Hola from Spain and a taste of Argentine Cuisine

Beautiful Almunñécar at sunset

Granada from San Nicolas view point

Dear readers...

I am afraid that this post contains yet another apology. After spending three weeks at home, I am now in Spain for the rest of the summer. I stayed with a friend in the south for a few days and I am now in Barcelona attending Spanish school. The month seems to have flown by without my posting anything here, and for that I am deeply sorry! Please bear with me and my large "appetite" for life!

As I am currently living, and eating my meals with a host family, I haven't sampled much of the local Spanish cuisine in restaurants. However, my very thoughtful Argentine boyfriend surprised me by paying for a meal for myself and two friends to visit an Argentine restaurant close to where I am staying here in Barcelona. It was delicioso! I had never experienced Argentine cuisine before and I was very impressed. So, of course, here are some photos of the delicious Argentine cuisine that my friends and I enjoyed the other night...

Beef empanadas

The inside of the beef empanadas

Grilled vegetables

The empanadas were completely packed with flavour. The filling had a hint of spice, the meat was so soft and succulent and the pastry was moist but not too heavy. One of my friends decided not to eat all of the pastry as she didn't want to fill up so... I ate it, of course! The grilled vegetables were surprisingly delicious after appearing to be quite a plain dish. The fine slices had a slightly crisp texture and charred flavour.

A few glasses of Argentine red wine to accompany our meal

Entraña: Grilled Argentine Skirt Steak

Asado: Grilled Argentine Rib Steak

My boyfriend recommended that we ordered the Asado and Entraña for mains. We thought that the Asado would have had more flavour because the meat was still on the bone, however, we found the Entraña to be the more flavoursome. It was all that one could have asked for in a steak: juicy, salty, flavoursome, succulent and ever-so-slightly chewy. I felt overwhelmed with every bite. The outside of the Asado meat was oily and crispy. I enjoyed just listening to one crunch into it!

We shared the three desserts on the menu. These were chocolate cake filled with dulce de leche, Argentine alfajor and pancake with dulce de leche. I found all of these desserts to be too sweet for me. It is a fact that Argentines love sabores intensos [intense flavours] so these are very typical Argentine desserts. Also, I believe that dulce de leche was invented in Argentina, that's probably why they love to eat it with most desserts!

Chocolate cake filled with dulce de leche

I have also taken many photos which I wish to share. I hope you enjoy them. During the next few weeks, I hope to experience some Spanish cuisine outside of the house. If and when I do, I promise to share with you all!

La Fuente Mágica [The Magic Fountains]

The street in Barceloneta

Curved chimney at Gaudí's Casa Mila

The church at the top of Mount Tibidabo

Fiesta de la luna llena (full moon party) on El Prat beach

"W Cosmopolitan" at The W Hotel

Inside Freixenet Bodega

Another curved chimney at Gaudí's Casa Mila

Park Güell at night

Thank you again for your patience. I send all of my love from Barcelona and hope that everyone is enjoying their summer. Besos!

Ben & Jerry's Sundae Festival

A beautiful day in Clapham for eating ice cream

After a rather miserable couple of weeks of weather in England, the sun finally shone for Ben & Jerry's Sundae Festival in Clapham Common, London. Some of my friends that had been before told me that they had managed to eat a total of seven ice creams - I was definitely hoping to consume even more!

My friend and I began the challenge with a scoop of Fairly Nuts: caramel ice cream with praline almond clusters and caramel swirls.

Fairly Nuts

Whilst the ice creams were still in our hands, we went straight into another queue for our second ice cream - Cherry Garcia: cherries and dark chocolately chunks.

Cherry Garcia

My friend and I then went exploring. There was plenty going on inside the festival grounds including a helter-skelter, coconut shy, Pimms bus, toe wrestling, "Mystic Moo", two performance stages and plenty of food and drink stalls.

Helter-skelter

We quickly moved onto our third ice cream - Chocolate Fudge Brownie: chocolate ice cream laden with chocolate brownie pieces.

Chocolate Fudge Brownie

This was the first time that I had ever tried Chocolate Fudge Brownie. I think that this is because it is a classic flavour and I always try to go for the newest or most unusual, so I had always avoided it. I was surprised how much I loved it!

I must admit that we started to feel a little bit sick at this point, so we then went for a more refreshing choice of Jamaican Me Crazy Sorbet: chunky pineapple sorbet with passion fruit swirls.

