Thanksgiving Spanish Style (aka Late)

It's a-cookin' - One friend said this was the Guantanamo Turkey
I had to tie it up a bit to fit it in the oven.

 First off: I COOKED an entire TURKEY!

It fit in the oven, I got a How-To guide from my family and the dinner turned out delicious!

Here is the back story: One late night about three weeks ago, after eating lots of tapas with some co-workers, someone decided to have a Fin de Semana Gastronómico. I suggested we do it Thanksgiving weekend and I started weekend off by making a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. This included mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (Thanks Amy!), stuffing, cranberry relish, corn, banana-chocolate cream pie and for an appetizer: Fried Turkey Spam. It was good... but many were somewhat scared of the mystery meat. But the ingredients were fairly normal: White Turkey, Turkey broth, modified potato starch, some chemicals...

The directions said to "Squeeze until it Pops and the Spam will slide right out"

 The hardest part was getting the turkey, then discovering it still had some feathers in it. So I got up close and personal with the turkey and plucked it with some tweezers (because that is all we had). The turkey and I are (were?) best friends by the end of it.

Well I guess the hardest part was finding a meat thermometer, which I never did find, but I was able to practice my Spanish (even though I still cannot say thermometer in spanish- but it kinda sounds like "tell-mom-I-throw").

No pumpkin pie (gonna make that no bake pumpkin pie later)-
 but banana cream with chocolate and rum. 

It was my coworkers first Thanksgiving dinner and my American (and one Spanish) friends from Malaga came bringing some sides and rum. Even though we did not eat at 2pm and didn't watch football afterwards, I thought it was a success.

The next day my coworkers used the leftovers to make Turkey Fajitas (inspired by my mom's turkey enchiladas), and today I am going up the mountain to eat at another house. I'm going to be eating rabbit: Scary... I'm sorry Thumper.

Weekend(s) Update

 I have been behind with the events happening outside my kitchen.. so here is a quick update:

Halloween came and went in Almunecar (some amazing sunsets as well), except for some amazing decorations that my friends and family gave me! My roommate was pretty impressed and slightly scared. We now have a glow in the dark ghost on our fridge. It is the only decorations that I have added to our piso. Ghosts, fake petals and candles are our decor style.

              

 For Halloween, I was actually in Barcelona visiting Ana and Albert (Ana is the "favorite daughter" in our family). We explored the city: the beach, a castle, the Olympic Village, learning lots about Spanish food and experiencing a Catalan BBQ. Which mainly involved meat but there were some tasty veggies: green grilled asparagus with a tomato dip and grilled artichokes. I LOVED those - bought one today to see what I can do with it. If any of you were wondering about my album "Weekend of Meat" on facebook, the title was inspired by that BBQ.

While in Barcelona, I was lucky enough to get to go to a real Spanish soccer (futbol/football/etc) match. Barca v Seville. Most of the players from the World Cup Spanish team play for Barca and so it was like watching royalty! I got to see lots of yelling, swearing, some confetti and also some people dressed as Where's Waldo. I was told that I witnessed one of the best games of the season. Barca won 5-0 and had possession of the ball 75% of the time. While I didn't understand/see all that happened on the field, I can understand numbers!

The next weekend, I received my first visitors in Almunecar! Barb and Ted from Jaen came down for the weekend and we explored numerous tapas restaurants, the gardens, the castle view and a very British bar (got two rounds of Strongbow/Guinness for free - thanks Michigan!). My roommate and everyone had a great picnic on the beach of bocadillos (sandwiches) with lots of veggies. 

Now for the past weekend: Molly from MN came to visit (via London where she is living) and I got to explore even more of my city, then head up to Granada and Malaga. It was a hectic weekend filled with traveling, LOTS of tapas, drinks, people and tourist sites. Despite everyone telling us that the Alhambra line would be crazy, and maybe it was because we woke up so early, but the ticket seller was sitting there waiting to sell US tickets! Lucky eh? We also went to a flamenco concert after the Alhambra - busy day. But sadly, my camera battery died while trying to take pictures of some cats at the Alhambra, sooo no pics of flamenco (or the gatos)!

Having guests in Almunecar made me appreciate my location better: the sun, the air and also how cute everything is. Even after just a month, I have already began to take my new home for granted. For the past month, Almunecar has just been a place to sleep, to walk to school and try to avoid your students when having tapas.   We'll see what the next month brings...

