Good skiing, better food!

First of all I'M SORRY JUSTYNE!

There, that should just about cover it.

January in Zaragoza is winter, no doubt. Everyone here talks all the time about how COLD it is. I suppose that "cold" is a fairly relative term, since it rarely drops below zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) in the city. Before coming here everyone talked about the cold. yeah, yeah. Excuse me, but we're from Maine. Gouldies wear T-shirts on days when the temps get up to 32!

They never told me about the wind.

El Cierzo is the wind that comes down into the Ebro river valley and knocks down trees and American teachers on bicycles. And anytime the sky is clear and the temps drop below about 4 degrees, the wind picks up. And picks up papers, dust, and small children. And THEN it feels cold. I don't usually complain about temperatures, but man, even I wear a bufanda out in the winter in Zaragoza. A bufanda is a scarf, usually worn as an identifying badge by Europeans and language teachers. Go ahead, look at your language teacher (or someone you know that does teach language, at least a European one). She's wearing a scarf, isn't she? if not, she wore one yesterday.
(By the way, I say "she" because 95% of all language teachers are women. Male French teachers also wear scarves).

Well, anyone that knows us knows that winter means skiing. Fortunately we are only about 2 short hours from some really great skiing, in the Pyrenees mountains separating Spain and France. Ben and I have been a few times, to a couple of different mountains (Andee and Chaia also came once). The biggest ski area in Aragón
is Formigal
Formigal base lodge

(an Aragonese word meaning "anthill." I don't know if anyone in Spain sees how amusing it is to call a popular ski area "The Anthill." On a typical Saturday it looks just like one. Also, Ben and I spent a rainy day skiing Candanchú, a ski area right on the French border (you look across the valley into France as you ski). Finally, Ben has spent this week skiing at Cerler, the highest ski area in the Pyrenees, with his school. Many schools in our area take a week during the winter called Semana Blanca (White Week) and go to a mountain to ski and play. Ben experienced his first week ever away from family skiing the tippy-top of the Pyrenees. Did I mention how jealous I am?

In addition to skiing this month we have eaten some really great food, and I wanted to share some of it with you. Here are some really good things to eat in Zaragoza:

1. In my last blog I wrote about New Years Eve. I'm not going to repeat about that feast here, except to say that Spaniards love to eat, and love to talk about eating while they eat. My kind of people.
2. Huevos Rotos. Imagine a meal that includes scrambled eggs, ham, potatos, and a beer. Or a glass of wine. That's right, American breakfast meets Spanish beverage. At night. This is a typical late evening meal/snack and its delicious. Don't try to order this in the morning, it isn't available. Except for the beer and wine.
   
3. Champiñones. The New York Times published an article last year about the Expo that took place in Zaragoza in the summer of 2008. In that article the author (can't remember the name) raved about a tapas bar called La Cueva en Aragón in which there was only one type of tapas served: A tower of grilled mushrooms drenched in garlic butter served on a round of baguette, crowned by a mini shrimp. Yes, it is THAT good!
4. Patatas Bravas. Anne Osborn (I hope she sees this!) fell in love with what she called "brave potatos" when she was in Spain last March. this simple plate of cooked potato chunks slathered in aioli sauce and mildly hot red sauce, is everywhere, and really good. We found the BEST by far, at a tapas bar called Erzo. If you are in ZAZ, find it.
5. Los Victorinos. This isn't a food, but rather a very special tapas place run by a true artist. You won't find the types of snacks available here anwhere else, and if you do, you might find a place with one or two tapas as magnificent as the sixteen or so available in this tiny laboratory of gastronomy. Just a couple of possibilities: "Symphony of mushrooms in port wine sauce over toasted baguette", and "sliced pork tenderloin and goat cheese." Oops, forgot the "roasted red pepper stuffed with braised oxtail." Everything here is incredible, and a ten minute conversation with the owner-chef-artist si worth the trip.
   

I am going to try and break my "once every three weeks" mold, and will try and write once a week for the next three weeks. Lets see how it goes. If it doesn't work, don't worry. Justyne will be on my case.

Images: Google Earth, and Griffin Mose's cellphone camera.

Navidad, Navidad, pronto llegará...

Much has happened since my last posting! Christmas has come and gone, as has my mother and many parents of SYA students, who went on break from the 22nd until...well, tomorrow, the day after Spain's big present-giving day, Día de Los Reyes (3 kings day, the celebration of the adoration of the baby Jesus by the three kings). Let me back up a bit...