Jamaican Me Crazy

This was very refreshing and certainly cleansed our palettes in preparation for more rich and chocolately ice creams. Next up, after a quick rest, was the Chocolate Macadamia: chocolate and vanilla ice creams with fudge covered macadamia nuts.

Chocolate Macadamia

We were both surprised by how much we liked this one as it seemed like such a simple combination. We both really enjoyed the fudgy and chocolatey macadamias.

We then felt desperate for some salt to balance out all of the sugar that we had consumed, so we shared a bowl of chicken and chorizo paella.

Chicken and Chorizo Paella

It had a collection of meaty, salty and spicy flavours with chewy rice and tender meat. We could have eaten a bowl each, but we were only half way through our target of ten ice creams, so we needed to leave some room for the rest!

After the paella, we were ready for another drenching of sugar and cream. We tried one of Ben & Jerry's new ice creams - Coconutterly Fair: chocolate ice cream, coconut caramel swirls and chocolately covered caramel crunch.

Coconutterly Fair

This, surprisingly, wasn't as coconutty as I had expected.

We really wanted to try a 'wich (Ben & Jerry's ice cream sandwich) and were trying to find the ladies who were handing them out. During our search, we saw a short queue for Caramel Chew Chew: caramel ice cream with a caramel swirl and chocolatey covered caramel chunks, so, of course, we tried one.

Caramel Chew Chew

This was very caramelly indeed.

By this time, the festival was drawing to an end and the queues were becoming fairly short. The next stop was Baked Alaska: vanilla ice cream with marshmallow swirls and white chocolatey polar bears.

Baked Alaska

I am not a huge fan of overly-sweet desserts, so, unfortunately, this ice cream being too sweet for me, ended up in the bin.

Baked Alaska... in the bin

I hate wasting food but I just couldn't finish this one - sorry B&J!

We wanted something more refreshing and went in search of the Berry N'ice: strawberry ice cream with real strawberry pieces.

Berry N'ice

We thought, originally, that this was another sorbet but it turned out to be an ice cream. It had a wonderful fresh strawberry flavour and, even though it was an ice cream and not a sorbet, it was rather refreshing. After this we sampled the Strawberry Cheesecake: strawberry cheesecake ice cream with strawberries and cookie swirls.

Strawberry Cheesecake

Uh-oh, another sickly sweet ice cream. Having just had the Berry N'ice, we could really tell the difference between these two strawberry ice creams. After a few licks, this one had to be binned too...

The last ice cream of the day was Phish Food: chocolate ice cream with gooey marshmallow, caramel swirl and chocolatey fish shapes.

Phish Food

I am not sure if I am just more tolerant when it comes to chocolate, but I somehow managed to finish this without a problem, after having just rejected the Strawberry Cheesecake.

The Phish Food completed our total count of eleven ice creams! Not all of them were fully devoured, however, but most were, and all were sampled.

The bins were all overloaded with ice cream cones

At the beginning of the day I was very excited to see Pieminister. During Glastonbury last year, I consumed two of their pie meals (the Matador and Heidi pies) within the same hour. I was completely overwhelmed by their deliciousness. To my delight, because it was near the end of the day, Pieminister were selling their pies for only £3.50 with all the works! They were out of Matador pies (steak, sherry, chorizo and green olive) so I went for a "Blue Moo" (steak, stilton and rosemary) instead. I have no idea how I managed to consume this, with the minted peas, mash, crispy onions and "groovy" (gravy) after all of that ice cream, but somehow I did!

Blue Moo Pieminister Pie with mash, minted peas, crispy onions and "groovy"

My friend also ate a pie meal and we then waddled back to the station. I am pretty sure that we looked pregnant with our giant food babies!

What a wonderful food day indeed. Were any of you there?

The Last Brunch of San Francisco

Firstly, I would like to apologise to my readers for neglecting my blog during the past few weeks! I have now completed my Study Abroad Year in California and have returned to England. I spent my last 30 days in California travelling around the West Coast and barely found time to sleep, let alone blog! So, please forgive me.

San Francisco is famous for its brunches and after having eaten brunch in various locations around San Francisco, I can conclude that my favourite place to have brunch in San Francisco is - yes, you've guessed it - Butterfly!

Every waiter/waitress must hate me. My love of all types of food gives me terrible difficulty in deciding which dish to order. Butterfly is, possibly, the worst victim of mine due to the fact that I find everything on their menu incredibly delicious.