Maestra de Cocina

I will give ya'll an update on what I've been doing these past week (has it been a week or more? Time moves so slowly here...) but this blog will be dedicated to what I've been doing to occupy myself during the week.

As you may have heard, I was trying to get a job in a bakery, but I keep on forgetting to go to the bakery every day because I like to sleep. Also, the stuff in bakeries cost money so instead, I have been cooking lots! My first week here I made black bean soup (Ok- next time will be better), second week I made potato leek (yummy!) and the third I made a chicken curry.

 My family is amazing and they sent me a package from the US with some tasty foodstuffs: Mac and Cheese, Curry mixes and Penzey's Spices (I am currently waiting for the postman for the next package!). During one week, I was lazy and made a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese, accompanied by a tinto de verano. Also my roommate gave me some castanets to practice becoming more spanish. I still need to practice that!

 After I got back from a weekend in Barcelona (I will talk about that later), I found out that it was my roommate's birthday! Since I don't have an oven in my piso, I was extremely limited in what I was able to make. Also, I could not go out and buy a cake since it was siesta (nearly EVERYTHING in my town closes for it - except the bars of course) and I wanted to make her something because she has been so nice to me and very understanding with all my craziness/quietness.

The first attempt: Needs more time in the fridge!

After almost exhausting google search (no bake desserts, easy desserts, cooking with no oven, etc), I decided to make a Panna Cotta with this spiced red wine sauce. I had all the ingredients in my piso (except the gelatin or gelatina en espanol!). And since I've watched Top Chef so many times, I felt very special for making this fancy dessert- which was actually really easy.

Second attempt (after 8+ hours): Much better!

All you need for the Panna Cotta is: a box of whipping cream (nata para mandar- I think), 1/2 cup of sugar, 2.5 sheets of gelatin (you have to soak these in water for a couple minutes before using), and  a vanilla bean (also honey if you wish).

Making the spiced red wine sauce

To make the panna cotta, bring the cream, sugar and whole vanilla bean to a simmer. Remove from heat, cut open the bean and scrape out the black stuff and put that back into the milk. Stir in the gelatin sheets until they have dissolved (about 30-60 seconds). Then you pour the mixture into your molds (I used out water glasses and you can put honey in the bottom of them for extra flavor) and put the cups in the fridge for about 4 hours. To remove from molds, just heat up a bowl of water and put the mold in it. Slide a knife around the edges and then flip the cup. It should slide out -if not stick it back into the water.

Then the red wine sauce, all you need is about 2 cups of wine (I used cheap box wine: 55 cents!), 1 cup sugar, a cinnamon stick, orange zest and for some reason I stuck a bay leaf in it. But you can add anything you think would taste good in it. Bring all that stuff to a simmer and let it go until it turns syrupy (about 15 minutes), stirring often. Then turn off the heat, cover, and let steep for about 20 minutes, or as long as you like. Strain out of extra bits then bring it back to a boil for a few minutes until even more syrupy. Let cool and refrigerate! You can put this sauce on anything - my friends and I put it on some crepes I made and I also put some in vanilla yogurt. It's yummy.

 The next thing I attempted to make was Tortilla de Patatas, or Spanish Omelette. All the professors at my school thought it was quite impressive that I was attempting this without anyone teaching me how too - but Google is an amazing thing and Ana explained how to make it as well. Next time I might cook the potatoes a bit longer, add a bit more spices and also more eggs. But overall it was yummy- especially with Famous Daves BBQ sauce or the lentil stew one of my professors gave me. I made chili con carne this week, and I bet that would taste good on it as well!

I shall end this blog with another sweet I made. Lately, I've been making alot of crepes because they are hella easy and require little ingredients (Flour and water). This time I had some extra apples in the fridge which I would never eat, so I decided to caramelize them to make them yummy.
To caramelize an apple, just peel and cut them into small bits, heat about 2tbsps of butter on the stove, put the apples in with a fair amount of sugar and I put cinnamon in too. Sautee on a medium high heat until the apples are cooked, but not mushy. Place apples in a bowl, and if you want some extra sauce, add some apple juice (or in my case orange juice) to the pan. Scrap the bottom of the pan, and simmer for a couple minutes. Then place into a crepe and eat!

Tonight, I will eat some left over chili con carne (I will post that recipe later- once I can remember it) with toast. I am super excited today because Molly is coming to visit me! I hope she likes chili- if not there are plenty of tapas to eat as well.

