Our Spanish Food Experiences

Daily Drena: Foodies we are Not

More about food. Everyone raves about all the delicious food in Spain, with amazing tapas, etc, etc. Now anyone that knows us would know that we are definitely far from being foodies (Drew to the extreme), but we just haven’t been all that impressed so far. I do appreciate some really good tasting, non-healthy food, but most of the food we’ve tried is non-healthy and low quality food. Overabundance of white breads with little meat, bland taste, a greasy meal with no greens, etc. The homemade dinner was good quality (not counting the food we didn’t like) but restaurants have been so-so. Granted, we’ve stayed away from the octopus, squid, and other fishy items, so maybe that’s where the quality lies. We will keep making attempts in our own way.

Churros are big here, and we keep walking by a Churreria Cafe so we thought this would be a good opportunity to try out Churros con Chocolate. But this Churreria only serves churros manana! (could mean morning or tomorrow) so we tried some tapas instead. We narrowly missed the anchovy tapa (wsheeew!) and had Patatas Alioli (it sounded good, but really was just a mayo-filled potato salad), Ensaladilla Rusa (thought it would be more salad-like, but again it was potatoes, peas, tuna, mayo), and a Bocadillo (sub-type sandwich) with potato in it, all for 5€ plus a stomache ache.

Our activity for the day was a self-guided tour through a small garden and then down a cool historic mine, ending at the bottom of the gorge. The mine was a secret military structure in the 14th century, and is rumored to have housed hidden palaces and bathing chambers for queens.

http://www.rondatoday.com/4761/rondas-water-mine-under-the-casa-del-rey-moro

Afterwards, we walked down the main gorge trail again, to hang out and get our daily fill of the amazing views.

 

Walking Back in Time

Daily Drena: Shoes are nice

Even though we now have our own fancy vehicle, we still find ourselves walking everywhere. Probably because I don’t particularly like to drive; even more so on narrow streets and tiny towns. And I prefer walking and seeing the sights.

Anyways, today we went on a 10-mile trek outside of Ronda to the southeast on the SL-A 40 trail, Tajo del Abanico. We began in the modern day suburbs of Ronda and then headed onto the country roads to San Francisco, which is the southern part of Ronda. From there, the paved roads turned into gravel, taking us further into the countryside, past farms with herds of sheep, goats, chickens and roosters, horses, and, of course, the obligatory farm dogs. The dogs do a good job of raising a racket when we go by, but are incredibly scared of us at the same time – if we get close, instead of barking at us and chasing us off the land, they turn around and run away, then turn back around and bark at us some more. Odd. After a couple of miles, we turn off onto a small dirt path through the forest beneath some towering cliffs overhead, in a valley. The wildflowers are starting to spring up around here, with splashes of yellow, purple, and red dotting the hillsides. We make it to an overhang and start walking on an interestingly constructed path of rocks embedded in the ground. According to my guide (which I am translating from Spanish), this used to be a route that was utilized in the Medieval times and even possibly constructed by the Romans … pretty amazing to be walking in the footsteps of the Romans on their paths in the middle of a country side if so! Next, we cross a dry riverbed (at this time of year) and wander around to find a cave in the area. Apparently it is popular with local climbers as there are numerous quickdraws hanging from various locations. We climb around and explore a little bit then continue on and find some Spanish fellows digging in the riverbed. They nod at us as we go by and continue their work (digging for gold? archaeological students? illegally searching for things? we didn’t dare ask…). After a little while the trail ends, so we make the long hike back home to rest.

Homemade Spanish-style dinner

Daily Drena: Out of our food comfort zone

We had the Andalucian breakfast at our B&B again this morning, and traded four more breakfasts in for a dinner here. Being the picky eaters we are, we were worried about what might arrive on our plates, but knew we had enough food stashed for back up, just in case.

Maria served us a private 5-course meal, with small bites, tomato sopa, ensalada, the main course of rice/meatballs with a mushroom sauce, and some delicious vanilla custard. It was a fun treat and we went back to our room very full. I’ve never seen Drew eat the things he did. Granted, he held his nose as he swallowed stuff with a gallon of water, but by gosh he ate it. Considering what could have been served, it was all actually pretty normal and the tomato soup was fantastic. However for me, I can’t do olives under any circumstances, I’m not a fan of tomatoes, and the huge quantity of mushrooms were just too slimy, and the hold-your-nose technique doesn’t fix texture. She now thinks I’m the picky eater between the two of us, which is funny.

In other news, Drew decided to change his name to Diego while in Spain. People really have a hard time with his name. I guess those letters are very unusual together in Spanish.