French Dinner Party!

I love a good dinner party and even more, I love hosting a good dinner party.  So after the craziness of the holidays settled down, I had some my friends from high school over for a French dinner party where I cooked the meal I learned to make while I was in Paris.  The menu included baked parmesan zucchini, lamb in a mustard sauce (or pan fried tofu in mustard sauce for my lovely vegetarian friends) and chocolate molten lava cake for dessert.

My friends and I all have busy lives, so I cherish every opportunity we get to spend together.  I love the pictures from our mini photo shoot after dinner, but thought I would share the best (or the one where we all look the most normal).  My friend Dharani and I might just be holding hands.  Neither of us realized it until after the picture because that is just what we do/is normal behavior.  I seriously am in love with these girls!...and can't wait for our next get together.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland!

My friend Sarica and I escaped to the east side of the mountains for a short getaway to Leavenworth.  We ventured to neighboring Plain for a morning sleigh ride and brunch at a cute family operated lodge (but not before admiring the amazing view of the valley). 

When your mode of transportation is a horse-drawn sleigh and your date is wearing a penguin knit hat, it is a little difficult to not love life.  And to make things even better, the ride literally took us over the river and through the woods...

During our stay, we also ate some German sausage, walked around the downtown area, drank some hot wine, napped in front of the fireplace and Christmas tree and of course baked up some holiday cookies.  It was the perfect pre-Christmas celebration!



Do everything with passion and love.

Barcelona was the perfect end to my adventure.  I took an amazing cooking class where I learned how to make Spanish Tortilla (which is more like an omelette), Catalan cream (similar to crème brulee), paella with squid and other seafood and butternut squash soup.  If anyone ever needs to know how to clean and prepare a fresh squid, I am your girl.  But before we even started cooking, we took a tour of the largest market in Barcelona that features lots of fresh produce, sweet treats, meats and local Spanish wines (a personal favorite). 

To set the scene, the class took place in a yellow tile modern kitchen that had red straw stars handing in the windows for the holidays.  What more could you ask for?  The chef who taught the class was literally so fabulous I was taking notes on some of the non-cooking related things he was saying.  His life motto was that “everything should be done with passion and love” and he kept repeating the phrase throughout the session.  When stirring a pot?  It must be done with passion and love.  Cutting vegetables?  Cut those vegetables with passion and love.  Cleaning up the ink from a squid?  You guessed it.  It needs to be done with passion and love. 

Barcelona was a gorgeous city with the amazing architecture, beautiful parks and magnificent walking streets. 

My last night abroad (at least for now), I watched the sun set on the city and admired the picturesque skyline from Parque Guell, a park designed by architect Antoni Gaudi.  It certainly was a great ending to a memorable, life-changing and more incredible than I could have ever asked for trip.

Indulge.

I ventured into the Basque region of Spain to the city of Bilbao to visit my friends Jessica and Kevin where they are teaching English for the year.  The town was very beautiful and I was surprised to see how many new buildings were being worked on while I was there.  My one take-away from the city was the importance of daily indulgences big or small.

Indulge in great food. 

Our first stop was a tapas restaurant that specialized in plates containing cheese (and I might mention that they had 1.50 euro red wine).  I felt like I died and went to heaven because the food was amazing.  The restaurant was amidst many other restaurants, many which were so busy that people spilled onto bistro tables that lined the sidewalks.  It was just a normal Saturday in Bilbao when everyone comes together to share a meal and some wine together.  It was really lovely.

During my stay I also discovered the magic of the menu of the day, which many cafes in Spain offer.  You get a drink, bread, a starter, a main dish and dessert for one price during lunchtime (about 9-12 Euros).  If there are two people and you both order red wine, you get to share a bottle!  Does it get much better than that? 

Indulge in some carefree fun.

Next, Jessica, Piper (one of their super fun roommates) and I walked around the city.  They had always wanted to explore a candy store called “Happy Pills” (not sure if something was lost in translation, but I liked it nonetheless).  You buy a fake bottle and can fill it with all types of sweets and put an adorable label on it relating to what problem is trying to be fixed (such as “the remedy for everything”).  It is true.  There are probably very few things in the world that cannot be fixed with an ice cream cone shaped marshmallow or a gummy heart. 

My idea of some carefree fun also includes purchasing baubles from the neighborhood jewelry place where you can not only buy some fabulous beads, but also handmade necklaces, headbands, brooches and more.

Indulge in the moment.

Another magical thing about Spain is coffee with milk.  It is different from a latte, but is so amazingly good and very inexpensive.  I did not even think about trying, but I think that you might be severely injured or have to pay a large sum of money if you wanted to get coffee to go because the Spaniards just don’t do that.  You sit with an adorable mug and drink your coffee in whatever fabulous environment your respective coffee place has.  As much as I love Starbucks, there is nothing quite like the mood and feeling of a Spanish coffeehouse.  Whether you are with someone else or by yourself, it makes you stop to just enjoy the moment instead of always moving around at the speed of light.

Jessica and I have actually been to 5 countries other than the U.S. together (U.K., Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Spain), so while I was in Bilbao we celebrated our 5^th country anniversary.  There is only one cupcake shop in the city (owned by a fabulous Belgian man), so of course that was the chosen location for the celebration.  It seemed pretty appropriate if you ask me.

Indulge in lovely walks with great conversation.

We spent our days walking around the city and looking at all the great architecture and talking about life in general.

I especially loved seeing the Bilbao location of the Guggenheim which was so beautiful architecturally and also in terms of its location on the river.  Of course we hit it at sunset, so that made the walk all the better.

Dear Seville, Be More Spanish

Any town that has orange trees on almost every corner, alphabet tiles for road names, adorable one lane cobblestone streets and bands dressed in Spanish garb playing Michael Jackson tunes in parades is okay in my book.  And that basically sums up Seville in a nutshell.

During the three days I was in the town, there were two holidays.  I still have not figured out how the Spanish do it.  How can an entire population get anything done with a two hour siesta in the middle of the day and going out until six in the morning and getting up and doing it all over again?  I don’t understand.  At least the holidays meant that there were fun festivities going on in the city (even if it also meant that I was not able to purchase the adorable tights that I saw in one shop window since stores were closed). 

I started my visit of Seville with a walking tour of the city.  Our group got to see many of the main attractions of the city which included some amazing architecture, beautiful views by the river and learning about the history of the city.  Many of the most beautiful structures of the city were built to honor or rebuild relations with people the Spaniards had fought against which influenced the style of the buildings and also the direction they faced.  There was even a Maria Luisa Park which was perfect because my middle name just happens to be Louise.  I felt honored. 

The most beautiful place that we saw would have to be the main plaza in the southern part of the city.  It was absolutely beautiful with all the colorful and intricate details and painted tiles depicting different stories and people relating to Seville and Spain’s history.

Of course I also loved all of the amazing small streets that snaked through the city.  I think this was probably the hardest city to navigate that I have been to so far, but getting lost in the cuter than cute narrow streets made for a picturesque trip to wherever it was I was trying to get to.  None of the streets are parallel or perpendicular and they often get renamed after a block or two since they change directions (if that makes any sense at all), so traveling here really was just as much about the journey as it was the destination.

My stay would not have been complete without some adventures with tapas and flamenco, so of course I got a little taste of both.  For tapas, I did my best to get fairly unique dishes, so I tried some gazpacho, goat cheese with marmalade, spinach and garbanzo beans (very surprisingly amazing) and something that had egg on it.