El medico esta en el cactus

Today, after nearly three weeks of a cold, I got the guts up to go to the doctor. I had my insurance card and information book in hand, I google-mapped the location of the office and I set out. But I got lost. I found 9 Carrera de la Concepción and 2 Carrera de la Concepción, but no t3 (which was what I needed if you couldnt have guessed that). I asked for directions in the candy/snack hut nearby and he said, "El medico esta en el cactus." Or I thought he said that. After my blank stare and a hoarse cough, the snack man grunted and led me to the doctor. It turns out the building's name is Edificio del Cactus. 

Now the next leg of the adventure. I went into the Medico to find two very empty room with some really loud classical music playing. My bedroom back home was bigger than this place. I wander through, knock on the open office door, look at the doc's medical books, examining room (more like a closet) and then decide to wait to see if someone comes. After 10 minutes, I get bored, decide to go deal with my phone and then come back. After 30 minutes, I return, and amazingly, the doctor is in. Nice old man, spoke slowly and clearly for me, enjoyed saying "correcto" after everything I said (even after "buenas tardes"). But he gave me a prescription, told me to eat three fruits a day because that keeps the world healthy, and in 7 days I should be good. Yay!

Weekend Update: Last weekend I went to Malaga again. Met up with Amy, Roxann and some other people. First night, we made fajitas (the Mexican in Spain way), then hung out at the hostel. The next day Amy, this other auxilare Kim and I went to see cloudy Marbella (has the richest mile of coast in Spain), ate some tasty pastries, drank tinto de verano on the beach, rejected the numerous Asian women selling massages, then ate wayyyy too much for lunch (fried food!). Went out with some authentic Spanish guys but headed home early (for spanish time). On Sundays, many of the cultural activities are free so we headed up to the Alacazaba in Malaga. Beautiful views! Now I feel out of breath (I know I typed this and didn't talk), will go make a crepe for dessert and then go to bed! I shall leave you all with a few pictures. Enjoy!

Churros con chocolate with Roxann, She got to go behind the counter!

Empty Beach in Marbella 

Westerly view from the Alacazaba

The chicken curry I made yesterday - Delicious but not spicy despite me accidently dousing it in Chili Pepper (says something about the Spainish idea of "spicy."

Weird = Raro

I was inspired today from a discussion with one of my teachers about the weird of Minnesota. While he did concede that Spain was one of the loudest countries in the world (supposedly Japan is louder?), he thought nothing else was out of ordinary. If I grew up here, I would think having conversations involves yelling at each other. But here is some of the weird/different things I have experienced (as a foreigner) in my short stay here.

The TV
It is horrible. Horrible. If you know what I watch back home, me saying that the TV is bad means it is Bad (with a capital B). Most of the shows are of the following formula:

Jerry Springer (with female host) + Judge Judy + Yelling Spaniards + Big Brother = 1 hour show

While I cannot understand much about what is happening in the shows, I get the general gist. Here is an example of a show I watched today: it consisted of a debate over whether or not the hotel manager should be responsible for young people jumping off balconies (balconing en espanol!). The show started with a female judge (Isabel Winkles) who listened to a Mother and the Hotel Manager state their case in a court like setting. Then she goes backstage to come to a conclusion, and during that time the audience gets to discuss with the two plaintiffs and the two hosts. This discussion is the Jerry Springer aspect of the show. Then after about 40 minutes, she comes out and rules her descision (which I couldnt understand). The rest of the shows are your standard soaps (I love Fiscia o quimica) and even the news shows usually lean towards TMZ and Entertainment Tonight type content. Oh, and the newsanchors usually talk to you while looking in a mirror and then the camera moves away.

The Fashion

Couldnt find a real pic, but this is the idea.

Men wear purses, have mullets/rat tails and v necks (ewww) and the girls wear whatever they want no matter how old they are. I have teachers at my school, who are at least 50 years old, wearing short skirts and tank tops. Women (of all ages) love wearing leggings and shirts that don't cover their bums. I am all for their self-confidence to wear way to tight clothing, but it must be my midwest, repressed upraising to not want my muffin top out in the open for everyone to see. Seriously, you do not understand until you see how many people, even grandmas, going out in just leggings that are usually too small. Maybe it is happening in the US and I just dont know about it, but seriously, eww....

The Food
Going to the grocery store is always an interesting experience and I usually learn something new every time. Things arent organized like they are back home, which is logical, but I am still learning my way around and realizing things like canned food is usually next to the beer and milk, flour and sugar are put together next to cleaning supplies. Also, asparagus isnt green, looks like fingers and comes in cans. I also thought it was only a Dutch thing, but they have hotdogs with cheese inside of them and instead of coming in cans, it comes in normal hotdog wrappers. But I have to say, I love the fact you get free tapas when you buy a beer/wine. Also the prices for things are good. However, I would love some real bacon sometime soon...

Still here

This was a week of mixed emotions (as is with all weeks) and it felt like it was looooooooooong. In short, this week I barely worked, made some soup, had a mini break down, got sick (twice), went to a feria/fair, and now feeling a little better about the situation (except for still being sick – but all of Spain is sick). So… here are the details:

The (Lack of a) Bridge

On Tuesday, all of Spain had a day off of work and many people got Monday off as well (called a Puente which I believe means Bridge). However, my school doesn’t believe in extra holidays (how un-Spanish of them!) and had flyers posted all around the school saying THERE WAS SCHOOL ON MONDAY, that the only extra days off were one day in December and one in March. Anyhoo… I went to work, my roommate went to Jaen, and I was completely alone for about 48 hours. You could say I went a bit stir crazy, I didn’t understand why I was here, how I would survive here with my (very) limited Spanish, knowing no one in my town, etc etc etc. Think of 48 hours of just stewing in that. Thanks for everyone who I made listen to my rants, and tried to calm me down. Let’s just say I am a bit more balanced after the last weekend.

La Feria – Imagine the State Fair a million times dirtier

Some others and I originally had the crazy idea of renting a car, driving to Cadiz and seeing a free concert, but that failed. Instead, I took the bus to Jaen (after a morning at the beach) to invade Barb’s new piso. I met Barb in MN a bit before we all headed to Spain, and it turns out we grew up just a few blocks from each other in STP. But she went to Nativity and I went to Groveland, so of course we never interacted. She was kind enough to let me crash at her piso (even though she moved in just the day before) and follow her around Jaen for the weekend. It seemed like a very small world that weekend: meeting another auxilare from MN, seeing Joanna on the streets  (I met her through one of my high school friends and met her in Malaga), and seeing many of the same people again over the weekend.  

The main even that weekend was the Feria, or the fair. It is somewhat like the MN State Fair, but minus the animals, agriculture, butter sculptures and fried cheese curds. But there was a lot of churros (I ate none!!! WHAT?), pizza, bocadillos, kebabs and other Spanish food along with amusement rides (they go 10x longer than rides in the US and a bit sketchier) and at night there are tents of music. Next time, I might just wear my rubber boots to the feria because it was disgusting. I am scared to clean my shoes… very scared. But it was a lot of run dancing, listening to the crazy mix of music, people watching and the Spanish guys (except that one with the dreads – silly boy).

I also got to experience my first botellon, which is where all the young people gather in a park (there was a playground) and drink themselves silly before going to the feria. We were supplied with cups, boxes of wine and some lemonade and proceeded to drink the night away (don’t even ask about the bathrooms… or lack of). It wasn’t at all like drinking in the states (or in Canada). Instead of drinking an insane amount in a short period of time, you drink over several hours (I think we started about 10pm and were out until 6am or 8am). Very different cultures.

First Lessons

This week I got to do my first lessons at school, which are difficult. Everyone tells me that I need to speak slower, because no one can understand my accent (even when I speak veeerrrrryyyyy sllllooooooowwwwly and enunciate all of my words). I guess Minnesotans are the Andalucians of the US, where we only pronounce half the words (I guess I pronounce T's like D's?) and slur the rest. Crazy. The majority of my conversations recently have been very slow, disjointed and a weird mix of Spanish and English. 

Sometimes I wonder what these kids will learn from me since my lessons are always too hard for them to understand and I spend most of my time in this room speaking to their teachers: 

How to Keep Myself Occupied and Not Crazy

In order to keep myself occupied (and try not to spend all my days in the flat with a broken TV that hates me but loves my roommate) I am giving myself a quest. I am to befriend a baker in the panderia and then once they somewhat recognize me, I am going to bomb them with this weird request: I will work for free if you teach me how to bake. The bread, crossaints, cookes (they have ones called Sonrisas!) are all just so tasty.

My current errand is to buy some more shoes, because wearing my bright blue Keds and red sneakers is getting somewhat tiring. And I start spanish class tonight!  

Da, Da, Da...

So I am kinda getting into the swing of things here, my spanish still sucks but I didnt get as many "WTF?" looks this week as I did the last. Right now I am watching Step Up for the Streets in Spanish in hope to improve my Spanish (and perhaps my dance moves too).

The First Week of School

This week I started at I.E.S. Al Andalus. Most of my time is in conversation classes with the professors where we discuss random things and then prepare for the actual class time. I am helping with one class of 12 year olds, helping teaching them natural science (which has some words I can barely pronounce in english), math (the kids cannot pronounce "Divided by"  to save their life- but it is so cute) and English (with the bilingual coordinator- last class consisted of the kids asking anything and everything about my life in MN, including my favorite futbol team and since I had none I explained American football to them and the Vikings... or Veekings). I didnt get to do P.E., music or art with them yet because I was in Granada for Orientation on Thursday.

A Granada

Luckily, thanks to friends, I found out about an orientation in Granada for the Language Assistants. Once I got the information from Paco (my coordinator) and after some long drawn out explanation on how to get there, what bus to take, what the building looked like, etc etc etc, I was ready to learn more about the program, see Granada for the first time and meet some more peoples.  So I got up before first light, caught the first bus and watched the sun rise over the mountains and sea. As I watched the darken streets of Almunecar pass by me, a sense of ease descended upon me. I felt that I made the right decision coming here, despite not knowing much Spanish. I attempted to take a picture of the waning crescent moon, but it was too dark and the bus was moving to quickly... so I drew a picture instead.

I successfully traveled the Granada public bus system, had enough time for a cafe con leche and then headed to the orientation. It consisted for 3 hours of quickly spoken spanish (I understood 20%), lots of questions about the NIE but afterwards there was FREE food. Paelle, ensalada, sangria and flan. I ate with some new friends and Valentina (who I talked to alot on Facebook before coming to Spain). The restaurant was at a "Carmen," which is a traditional Arabic type of house there consisting of a giant courtyard surrounded by a wall. Many of them we turned into restaurants and are very pretty.

After the food, some of us wandered around the old ciity for a bit, ate some tapas, gelato and drank tinto de verano. But since I had to work in the morning, I caught the last bus to Almunecar. At the bus station, I met another auxilar from the orientation who lived in Salobrena (15 minutes from my town). Hopefully we will be able to hang out sometime before she moves to Granada, but I will be returning to Granada hopefully soon! (Before the big traveling starts)

Making Soup

One thing that I miss from back home is spicy food and an assortment of spices. I probably just havent found them here in Almunecar, but this week I did attempt to make black bean soup. I found some semi-picante peppers at the store, but despite putting twice as many into the soup it didnt taste spicy at all. Next time will be better! One successful dish I made was just frying up some sweet potatoes (I am SO happy they exist here). This week I am going to try to make either Jambalaya or Chicken Paprikash.

The Spanish do Oktoberfest

This past weekend, I battled between going to Granada or Malaga. But ultimately Malaga won out because they had a Fiesta de Cerveza (or Oktoberfest) and a feria in Fuengirola. So I repeated the voyage to Malaga (I had phone credit this time- but both my phone and camera died halfway through the weekend- thus no pictures of the beer, but I bet you can use your imagination!), and Amy willingly housed me again (THANKS SO MUCH!). Both Friday and Saturday night we ended up at Oktoberfest where they actually had big beers (liters! and half liters) along with better beers than San Miguel and Cruzcampo, but they still tasted like eww. Brats were two euros, the fries were tasty but I would stay away from the apple strudel.

Ok, so alot happened at Oktoberfest. The first night we befriended some silly Spaniards and then joined some drinking games between some Germans and Dutch boys. It involved rock, paper, scissors, drinking beer (spilling lots) and just being loud. Later that evening (around 4 am), we went on a quest to find churros, but instead found some crazy twins. Two identical blonde Spaniard, dressed the same (except for the color of their shirts) that were their own two man act. One was "pregnant," not embarrassed, with  the Franz Ferdinand eggs. It's hard to describe exactly what happened, but we ended up talking for an hour on the street.

The next night, the power went out at Amy's flat, so we changed out pasta dinner plans to a brucetta type meal. Then later we ended up at Oktoberfest again since it was raining and no one had the energy to go to the feria. This time, we were able to win a contest and get Oktoberfest Paulener hats!

Still we were not able to find churros... instead I just settled for some coffee and a bus ride back to Almunecar.  I am starting to enjoy my time here more and once I get my NIE, I can take some free Spanish classes at a local college to help my everything!