Fish Food & Salty Seas

When you live next to the ocean, a lot of seafood ends up on your plate. Bought fresh that day from the man at the market with the thick hands and warm smile who carefully wraps them up and seals the paper shut with tape. Deep fried sardines that are picked apart with clumsy fingers that stop being so clumsy after they get used to the small bodies and tiny spines in the middle. A pile of discarded heads and tails growing along the edge of the plate, salt and olive oil coating fingers that get unapologetically stuck in your mouth because this is fun eating and napkins just slow the process down.

Vacaciones Cocktail Bar

It was the tile that caught my eye at first. Bright blue and light brown flowers against the white, a sharp difference from the concrete outside. Of course, it took me a couple of weeks before I finally made my way in, a coffee date with Rebecca after yoga one Sunday. And, even as Madrid’s in the centre of the country, about as far away from the ocean as you can get in Spain, but Vacaciones feels like you’re sitting just out of sight of the beach, the bar on the corner of the street catching the breeze as it floats by and families walking by, the lights bright overhead, sun coming in through the window.

Naif

My favourite restaurant in Madrid was, hands down, Naif. There was just something about it. The exposed brick walls, the light fixtures, the low, stuffed sofas. And then there was the food. The food.  There was always trying and sharing and making sure nothing was left over as we spent the afternoon eating and talking, drinking coffee as we checked our watches to see how much time we had left before we absolutely had to leave.

Friends with Food

Or Food with Friends. Both titles work. Both are fantastic. Also: do you know how hungry a person gets when they see photos of food pile up on their desktop? Let me tell you: very.  They’ve been sitting there for weeks and I kept telling myself I’d get rid of them, stop that hunger and yet, there they sat. So now, after I’ve left Madrid, after I’ve sat for hours with friends and have drunk copious amounts of coffee and laughed over plates of food and said good-bye to those people that made Madrid Madrid for me, I’m clearing my desktop.  Just a little bit. 

Spicy Vegetable Ramen

I’ve been craving ramen noodles for ages now. It was out of the blue, just hit me that, “Yes! Ramen noodles! Make it happen!” Which I did. Then I hit up some of those million posts that are floating out there about how to amp up your lunch if you’re one of us who stay at home. From there I just did my own thing, dug around the fridge for things I could stick in it and improvised with what I had. Improvising is fun! There’s something about finding an unexpected combination and taste tasting something you’ve thrown together that makes you go, “Wow!” that’s just really fun for me. Also about using up food already in your refrigerator. Yes, good, bonus!