Meta #1: Comer todo.

Dutiful readers (ha), if you recall from my first entry, my first goal in coming to Spain was to eat everything. The only thing I knew about Spanish food coming here was that tapas are considered standard Spanish fare, but I didn't know what to expect in a tapa. Sr. Abadía told us in ninth grade that the small plates were designed to put on top of a wine glass in the middle ages so that flies didn't get in, and that's as much as I knew. I had no idea what to expect from Catalan food.

In the past couple weeks I've more or less fallen in love, so I'm compiling a List Of Awesome Barcelona Culinary Deliciousness.

Pan con Tomate

During the Spanish Civil War, people only had access to bread that was gross and hard, so they decided to be geniuses and rub tomatoes on it to make it softer and easier to eat.  Now pan con tomate is also rubbed with garlic and sprinkled with olive oil and a little bit of salt, and it's a staple at my señora's dinner table.  Pan con tomate is also used as sandwich bread and you can order it at a tapas bar.  It's simple, but no one on CIEE can stop eating it.

Tortilla de Patatas

On my first night in my homestay, my señora made me tortilla con patatas.  It's basically an omelet with onion and potato, and it's another one of those simple things that I can't get enough of.  Angela has made it for dinner three times and it's always a little different - she claims it's because she uses different kinds of onions - and it's always amazing.

Paella

It's more or less impossible to talk about Spanish food without mentioning paella, a rice dish that comes originally from Valencia.  I've somehow only had it once here, but it was such an experience that I'm okay with that.  Paella is a rice dish served with seafood and veggies and sometimes meat, and you can get a paella negra, which gets its color from squid ink.  When I got it in Sitges, it came out to the table in the huge black pan pictured above.  It's the kind of food that's super filling but impossible to stop eating.  Delightful with sangría.

Patatas Bravas

Patatas bravas are fried potatoes with a spicy, creamy tomato sauce and they are invariably delicious. Whenever we go out to get tapas, or even just a couple of beers, someone orders these and then everyone else gets the same idea and soon enough, everyone has a million of them. Different places have different sauces and some of them are a lot spicier than others, and I have yet to try one I don't love.

Bizcocho

My señora is obsessed with bizcocho, which can mean many things but in this case it's a cake.  Seriously, obsessed.  She has a standard recipe that she uses and then she sometimes adds things like chocolate or lemon zest or flavored yogurt.  She never adds sugar, which I think is crazy, but it works (although I thought the chocolate one could have used a little).  It's pretty amazing breakfast food, and she leaves it in the same bowl she bakes it in so it stays moist.  She gave me the recipe (except it'll need some deciphering, what does 200 grams of flour mean?) so I'm going to make it all the time at home.  There's one in the kitchen and it's taking basically all of my willpower to not eat it all right now.

Jamón con... pues, con todo 

This picture perfectly expresses how the Catalan people feel about ham.  All the time and with everything, please.

Clara y Tinto de Verano

Clara is half beer and half Fanta limón.  Tinto de verano is half red wine, half Fanta limón.  Prior to tasting both of these things I was convinced that they would be the weirdest things in the world, but they're surprisingly delicious.  Clara is one of the more refreshing things I've ever had in my life, and tinto de verano comes in a close second.  It actually tastes a lot like sangría, but it's not as sweet.

Things to not eat in Spain: hamburgers.  They usually serve them without a bun, and if you get homesick and order one at an American bar, it'll be well seasoned and delicious but the bun will be sloppy and confused.  Butter: they don't use it here, it's always olive oil. The giant heart-shaped cookies at the bakery by your school: because you'll develop an addiction, which is dangerous because those things are cheap and absolutely incredible.

The phrase I plan to stop using with such alarming frequency: "una bola de [insert gelato flavor here] en cono, por favor."  I have no regrets about the apple gelato, though. That was incredible.