Monthly Archives: April 2012

Tapeando in the US—Possible?

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Last night, I had the pleasure of going to eat at BARcelona Tapas in Indianapolis with my mother, my father, and a family friend. Obviously, it is a “tapas restaurant.” I was excited to return to the restaurant. I had been there once before, back in 2007, before I ever went to Spain. I wanted to evaluate it now that I knew what the real experience is like.

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[Source]

I wrote a post on tapeando already. Tapeando is, basically, the art of going for tapas. As I said in the earlier post, the point of tapeando is not to stay in one bar. It’s not a sit-down dinner at all. Ideally, you can hit up anywhere from three to six bars in one night, depending on your hunger and stamina. When I go out with Mario and his friends, we all put a set amount of money in the bote and put someone in charge of it. Then, we go from place to place, not worrying about it, as the person in charge will take care of paying. At each place, everyone orders a drink: beer, wine, or water (usually). With this order, we get a free tapa to eat. There are all sorts of tapas, and I don’t have the time to get into all of them, but they can be very, very good and, of course, not so good. You have to know where to go!

In the US, the craze for tapas is just starting. Tapas restaurants are popping up everywhere. Spanish cooking is beginning to get the recognition it deserves, thanks in part to chefs like José Andrés, who as this Wall Street Journal article states, arrived in the US in 1991 with little money, back at a time when basically no one knew what Spanish cuisine even consisted of.

My favorite tapas are usually cheese-related. (Surprise, surprise!) To me, nothing is quite as good as a slice of queso manchego with dulce de membrillo (a type of quince jam, which my mother-in-law makes at home). I also love patatas alioli, smoked salmon with cream cheese and bread, croquettes, and olives. Se me hace agua la boca.

Tapas are great, no doubt about it. What’s so great about them? It’s not just the food. It’s the atmosphere, the fun you have standing up in a noisy bar with your friends, drinking and eating great food. It’s walking from place to place after a few cañas. It’s the shared experience.

With that said, I wonder whether the tapas experience can ever truly triumph in the States. Most of all, it’s because we just don’t have the walkability of Spain—except in big cities of course. But I’ve always had the most fun in a small town, Zamora, because Mario grew up there, and he knew all the best places. We love going to El Chillón, a bar known for its tortilla con salsa de callos (a Spanish potato omlette with tripe sauce. Yep, you read that right. It’s delicious!) I know that in Crawfordsville, my home town, there is really no such thing as walkability. We have to drive everywhere, unless we want to walk an hour and a half to the grocery store. The real tapeando experience would not work here, nor  would it in the majority of US cities.

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[Image from Notes from Madrid.]

Nonetheless, the idea of introducing good-quality Spanish food is a good one. Many people believe (falsely) that Spanish food is similar to Mexican. It is not. Spanish food is not spicy. Many people go to Spain and leave believing that all Spaniards eat is pork. While they do love their pork and other pig-based products, Spanish food is extremely varied and usually delicious. I’m glad that BARcelona Tapas is doing good work. That said, some of my favorites from last night:

  • Alcachofas fritas—Crispy artichokes with Romesco sauce and shaved Manchego cheese.
  • Empanadas de espinaca y champiñón—Spinach and mushroom pastries with cumin garlic alioli.
  • Trigueros con Romesco—Grilled asparagus with Romesco sauce and Manchego.
  • Tres quesos—Manchego, Cabrales and goat cheese with Spanish picos.

What do you think? Will the art of tapeando ever really triumph in the US? Or maybe just the tapas?

BARcelona Tapas

201 N. Delaware
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317.638.8272

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Going Back—Ready or Not

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I don’t think of myself as a very strong person. I cry easily. I can turn against myself in a second, doubtful and drained of self-confidence. I prefer my own bed, my home, my comfort zone. I can’t sleep on airplanes or anywhere that isn’t a bed, basically. I get cranky when hungry. My pain tolerance is kind of low (a.k.a. nonexistent).

