La Sidreria

I’m sorry it’s been so long. Please say that steak makes up for it.

I am still in Paris, but I’m so overloaded with work, I hardly know what to do with myself. I’ve taken to riding the bus the wrong way on purpose, just to have some time to think, before finally getting off the bus somewhere near St. Paul and dragging myself onto my bus to ride it all the way home, where I devote myself to lesson plans, concept questions and trying to figure out why my teacher uses the word galvanizing so often.

It’s strange to be back in school, especially when I was convinced just a few months ago that it would be years before I went back, if I went back at all. It’s even stranger, though, to think that just a little bit less than a month ago, I was still in Spain. I spoke Spanish… it’s been weeks since I uttered a word of Spanish. I was still surfing every day and spending my nights drinking cider. Oh, that I had the time to spend my nights drinking cider.

In San Sebastian, the sidreria, the cider house, while perhaps not as internationally well known as the other specialty of pintxos, is, regardless, an important staple of the gastronomy. January is prime cider time, and the barrels lining the walls of these massive restaurants are filled with the freshly made bubbly drink.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to be in San Sebastian during the cider season. Fortunately, I knew several people who knew of sidrerias that were still serving the classic meal, and so I went twice: once at the beginning of my trip and once at the end.

As you can see from the photos, the meal is always the same: served family-style, each table receives sausage, omelette, bacalao with green peppers, txuleton (that would be the steak), and sheepsmilk cheese with membrillo and walnuts. And, of course, unlimited cider.

And pretty much unlimited everything else as well.

Cider is served by the customer: you fill your glass as you see fit from the taps on the wall, and if you hear the call txotxe! you’re expected to run to the taps with everyone else to fill your glass and down it. It’s a very amusing thing to watch, and even more amusing to participate.

Just typing this now, I can’t help but be struck with disbelief. Disbelief of the fact that it’s already been a month since I left Spain, and disbelief of the fact that it’s only been a month. Disbelief of the fact that it’s been so long since I posted on here, or since I had time to make anything more exciting than stewed lentils for myself as an evening meal and chicken and mustard sandwiches for lunch.

But school is temporary. Work is temporary. My Internet silence, for better or for worse, is temporary. I miss this blog, but I know that it will be waiting for me when my life no longer revolves around making flashcards and telling people, “You can say it, but I understand something different.”

Food is forever, for food is tradition. If I’ve learned anything since moving to Europe, I’ve learned that. Food cannot be rushed: I know more Parisians than I would care to admit who would rather chain-smoke a pack of cigarettes than eat a rushed meal. And that’s their decision. For me, it’s a strange balance between the food I want to make and the food I have time to make, the things I want and need to write and the things that I know I will write someday, that hide out as little blips of ideas on the backs of the worksheets I make.

Radio silence isn’t over yet, I’m sorry to say, but until it is, I leave you with apples.

Note: Thanksgiving has come and gone, with no word from me, and for that I apologize. I actually did have the time to make and serve not one but TWO extremely intense Thanksgiving dinners. I just haven’t had the energy to scrape myself off the floor and post about them. Look for it this weekend, my first weekend in the past three that I have NOT made upwards of four pies.