More on food

Before I got here, I decided if I had to eat food from one region of the world for the rest of my life, it would be Mediterranean. So far, that choice has only been confirmed. I love the simplicity and elegance of the food here. It all comes down to quality ingredients:

good olive oil (and green olives!)
freshly baked bread (without preservatives)
wonderful cheeses
ripe produce
quality chocolate

What else could I want, really? Well, besides gelato, obviously.

By the way, a review of the flavors I posted:
pine nut--the nuts were great, the vanilla they were in a little boring
fig--shockingly "fresh" tasting; the opposite of a fig newton
flan--delicious, but not as burnt tasting as I like the sugar on my flan
hazlenut--divine; wish the pine nuts were in this
mandarin orange with chocolate--really surprisingly good

Anyway, if you're wondering what to make for dinner tonight, try some warmed garbanzo beans smothered in quality olive oil with some fresh crusty bread, some ripe cheese, and strawberries and pears for dessert (make sure you cut the pears with a fork and knife).

As Zoë would say, num num!

Back to pictures tomorrow.

p.s. The new blog header is my favorite Spanish breakfast. ColaCao (a ubiquitous and delicious brand of hot chocolate) and a trenza (pronounced "traintha" in Madrid)--a braided not-too-sweet sweet bread topped with coarse sugar. Perfect for dipping.