You know that thing where the food server comes to your table (typically when you’ve just taken a full bite) and asks how your meal is?
They don’t do that in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
And I’ve decided it’s because; they know.
Your meal is amazing. They don’t need your opinion on it to gel that fact for them.
Everybody tried to prep me for what I would experience food wise on our trip. Despite their best efforts, I was not at all ready.
I would say that the two weeks spoiled me, but honestly it was set in stone on day one.
We got up early in Madrid and made our way to the train station for our 4 hour train ride to the start of our pilgrimage walk. It had been a long day of travel from little ol’ Cottonwood the day before and we were hungry. A kiosk in the train station was selling something I’d never tried before (but have now eaten a million times since) Napolitana and coffee for $1.50. Napolitana is a breakfast pastry with chocolate. And the random coffee was sincerely better than any I’d had before.
In a train station kiosk.
Before instantly deleting my Dutch Bros app, I tried the vending machine coffee to see if maybe I was just caffine depraved and the coffee wasn’t that different. The vending machine coffee was also mind blowing!
The whole two weeks was one culinary life altering experience after another. There was not a bad meal anywhere; whether it was out of the grocery store cold case or in a picturequse side walk café, every single bit of it was amazing.
The only food pitfall was the Roman incident, where to be fair, I share some blame.
The sun seems hotter in Rome, and that should be considered when slowly eating creamy meals outside. The bulk of my carbonara dish was perfect. And though the last few bites seemed “off,” I persisted. Yadda yadda yadda, the next few hours of my life were scary. 35 million people visit Rome annually. And as mentioned previously, no bathrooms.
All I could imagine was me violently throwing up in some corner of historical significance and being an instant viral social media mockery. Instead, I was cussed in more languages that I could decipher as a pushed my way past 20 people to get in a restroom in McDonald’s. I felt horrible for doing so, but I realized I was going to negatively impact their day in one way or another and this seemed slightly less traumatizing for them all.
But aside from that, the foods and coffees were so good it was perplexing. I ate every single thing I could. One day I had pistachio icecream in a surreal “food court” one floor above hardware in a department store. Then after maybe 30 minutes of meandering, I had a serving of fresh churros and dipping chocolate. This may surprise you, but none of that is on my food plan.
I have no ragrets (not even one letter). But there has been some aftermath.
“Oh, are you that guy now?” the gravely voice of Dirty asks as I’m forcing he and Gus to participate in my effort at Neapolitan pizza. “Yes. Yes, I am” I say as I trim basil off of the first basil plant I’ve ever owned.
Don’t get me wrong. I can feed people. The fact that the boys made it to adulthood are proof of that. But actually cooking is something different. Food tours reaffirms that.
The day we got back, I looked for a cooking class in town. It has to be more than luck that I immediately found one very close to work that is “of traditional Neapolitan and Sicilian cooking.” I’m signed up. Obviously.
I’ve also lost all manners in my search for how to resolve my coffee grief. So far as to ask some poor woman who let slip she’d lived in Italy for 5 years how much she spent on coffee maker. I don’t know much about social graces, but I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing to do.
I hear the longing for food that good will last. I’m kind of hoping it won’t since so far I’m in to this with a new Kitchen Aid and several bonus pounds. And I’m saddened that I hadn’t been there to taste all the food goodness sooner. But we’ll see where all this goes.
In the meantime, if you want to help prevent me from poor manners in social settings, please share with me the ways you make “some serious gourmet shit” in the way of coffee.
Thanks for reading! Go to Italy/Spain/Portugal!
Bifocals and Barbells 