Poached Eggs with Kalua Pig

I finally settled for a brunch dish that included the English Muffin and poached eggs. I ordered the Poached Eggs with Kalua Pig instead of the Poached Eggs with Smoked Salmon that I have ordered numerous times in the past. In a hurry to decide, I asked the waiter what Kalua Pig actually was. I had thought that it may have been similar to Canadian Bacon, but when the waiter replied "No, Miss, it's actually a type of slow-cooked shredded pork" I said "I'll have that then, please!"

Half-way through eating the Poached Eggs with Kalua Pig

What a fantastic decision that turned out to be. It was an absolutely stunning Benedict, my favourite so far! The tender and salty pork was drenched in hollandaise and the poached eggs were, as always, cooked with a runny yolk that oozed over the pork and added yet more richness to the creamy hollandaise. I was dreaming throughout the entire time that I was devouring this dish. The chunky chips (sorry, fries, in America) were crisp on the outside and perfect for mopping up those delicious salty and meaty residues. I then enjoyed refreshing my mouth with the mixed fruit bowl.

Kumquat Margarita

I accompanied my meal with a kumquat margarita (I have been obsessed with tequila ever since I visited Mexico last March) which complemented the richness and slight stodginess of the Poached Eggs with Kalua Pig. If only I could repeat the experience of this absolute dream of a meal every weekend!

Afternoon Tea in San Francisco, Japanese Style!

My favourite photo of the Japanese Tea Garden

Among many food adventures with my father, we included a trip to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It was rumoured that they offered tea tasting, but to our disappointment, the menu only offered some tea sets, sweets and a small selection of entrées. We decided to stay for a spot of "afternoon tea" despite the limited menu and this is what we ate...

We ordered a Jasmine Tea Set each, one with mochi cakes and one with salty rice crackers.

Jasmine tea with mochi cakes and salty rice crackers

Mochi cakes split in half to share

The bottom of my Jasmine tea cup

We still felt peckish after these bites and it was almost lunchtime so we decided to order a couple of larger dishes to share. We were very intrigued by the sound of the Green tea soup (Nori Ochazuke) and we also ordered the Japanese noodle soup (Udon).

Nori Ochazuke, Green tea seaweed rice soup

Pouring the tea into the rice

The dish is ready to eat!

The Nori Ochazuke arrived in two pieces: the tea in a teapot and the rice, puffed rice kernals and seaweed in an accompanying bowl. We absolutely loved the variety of textures in this dish; crunchy rice kernals, chewy seaweed strips, bouncy boiled rice and a delicately flavoured watery broth.

Udon, Japanese wide noodles in a fish broth

The Udon was served with a fishcake and some sliced spring onions on top. We enjoyed the bouncy texture of the wide noodles but did not find it as exciting as the Nori Ochazuke.

The Tea House inside the Japanese Tea Garden

Iris in the Japanese Tea Garden

Although the menu is limited, the gardens are stunning. It was a great place to play with my camera! I highly recommend a visit here if ever one is in the area.

The Glamorous Life Of An Intern: Part Two

Concannon wine glass

Over the past few weeks I have been participating in an internship with The Perishable Foods Council of Northern California, as well as the internship with Culture Magazine. With the PFC I experienced tours of many different areas of the food industry across Northern California. The sites we visited included Fiscalini Cheese in Modesto, Tony's Fine Foods in Sacramento, Nugget Markets in Sacramento, Fresh Choice in Sacramento, Taylor Farms in Tracy, Safeway Research and Development in Walnut Creek, Foster Farms in Modesto, Acosta Brokers in Pleasanton and we finished off with Concannon Winery in Livermore.

Inside Concannon Winery

We were generously given an exclusive tour of the winery, as well as a laboratory experience where we performed various experiments on wines.

Myself in the lab

We finished our day at Concannon with an Italian potluck (I baked my Thyme, Orange, Almond and Chocolate Biscotti!) and a private wine tasting with the charming Estate Manager, Jim Ryan.

The gardens and vineyards at Concannon

The dinner and wine tasting were held in the stunning Wine Library with Jim and it was a fabulous end to a very enjoyable and successful internship.

The beautiful Wine Library

Unfortunately, the end of my California experience is creeping up on me. I wish it could last forever! My internship with the PFC has not only enhanced my CV, but it has given me a great insight into the potential life as a Food Scientist in Northern California. Perhaps this is not the end of my California experience, but the beginning...?!