Food, food...class, and more food!!!

Classes started a few days ago, and they are going well. I am taking the following:

Spanish Literature
Linguistics
Gramática y Conversación

So far I am enjoying the literature class the most. Although it is the most difficult and challenging, I am infatuated with the language and temas de las poemas that we are going to start reading! Gaa! I can't wait!

Here is a group foto of the majority of the Winona students inside the Centro de Lenguas Modernas. It's a beautiful little building...almost like an indoor square plaza with two levels of classrooms.



Wednesday night, after our second day of classes, we had a cooking class at el restaurante que se llama "La Oliva." Franco, the owner, and his French sidekick demonstrated a full course meal, complete with tapas (similar to appetizers - Granada is known for these) and other gourmet cheeses, meats, wines, and desserts. Let me take you on a picture tour of the class...

Franco and the sidekick (I do not remember his name, but he was trilingual: Spanish, French, and English)


They first served us olive oil and bread. This is not just any ordinary olive oil...It comes from Huelva, a west province in Andalucía. Contained in this delicious, semi-sweet oil are aceitunas (olives), manzanilla (a type of small olive), hojiblanca, picudo, picual de campos de Beas y Trigueros (Huelva), and it is made by a pharmaceutical doctor named Nicholas Gomez Macín. It contains five different varieties of olives!! Each bottle of oil goes for 18 euros a piece (that is almost $30.00!)! Franco thinks this oil is the best in the world.



Next was a white wine called Calvente (2008), Salmorejo (chopped tomatoes, salt, and olive oil spread with fresh basil), fried, salted almonds, and jamón. We learned that the ham needs to be salted for a certain amount of days, and this number is equivalent to the ham's weight (if the ham weighed 8 lbs. for instance, it would need to be salted for 8 days). It's important for the ham to be stored in a cool dry place, which is why the mountains is a common place to store such ham. And this ham is not cooked. Interesting, eh?





Following this was an assortment of different types of sausage. The darker of the two is salchichón and the other is chorrizo, whose main ingredient is pimentón (paprika).



Next we tried Gaspacho, a cold, tomato based soup with tomates, cucumbers, garlic, and olive oil (served in a glass with a spoon). At the same time we had pan y queso, which consisted of the same ingredients as the gaspacho minus the water. Served along with this was vino tinto de Granada de un pueblo en las montañas (a darker wine from a mountain town in Granada).





To have along with the wine, Franco entered with a plate full of three different types of cheeses: queso de cabra (goat cheese), de oveja (sheep cheese), y queso de cabra y vaca (a mixture goat and cow cheese).



Our last surprise was a plate of three different types of chocolates (dark chocolate, chocolate and orange, and chocolate de turrón - chocolate with almonds) and a very sweet wine made with raisins.



¡Buen provecho!