Don't Play With Your Food!

Parisian woman all have beautiful legs. All of them. They walk everywhere, so it isn't really that surprising...that is, until you eat their food!!!! From croisants that are so fluffy they are like cotton candy, to the chocolate mousse that was in all sincerety coined "sex in a bowl," I don't think I had a bad meal the whole time I was there. I crave Parissian pastries, and my mouth waters when I think of the Spanish use of seasonings. If for no other reason, the price of traveling to Europe is worth it because of how happy your mouth will be.

Choclateria's are all over Spain- at least in the big cities. If you ever go, you need to step foot into one. The specialty is chocolate and churros. The churros are without cinnamon and sugar, but you don't need it becuase you dip it in a cup full of the best hot chocolate, which is so think that it is almost the consistency of melted chocolate...hmmm.
Tappas is a meal made up of hor dourves that originated when a king of Spain noticed that his guests would be drunk within 30 minutes of a gathering. To combat this ailement, many courses of finger food would be brought out, placed on top of the jugs of wine or sangria (or Coke, in my case) and needed to be consumed before drinking to slow down the affects of alchohol. Our courses included fries with multiple dipping sauces, including seasoned mayonaises, fried calamari the size of large onion rings, Spanish omlettes (a recipe I must find), chorizo sausage, and of course bread with cheese and ham.
Speaking of ham, if Paris is to pastry shop windows, Spain is to ham (jamon) shop windows.

Here's some of it now - pork loin (underneath) and Spain's version of prociutto. One of my favoite things to eat in Spain was the crusty bread with olive oil - produced locally - and a little vinegar (balsamic preferrably). Since I've been back, I'm still looking for the bread. I took care of the olive oil before I left Spanish soil.
Chocolate cake, chocolate mousse center, melted chocolate on top. What don't you get?
Though I don't participate, wine is THE drink of France and Spain. It's everywhere, in every window, used as a display in restaurants, being carried in the arms of people doing their eventing shopping, and on every table at every sidewalk cafe you walk past.
Paella (pa-ey-a) is a popular and traditional Spanish dish that is to DIE for! While there are many different ways you can serve and season it, the traditional kind has a combination of saffron rice, clams, muscles, squid, scallops and shrimp in the shell. My mouth is watering so I will move on...
I HAD to get seafood when we were on the coast in Tossa de Mar. We could smell it in the air being cooked as we walked past homes and restaurants - lemon, garlic, butter, and other spices that I didn't recognize. I ate roasted razor clams, and they did not disappoint (neither did the crusty bread and olive oil and Ann's gespatcho). Could it have been the restaurant, which faced the beach on the best weather day we had in Spain, that made everything so much better?
In Carcassonne, France, we passed a candy and cookie shop that looked right out of Harry Potter. We were warned on the bus before getting off to be careful when buying the cookies becuase they are small but expensive and priced by the pound. People would sometimes find themselves paying 50 Euros becuase they got carried away. They were good though - thanks Ann! The candy was beautiful, especially the chocolates decorated like olives - they looked exACTly like them (look at the sign on the floor next to the dog)!

One of those pastry shop windows I was telling you about! Can you see now why it's so amazing that there are almost no overweight people in France???
French pizza. Lots of onions. LOTS. No sauce (or maybe a little white sauce), cheese, mushrooms and a very thin crust. Not like thin crust pizza here. Different. Not my favorite, but still an experience.
One night we went to a suberb of Paris (St. Germain-en-Laye) and there was a gellatto stand there. I had a scoop each of rasperry and chocolate. A taste sensation...
...but not even close to the chocolate mousse. A spiritual experience.
While my favorite way to eat crepes was with chocolate melted on one side, crepes are a very versetile food. Most seemed to love it with Nutella (I'm not really a fan). Creperies were everywhere in Paris, and we stopped at one for lunch one day. This crepe had ham and swiss cheese in the middle. It could have fed three people. We also had a wedge of fresh watermelon to go with it. Tasty! Another popular food that I ate on two occasions is panini sandwiches. They are all pre-made (you can see some in the pastry shop window picture, next to the quiche, another popular item). You just point to which one you want, they slap it on the grill, and you're good to go. This was fast food if I ever had it. People were always walking around Paris with one of these in their hands at lunch time. I did too once, after leaving the Louvre. It was one of those moments where I thought to myslef, "I'm walking down the street in PARIS with a panini in my hand. When did this happen?" I was partial to the tomato and mozarella.
Breakfast is just not a priority in Europe, so the hotels and restaurants that fed it to us were just catering to the tourist groups. It consisted a few times of eggs, sliced ham, croissants, hard rolls, butter, orange marmalade, and cereals. Cheese, soft and hard, was also common. I had hot chocolate every morning but two. Sometimes, though, it was only bread and juice. Again, Europeans don't make a big deal about breakfast.
Did I mention the chocolate crepes?
And the other pastries? This raspberry tartlet with apricot jelly was so good. I fear- yes, that is the word I would use -I will never have one again. It was that good. Guess I'd better learn how to cook like the Europeans do!