Market Pictures

I took several pictures at the market that I've been using for all my produce shopping. The fruits and vegetables are much better than what you get in American grocery stores, as you can tell just by looking.

Weekend in Barcelona!

I'm finally catching back up after a long weekend in Barcelona. We left montpellier at 7:30am, and arrived around 1:00pm. As we came out of the metro at the Plaza de Espana, one of the first things I noticed was all of the bikers and their motorcycles parked everywhere. As it turns out, the Barcelona Harley Davidson festival was going on. We walked through and I had a delicious grilled chorizo and onion sandwich, then we checked into our hotel nearby. We proceeded to go to the church in Barcelona and to Las Ramblas, which is the main street for shopping/restaurants/bars.

As everyone else took an afternoon nap, I diligently searched for a good restaurant to go to(since the front desk was not helpful at all). I found a place called El Callejon, which was great. We then made our way to Espit Chupitos, which is a shot bar that has a huge menu of several hundred shots(at only 2 euro each). It was extremely crowded, so after we tried a couple of shots, we decided to leave to go to the club. We arrived to Razzmatazz around 2am, which is when everyone is still arriving to the club. The place was huge, with several different rooms, each with a different style music. The picture below is the big dance room.

After a few hours we retired back to the hotel, finally going to sleep at 5:30am. On Saturday, we got up and going after noon, and made our way to the beach. Aside from vendors walking up every minute to sell beers, tattoos, souvenirs, etc., the beach was fun. It was packed, but we managed to find a large spot for our group. I also very much enjoyed lunch(with sangria) at a restaurant on the beach.

At 11:00, we arrived to a tapas bar for dinner. As a whole it was good, but there were some dishes that stood out more than others. After a walk that turned out to be longer than expected, we went to a club that was more local. It played house music, meaning it was basically a continuous stream of upbeat songs, all of which had no words and were electronic. Needless to say, the music got a little old, so we called it an early night at 3:30.


Sunday we browsed around this cool mall before we had to leave, but unfortunately nothing was open.

Here was a good view from the train ride back.

Cooking from the market

We're going to barcelona this weekend! Last night we decided to take it easy, considering the train is leaving at 7:30 in the morning. So, for a down night, I made dinner(3rd time this week) and sangria. For dinner, we had pork tenderloin with tomato-balsamic pan sauce, served with sautéed finger potatoes and green beans. The approximate recipe was:

2 pork tenderloins, seasoned with salt and pepper

Vegetables:
2 lb finger potatoes
1 lb fresh green beans
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp fresh parsley
S/P
EVOO

Pan Sauce:
2 cups little cherry/grape tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced and chopped
1/4 cup fennel, thinly sliced and chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar(really not sure here, could be up to a cup)
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 tbsp fresh basil
1 tsp fennel tops, chopped(also known as dill)
S/P (be generous, potatoes usually need it)
EVOO

First, I boiled some water and blanched the green beans for about 2 minutes. Don't forget to salt the water, and when you take the beans out you want to put them in cold water to stop them from cooking(and stay green). Then, I filled the pot with new water and the potatoes, and brought them to a boil for around 10 minutes. You don't want to cook the potatoes all the way through, as they will finish cooking later. After pouring out the potatoes in a colander, return the empty pot to the stove over medium-high heat.

In addition, heat up a large metal pan on medium-high. Cover the bottom of the pan with EVOO. Cook the pork tenderloins(one at a time if the pan is too small) until browned on all side. Its important, when using metal, to not move the meat too much at first. After about 5-6 minutes, the meat will be nicely seared and pull off the pan. If you move it in the first couple minutes, it will usually stick to the pan.

Normally I would finish these in the oven, but couldn't since we don't have one in the hotel. So, they did end up taking about 20-25 minutes to cook in the pan.

Meanwhile, put about a quarter cup of EVOO in the other pot and add the potatoes. Add salt and pepper. After they start to brown, add the beans. About 4-5 minutes add the garlic and parsley. A couple minutes later they will be ready to serve.

Back to the pan used to cook the pork. After removing the pork from the pan, pour at the oil, but make sure to keep all the brown bits stuck to the pan. Add a couple tbsp of EVOO and put in the onion and fennel. Sauté for about 5 minutes, scraping up the pieces stuck to the pan. Add the garlic and cook for about 2 minted, the add the tomatoes, a few minutes later, add the balsamic, herbs, and salt/pepper. Any bits stuck to the pan should easily come off with this balsamic. If you have any juices from the dish that the meat is sitting in, add that too. Allow the sauce to slightly reduce, about 5 minutes. Serve over the pork alongside the mixed vegetables.

On a side note, the sangria was great because of all the fresh fruit in the market across the street.

Shots!

