Yummy Spanish Goodness

Wintering on our 12.5 meter sailboat, Solstice, in Cartagena, Spain, has some great advantages. The weather is mostly dry and mild, the people are friendly, and I get to do the deep dive into a distinctive cuisine. We will be here through April 2010. This provides a great opportunity to not only learn about Spanish cuisine, but how to cook it. All those hard to find Spanish ingredients are mostly within reach. So it's time to find my inner Spaniard and create Spanish dishes that here in Spain they call comida (food).

Challenges:
The numero uno difficulty is that I don't speak Spanish well. I do what Shirlee calls “Tarzan Spanish”—lots of nouns and pointing with too few verbs. So shopping face-to-face with vendors at a mercado can become challenging, but I manage to get what I want and they get money. I don't have a blender or a food processor. To compensate I have a food mill, strainers, and mortar and pestle. My oven only heats to 375º F (190° C), so high heat is only achieved under the broiler with a fixed clearance of 3 inches (7.6 cm). Space is an issue with any cruising sailboat. The galley is 4' x 7' (28 sq. ft. / 9 sq. meters); this includes the counters, refrigerator, stove, and sink. This gives me 2' 6” x 2' 9” (76 cm x 85 cm) to move around in.

Resources:
My cookbooks are Menú del Día by Rohan Daft and The Cuisines of Spain by Teresa Barrenechea. These books are my Rosette Stone for translating the Spanish names for ingredients. The markets are within walking distance, and there is the customary mercado called Santa Florentina with many meat, seafood, vegetable, and cured olive vendors. The galley is properly equipped for small-scale, hand-crafted dishes. I have a wife who has a sense of adventure and enjoys my cooking. In summary, I have a wonderful wife, Spanish markets, a small kitchen, two cookbooks, and a will to succeed.

Back Story:
This is our 3rd winter staying in a single location waiting for winter to fade. Our first winter solstice was 2006 in Olympia, WA, while Shirlee was recovering from a hip replacement. We mostly stayed with Shirlee's mom in Portland, and I would visit the boat every other week to check on things. We stayed aboard in Olympia in March and April and resumed our travels in May. In Olympia we enjoyed the farmers market within walking distance and did wonderful dishes with the fresh asparagus that comes with spring.

Mexico, Central America, and the Western Caribbean were our next “winter.” Winter 2007 was spent on the move. We transited the Panama Canal from the Pacific and made our way to Florida to begin our Atlantic crossing to Europe. We really miss Mexican food.

The winter of 2008 we stayed at Marina Westerdok, Amsterdam, Netherlands. There we watched the canals freeze around us and snow accumulate on our deck. We struggled to stay warm and learned to appreciate and prepare traditional Dutch dishes. Stamppot with Picallily, smoked eel and mackerel, brauts, beenham, and broodjes all washed down with Grolsch.

Summer 2009 we sailed north to Sweden via the Kiel Canal. Then we sailed south for the winter. Along the way we visited Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, and then into the Mediterranean and Cartagena. Once the winter storms have faded we'll continue cruising and tour the Western Mediterranean. Then it's out into the Atlantic to visit the Azores and Madeira.