¡España! Things we learned, Part 2 La Comida (+a brief grammar exposé)

Before we talk COMIDA (food), here's F's Business Kitty!

Here are some things we learned in Spain about food:
1. The cheap, to-be-weighed pastries ARE cheap..and make sure to read the ingredients list...unfortunately I don't speak this language very well..

2. We went out for a small adventure--and that's what we got! Here are the pastries we ...somewhat unwittingly? bought:

• "angel hair", made of ...squash :) not bad, but a bit strange.
• "yogurt red fruit", that'll be safe we thought, until we cut it open and saw no red...murr? Then we reread the package and realized it was just flavored like yogurt with red fruit. No real yogurt either..it tasted vaguely of artificial strawberry. 
• chocolate..also fairly safe, but in this case (probably because prepackaged) fairly dry. meh.

3. Instead of samples, store workers wander around offering you the product, "Do you want to buy this? or this?" At first I thought she was just trying to get rid of some sale items, but my Dad said, they do that regularly. A person offering is often more compelling than just a sign..and she certainly did seem to be enjoying herself :)

4. Chufa horchata is great--apparently chufa does it all! it cleans, it scrubs, it even washes dishes!  Um..okay, just kidding. But they do call it an Earth Almond Organic Drink and is apparently "recommended for pregnant women, infants and .." I think they actually want to sell it to anyone and everyone!

Here in Valencia they make it, not from rice (as I've had it before), but from chufa nuts. We had some raw. They're crunchy and vaguely almond-tasting. The fresh horchata that we bought tasted like almonds but the stuff from the store tasted rather grassy.

5. German constitutions are able to survive poison chicken (at 1 hour and 15min, so far, so good). Okay, the chicken wasn't actually poisonous..we just accidentally left it out of the fridge longer than Dad preferred. Germans aren't so uptight about that, so I figured we'd be fine. And we were :)

6. If looking for good German bread (i.e. with crust and some more substantial grain), go to Lidl (hooray for exported German discount grocers!)

7. Chocolate a la taza is awesome--it's like drinking hot chocolate pudding from a cup. (In fact, that's pretty much exactly what it is :) )

8. And then there's cheese. We found a funny-looking cheese shaped like a hat.

9. Pulpo! We found a small fish market that seemed to sell the rejects from the day--and therefore cheaply. On the first day we saw still-breathing octupi (head about the size of a fist and then with legs, they were about the length of my forearm).

On the second day we asked how much one would cost and the man indicated that he'd give us the whole bucket (of about a dozen!) for 12€!! But, as we didn't know how to cook octupus yet--never mind what we would do with a dozen!--we decided against it. And in the next breath, he sold them to the guy next to us. We then considered buying one or two off him, but we didn't.

10. Sea urchins..we didn't actually see any for sale, but they did seem to live in the bay as much as jelly fish live in the fjord in Kiel.

11. They have an interesting opinion of what "American delicacies" are...We went into a gourmet shop in the mall and saw a whole section with them. What did we find there? Nice BBQ sauce, fine. Pepperidge Farm cookies? Okay. They seem to have cornered the international-American-cookie-market. But cheese whiz? And marshmallow FLUFF? C'mon! And those at 4-5€ a pop! NO way. You could even get Cake mix, Betty Crocker frosting, Reeses (now, there I was tempted :) ), PB, and Newman's Own dressings.
(Oh look. I used an Oxford comma* and it looks weeeeeird!)

Here's where I caught mild hypothermia after we frolicked in the not-so-warm-Mediterranean-waves!

And here's a shot from our walk/hike along the Río Turia. This was an almost entirely silent little courtyard in a small village. We enjoyed some shade and a snack.

*An Oxford comma (popularized at Oxford University) refers to the comma in a list of 3 or more items that is placed before the "and". F likes them, but I don't. (The things you debate about when married to a linguist :P )

I think it looks crowded, but I can acknowledge (in the above example) that having a salad dressing consisting of peanut butter and Newman's Own (whatever that is--as if it were an ingredient) would be strange. Oxford commas exist to make things more clear**--but I still think they look funny.

**Here's an example where an Oxford comma keeps things clear:
(without) Please invite James, a DJ and a musician.
(with) Please invite James, a DJ, and a musician.

In the first example I'm not sure if James just is a DJ and a musician. Is he the one I am supposed to invite?
In the second example, the Oxford comma makes it clear that, even if James is a DJ and a musician, I want 3 separate people invited.

And if none of that made any sense or just seemed irrelevant, feel free to ignore it like most of the world (outside of literary circles) does. :D