HABICHUELAS BLANCAS

I am thinking of renaming my blog "Recipes from around the world". Since I was informed that I don't have to work Fridays and my work week is only 16 hours (seriously, how is this possible?) I am going to dedicate a good amount of time to perfecting my kitchen skills. My first recipe was provided by Angelita, my gaditana host mom and I have a feeling there will be many more to come.

HABICHUELAS BLANCAS (White cannellini bean stew)

1/2 kilo of cannellini beans (1.1 lbs)

1 spicy chorizo, cut into one inch pieces

1 large green or red bell pepper, cut into one inch pieces

1 large onion, chopped

2 TBL. ground sweet red pepper (not spicy)

2 sticks of celery, cut into one inch pieces

2 carrots, chopped into one inch pieces

2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces

1 bay leaf

2 garlic cloves (chopped or mashed)

3 TBL olive oil

Salt

Pressure cooker

1. Soak the beans overnight in water

2. Drain the beans and put all the ingredients (minus the salt) in the pressure cooker

3. Cover with cold water (about two inches above the ingredients, one inch if you want it less soupy) and turn the pressure cooker to medium-high heat

4. Once the pressure valve starts spinning, time to cook for 20 minutes

5. Remove the pressure valve and let sit until the air stops blowing

6. Salt to taste and serve with baguette bread

¡Arriba, Abajo, Al Centro, Pa' Dentro!

It has been almost three weeks since I arrived in Madrid and so far I have been resisting Spain-ifying my Spanish. I have been utilizing the lisp (gra-thias instead of gracias) even though I feel like I am going to spit on someone and I try hard to use the vosotros instead of ustedes. But I still feel impervious to its influence. The city itself feels welcoming, but not necessarily the people. I feel like my experience navigating Madrid will be one of an outsider (obviously), because everyone I surround myself is foreign to this place. My roommate is Venezuelan. My friends are an amalgam of different backgrounds: Australian, Belgian, Paraguayan, Peruvian. Everything I have learned about this city has been from them, from the eyes of immigrants and foreigners. I know this will begin to change and I want to get out there and meet Spaniards, but it is also somewhat amusing to me that I always end up hanging out with Latinos. My roommate Mariana asked me today how my parents felt about giving birth to a Latina girl. I guess I throw people off when I speak with Mexican slang words, listen to Spanish music and prepare yerba maté and tacos.

Last night I went out for my friend Erin's birthday. Her Irish cousins are here visiting so where did they want to go two nights in a row? Moore's, the Irish pub near Plaza Mayor. I was talking to a guy from Bilbao (Basque city) and he told me I speak perfect Spanish but with a crazy accent. I told him it is a hybrid of Mexico/Guatemala and Spain and that it confuses everyone. It was also necessary to explain to him that it is easy to get lost when simple words like "straw" and "toilet" are different in every country you go to. I am thinking of making an excel spreadsheet of Spanish words comparing each country's translation.

I did something truly Spanish the other night when Mariana's madrileño friends took us to a flamenco bar in the La Latina neighborhood. We got there around 3am (because at 4am they close the doors and no one else can enter), and were just in time to hear the beginning of the show. It wasn't really a show in the normal sense of the word, just a bunch of old men sitting around, chain smoking, and alternately singing flamenco songs, eliciting occasional "olés" from the crowd. I would have stayed longer but I am still adjusting to the cigarette smoke. I left with a horrible headache that persisted through the night and until the next morning until I finally woke up around 1pm and took some paracetamol (the Spanish-speaking world's ibuprofen).

Picture on the left: Plaza de Coscorros in the La Latina neighborhood (amazing view from the Irish cousin's weekend flat)

Picture on the right: the hallway leading up to my flat

¡Andaaa, hijaaa!

My five nights in Cádiz can be summed up in a few words: empanadas, cerveza con limón and la playa.