So maybe you won’t be surprised when I say that, even though I’m thrilled to be reunited with Mario, I’m also terrified of moving back. To Spain, that is. You see, the time I’ve spent in Spain hasn’t always been the happiest. If you read my posts from 2010–­2011, you might see this, lurking in the background, the truth I was trying so hard to avoid. It was through no fault of Spain’s own—not really. I was depressed, down in the dumps, and I did nothing to change it. My own worst enemy, if you will.

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But don’t get me wrong. I did find Silly Bands in Spain. So it wasn’t all bad.

And although I say it wasn’t Spain’s fault—and it wasn’t—with each passing day I think more and more about our future together. By marrying that Spaniard of mine, I’m tying myself to this place. Home is no longer a simple concept, a place I’ll be sure of. Instead, home will be here and there, Indiana and Zamora, the US and Spain. Am I ready for that? Can I handle a life full of comings and goings? Can I live in Spain again—and be happy about it?

Mario, my pick for world’s greatest future-husband/boyfriend/human, reassures me often that the future can and will be different than the past, that we’ll work together to find solutions, that we’ll endeavor to make our path a happy one. He knows what I went through; he endured it too, and for that I could never repay him. Because of him, I do feel comforted, more ready to face what’s coming.

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Yeah, he’s pretty awesome. A bad ass. Or as Google Translate translates “bad ass,” un culo mal.

I can feel your incredulity. After all, here I am, a twenty-five-year-old woman with her whole future ahead of her, ready to move to Spain, to Europe, to get married. Hello? Is this girl crazy? And I am, I admit; I’m crazy to feel scared about it. But that’s just me, I guess—as I said, I’ve never seen myself as that strong.

But in writing this, in thinking about it all, my opinion on my own strength has begun to shift. You see, what kind of weak person would get so very homesick in 2008, and yet turn right around and move back for another crack at it in 2009? What kind of weak person would be detained in an airport, but go back as soon as possible—three months later? What kind of weak person says, “Yes, I’ll go. Let’s move back. As long as we’re together”? Accordingly, I’ve begun to see that this kind of “weak person” is not weak at all. I am not weak, and I will make this time better than all the last times because I finally get it.

I’m strong.

Looking to the Future

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I read a lot as a child: cereal boxes, magazines meant for middle-aged women, the entire series of The Babysitters’ Club books, The Kids’ Almanac more times than I can count. I read a lot now, and since my father owns approximately a thousand biographies, I read those, too. A lot of these biographies talk about growing up in America, about the so-called “simpler times.” You know what I mean: when kids could stay out until the streetlights came on; when the general store was the only place in town to buy your flour, milk, and eggs; when Cokes cost $0.50 and came in dusty glass bottles—those sorts of times. I find them fascinating, because my life looks nothing like that and most likely never will. Those idealized times are gone. I ask myself a lot, is that type of lifestyle gone too?

In those days, there was something to be said for consistency. You might hold the same job all your life, an honorable feat, an example of your unswerving dedication to your family. You might be born, live, and die all in the same small town. Your friends you had as a child might be the same friends you had after high school, when you had kids, when you retired, when you were elderly. Those things … they were feasible then. Are they still now?

I think of my life. I grew up in a small town in Indiana, a stone’s throw from Indianapolis. I lived in the same house from age two to age eighteen. I formed friendships in grade school that carried me through my senior year of high school. We shared a bond, a consistency, that can never be replicated.

But nowadays my life seems chaotic. Since graduating high school, I’ve lived in seven different cities, sometimes on and off. (My hometown seems to be a landing spot.) Soon enough I’ll be on to the eighth. Eight cities in seven years? The same friends I had seven years ago aren’t really the same now, nor will the ones I have now necessarily be the same in a year. Because of this, sometimes I feel off-kilter, like my life is rushing by me, and there’s nothing to grab onto, nothing consistently the same year after year.

