Food - Spanish Tortilla

It's our last night in Madrid, and we convinced our good friend Alberto to teach us how to make an authentic spanish tortilla. Tortilla is a traditional Spanish tapa made with egg and potato. Other ingredients such as onion, chorizo, spinach, pretty much anything you want can also be added into the mix. At first it was intimidating but after watching Alberto make the first one with onions and potatoes, I quickly and easily whipped together the second one(with chorizo and onion). His came out perfectly but mine needed a bit more salt. Both were delicious, we ate them with him and his roommates at the traditional spanish dinner time 11:30 pm. The tortillas were accompanied by other traditional Spanish tapas like, jamón iberico (ham), cheeses (gouda and sheep's milk manchego semicurado), and olives. It was a wonderful last meal to eat in Madrid.

Food - Eataly

Mario Batali has done a wonderful job at creating a European style open air market. It was well into the 90's in Manhattan and to escape into an air conditioned food theme park was about as wonderful of a thing as I could ask for. Meats, cheeses, fish, pasta the list of goodies seemed endless. We had to start somewhere, so we ordered a dozen oysters. Sweet, briny, and topped with freshly grated horseradish, lemon and home made hot sauce. They were a perfect cool treat after the 90+ heat outside.

I forgot to mention the wonderful fragrant bread they brought before the oysters, but what shined through even more then the bread was the olive oil. Barbera Lorenzo #3, this oil had a delicate floral note with a spicy pepper finish, it complimented the house made bread perfectly.