Spanish Food Log #1: The Worst and The Best

Nearly a month and a half ago, on 8th December 2010, one of my closests friends, Jing, whom I've met since our arrival in Sweden, departed for Spain for about 5 days. Since it was only for a short period of time, we could only go to Madrid and Barcelona, 2 days each for both cities and the 1 full day dedicated for traveling to-and-from both countries.

I was a bit tentative about going there initially, since I had quite a bit of work to do and had classes as well. Anyway, decided to just go ahead with it since I knew what was going on in class, the direction of my projects and would only just miss a class or two. Moreover, I'm here in Europe,  hence it's definitely more affordable to travel within other European countries than if I were to travel all the way from Australia/ Malaysia. 

One of the most renown and notable food in Spanish cuisine is tapas. For those that are unfamiliar with them, they are a type of appetizer that comes in a variety of combination of ingredients, many of them on sliced baguettes with olive oil. 

Jing and I had our very first tapas in Spain at Barcelona, after our trip to Madrid, at one of the restaurants on Rambla dels Estudis, in between our hotel at Silken Ramblas and Placa de Catalunya, all within the vicinity of Barcelona city centre. 

But before I go onto the pictures of our tapas, I can't wait to show the picture of the hot chocolate that I ordered at Madrid near Atocha Station during lunch, before we set off for the airport for Barcelona.

Ready????

 

 Jeng jeng jeng jeng!!!! Spanish hot chocolate (they pronounce it as CHO-CO-LAT-TEH)

I was like....whaaat on earth is this? I asked for hot chocolate and you gave me chocolate sauce?? And I was on a diet (still am). This is gonna fatten me up in no time. But boy was it gooood!!!! It was so thick, creamy and rich. Omg so goood! I just had to finish the whole thing but I took my time and had it teaspoon by teaspoon, to a point Jing was asking: "Ey, are you eating porridge?"

Darn good. WOOHOO. I feel alive even thinking about it.

Then came lunch, which sucked to its very cheesy and spinachy core. It should have its name changed to "Eat-Me-If-You-Want-To-Feel-Miserable".

Everything was just so....creamy, thick and on the dry side. Swallowing a mouthful of my greenish pasta was like swallowing a bite of mudcake with warm custard sauce. As you can see, there was absolutely NOTHING but carbs and fat on my plate. No protein. Jing had fettucini carbonara, which was better than mine. The croquette tasted like potato mash whipped with cream. Very thick consistency. It was by far the worst meal we had in Spain.

I'd rate it 4/10. 

BLUURRRGGH.

Now, let's have a look at the good stuff in Barcelona, tapas!!!

We absolutely had NO CLUE what each tapas was. All we knew was they were like a feast to our eyes and we just had fun pointing at the pretty ones and went 'I want this! This! This! And that!'

Look at these beautiful! Oooooooh.

 Top: Squid topping?? Bottom: Spanish Jamón (pronounced ha-mon), which is ham basically dry-cured, caviar and prawn.

 Don't know what they were. Just take a guess. But they tasted good.

 Look at 'em beauties. How good would it be if mountains look like that and each part of them are edible.

 Spanish omelette, composed of egg, potato and some sorta batter, I suppose, as it tasted thick with springy consistency. With some bread slices here with tomoto spread.

 Err....Spanish sausages?? Forgot the name. But it was gooood. Topped on unpeeled, panfried potato slices. 

 Random customer

 The good man that served us tapas

 Blood pudding/ sausage on the right, I think.

 My part of the table at the bar. I ordered the hot chocolate again, half hoping it would be like the one I had in Madrid, thick and creamy....omgggg. But it was just a regular HC, sigh. Better for my waistline I guess, if I looked on the bright side.

*Nom nom nom*

A period of about 5-7 minutes passed and in came new plates of tapas!!

 So pretttttyyy!!!!!

 Looks good but nyeh too creamy for me :'( That looks like cream cheese wrapped in ham, topped with a small dallop of blueberry jam

 We were already full but when we saw this we just had to order it!!!!!

 Our last baby before its halves ended in our stomachs. That was grilled red pepprika, sundried tomato, some super delish, pan fried fish, err...don't know what that is on top, some sorta fish I guess and possibly artichoke with some chocolatey looking, dark brown sauce.

I'd give it 7/10, for the variety presented, presentation, taste and ambience :)

That's it with the tapas! Next would be the paella we had!


Adios!

Uddevalla

Oh man I've left this blog unattended for super long! 

I was meant to upload many of the works and trips that I've done and taken. However didn't manage to squeeze in the time to. I've travelled quite a bit therefore much of my final assignments were only done after the travels, ie) 3 weeks before end of my study period. In another words, no time for blogging!