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I’ve chosen a different life than most, I suppose. I sometimes forget this as I get lost in the blogosphere, where everyone seems to be like me—travelers, expatriates, transplants. But then I find myself firmly in the “real world,” and no one’s like me. Right now, back home for a month in my hometown, I can’t help but feel different. And by different I don’t mean superior, because who’s to say which way’s better? If I hadn’t met Mario, I know I wouldn’t be living by myself in Spain or any other country; I’m not as adventurous as I might seem.

I also read blogs of the people who have returned, who aren’t going back to Spain, and they talk about missing it. Perhaps they miss the no pasa nada way of life, perhaps they miss the food, perhaps they miss the sun and the paseando and the people they met who changed their lives … but they certainly miss something. And so I ask myself, How do you deal with a life full of longing for something that will never be the same, that you’ll never really have back? There’s no real good answer to that. It’s as difficult to answer as another question I frequently ask myself, How can I live a life where someone is always over there?

Mario, celebrating his graduation, without me. Right now, he’s “there.” I’m “here.”

Right now, my life is in yet another transition stage. Who knows what I’ll be thinking, feeling, doing in six months? I only know a few things for certain: we’ll be together, I’ll miss home, and the inexorable path toward the future will continue.

Guest Post: Mario

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Please welcome my second-ever guest poster, the one and only Mario. You all know about him, so there’s no need to say that much about him. I’ll let him speak for himself for once!

Kaley asked me many weeks ago to write a guest post for her blog. I don’t usually procrastinate, but somehow many weeks passed and I still hadn’t been able to find a topic that would be interesting enough for those who read her blog. I knew for sure that my topic choice would be about the USA. But what could I say about it? I know that NYC or LA are a big thing for Spaniards (Europeans in general, I would say) who want to visit the States, and I’m pretty sure there are a bazillion blogs praising the magnificent skyscrapers in Chicago or how cool San Francisco can be or how intercultural NYC is.

Suddenly, as I was watching Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair, I had a light-bulb moment. In the movie, Colonel Rufus J. Plummer (Millard Mitchell) mentions he comes from Indiana. That reminded me that in North by Northwest the famous plane attack against Cary Grant is on a road between Chicago and Indianapolis (although it seems to be a movie mistake), and I started to remember all the movies and TV series in which Indiana is mentioned: one of the soldiers in Band of Brothers comes from Kokomo (Floyd Talbert); the Notre Dame football team is mentioned in The Simpsons. In another category would be films about Indiana, where Hoosiers ranks number one. The name Lew Wallace probably says little to you. Maybe the film Ben-Hur sounds more familiar. Before the film, there was a book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, whose author, Lew Wallace, wrote part of his famous work in Crawfordsville, which happens to be in … Indiana!

Let’s face it: a European is very unlikely to cross the pond to visit Indiana, unless you are a talent scout from a basketball team and you want to find some exceptionally good players in Indiana University (Florentino, Cody Zellermust be signed by Real as soon as he graduates). You would also visit Indiana if you were my father who has always wanted to see the vast fields of crops he has seen in documentaries.

You know what? It’s a pity a European would never visit Indiana. These are my five reasons why foreigners should visit Indiana:

1. People are very nice.Okay, my view might be a bit biased, since Kaley’s family is super nice to me. Helpful people will open their hearts to you. Whenever I’ve been there, Kaley’s parents have always scheduled all kind of activities so that I could have the best taste of Indiana: Spring Mill State Park, Indianapolis Zoo, a good rib-eye steak, tailgating …. Her dad, a great sports fan, has taken me to a Cubs’ game and Indiana University basketball and football games. I had never owned the Spanish national soccer team jersey, but when Spain won their first World Cup in 2010, they gave it to me, and I will proudly wear it this year to support Spain in the Euro Cup. He also got me a Miami Dolphins’ jersey!

