a bit about the food

We eat our meals at the table in the living/dining room, but instead of all sitting on kitchen chairs, Anne and I sit on the couch, the grandpa and dad both sit in big armchairs, and the mom and all the kids sit on regular dining room chairs. On top of all this, we put the tablecloth (its more like a thick blanket, though) over our legs b/c the only heater is beneath the table.  Even though the rest of the house is pretty freezing cold, during meals we get to warm up! Another interesting routine is that the TV is always on, and during meals we all watch whatever program is on.  Usually the routine is to eat w/ the TV on and after we finish eating (both lunch and dinner) everyone hangs around for a bit (at least a half hour, but sometimes several hours) and watches TV.  Not my favorite life style, but it was a good ice-breaker, at the very least. 

We eat lunch around 2:30 or 3 every day, and this is the most important meal of the day for the Spanish.  We usually either have one big course, like a pasta dish or a hardy soup, or a two course meal that starts with soup and ends with fish or meat.  Dinner is not usually as big as lunch, but it is still a pretty good sized meal.  As I’m sure most of you know, we don’t eat dinner until much later.  On school nights we eat around 9:30 but on weekends we don’t eat until 10:30 or so.  It was definitely a little strange at first, but I actually kind of like this schedule.  The only problem for me is that breakfast is not a big meal here, and I am usually one to eat a pretty decent breakfast.  At first, Anne and I were getting really hungry between meals and we thought it was just because we are Americans and are used to eating a lot, but turns out it is customary for most people to go to cafés in between meals and eat little snacks during the day. 

The food that our mamá had cooked has been amazing so far! We had croquetas on the fist night here, which are kind of like bite sized mashed potato and ham things that are breaded and fried (I think?)—not a very good explanation, I know, but they tasted great!  My favorite meal so far has been the tortilla española. It’s a shaped like a big pancake, but much thicker, and then is cut into pie slices for everyone.  It’s mostly made out of eggs and potatoes, and I’m not sure exactly how she makes it or what she puts in it, but it tasted amazing!  And almost everything our señora cooks is made from scratch and is generally pretty healthy.  After every lunch we have a piece of fruit and after every dinner we have a yogurt (but I think they are richer than the yogurt we have in the US).  Really, those are two great ways to eat something sweet after dinner w/o being too unhealthy.  So far, there has yet to be anything that I dislike, and most of what we eat is new to me.