The first thing that Angelita (my host mom) said to me when I got there was "Wow, you are so skinny!" and "Do you have a boyfriend?" And then she began to pile food onto my plate and was disappointed to see that I no longer have the same appetite I did last time I was there. The most surprising thing to see was Carmen, who was about 14 mos. when I left and is now 5 years old and the cutest little spoiled brat you have ever seen. Still blonde, and still mala, she talks to Angelita like she is an adult. Carmen says to her "Anda, hija, dame de comer!!" Translation: "Let's go, child, feed me my food" and Angelita starts to spoon-feed her lunch. She is FIVE years old. 

I got to play tour guide this week while Tien and Annie were here. We ate a lot and spent some relaxing hours on the beach. I felt like I was discovering Spanish tapas for the first time in Cádiz because when I lived in Angelita's house I never ate out in restaurants (her food is amazing). It was a bit difficult to understand the menus at the bars because there are so many names for parts of the ham, as well as names that don't necessarily explain what you are getting. So I decided to order "Distraído Panceta Muy Finita" thinking it was like Italian bacon only thinner. What we got was "Very Fine Pork Belly" which was a whitish gray color with a very thin line of meat running down the middle. That is when I realized why the waiter kind of smiled when I ordered it. It tasted exactly how the ham legs smell and we choked it all down, wrapped in bread and potatoes. Nothing I would ever order again but it is something I can add to the list of "strange foods I have eaten" along with cow brains and pig tongue. 

I spent the rest of the week eating empanadas de atún (tuna empanadas) because they are amazing and only cost 1,60 euro. I felt I needed to stock up on food before I went back to Madrid, the most expensive city in this country. 

"People in Madrid are always stressed out and running around. They aren't like us gaditanos, laid back and always enjoying life." -Antonio, my host dad

Una vuelta por Cádiz

My Cádiz Reunion Tour started off pretty rough. It began with the 8 hour bus ride that I was told would be less than 7. Fortunately we stopped about 4 hours into the ride because my behind was getting a little tired of sitting. Fortunately the seat next to me was open so I tried a variety of sitting positions. Feet up on the seat, feet down. I tried sleeping sitting up until I quickly realized I would probably get a headache as every bump quickly landed my head sharply against the window.

All in all though it was a fairly easy ride. The problem was the arrival. Four years ago the buses used to stop in the Casco Viejo (old part of Cádiz where my host parents live) after stopping in La Puerta de Tierra (the new part). So we arrive in the new part and half the bus gets off. Then, thinking we are going to turn around and head to the old part, we start heading down the highway to San Fernando (a neighboring town about a half hour away from the Casco Viejo). I jump up to ask the driver if he is going to stop in Cádiz. "No, that WAS Cádiz." So he drops me off in San Fernando and tells me there is a bus stop to Cádiz "down there". I walk aimlessly for 15 minutes, on the verge of tears, and do not find a single bus stop, bus, or taxi. Thinking to myself, this isn't a big deal, you will get to Cádiz, I walk back to the rude bus driver. "I don't see the stop anywhere." After a few seconds he tells me, oh it is because they moved it. So helpful this man was. I spend another 15 minutes looking for it (all the while carrying a particularly heavy duffel bag) in very humid weather. I call Katrina, the new UW host student. She has no idea where I am (she just moved here) and starts looking up phone numbers for taxis. I finally see a taxi and flag it down and end up paying 20 euro to get to my host parent's house, which was exactly what I paid to get from Madrid to "Cádiz".

Así es la vida. ¡Y eso no me importa porque ya estoy de vuelta en Cádiz!

Andando de vago

Sitting at the front desk while Eliseo is in the bathroom

My hostel: three floors up from the Starbucks

There really isn't too much going on in my life at the moment. I think I am starting to appreciate the art of doing nothing. This is mostly because the dollar/euro rate has been severely depressing, but also because I don't feel all that much in a rush to explore because I know I have the whole year.