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2. Nature. Not the scientific journal, but the green stuff. You can find it in two forms: wild and farmed. I love hiking and nature, and I think it’s a pity we don’t have more places where you can go hiking. In Indiana, in a two-hour drive you can be in a park. I have been to Brown County and Spring Mill State Parks (I was so excited to see a raccoon), but there are twenty-six more state parks remaining to be visited; there are fifteen state forests, one national forest, etc. Visit Indiana and you can enjoy them! (I sound like Leslie Knope in Parks and Recreation). Indiana, with its large extensions of crops (mainly corn and soybeans), is located within the US Corn and Grain Belts. An interesting visit would be to drive in the countryside and stop to enjoy the traditional red-painted wooden barns. Last summer I visited the farm owned by the Kaley’s brother’s fiancée’s father. Man, it was huge!

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3. Good food.My brother and some friends recently returned from a trip to NYC. They all are on cloud nine but agree that the food could have been much better. American food tends to be tagged as “unhealthy” or simply “not good.” I disagree. My point is that it takes all sorts and that you have to find the right place and know what to order. When I was there and had lunch or dinner out, I only at fast food twice: once at Pizza Hut and once at Buffalo Wild Wings. I’ve been to many other restaurants, and the food has been good. I have to admit I like meat, and whenever I had the chance I ordered a burger. I was never disappointed, whereas in Spain if you order a burger, the outcome is unexpected. I can’t remember the name of that restaurant we stopped on our way back home on Black Friday, but I clearly remember telling the waiter that the burger was supreme. I still salivate thinking about the rib-eye steak at the Steak House in Covington. I have had good Mexican and Italian food. We went to a restaurant in the Amish area, and it was delicious. I have never had heartburn because of the food, and I didn’t gain weight (and—believe me—I eat a lot). Plus, in Kaley’s family there are great cooks, so when we had lunch or dinner at home, I could enjoy great meals. I was there for Thanksgiving, and I was happy because everything was delicious: the turkey, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce made from scratch. And, of course, the desserts—especially cookies. It’s true that you don’t usually find lentils or chickpeas in restaurants, but it’s not that they just have meat on the menu; they do have veggies, and they usually serve a salad as a side order.

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4. WYSIWYWIF: What You See Is What You Watch In Films.This particular reason applies to all states. People in films usually live in houses with a front and/or backyard; you find that here. Yellow school buses? Check. High schools with these amazing gyms that you can’t imagine in a Spanish high school? Check. Enormous SUVs and trucks? Check. Huge Wal-Mart with long aisles with thousands of different types of cereal? Cheeeeeeeeck. A farmer wearing dungarees and a John Deere hat? Check. Amish people riding in their buggies? Check. A huge green campus? Check. A bake sale? Check. Tailgating? Check.

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5. Basketball. Do you like basketball? If you are a fan of hoops, Indiana is a must—the basketball state par excellence. But forget the NBA. In the States there exists something better: college basketball. Some college kids do the required “one-and-done” to jump into the pro league. Indiana University’s philosophy is quite different: basketball players graduate, so along with their basketball experience they have a diploma, which comes handy in case you get injured and can’t keep playing basketball. Thanks to Tom Crean, the current coach, who is forging a very competitive Cream and Crimson team, Indiana basketball is back. This year they made it to The Sweet Sixteen. Next year? My bet is that they will be in the Final Four.

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Visit Indiana and remember: it’s Indiana!

Photography Assistance

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I’ve never been a great photographer. It’s not that I don’t have the skills; I’ve just never dedicated much time to learning about the in-depth parts of shooting with a DSLR. In high school, I took a photography course (which threatened to derail my GPA, no joke), but we learned on old-school-style cameras. I used a Pentax K1000. It was actually a lot of fun, because we got to develop the photos ourselves, use filters, and generally mess around in a dark room, which—when you’re 17—is actually a lot of fun.

Well, I think I posted on Facebook a while back that it’d be nice to have a DSLR for Europe, because if you can’t find a good use for a nice camera in Europe, where can you? (Right?) Well, my parents have given Mario and me a Canon Rebel T3i.

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Having experience with my mother’s older version of the Canon Rebel helps, but I’m still ready to go more in depth, to learn more about depth of field and lighting and RAW vs. JPEG.

