I'm in Love with the Pan Pan

Before coming to Spain, I had severely underestimated the differences between Spanish and American food. I knew that lunch was the biggest meal of the day, but I had no idea it was a three course feast! I don't consider myself a very picky eater, and there have only been a few foods I would prefer not to eat...(gazpacho...). Otherwise, the cooking of my senora Sisi is amazing! She cooks much of the staple food of Spain, so I have been lucky to get an authentic experience.

My host mom HATES pictures...so I had to recycle an old one, but here she is cooking in the kitchen. 

My host mom prefers to do her shopping at both supermarkets and smaller stores. She goes to the supermarket about two times a week to get items such as cereal and household products. However, she buys all the bread, fruit, fish, and meat in local smaller shops. She is meticulous about planning the meals, and typically she goes to these shops 2-3 times a week, depending on what she is going to prepare. She told me she spends a lot on food, over 60 euros in a week. To me, this didn't seem like much compared to how much my mom spends in the US when I go shopping with her, but Sisi really only buys for lunches because they don't snack much or eat a lot for breakfast and dinner in Spain. She was very animated because the prices of food have risen so much in the past years. She considers Spain to be in an economic crisis, so for example, the price of the bread she likes to buy has nearly doubled in the past few years. 

My host mom spends about an hour and a half each day preparing lunch (my host dad is actually responsible for throwing together breakfast and dinner). Usually, she will start to prepare sauce or other plates the night before. She has to cook every dish one by one because they don't have a full size oven. I honestly am shocked she is able to serve four people using an oven that is the same size as a microwave. She prides herself on putting a lot of time and love in her cooking. My host dad jokes that he didn't marry her because she was beautiful or intelligent, but because she is an amazing cook (only a joke, of course). 

It is amazing to me that Sisi is able to prepare everything in such a small kitchen with very limited counter space. 

The main course of our lunch today: blood sausage, chicken, potatoes, and shrimp. 

My host mom loves to eat healthy, and her favorite thing to make is salad. This salad is not what most Americans would think of as salad because it usually only has a few small pieces of lettuce and is mostly cucumber, tomato, onions, and sometimes even tuna. She prefers to eat vegetables in general, so a lot of her dishes include cauliflower or tomatoes as the main ingredient. However, she still always uses olive oil and onions in her dishes, which at first I disliked and now have grown to not even notice. And of course, every meal is served with a loaf of bread! Every lunch, we start with a type of soup. The main course usually consists of some type of meat (chicken or ham) or fish, and we almost always have potatoes. The meal ends with a dessert of either cake or ice cream with a cup of coffee,

Dessert today was a cookie called turron that is typically eaten around Christmas. However, this was more like a soft chocolate bar with bits of Oreo in it.

My favorite food my host mom has made: fried eggplants with honey!

My host mom doesn't watch any cooking shows but rather finds receipts in magazines or the Internet. Cooking is one of her favorite things to do, so she follows many food blogs. She learned how to cook from her mother. She had all sisters and was the middle child, so it was something of a tradition in her family. She said she was "de tal palo tal astilla," which is similar to the phrase like mother like daughter or a chip off the old block in English. When she began having a family, she really started putting a lot of care into her meals, and she even used a phrase similar to "the stomach is the fastest way to a man's heart" in reference to my host dad.

Last Friday, my family took me to the restaurant "Productos del Sur" for lunch. Going out to eat is not very common in Spain, so this was a special event that my family talked about the whole week leading up to it. The restaurant uses only ingredients grown and made in the south of Spain, and all the food was very authentic. It was by far the best food I have had at any of the restaurants here, and I would recommend everyone to go!   

We started off with drinks and tapas, and then we shared all of our entrees. I tried "solomillo iberico," which is a type of free-range pork. I also had various plates with chicken, fried and fresh vegetables, and french fries topped with eggs and ham. I have never enjoyed a meal so much in my life; every bite was delicious, and I am incredibly grateful to my family for taking me there!