La Comida de Ayer (Yesterday's Food)

Yesterday was a good food day. It started out with a trip to the supermarket - one of my favorite types of stores to visit when abroad. It's always so much fun to see the different types of products, the different spices, and all of that. For instance, grocery stores in Spain will often have a aisle of yogurt that is about fifty feet long and full on both sides (probably a hundred different varieties of yogurt!). Of course, the supermarket has it's dangers too...I think I have a small suitcase worth of food products to bring back to the US with me....including some yummy treats for a few people!

After the market we came back to the apartment in Vilassar where Eda cooked a wonderful chicken Paella. I've always wanted to try a paella, I imagined by the looks of it that I would quite enjoy it. The problem is that most of the paella in general is full of shellfish, which is a big no-no for me. So Eda made a chicken paella with chicken, chicken sausage, something called chistorra (a pork sausage, which Felipe ate mostly), and a variety of vegetables (artichokes, some type of green bean, asparagus, red bell pepper, green pepper, and onion). The end product was delicious. Eda did a fantastic job with her first paella!

Look at how beautiful that is!

and here is me eagerly awaiting having the paella on my plate and fork:


Of course all the delicious paella required that the guys take a siesta afterward. When the siesta was over we drove into Barcelona to meet Felipe's sister Ana for a coffee at a shopping center called Les Glòries. After having a cortado (espresso with milk), Ana and Eda and I walked around the shops a bit. We met up with Sergi (Ana's boyfriend) and then went back to Vilassar where we continued with the good food!

For dinner we walked to a small restaurant that is well known for it's tortillas - Can Pa Amb Tomaquet (the name is Catalan, the link is in Spanish):


A painting of the proprietor, Justo Ruiz, making tortillas (a Spanish dish of egg omelet with fried potatos, garlic and onion).


Patatas Bravas....super yummy with the spicy tomato sauce!


Pa Amb Tomaquet (Pan con tomate in Spanish) and Truita Guiness (Tortilla Guiness). See the explanation of the Guiness label below:

Some time ago Justo Ruiz competed to gain the title of the most tortillas made in a 24 hour time period. He won this and it has become the trophy of the restaurant.


Here is a collage of photos from the day that he won the record.


and the Guiness book of world records certificate given to Justo Ruiz after the day. He used 12,330 eggs and 420 Kilograms of potatoes (that's about 900lbs!) to make a grand total of 4,420 tortillas! I am told that they managed to pull this off by encouraging people to bring potatoes and eggs to where he was holding his feat of tortillas and for bringing the ingredients, they could eat tortilla for free :D

Sergi and Felipe went against the grain and got other Spanish delights:

Felipe had the pa amb tomaquet with some Chorizo Ibérico.


And here you can see Sergi's gigantic plate of Surtido de Cazoletas (basicall a ton of little dishes with a variety of salads, cheeses, meats and fish).

Overall...A very good food day!