Tortilla II

So it seems the celebrations did go on late into the night in the city centre last night after Real won the Copa del Rey, even though Sergio Ramos managed to drop the cup under a bus! Sergio!

There was so much to write about yesterday I forgot about this. I cooked another tortilla the other night, and with the help of a non-stick pan (with a handle this time) and some advice from a half Spanish friend, it came out absolutely perfect. I think the main tips to take away are to put almost as much onion in as potato, which makes it nice and moist, and put it on a very low heat when putting the potato-egg mix back in the pan. A non-stick pan  does help considerably though too. Here it is, post flip.

Also, maybe it's that I'm looking a bit more tanned these days, but people keep asking me for directions recently. I've often been mistaken for a local in many European countries before, but not until recently in Spain, and my students laughed when I asked them if I looked Spanish in an exercise. Anyway, it's quite satisfying that I can actually direct them now too, as I'm currently doing the Rosetta Stone module on giving (and receiving) directions. Still a very long way to go with my Spanish though. Another reason to stay in Spain next year maybe.

Word of the day: Vela - Candle

Tortilla and Grafitti

So far so...

I made my second attempt at cooking tortilla, or Spanish omlete, this week after a bit of a disaster last time. I decided to loosely follow 2 recipes off the internet (the top two when you search 'tortilla recipe') which are slightly different but I opted to put a bit of chopped red pepper in with my potatoes and onion. You always seem to need less potato than you think, which was my main downfall last time (result: potato and scrambled egg). Without going into too much detail, you fry the onions and taters, whisk some eggs, add them together and then pour the mixture into a frying pan, and let it cook before flipping it over, which is where things get interesting. I find it inconceivable that this dish was invented before the advent of non-stick pans. I was doing fairly well with our battered old definately non non-stick pan, shaking it as the mixture solidifies so it didn't stick (good tip), when the handle promptly came off.

...oh.

The instructions on the recipes are invariably a bit vague on the flipping bit, but your supposed to do it by putting a plate on the pan and quickly turning it over. This is no simple feat when your pan doesn't have a handle but I just about managed it using a tea towel only to find the bloody thing stuck to the bottom in the middle. Luckily, it was still unset enough to sort of mould together in the end to make something resembling the traditional cake-like shape, and after a couple more flips I was getting the hang of it. Everything fell apart a bit upon serving but by that point I was just glad to get it on the plate! Everyone agreed it tasted great though, especially with a bit of chili sauce.

Win!

What does it mean?

Also this week, we went to do another challenge: one close to my heart - find the most 'ducks and ghosts' (around Plaza de España). I've been wanting to know what these are all about since I first spotted them when I got here. All over Madrid, you'll spot these big stickers of a duck with a big bill and a ghost shaped like a 't'. I still don't know what its about (neither the internet nor Spanish friends have been any use) but between the two teams we managed to find at least 15 in an hour, including two massive ones right on the front of the Edifico de España.

I also took the opportunity to take some pics of some other street art in and around Malasaña. Street art and grafitti is a big deal in Madrid, and you'll see it everywhere you go, from quickly sprayed tags to huge detailed pieces (see right). You can find some of the best pieces on shop shutters because apparently shutters used to get covered in tags until at some point shops started paying the best grafitti artists to take time doing proper work on them, instead of a quick tag and run, which no-one else sprays over. It's become very mainstream and you'll see them on everything from off-licenses (bottles) to dentists (workmen removing teeth), often with the artists name and number at the bottom. I read recently that they're cracking down on this in Barcelona and fining the shop keepers, which is a shame because they aren't just crap tags, a lot of them are really good pieces of art and brighten up the streets enormously.

I also managed to get a picture of a typical Madrid dog this week as well, I spotted this guy tied up in the entrance to a supermarket and he's a classic: small, well dressed and probably about to shit everywhere. Some of the dog-fashion on display on the street is really quite hilarious, everything from coats, to sweaters, anoraks and neckercheifs, all on tiny little dogs being walked by otherwise normal-looking people. Very strange.