You know when you’re watching a movie and the actor’s lips are moving, but the audio doesn’t match the movement? This is how I feel in my Spanish class. I can hear fine and I can see the words escaping lips as they’re spoken, but my brain lags behind trying to compute what is being said. I try to make mental notes of missed words as I scribble down others, but the reality is entire sentences of information become lost. Friday’s lesson was one of the more familiar things to me; comida! Except the 50 or so new vocabulary words I noted made me think I don’t know shit. Good news, though! Classes are not scheduled every day of the week like I thought. Whew! I am relieved for the break this weekend. I’ve completely neglected all the things I really want to do para libros en Espanol. Don’t get me wrong – I want to study! But not for 5 hours after every class then going to bed feeling like I ran a marathon while trying to solve an incalculable math problem. I hear the slower paced evening classes calling me after this 2-week course ends.
I’ve been to Carrefour so many times now I should probably sign up for a membership and reap those sweet sale rewards. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve made various egg omelets, blueberry pancakes, and “Texas” chili. Any ideas which seasoning is the most important ingredient for chili? I learned from the internet, after cooking sans chili powder, that even if I found the seasoning here in Madrid, it likely won’t taste like the one I know from the states. And then I found a blog written by a kindred Texan who found herself in the same predicament 2 years ago. Black Pepper & Co has been added to my ‘places of interest’ list.
The pimenton picante I bought was more or less a successful purchase since it has a really lovely, subtle smoky flavor with a hint of a kick. My “Texas” chili wasn’t quite right, but it tasted good. This is how much I spent on the ingredients:
3.50 for thick ass burger patties (thinking ahead; set one aside for an actual burger)
€.50 for a can of tomatoes (chili had to wait a few days after La Tomatina; I couldn’t stomach the sight of this fucking can)
€.55 – 1.00 granulated garlic
€.55 – 1.00 ground cumin
€.55 – 1.00 oregano
€1.00 – 1.75 pimenton picante
I lost the receipt with the seasoning prices, so those are best guess price ranges. The pimenton was the most expensive while the other 3 spices were less than a euro each. I had already purchased onion, avocado, pepper and cheese on an earlier grocery trip, so this is all I had to buy!
I happened to be at Mercadona when I was shopping for pancake ingredients, but the baking product arrangements at both grocery stores are so odd to me. I found flour and leavening agents on the first floor next to produce and frozen desserts. Sugar was (most logically) stocked near the coffee on the second floor. Couldn’t find vanilla flavoring or maple syrup. Didn’t understand the boxed milk concept. I did, however, find vanilla ice cream, honey and frozen blueberries. Nothing a little creativity can’t resolve!
I mixed sugar, egg, sunflower oil (courtesy of the Airbnb), a spoonful of vanilla ice cream, flour, salt, baking powder, water and blueberries together to create something more like a pancake than my chili turned out Texan. While I’ve missed maple syrup since making a few batches of pancakes, the honey does well enough to complete the dish as a sweet topper. This is how much I spent on pancake ingredients;
€.60 for 6 packets of baking powder
€1.95 for a 12 pack of honey
€.69 for a bag of sugar
€.43 for a bag of flour
€1.35 for ice cream
€1.79 for frozen blueberries
I already had the eggs from my first grocery trip. By the way! The pricey Bio Eggs I purchased came from an ecological farm. I have since found slightly cheaper free-range eggs and this blog which helpfully describes what the egg stamp means. Despite the odd arrangement of products at the stores, they have the same marketing sense as any American store by making the most expensive choices the easiest to find.
I intend to have a theme in each blog post where I discuss a thing and some other things stemming from it rather than random rambling like I might do in a personal diary. So much has happened over the past week, however, I’m tossing that ideology out the window for a moment to bring you a compilation of battle wounds abroad. Oh sure, I could talk about Retiro Park or the museums I’ve visited thus far, but places I like around the city will come soon enough. Besides, everyone likes to hear a good battle wounds story.
As my sister likes to say, I’m a clumsy bitch. La Tomatina, unfortunately, was not my first day of injuries. From the top! Ten minutes after landing in the city I cut my hand on a broken buckle strap as I pulled my bag off of the conveyor belt. Just a few hours later at the Airbnb I walked into the bed frame knees first 3 times (and 1 more good time a few days later to remind myself how much it hurt and to stop doing it).
By my second night in the bnb, I found 4, what I think were, spider bites on my legs. I wondered if I had gotten them from the streets, because the apartment was utterly immaculate upon my arrival. But then a week later I awoke to 3 more bites around my left foot and the allergic reaction I had to that scared me enough to consider visiting a doctor.
My sweet host bombed the shit out of the place after I showed him my foot and I’m happy to announce no bites since! I can’t, however, get the bug spray smell out of here and I suspect nasal irritation from it. Last night I was leaving an acquaintance’s flat and missed the last step on my way down the stairs. If you know me in real life, then this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this story… I have somehow missed the last step of staircases an embarrassing number of times throughout my adult life. My left foot, which recently recovered from the spider bites, is now swollen from a sprain.
Sometimes I wonder how I’m still alive. I ventured out for coffee this morning, but the rest of the day will be spent icing my foot and -you guessed it- estudiando.