luckily i didn’t decide to DEFINITELY START DIETING yesterday.  because last night kevin and i attended a cooking class, ALL ABOUT TAPAS.  the official title of the class was SPANISH TAPAS TONIGHT!  it should have had a sub-heading – TONIGHT YOU WILL EAT MORE TAPAS THAN YOU EVER DREAMED POSSIBLE.

It wasn’t a hands-on class, but rather, a demonstration where we watched the instructor make the THOUSANDS OF TAPAS and then he handed them out and we scarfed them all down.

i’d only had tapas a couple of times, once in Chicago and they didn’t seem that authentically spanish to me even though i’d never actually had authentic spanish tapas, and another time in LA with my friends gary and ben.  the tapas there were more authentic if i recall, but on the other hand i’m not even 100% sure that we even went out for tapas at all, i just have the vaguest of memories of the dinner and it could have been something else entirely.  but because gary picked out the restaurant, and if they WERE tapas, i’m sure they were both authentic and delicious.

the idea of tapas is always appealing to me – if you’ve been living under a rock all this time and don’t know what tapas are, they’re basically little appetizers.  and now i guess they’re spreading the umbrella wide and you can call ANYTHING a tapa, but that seems kind of dumb to me.  if i’m going to have a tapa, i want a spanish tapa.  for example, if it was chinese appetizers, it would be DIM SUM, not chinese tapas.

anyway, the info about the class said there were going to be TWENTY different tapas.  that’s a whole lotta tapas.  John Dale Kennedy was our instructor –  he used to be the head of the Sangamon state auditorium, and i was in “the odd couple” with him many MANY years ago.  he played felix, the totally buttoned-up guy, and it seemed like type-casting at the time.  john is retired now and travels a lot and he seems to have mellowed quite a bit since his working days.  it was nice to see him again, and he was very enthusiastic about our tapas class.

John wasn’t going to make all 20 tapas; he had already prepared quite a few beforehand.  when we got there, each of us had a little plate with five kinds of tapas – some garlicky marinated carrots, a couple of squares of spanish cheese, two kinds of almonds, and marinated green olives.  all quite yummy.  but after only those five little tapas, i was thinking, hmm, 15 more to go, how is that going to be possible, stomach-room wise?

luckily i’ve spent these horribly cold winter days stretching my stomach for just such a moment.  plus i had some good wine to was the tapas down – john had recommended different spanish wines to bring to class, and i found a delicious one called TORREMORON TINTO, from the DUERA DEL DUERO wine region in spain.  the name of the town where they have this winery is called QUINTANAMANVIRGO.  there are only 106 people in the town, and the winery supports most of their families.

so, 15 tapas to go.  well, not really, because three of what he called tapas were actually different kinds of homemade mayonnaise.  you couldn’t really call these tapas because it’s not like you’d just sit down and eat the mayonaisse by itself.  theoretically, anyway.  they were all  homemade mayonaisse, one plain, on an alioli (made with garlic and lemon), and one tomato-flavored.

so there were still 12 tapas, and john prepared nine of them right there.  they included:

1.  manchego cheese and quince paste sandwich – very delicious. layer of cheese, layer of quince jam, another layer of cheese on top of the toasted bread.  salty and sweet and cheesy good goodness.

2.  fried green spanish olives – also good, but a little too salty; i think it’d be possible to get olives that weren’t that salty, plus rinsing them a lot would probably cut down on the salt.

3.  grilled squid – it wasn’t bad, but would have been better if the squid was better.  i can’t imagine it can be easy to find good squid around here.

4.  mahon cheese with catalan tomato bread – this is a lot like bruschetta, except you just rub a half-tomato on top of a piece of toasted delicious french bread, then drizzle olive oil, and then put slices of the cheese on top, then a little more olive oil because olive oil makes everything better.  delicious.  john also rubbed a clove of garlic on the bread, and it was amazing how garlicky they tasted even though there was no actual garlic on the bread.

