You gotta do what you gotta do (food edition)

Alfonso was terrified. 

The king was at his inn. His inn! Alfonso’s hand shook a bit as he poured his homemade sherry into a mug. After all, it’s not every day that you serve royalty. He took a moment to compose himself. There was no reason to worry – after all, he made the best sherry in Spain! 

With renewed enthusiasm, Alfonso grabbed the sherry and headed out of the kitchen. Suddenly the door blew open and his heart plummeted. The lovely Spanish breeze had turned into a gusty wind that was whipping about the inn, also bringing wafts of leaves and dirt. Even the best sherry tastes like dirt when there’s dirt in it.

Then he saw it – the piece of ham left over from breakfast. Would it…could he…?

He did. So the legend goes, the innkeeper protected the sherry with una tapa de jamón (a lid of ham), and the king liked the idea so much that the ham started a tradition that still lives today. Tapas!

Nowadays in Spain, tapas are appetizers, not lids for your drink. But you can enjoy them with your drink as small snacks at a bar or eaten one after another to make a meal.

I want to go to Spain. I know, abrupt topic change! But I think after hours and hours of Spanish homework, I deserve to go to Spain and dine on tapas (and sherry 😉 ). So I’m practicing for when I go, making tapas between filling out papers in the past present subjunctive of Spanish. Always sticking to what the Almighty Internet calls traditional Spanish fare, of course.

Apparently when it’s between eating food hot or getting a good picture…the former is more important to me 😉

Here’s what you see: greens with grilled goat cheese* and vinaigrette; Spanish rice; marinated artichoke; and eggplant fritters drizzled with honey.

It’s all appears terribly unappetizing and suspicious, but dang, it was all pretty tasty! It was also pretty stressful, because I have a habit of overestimating my cooking skills (sure, I can stir that and mix that and cut those up at the same time!) and that little plate of tapas was a lot of work. But the satisfaction of eating a yummy meal you worked hard to make is worth it.

Thanks, Alfonso. You’re the best!

*goat cheese might actually be half baked/melted, because it was freezing outside where the grill was. No tengo vergüenza de él.