Every morning at 11am we are kicked out of the hostel until 2pm so that Olga (the owner) and her boyfriend (the Polish guy) can clean and do laundry. I am usually the last one out, and usually late at that. But Ronnie, the guy who works nights, doesn't care. He is from Paraguay and taught me how to make yerba maté paraguay-style. First you cook it on a fry pan with sugar until it looks burnt, then you pour that into almost-boiling water, then strain it and serve it with milk and more sugar. It smelled like burnt coffee but actually tasted pretty good.

Tonight is my last night at the hostel. I feel kind of weird leaving it since it has become my home in a way. It has been a week and a half but has felt like 4. I find myself mentioning people in the hostel who stayed here awhile ago and saying things like "wow, I haven't seen that Belgian guy in about three weeks" then realizing that was a fairly stupid comment. But I guess that goes to illustrate how time is fairly irrelevant here, especially when you have nothing to do. 

I have also taken to cooking for the United World Hostel staff at various times which has been well received. The other day I FINALLY found corn tortillas at this "tienda latina" so I made tortillas, beans, onions, cilantro, tomato, and avocado. Eliseo came in (he works the later evening shift) and at first told me he wasn't hungry (I think he questioned if I could really cook Mexican style food) and then came back twenty minutes later and ate a taco. When asked if he wanted another one, he said "of course". 

As well as cooking I have taken to stocking toilet paper when it is out, and buzzing people in when the front desk is empty. In return I got to do my laundry for free (saved 14euro!) and I am going to leave a bag of food in the kitchen while I am in Cádiz to pick up for later. I have been told twice "Don't tell Olga though, she'll get pissed". All in all it has been a good run at the United World International Hostel (that name is just "pesado") and it is off to start a new chapter in my Madrid experience.

Dos pasos en adelante

Best parking job ever. Paseo de la Castellana.










My new favorite restaurant: Dos Passos
albóndigas de la casa (house meatballs)


I called Angelita, my host mom in Cádiz, yesterday to see if I can stay with them she answers with "Hola Guapaaaaaa" and then tells me, of course you can stay with us, are you kidding? There is a new baby in the house, my host sister got married and had a baby boy! So excited to see the kiddies. I leave Sunday and will stay through Friday and when I get back I officially move into my new flat!!

I met a Brazilian guy yesterday who has been traveling through Europe. He was here to visit his good friend who plays for Valencia's team (he just left Arsenal) and is also on the Brazilian national team. Kind of awestruck, but he was equally impressed when I said Nirvana's bassist used to live a few blocks away from us in Seattle.

La Noche en Blanco

After days of searching, well, only four, I have found an apartment! My roommate, Mariana, from Venezuela, is so nice. She RECYCLES (she actually separates everything into garbage, recycling and yard waste) and wants to introduce me to her friends. She is 27 and studying journalism and working at a bank. Her family was visiting from Venezuela so I was able to meet her uncle (who spent the whole time complaining about Chávez), and her little nephew who was adorable. I move in the 26th of this month. The piso is in between Estación Atocha and Parque Retiro (if you don't know Madrid, just google map "Metro Menendez Pelayo, Madrid" and I am about a block away from the metro stop that appears). My bed is elevated and has a pull-out bed underneath it and we have a decent sized couch so please, I will be taking reservations for anyone who plans on stopping in!

A few nights ago I went out for La Noche en Blanco, basically a big party that happens every September on the first full moon. From 11pm to 7am the streets were packed with people, drinking, walking, waiting in lines (some up to 2 hours) because most of the museums and theaters in the city stay open and are free. I was able to go out with actual Spaniards, Carlos and Carolina and their friends, who were super nice (my friend Ashley in Seattle gave me her friends' contact info) and basically made fun of every art exhibit they had out in the streets, which was pretty hilarious because some of them were a bit ridiculous. One was a noise machine with sounds of waves to make you feel like you are at the beach, another was a big red glass spaceship looking thing that everyone waited a half hour for to just take a picture with it.

Carlos: Qué coño, porque estoy aquí en el frío escuchando música similando unas olas en la playa.

Oh, and I was just informed by my new boss that I have Fridays off...