There should be quite a few posts that I could do regarding my travels and work, including my trip to Spain, Kiruna, my knitting project and my student directed project (digitally printed fabric). These would  s.l.o.w.l.y be updated here coz editing is a pain in the backside, even if editing was minimal.

The photos in this post were taken on 25th November 2010, when Sophie (French), Nina (German) and I took a train up to Uddevalla, a small town that one of our teachers is living in. 

Before going to her house, we drove to a small island off Uddevalla. Though it was only -10 degrees it felt like -18 deg coz it was by the sea. I've taken loads of photos there as well. But here are only those that were taken at Elisabeth's home. It's so cosy and cute. Loved everything about her little home and they actually renovated most of the interior themselves, including the bathroom!

 Pink Marimekko wall hanging for winter. She changes the cushions and the wallhanging to green one for spring!

Elisabeth with one of the books from her white, gridded shelves

Loooove the colours! Instantly brightening up any gloomy winter day

Cool stairs leading to the bedrooms, wasn't invited up of course

Cool old school stove that she leaves on when she's out so the house would be warmed up

Bulbous plant that you could find very commonly in winter 

Sophie! And typical Swedish food...cheese, ham, cucumber, peprika and bread/ crisp. Can you imagine having this everyday? Not me, thanks, though it wasn't bad. A guy in my student accommodation has this every single day, that's excluding the ham and peprika. Just bread, butter, cheese, cucumber, salt and pepper to taste. Omg.

Motherly :)

Super tasty soup!!!!! I had two servings yet wanted more :( And it's made out of...

...this!! Its texture is like potato...but I'm not sure what it's called.

Saffrony dessert with raspberries :)

Actually the photo looks yummier than it really was. The texture of the pudding was like...white carrot cake, for those Malaysians/ Singaporeans who know what I'm talking about, but with a hint of saffron and sugar. Not used to it but it looked so appealing. Anyway, shall not destroy the pic. So I'll say that it's still.....YUMMMM! Hahah.

Sophie (French) and Nina (German)

 Courtyard, with Elisabeth's car at the background

 Frozen apples still hanging on the tree

 Exterior of Elisabeth's house! Many of the Swedish houses are small and often square/ rectangular in plan

After the lunch, we went to Uddevalla's Art Museum. Didn't take many photos.  It wasn't that blog worthy.

Heading home on the regional SJ train. The kid at the background breathed really heavily, borderlined snoring. Quite distracting.

Anyway, still had a good trip, though it was super cold and I actually slipped and fell as I was walking to Elisabeth's house from her car :)!!

Hej då!!

Work In Progress

Happy belated 1st anniversary oatsforporridge!! I'm 8 days late. Oops. Was leaving Sweden for Spain that day.

Busy catching up on my work since coming back from Spain. Will post up photos of the yummy tapas soon. 

It's Kiruna this weekend, trying to catch the northern lights. Hopefully it'll be cloudless, that God'll let us catch the aurora and that I wouldn't freeze into a popsicle in the -20 to -30degC weather. 

Tribal Romance Revisited S/S 2011

Came across these yesterday at Zed-Eye.

The brainchild behind this label is Nigerian-born Ngozi Pere-Okorotie, who is a graduate from London College of Fashion and takes inspiration from Vivienne Westwood.

This collection is a revisitation to Ngozi's earlier collections, where she played with colours, textures and silhouettes.

For better photos go the site itself! I'm loving the headwear already.

Model Inspirations

This is how my screen's looking now. 

Studying facial features and trying to sketch out the best face I could for the subjects of my fashion illustration.

Fashion Illustration

Currently I've got a student directed project that allows me to do just about anything I want for the project, so long as it is fashion/ textile related, of course. 

I've always been fascinated with fashion illustrations. I love drawing girls with beautiful dresses. My best friend from high school used to think I might study fashion instead of architorture (which was SO not for me, hence I fired my bosses... JK!! Reno, Jenny and Tim are great people) coz of those drawings. Neither am I in fashion as well, btw, but in textile design :) Anyway, a decade or more after my first attempt in my extremely primitive sketches of girls with pretty dresses on, I'm now given an opportunity to fully control the direction of my project.

Here are really simple boards that I've come up with after diong some research. Illustrations are all by other super talented artists. Kelly Smith, Bec Winnel, Brittany Lee, Yulia Brodskaya and Catherine Campbell are amongst those whose works I've used to convey what the illustration style/ technique/ materials that I'd like to explore in this project. 

Laura Laine is exceptionally noteworthy. Her illustrations are simply amazing. I'd wish to develop my own style of illustration too and this project would defo be a great stepping stone towards that.

Hopefully they'll turn out as great as I imagined them to be.