all of this food, we began to notice that all of the tables around us had been cleared and new people were being seated, but we still hadn't received our check. We started to try to make eye contact with our waiter, but he was very clearly ignoring us. After multiple tries and about 30 minutes, we decided that we would start to stand up and wave so that he would know we were finished. Maybe he had simply forgot our check. When we did this, he just waved back, so my roommate, annoyed by the uncertainty, said "our check." Our waiter continued to smile and wave while shaking his head no and motioning for us to leave.

That's right, we received a meal for FREE! We were astonished because we hadn't even been overly nice, talkative, or honestly even that clean (we had taken a 5 hour train earlier that day).

It was a wonderful day full of attention (whether wanted or unwanted). Valencia, I'll be back!

Potatoes

Since I've been in Barcelona for a few weeks now, I am beginning to notice which foods are served more frequently than others. We have chicken a lot, and pan con tomate, but there's one thing that we eat more of than I can even fully explain, Potatoes!

We have potatoes with pretty much every meal, which I am happy about because I love potatoes, even if I'm going to have to buy an extra seat on my ride home. Normally we have the potatoes with something else like chicken and fruit to at least slightly balance out the carbs, but this weekend my lunch was the most carb-filled experience I think I'll ever have in my life.

I sat down at a beach cafe in Cadeques and decided to order tortilla de patatas, a traditional spanish dish made from eggs and potatoes. It's one of my favorite things that I've had so far in Spain so I was really looking forward to a nice hearty meal.

I didn't know just how hearty it would be.

Turns out that the tortilla de patatas was under the bocadillo (sandwich) section, which I didn't realize, so my 4 euros bought me a sandwich made from two thick (half loaf sized) pieces of bread, FILLED with cooked potatoes.

That's right, a potato sandwich!!! Potatoes and bread, nothing else!!

Needless to say, although it tasted good, I simply couldn't eat it as a sandwich, so I ate the potatoes by themselves.

As absurd as this seemed to me, carb on carb, I asked my Food as an Expression of Culture teacher about it and she said it's very common. If these beautiful, skinny Spanish girls really do eat potato sandwiches, I'm ticked out of pure jealousy.

Desserts, a grave and Dali

I just got back from my adventure up and down Coasta Brava (the "wild coast," just north of Barcelona that reaches up in to southern France). It was beautiful, even with rainy skies. We were able to see Roman and Greek ruins, EAT (the all-caps to let you all know just how much eating I did) in beautiful costal towns, visit the Dali museum, watch TV in English, sleep in pillow-top beds with black-out curtains covering the windows and see a grave of one of the most famous Spanish poets that no one (at least on my trip) had ever heard of. All in all it was a wonderful, fast-paced trip.

Quite possibly my favorite part of the weekend was traveling to Collioure, a tiny french seaside town. We actually only made the trip to see the grave of Antonio Machado. Who is Machado, you may ask (as I did and am still wondering)? Machado was, apparently, a famous Spanish poet who was forced in to Exile during the Spanish Civil War. However, this is still the only information that I know about him. As the time approached when we were suppose to view his grave, there was a noticeable whisper throughout my 80 or so peers, wondering who the heck Machado was. We were all perplexed. But, because we were making a special stop just to view the grave we all assumed that it would be at least slightly spectacular, interesting, weird, cool, neat, pretty...

We got of the bus, made our routine bathroom stop (this time with no toilet paper, yay public bathrooms) and headed toward the gravesite. About three blocks up the road, we turned on to a side street and in to a grave yard. A regular graveyard. However, when I walked in most of the students who were simply walking in front of me in the group were already leaving. I assumed that we were at the wrong place, until a friend came up to me and said "there it is," pointing to an older-looking, but very unsuspecting grave.

We travelled to FRANCE to look at a normal grave!!!

Good thing the city was absolutely beautiful, and since we were in France I took the liberty to have two desserts with lunch:
1. A crepe (of course, nutella and bananas...nothing is better)
2. A semi-fired, semi-baked lemony pastry covered in sugar

Also, it turns out that in France, they speak French. This seems very simple, but when you've spent the past three weeks stumbling through Spanish when all you really know how to speak is English and you sit on a bus for 30 minutes, get off and are expected to speak ANOTHER language; it's a shock! I don't even know how to say water in french. So we spoke broken Spanish and everyone else spoke French and I got my desserts.

A wonderful weekend on the coast!

There's Nothing Better than Tasters

Enjoying a new addition to Grapevine Main Street, Grapevine Olive Oil Company. Not only is the store absolutely adorable and the manager sweet as can be, but you can taste all of the olive oil and balsamic before you buy it!!

If you stop by, you have to try the Vanilla Balsamic, Peach Balsamic and the Coconut Balsamic, they will blow your mind!