5.  tuna empanada.  a little pastry filled with an interesting combo of stuff, including tuna.  they were made with puff pastry, and were quite delicious.  i bought some puff pastry today in anticipation of filling it with something or other.

6.  gazpacho – i’ve never been too keen on gazpacho because it always seemed to me that it would be like eating a bowl aof salso.  but this gazpacho, though very pungent, was quite good.  we just had tiny little cups filled with it, and it was good, even though it was such a cold night.  i’d make this if i had a tapas night in the summer.  what a good idea; tapas on the boat in the summer!  once the boat is running again.

7.  salmon mojo – i’ve been thinking about this salmon today.  john cooked the salmon briefly in olive oil, then put the mojo sauce over it.  the mojo sauce is made of garlic, paprika, cumin, olive oil and white wine vinegar.  the resulting sauce is very yummy, and i think it’d be delicious spooned over all kinds of things.  for example, i made a mexican recipe a while back, involving frying pieces of mexican cheese.  i can’t think of anything more perfect that fried cheese covered with mojo sauce.  mmm.  so low-calorie, too…

8. garlic pan-fried bread and chorizo.  spanish chorizo is a spicy sausage, not nearly as hot as mexican chorizo.  this was also good, but by now i was seriously wondering if i was going to be able to keep eating all this stuff that kept being put in front of me…

9.  tortilla espanola – this was basically an omelette with potatoes, and it took a very long time to cook, so there was a good long break before the preceding dish and this one.  it was nice to have a break, but when the tortilla was finally presented, it just seemed like potatoes and eggs to me.

10.  jamon and arugula salad – also, mmmmm good…this was made with serrano ham, crumbled blue cheese, arugula, and a delicious dressing made with hazelnut paste.  i’m definitely going to be making this.  i managed to clean my plate even though i was quite sure i’d have to be rolled out the door and kevin would have to somehow drag me up the stairs out of the place.

11.  sherry sultanas and valdeon cheese – sultanas (raisins) were soaked in sherry and served with a strong blue cheese.  mmm.

12.  tarta de santiago – a simple tart made with almonds.  once again, i finished it all even though by now i REALLY knew i couldn’t eat any more.  i’ll definitely be making this tart sometime; it seemed really easy to make.

whew.  the class started at 5:30 and we didn’t leave till nine.  hours of eating.  i told kevin i felt like the monty python guy, the obese man in the restaurant who stuff himself then wants just one “wafer thin mint,” then throws up, on and on and on, and guys always remember that scene and find it so hilarious and of course kevin remembered the name of the character.

the only problem with the class, besides the fact that the built-in benches we sat on were the MOST UNCOMFORTABLE things i’ve ever sat on in my life – they weren’t deep enough, and cut into me about mid-thigh, plus my legs were dangling down because they were so high – kevin said that even his legs were dangling down, and he’s six feet tall!  – but the only actual class problem is that john used many different kinds of spanish cheeses, plus different other kinds of spanish stuff, and whenever anybody asked where we could get any of it, he kept saying “i get it at Whole Foods in st. louis.”

so this is going to limit the number of tapas i’m going to be making any time soon, because it’s difficult enough for me to go out in the cold to the wal-mart only 10 minutes away; i can’t imagine driving all the way down to st. louis.  maybe they have some of the cheeses at meijer, because they do have a pretty good selection of stuff from around the world there.

and if we did go to st. louis then we could also go to TRADER JOE’S,  one of the things i miss most about living in LA.   at least there are some in st. louis.

so, maybe i’ll start planning a tapas party.  it would give me something to think about besides the BITTER COLD AND SNOW.

and, of course, this morning i DEFINITELY STARTED DIETING AGAIN, and it’s already after three o’clock and i haven’t been bad.  yet.  but then again, i had to get out the half-full bottle of ribera del duero wine in order to correctly type in all that info about it, and now it’s just sitting on the table here, making me think about a litle glass of wine with some delicious cheese…of course we have no spanish cheese, but we do have a good italian pecorino romano and some great garlic crackers…

dieting, it never lasts more than half a day for me.

ok then, stay warm this weekend,

grace.