Rolly-poly dollies

I never eat bread. In fact, mostly my life is a carb-free zone- the amazing cheese scones at  Little White Rabbit in Foxton Beach and the extraordinarily good custard “pillows” at Beanie in Petone, notwithstanding. 
I also rarely eat meat and don’t think I’ve had a steak since the turn of the century. So what do we eat in Spain?  We eat bread and meat with potatoes. Sometimes that’s all we eat- plates of meat and baskets of bread. The only other addition is of course, the famous ensalada mixta which is served at every pilgrim restaurant on the Camino, and probably every other restaurant in Spain for that matter.  
Ensalada mixta (which means mixed salad- duh!!!)is made up of 6 ingredients and does not change no matter where you go. Lettuce, 1 egg, 1 tomato, tuna and olives and raw onion! 
For a girl like Laura  who hates egg, is disgusted by tomato, squeamish about tuna and can’t stand even looking at olives, ensalada mixta is a WORST NIGHTMARE! She’s far  too fussy for the salad which leaves some interesting alternatives. Meat, bread and potato!

Sometimes we try to branch out and  have encountered some spectacular menu fails. Like last night when I thought I was getting scallops, I ended up with some type of ligature attached to a long thin shell. Google translate came up with penknife and actually they did look like a plate of pocket knives! The garlic and the oil made for a tasty chew of grissle. Not my best Spanish restaurant moment - the bread was good though.

The story about walking off all the calories turns out to be a major fallacy- the more carbs you eat, the fatter you get.

 But when you walk all day, you end up so hungry, you really don’t care what you eat, you just want lots of it. And vino Tinto. 

Love Lesley