So, since it worked so well last time, readers, please give me any advice that you may have. I know many of you own DSLRs, and I’ve seen your pictures. Do you have any suggestions? For example: tutorials, websites, books, ideas for practice, etc. I’d like to get in a lot of practice and knowledge before our trip to Italy. Thanks!

Studying—An Update

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If you haven’t read the comments on my post Advanced Spanish … Where Do I Go from Here?, please do. There are a lot of great ideas in there. Prithika from the blog Fleas and Dogs in Barcelona made a great suggestion, one I’ve been putting into practice—making daily, weekly, and monthly lists.

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Pretend studying my freshman year of college.

Now that I’m fully addicted to my esmarfon, I decided to do my flashcards online. Of course. A friend of mine posted about StudyBlue on Facebook, and I love it. This website allows you to make digital flashcards and store them in your “backpack.” Then you have access to them anywhere—on the web, on your smartphone, on your tablet, and you can even download them and print them out if you so choose (say, a long airplane ride where you don’t to waste precious laptop battery).

The great thing about StudyBlue is the fact that, sometimes, other people have already done your work for you. What? Well, when you start editing your cards, you enter your word into the term space and then tab down to the definition space. If someone else has already worked with this word or term, you can see what they wrote and just click on their card to use theirs. For example, I was working with the word pavonearse, which means to “show off.” (It actually comes from el pavo real, the peacock, an animal that likes to strut its stuff, you know?) And just my luck—someone had already entered that into the box for me! Niiiice, right?

What’s more, you can easily add photos/audio and take personalized quizzes. If you’re so inclined, you can even browse others’ packs to see what they’ve done. You can study just the “wrongs,” which is nice, and not something I often encounter with digital flashcards. I swear, they’re not paying me to write this; I just love the website.

Another thing I like to do—and I admit, I’m lucky—is talk to Mario about the word and see if he can tell me the English equivalent. I really love it when he can’t (I’m so mean), because then I get to teach him something, a rare occurrence.

Ha! Just because you have three degrees doesn’t mean you know everything!

The great thing about what Prithika suggested is that, in her words, “it keeps your lists dynamic.” I oftentimes will study a word, “know” it, and then come back to it later, and have no idea what it means. I’m sure this happens to you too, right? (If not, grrr.)

Anyway, I’m studying for once, and I’m actually happy about it! It’s been a long time since I’ve been this motivated outside of a classroom.

Semana Santa Zamorana

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Hey all,

My life has been in a kind of upheaval these past few days, but I wanted to share something with you guys! Zamora was featured on the front cover of the April 6 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

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If you don’t speak English that well, it says: “La adorada más pequeña celebra la época más santa de de la cristianidad.”

I asked Mario if he knew who the little girl was. He didn’t! Darn! I would love to be able to send her parents a copy of this. It was actually difficult to obtain the WSJ in my town. My dad was out and about and couldn’t find it in several different stores. He finally asked the local bank to give us a copy, so I have it in my possession.

Holy Week in Zamora is a big deal. I know, I know, Sevilla and all the other places in Andalucía get all the press. A lot of Mario’s friends get very pumped for this week. If they work in other cities, they come home, of course. There are many traditions associated with it, but I remember the food the most. (What a surprise!) Here are some traditional foods:

  • almendras garrapiñadas—almonds sweetened with sugar. So good your teeth’ll hurt!
  • aceitadas—a type of cookie made with anis. Mario’s mom makes these. Sometimes they get quite hard, but that means they’re good for dipping in your beverage of choice! (Unfortunately, they don’t go well with whiskey.)
  • dos y pingada—this is an almuerzo (mid-morning snack) that’s served on Resurrection Sunday after a procession, La Cofradía de la Santísima Resurreción. It consists of two fried eggs, ham, and bread. Eat up!
  • There are more, but those are the ones I’m familiar with!

I am excited because Zamora doesn’t really get that much publicity. (Isn’t it obvious?) Other places in Spain get all the glory. But I love Zamora! As I saw daily on my walk to school on billboards, I am orgullosa de ser [media] zamorana. 

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These two are real zamoranos. Photo taken in 2011.