Brock { Abroad }

“Manage with bread and butter until God sends the honey.” – Moroccan proverb

Market/Method of arrival: Ramblas de Girona Market, goat cheese, camprodon cheese E11.28 (I kilo)

Camprodon is a small pueblo in the north of Catalunya, in or near the mountains. The cheese most likely comes from goats or sheep who graze in those mountains and thus has a very local flavor.

# guests, ages, nationalities
Giacomo, 20, Italian
Fathila (co-host), 23, British-Moroccan
Vanessa, 23, Cuban-American
Keith (co-host), 31, Scottish
Joe (co-host), 23, American
Myself, Brock, 19, American, hereby referred to as: I

Project Intro/Theme
A “gourmet” meal, representing a large group of foodies. It was a Sunday and, due to lack of planning, most of our main ingredients were bought at an Italian boutique named Maestro di Moderna  that specializes in fresh and gourmet Italian ingredients. My host, Vanessa, shows me the shop. She tells me she’s been wanting to try the pasta since she’d moved to Girona almost four months ago. As we walk over to her good friend’s apartment, she briefs me on my project’s host.

“When Fathila and I first met, we spent hours together wandering the labyrinth of streets in Girona reading menus at places we found along the way planning where we would go once we had money to spend.” The two foodie-friends have more in common than just cuisine culture; they also both work as English teachers at local elementary schools.

Ingredients/prices
A liter of milk = .50, A loaf of bread = .80 (Catalunya has the highest costs of living in all of Spain) pasta, Maestro di Moderna Italian specialty shop, E7.12, two varieties (parsley and tomato, spinach). Oil, flour, and water for bread.  nata liquida (cream, 4) .40/each

Host offered to help, who did?
The four main meal chefs with me in the kitchen were:
Vanessa likes to take pictures of her food, and served as the perfect documentarian. A true slow food scholar, she explains the slow food movement she’s been following. Something that has gained widespread recognition in Europe, but slowly emerging throughout North America, as well. As a graduate in education, she is independtly exploring working with children in sustainable growing projects used for educational purposes with youth. She is also interested in studying the history and tradition around local foods, cuisines, and how they are maintained in various regions.
She also cut the cheese.
Fathila, made masumi, a thick and chewy fried bread which is smothered in oil before hand, a Moroccan speciality. Creating a mound of flour, she boiled water and added it slowly to the mix using her bare hands. After applying vigorous layers of oil and reworking the texture, she rolled the dough in extremely thing sheeets where she then fried them until they grew to a thicker and chewier consistency. She likes the direct relationship food and hands have not just in preparing the food, but also consuming it. As she explains further at dinner.
Giacomo stirs the pasta in the kitchen, his moves methodical yet he maneuvers comfortably. You could tell he knew his way around a kitchen. His first words, actually, were spoken after he whipped up an elegant yet simple three course meal, for his parents, made his first step to the table, food in hand, and served it to his guests with his first words of ‘bon profito‘. His parents owned a restaurant in Italy, or two? And he has worked in Barcelona, where else? He gingerly adds a generous dash of salt to the boiling pot. Vanessa was in heaven, trying the pasta alone, and admiring the simple flavor salt could give to fresh pasta. . When explaining his relationship with cooking, Giacomo  often “dreams up recipes and write them down the next day .” We all agree on the creative art behind cooking a meal and the artistic culture behind food embraced in Europe.
I stirred the sauce, deciding with the help of others, to add a fair amount of margarine (made with olive oil and provided by Keith)  to make the sauce go further. I used all three containers of cream (nata liquida) and the whole kilogram round of cheese. Pepper and salt were added to taste.

Duration of prep time? 1h10

Kitchen, appliances, water, fridge,untensils, energy bills?)
There were no cheese graters. They did not have a garlic masher. They had a gas stove and I don’t know how much they pay a month for their energy.

Place setting:
Keith set the table.

Appetizers/aperitifs?
The aperitif consisted of the three cooks digging into the wine during the meal preparation process, there were no appetizers served. Two bottles of Italian wine were served, one was a wine from Sicily, one was a cabernet, or maybe one was just a cabernet from Sicily… The bottles were offered to the table by Vanessa and Giacomo.

How was the meal served?
Dinner started at approximately 9 p.m. The pasta was placed in the center of the meal and was served, family-style by Fathila. She did not serve “an American portion” She served approximately half the amount, which covered approximately half the plate.

Do they bless the food?
Fathila had a blessing.

What was served with Pasta? Drinks?
The pre-dinner wine bottles, one of which had been almost completely consumed, were brought to the table. Keith and Joe said they were too hung over to have any. Fathila’s  thick and chewy fried bread which is smothered in oil before hand, a Moroccan specialty called, and prepared by Fathila.

Conversation during the dinner?
Bon appetit, Buen provecho, Bon Profito (catalan) was also said. Songs you want played at your funeral,  our favorite foods, why we live abroad? Fathila’s food culture eating with her hands. Dinner ended at approximately 00.30, a meal of approximately 3.5 hours.

How people finish, how many do?
The three men, myself excluded, finished their portions first and had seconds. They still probably didn’t each have what I set as the standard for an “American” portion.

Dessert?
After-dinner entertainment provided by: everyone. Giacomo played the guitar. Luke, a 21-year-old British guy stopped over for dessert and also a jam on the guitar. Vanessa was the honorary tambourine girl. A sing-along followed by a rousing game of charades was played. Charades is a great game to play across different cultures as a conversation on films, music, and literature from around the world ensued.
Joe, who considers himself an amateur chef, prepared the dessert. “I try,” he explains on his process with food preparation, “and sometimes fail.” A good example of the philosophy in experimenting with food. We gave him a quickfire challenge and asked him to prepare a final plate using 6 very ripe bananas and a bar of Green/Black organic dark chocolate imported from England and graciously offered by Fathila. He did not even get near to failing the challenge.

Preferences of guests?
Three of us, the two girls and myself included, were lactose intolerant but luckily not pasta alfredo intolerant!

Any other special considerations/customs?

Who did the dishes?
Keith did the dishes.

Related posts:

1. Presenting: the Pasta{project}!
2. Why you shouldn’t go to Bilbao, Spain on a Monday: