In Spain, they take their days of rest seriously. On Sundays, almost NOTHING (besides restaurants) is open. Every once in a while you can find a little shop open on a Sunday morning, but as far as grocery stores, banks, and the mall are concerned, you're out of luck if you didn't do your shopping on Saturday. Since I usually find myself pretty bored on Sundays, I've unofficially made Sundays my baking day. On Saturday, I find a recipe that I want to make and pick up the ingredients on my obligatory Saturday shopping run.

Last Sunday I made the Pomegranate-Lemon Scones from my last post. This Sunday, I decided to throw healthy to the wind and make this recipe for Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies. They were sooo good. But be warned: if you've got an insatiable sweet tooth, do yourself a favor and don't make these, because you won't be able to stop eating them.

I followed the recipe exactly as far as ingredients go, but mine didn't turn out like the ones in the other blogger's picture. I obviously don't have a mixer here, so I tried whipping the egg whites with a hand blender. As I anticipated, they didn't really whip like they were supposed to. They got airy, but never arrived at the "soft peaks" stage. Despite that, I kept going with the recipe and put the dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes so it would stiffen up and be easier to roll into balls. This worked really well, but as soon as I popped 'em in the oven, they flattened out real quick.

Even though they didn't look exactly like the picture, they are AWESOME. Neal and Ben, you'll get this comparison. Remember how you used to be able to get a free cookie at the Randall's bakery? And remember those chewy chocolate ones? Well these are nearly identical to those. SO good. Chocoholics, make these at your own risk!

Although the Spanish word for pomegranate is granada, it is not, as I once thought, named for the Spanish city that shares its name. According to the good ol' Wikipedia, its name comes from the Latin pōmum "apple" and grānātum "seeded." If you've ever actually opened a pomegranate, you'll understand why that name is appropriate. 

I had never actually prepared anything with pomegranate in it before, but seeing as how they're in season, when I came across this recipe for  Low-fat Pomegranate Scones I decided to try it. While the result did turn out a bit more like a cake than what I would consider scones, they were super good! The mixture of the pomegranate with vanilla extract and lemon zest smells so good and tastes even better. Eat them warm with a dab of butter! Yummm.

...and then try to come up with an excuse not to come visit me. Betcha can't. 

"To teach is to learn twice."

-Joseph Joubert

I'm hoping that the above quote is true because I've recently decided to take on the feat of teaching myself the information I need for the Spanish proficiency exam I'm taking in May. To make a long story short, the Spanish class I was taking at the university now blows, so I've decided that unless some big changes are made, I'm jumping ship. As such, I've just gone to the book store today and picked up these two guys. They're gonna be my new best friends until my exam in May.

Today I was in science class with the 6th graders and the teacher had us watch a short video on the digital board at the front of the room. I was at the front of the class so naturally, when I turned around to look at the board, all the kids could see the back of my head. I had my hair up and I guess whoever was right behind me saw my hearing aid.

I started hearing whispers and murmuring coming from behind me. When the video was over and I turned back around I kept catching kids staring at me and then looking away when I made eye-contact. They all thought they were being sneaky but I knew exactly what was going on. Somehow, even though I've been there for a year and a half now, this was the first time that they had seen that I wore a hearing aid.

After about 5 or 10 minutes of this annoying behavior, I finally just took my hearing aid out and showed them. I think they were surprised that I knew they had been talking about me as they looked, wide-eyed, from the hearing aid, up to me, and then back down to the hearing aid.

"Eso qué eeee??" one of the students asked me. That's andalúz (what the people of Andalucía call their dialect of Spanish) for "eso qué es?", which means "what is that?" in English.

I knew they wouldn't know what a hearing aid was if I told them in English so I didn't reply immediately. They started throwing out guesses and random questions.

"Does it go in your ear?"

"What's it do?"

"Does it hurt?"

And then the best one..."Is that your translator?"

HAHAHAHAHA. I just about died. I guess they actually still think I don't understand Spanish. And evidently they severely overestimate technology if they think there's an apparatus you can put in your ear that automatically translates from one language to another. That'd be pretty darn incredible, and to be completely honest, I don't doubt that it might, at some point, come into existence. Kids are so funny!

 

I got back to Almería at 10pm last night after a 25 hour journey and I'm up for work at 7 after not going to sleep til 3. My body has no idea what's going on. Let's see how long it takes to kick this jet lag!