Christmas in Spain is an interesting thing. As the world has gotten to be a smaller place, Spain has begun to adopt the traditions of others as their own. The combination of modern American Christmas traditions and older Spanish practices gives the holiday season a bit of a schizophrenic air. First of all, when does the holiday season begin? For us its an easy answer: The day after Thanksgiving. But what to do when there IS no Thanksgiving? I discovered this year that holidays need boundaries, something to tell them when to begin and end. Here in ZAZ, Christmas sort-of dribbled in bit by bit, starting sometime in mid November and clearly arriving some time in mid December. The streets in our neighborhood were lit by holiday lights (they don't look specifically Christmas-y, as they are white, blue and yellow..kind of a Chanukah-meets-tanning booth festivity if you like) and the big department stores were decked out in giant snowflake lights. The snowflakes make me giggle a bit, as Zaragoza almost never receives snow of any amount. There were a few flakes around the 17th of December, but the snow was gone by the afternoon. You can also see signs of Santa Claus here and there. And scenes of Bethlehem. The Belén scenes are the big deal in Zaragoza, and don't just have a manger with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. they include hills, buildings, water mills, flocks of sheep, and Roman fortresses with roman guards high over the town. And in the distance, the three kings make their way to the manger. Some stores have little scenes, some have big ones, some, like the banks, have HUGE ones. In the plaza in front of the Basilica there is a Belén scene so big that it takes 1o minutes to walk through it, looking at life-sized statues of people, donkeys, Roman forts, and an angel up in a tree next to a working water wheel powered by a real moving stream (see below).

What is missing from all of this are Christmas trees in lit windows. From our street the only tree that can be seen is our little, artificial tree. There are no other trees in any windows on our block, nor on any block around us. People tell us that other families have them, but that mostly the trees are inside the house and can't be seen. I had never thought of this before, but we display our trees as much for the neighbors as for ourselves in the U.S. In fact, here in Zaragoza there aren't really any lights up in ANY windows (at least facing the street). I have been searching on Youtube for images of lit neighborhoods to get my fix of the lights this year.

And, of course, everywhere are references to the kings. Epiphany, or Kings' day, is January 6th (today). Spanish kids put their shoes on the windowsill (or under the window if you happen to be on the 6th floor) along with some food for the kings and their camels on the night of the 5th. On the evening of the 5th there was a giant parade on our main street to welcome the kings to Zaragoza that included fairies, wizards, warriors, jugglers, flame throwers, accompanying Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltasar, the three kings, on their giant floats. At the end of this blog you can see a short video of the parade, set to music by the Alford trio (recorded as a present to Andee).

On the 17th my mother arrived from Bethel, experiencing the coldest few days we are likely to have this year (about 29 degrees and REALLY WINDY). We had a wonderful visit, taking her to all of the cool places we have discovered and cooking all of the yummy things we regularly eat here. On Christmas Eve we had the traditional meal of soft-shell tacos. Yes, tacos. This is not a Spanish tradition, as tacos are really not eaten here. This is a family tradition going way back. We eat special, secret-recipe tacos (our advisees know exactly what I mean here). After Christmas we took a three day trip to Madrid and Toledo to visit museums and monuments. and it rained. A lot. Every day. Just ask Ben about this picture.Okay, maybe I exaggerate. Ben was standing next to the cathedral in Toledo here, discovering what the functional purpose of a gargoyle is (Renaissance drainpipe).

After a really nice visit my mom left on the 30th, to rest from her vacation. We returned to Zaragoza for New Year's Eve (Nochevieja) with Alejandro and his parents. We had a fantastic meal of (traditional) seafoods, followed by grilled lamb and steak. Both Ben and Chaia ate like champions (steamed mussels+ meat on the bone=happy kids). Watching the ball drop in Spain is a bit more of a personal thing, as at precisely midnight, on each stroke of the count of twelve, Spaniards eat twelve grapes. If the clock you are using happens to have a fast chime, then you wind up with a mouth stuffed with grapes. Needless to say, the traditional New Year's kiss does not combine well with the Spanish tradition, and laughing about the awkwardness of trying to combine the two just makes the whole thing worse. Ben and Chaia saw 2AM for the second time this year, and we all slept until 10:30 on the 1st.

Happy new year all, may your 2010 be happier in all ways than your 2009!!