Eating Vegan In Barcelona

I am not vegan, but my hubby and kids are.

There are a good number of vegan and vegetarian restaurants in the city, which is to be expected in a metropolitan area with international influences.  We have made a google map of vegetarian-friendly restaurants in the city which you are welcome to use.  We have not tried all of the restaurants listed, but it's handy when you are out and hungry and want to find a place close by.  Of these, our favorites are Teresa Carles, Addis Abeba (Ethiopian), Veggie Garden, Sesamo, L'Hortet, Maoz, and Biocenter.

Of course a hungry vegan can also go to just about any Thai, Chinese, or Indian restaurant, but note that many Chinese places, though abundant, are not very authentic and may not carry tofu or Chinese greens.  I'm sorry to say, compared to the California Bay Area, the international cuisine here has not been quite up to snuff.  Catalunya is a bit like Italy in that they love their own food and are happy to eat it every day for every meal, and other cuisines tend to adapt their foods to suit Spanish tastes.

Awareness and understanding of veganism amongst the general population is not very high.  For example, when our kids go to parties or to a friend's house, I will often provide food for them since sometimes people are hard-pressed to come up with vegan options on their own.

One cannot really just go to any old restaurant and expect to find enough food to make a meal.  But here are some typical local dishes which are generally vegan:

 Aside from the obvious: patatas fritas (french fries), salad, bread, olives, hummus, and guacamole, look for these treats:

     

     pimientos de padron a la plancha                   

     grilled padron peppers                                 

     fantastic!

pa amb tomaquet

pan con tomate

bread with tomato, olive oil, and salt

simple but delicious

Setas a la plancha

Grilled mushrooms with garlic and parsley

More common in the fall.  Delicious!

Alcachofas al horno

Baked artichokes with salt, pepper, and olive oil

    Bueníssimo!

  Escalivada

  Oven roasted onions, sweet peppers, & eggplant

 Swimming in olive oil

 Patatas bravas

       Oven fried potatoes with spicy tomato sauce and aioli.  

Aioli is garlic mayonnaise, which sometimes contains egg, so ask.

Famous for a reason.  

And if you are around in March, try the calçots, a type of onion, like a cross between a green onion and a leek in that it has flat leaves rather than round, and they bury the bottom to keep it pale and tender.  The are roasted over an open fire until they are complete black on the outside and soft on the inside.  At a Calçotada (a traditional onion roasting party), one peels off the outer layer and dips what looks like a banana slug into the special sauce (Salsa de Calçots, a type of Romesco made of tomato, garlic, almonds, olive oil, and spices) then savors the sweet flavor.  Your hands get all black.  It's lots of fun, and tastes amazing. 

In addition fresh fruits of excellent quality are available everywhere.   Most restaurants offer a menú (a menu of your choice consisting of an entree, a main course, drink, and dessert) which includes a postre (dessert) and they will have fresh fruit as an option.  

Buen provecho!

Learning Spanish Take Two

OK, I knew I'd have to pay for my cockiness the last time I wrote about learning Spanish...

Let me just say that the honeymoon is over.  Level 3 is a real step up from level 2.  I am encountering lots of new vocabulary, and many of my classmates speak quite well, while I often feel tongue-tied.

It doesn't help that I arrive late to class twice a week because of my dance class schedule, and I leave early on Mondays in order to take Trevor to guitar class.

I seriously feel like I speak worse now than when I just arrived.  Mark says that isn't true, and he thinks I am improving.  But I feel more embarrassed now than just two months ago hearing myself butcher the language every time I open my mouth.  I think at first I was just happy that people seemed to understand what I meant, and I didn't know how to speak grammatically, so I just said whatever came to mind and didn't worry about it.  Now I know when I have used the wrong tense and I have to pause in the middle of my sentences to figure out how to form the verbs correctly, and I see the slightly strained look on the faces of the people I am talking to and get even more self-conscious.  It's not good.

My brain is full!  Suddenly words which I know that I know are harder to recall.  Have I been drinking too much wine?  Listening exercises have become more challenging.  I cannot understand people with Andalusian or Caribbean accents.  I get the general idea, but miss the subtleties because they are talking so damn fast. I hate that I can't understand jokes, and it's hard to make jokes.

Now that I know 4 different kinds of past tense, I not only have to figure out when to use them, but also how to form each verb in that tense, depending on whether it's first person singular, second person, third person, first person plural, second person plural, or third person plural!  Should I use the preterito indefinido (distant, completed past) or the preterito perfecto (recent, continuing past) or the preterito imperfecto (describing the past), or the pluscuamperfecto (past tense of the past)?  Telling one story often requires switching back and forth between all of these.  Yikes!

In addition to the present tense, we have the future tense, the imperative, and the subjunctive, each with their own sets of irregularities.  Adding to the complexity of verbal conjugation, once must consider, is the verb reflexive?  Because the meaning changes a lot if you leave out one tiny pronoun.  For example, cambiar means "to change," but cambiarse is "to change one's clothes". Quedar is "to meet with someone," but quedarse is "to stay in one place for awhile."  

If I manage to get the verb right, I still have to worry about matching nouns, adjectives, and articles according to the number and gender of the object, which sounds easy at first glance, but there are enough exceptions to make it complicated.  La mano and el poema are masculine, but el agua and la foto are feminine, while el paraguas and el microondas are both masculine and singular!  Argh!!!

One of my least favorite things are pronouns, which vary depending on whether they are subject, direct object, or indirect object, male, female, singular, or plural.  Do they go in front of the verb or behind it?

I also have a hard time with prepositions-- those tiny linking words which you just have to hear enough times to have a feel for what sounds natural.  Should I use de or a or para or por or con?  They all can mean "for/to/with/at."  Finally, there are those pesky accent marks.

*sigh*

Can you tell I'm a little frustrated?

Sometimes it's not good to have high expectations of yourself, I guess.

I have about a month to review and prepare for my exams.  Wish me luck.