La pomme espagnole

La Pomme Espagnole is a place for me to share my experiences discovering Spanish food. I chose to move to Spain in September 2009, right after completing my bachelor’s degree in Ottawa and having really no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Why Spain? Well in 2007 I went on exchange to the Netherlands, where I met a very cute Spaniard. We attempted the whole long-distance thing for a while, and when we thought it was time to be together for real, as in not separated by an ocean, I packed up my things  and here I am today in the capital of this beautiful sunny country.

The greatest thing about being here is discovering all the delicious food. Food is and has always been my life. I grew up in my parents’ restaurant, sitting in a corner of the kitchen watching my mom yell out orders to her cooks while putting together amazing dishes. Through my parents I learned not only to love food, but also to cook food. University was a difficult time for me, especially when I realized that the typical mac and cheese that my classmates ate almost everyday disgusted me. I had to find a way to satisfy my love for gourmet on my student budget. Not an easy feat, but one that taught me how to cook the food I was so used to my mom cooking for me.

Now that I’m in Spain, I plan to discover as much about Spanish food as I can: the gourmet, the traditional farm house food and everything in between. Outside of Spain, its quite difficult to find good Spanish food. Its difficult to find any Spanish food at all! Unlike with Italian or Mexican food, we (in North America) are barely exposed to Spanish cuisine and hardly know what it consists of. All I knew arriving here was that I should expect paella and sangria. My goal here is to eat and cook as much Spanish food as possible, and to document it on this blog. I doubt the eating will present much of a challenge, but the cooking might be slightly more difficult. Keep reading the blog to see how it goes!

Why La pomme espagnole?

Many readers have asked “What’s with the title of your blog?” Well back in 2007 when I went on exchange in the Netherlands, I was joined by quite a few Spaniards. Unfortunately, none of them could even come close to pronouncing my name. To them, Laurence sounded more like l’orange, as in Canard à L’orange. I was therefore nicknamed “la naranjita” which in Spanish means little orange. I’m not too certain how it was changed, but someone made a mistake somewhere and all of a sudden “La naranjita” was changed to “manzanita” or little apple. Some say this is because I have very red cheeks, but it could be because of the colour of my face as soon as I have a sip of wine. Anyways, this is where the apple comes into the story. Why is it in french? Well, because I’m French-Canadian and while on this blog I write in English, French is my mother tongue and therefore remains a big part of my life. So there you go!