We went out to a cool pirate themed bar. To get in you walk down a staircase, and you enter through the doors into a long bar. It's so cool because the whole bar is decorated like a ship, and has huge barrels for furniture. Anyways, here's a picture of the flaming shots we did!

Cooking Dinner again

This is an awesome little bakery that one of the French students led us too. It is tucked in a little alley, and is clearly a local spot. It has the standard backed breads and pastries, but also has bread pizzas and quiche. I tried the bread pizza with ham, potato, onions, and cheese, and it was very good. It tasted almost like a loaded backed potato pizza. The next day I tried the tomato quiche, which was also really good. The kicker was the dijon mustard at the bottom, which(since I love mustard) was really good.

That soda is realllly good too, it tastes like a grapefruit-citrus soda.

Heres a greek salad I made for everyone. We had tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, bell pepper and feta tossed in a fresh made greek vinagariette. The chicken was pan seared with garlic, oregano and lemon zest. Again, per Chase's request, we had dipping oil and bread. 

Later on, for the Euro final, we walked down to the Plaza de Espana, a small little Spanish food/wine shop and cafe. We sat a table outside and enjoyed a few bottles of wine and some really good little cookies and deserts. Other than school work getting in the way of doing more stuff doing the day(only kidding, kind of), I could really get used to this.

Montpellier!

Sure is A nice change of pace arriving in Montpellier. It is a casual beach town full of college students, making it more laid back and relaxing than Paris. First thing I noticed when we got to the hotel was that there was an open market across the street. The market is awesome; it has several independent vendors, including three produce stores, a bakery, a spice/nut vendor, a butchor, seafood shop, coffee shop, cheese shop, wine shop...  makes me wish that it was still like this back in the US(can't be thanks to Walmart, Publix, etc.) We walked around for awhile, went to "Le Comedie", which is the main square, for a while then headed back.

Anyways, the next day, the market just looked to good to pass up, so I went produce shopping. Here is what I decided to buy. (Pictures of the market to come later)

I made a marinara sauce (from fresh tomatoes, not canned), and added ground sausage to make a bolognese sauce.With all the fresh produce, we also made a salad, with a quick balsamic vinagarette.

We grabbed a couple 7 Euro bottles of wine from the Spanish store across the hotel. This unfamiliar "Jumilla" wine was a very pleasant surprise. It was a little dryer on the start, followed by a smooth red fruit flavor, with the slightest bit of oak/tobacco on the finish. I don't care for a strong oak flavor, but this finish rounded out the wine very nicely, showing its complexity and versatility. As it ends up, we were back for more later that night.

Last Days in Paris

After a week in Paris, which seemed like 2 weeks we did so much, we moved down to Montpellier, which is a much slower paced beach town.

Just a recap of what I have been doing the last couple of days:

Thursday. After class, we went to one of the French Supreme Courts. The court was divided into sections, with large intricate court rooms for each division, such as criminal, commercial, family law, etc. This was the family law room I believe.

After we visited the Courts, we had dinner, which was decent but not really worth writing much about. We then walked down by the canal again, and found a little locals bar, where we talked to some french businessmen for a while. With myself, drew, kathleen, and courtney, we split a bottle of red and white wine and had desserts. I orded the chocolate torte cake, which turned out to be rich delicious.



Friday. With a short day of class, we were out in the city by noon. We browsed the shops for a while in the Hotel de Ville area, then sat down for late lunch at a this place.

To start out with, I had a cup of espresso(which is their standard coffee here), and it was phenomenal. It was rich and the coffee flavor was so good, yet it didn't have that hard acidic bite you sometimes get with espresso(or coffee) when it is brewed strong. Of course, we also had wine with our lunch. We had Chardonnay, which also turned out to be good, as it was not too heavy(as some Chardonnays will be), but still brought to the table complexity of flavors and a hint of butter on the finish.

However, the absolute star of this meal was the Penne Carbonara. This was the best dish I had in Paris, without question.

This Carbonara was authentic, with the egg yolk served on top and the hot pasta water in the bottom of the bowl. Once you crack the yolk and mix it in with the pasta, the residual heat lightly cooks the egg yolk. Combined with grated parmesan cheese served on the side, the sauce was creamy and delicious, which large pieces of perfectly cooked pancetta. I wish I could describe through words how good this pasta was, but I just can't. If I ever make it back to Paris, this is the first place I'm going. My only regret is not trying the beef tartare at this place, as I'm sure it would have been amazing.

After a little more browsing the shops, I strolled down the river and met up with everyone for a night by the Eiffel Tower. There's no better way to finish our week in Paris then lounging on the grass with 10 friends and a few(maybe more) bottles of wine. Complete with the sparkling lights on the tower, and cracking champagne at midnight, we sent off our time in Paris the right way.