Cooking Classics in Spain

Most experiences teach life lessons, others just inspire.  Since having the privilege to eat healthy three-course lunches and dinners for the entire month of July I have been inspired to trying cooking and eating healthier and better.  That's right, no more frozen pizzas, paninis, or cans of pre-made cocido soup for me.  I'm going for freshly made meals with a more health conscious approach.  As I said, health conscious", but not necessarily healthy.  Consequently, there's no better place to cook with fresh, healthy food than in Spain with their numerous fresh food markets in addition to their bakeries and fruiterias on every street.  Most of my experiments can be separated into two categories; experiments and new classics.  My experiment category involves using classic Spanish food and the new classics involve creating classic dishes that we would eat in the United States with a twist.  Enjoy if you can.

Experiments

Curry pasta salad with vegetable noodles, tomatoes, garbanzos, and spicy chorizo.

Chicken with rice, fried onion and pepper with tomatoes on top.

Chicken, bacon, ranch, pepper, onion bocadillo.

Bacon, egg, mushroom, ranch and sweet pepper bocadillo.

Hamburger with egg, avocado, and onion topped with a curry paste.

New Classics

Not necessarily new, but I made chocolate banana bread from scratch.

Grilled mushroom and cheese and Grilled cheese with bacon.  Side salad of garbanzos and tomatoes.

French Onion soup with Emmental cheese bread.

Playing with Chelsea

All low paying jobs come with some sort of benefit to distract us from the lack of fiscal compensation.  The Auxiliar program in Spain makes you work only 12 hours a week, teaching in most schools in the United States gives you upwards of 3 months vacation, and Forenex Pirenees gives you the opportunity to play football with the Chelsea organization.  Now we're not talking club players, but highly qualified coaches that know what they're talking about and are good all around people.  They also proved to be great subjects.

Bellver de Cerdanya flag

Ian

Sory

 Until next time...

Bellver de Cerdanya

After a month in a small town in Spain, you realize what you're missing in a big city.  Everything you ever expected.  Don't get me wrong, I love Bilbao, but a small town provides most people with significantly more opportunities for cultural experiences.

When I first applied for the Auxiliar program in Spain, I had envisioned my life in Spain to mirror my experience in Bellver.  I imagined that I would have a cafe that I would go to everyday and know everyone by name.  I would have a chit-chat with everyone, have my café con leche, read my Spanish paper, and improve my Spanish in the process.  Then I would head to the market and make my compra for the day.  Then I would go to the field or court and play some football or basketball against some locals.  Then at night I would finish dinner and have a nice glass of red wine on my balcony overlooking the quaint Spanish village in which I resided.

Instead I find myself in a bustling metropolis with a plethora of cafe's to choose from and zero interaction with Spanish speakers besides the necessary exchange between customer and proprietor.  Hola.  Hola.  Dos con leche.  Gracias. and to end it all. Me cobras.  2.80. Agur. Agur.  


Also, due to Bilbao's lack of land due to its geographical location, nestled in the valley of two mountains, there are very few places to play basketball or football.  No matter, even if there were land available the locals that I would meet would more than likely insist on speaking in broken English over semi-fluid Spanish.

But there's just something about the Basque country that keeps one wanting more...

The path less traveled

After my relocation to the Pyrenees mountains in northern Spain I have found myself surrounded by mountains yet again.  Unfortunately, unlike my relatively cushy job in Bilbao, I find myself putting in 10-12 hour days between teaching English, planning lessons, and coaching basketball.  In turn, I have little to no time to explore the abundant nature around me during our work week, so when the weekend came I jumped right on the opportunity.

After speaking to the cook at our hotel we decided to start off on a hike to the north of Bellver de Cerdanya.  Luckily, when we were about to take off on our adventure, he had just finished work and was heading our way.  He was kind enough to take us to the sign and explain the marks that we had to follow.  When we got there, he recommended us the easier green and white trail.  We began off down the road that we were expecting to turn into a path, but then Pedro stopped us and pointed up.

That's when it hit us that there wasn't going to be a clear, dirt lined path that we had imagined, but rather a green and white marked mountainside.  On the bright side, at least the trail was marked.  We passed 4 markers before the marks disappeared.  We went left, then right, then left again until we figured that our best option was to continue up our unpaved route.  After another 20 minutes we reached an area where we could see the path that Pedro was talking about.  We cursed Pedro and decided that the only thing we could do to salvage the hike was to reach the flag of independence on the top of the mountain.  And we did.  Until next time.