I Tried an Olive, and I Liked It

I got tapas for the first time today. I'm not entirely sure if it was real tapas or not.  There's a bit of miscommunication with all this Spanish flying around.  We ordered our drinks and got a piece of bread with some ham on it.  It was pretty good.  It also came with olives.  Green ones.  The kind I never touch but my mom loves.  I was extremely hungry, and being in Spain and all I popped one in my mouth.  At first I liked the saltiness and slightly tartness of it.  Then there was something hard.  I got confused.  The ones I've seen my mom eat have pimentos in the middle.  Are pimentos hard?  I spat it out. Why was there a pit in my olive?  Oh, right.  Spaniards leave lots of stuff in their food, like chicken bones.

My senora (the woman whose house I'm living in) asked me what I eat at home yesterday.  I told her chicken, beef, and pork.  I tried to convey meatloaf and pork roast, but it got lost in my poor vocabulary.  So today she made this chicken thing.  I have no idea what it's called, but it was delicious. I asked her later today what was in it: chicken (obviously), green peppers, onion, garlic and white wine. (Its no wonder I loved it, anything with garlic in it and I'm instantly enamored.)  There is something missing from what she told me she put in it.  Its the secret ingredient of Spain.  I'll give you a hint, it goes along with the olives.

Chicken bones.  I'm not kidding.  There were ribs, and leg bones and a whole bunch of other bones I didn't recognize.  I still ate it. 

Back to my tapas today, I was being adventurous.  Luckily there were no more surprise secret ingredients.  I ordered Camembert con Frambuesa and Mallorquin (which is apparently a Catalan dialect in Mallorca according to Wikipedia and not a food).  The Mallorquin had some cheese on it and a tomato paste type thing that reminded me of really thick pizza sauce but it didn't taste like pizza sauce or tomatoes (lucky me).  I would recommend simply to find out what a dialect of Catalan tastes like.  The Camembert con frambuesa I could probably eat forever.  Basically its a roll that is cut in half and toasted, cherry (frambuesa) jelly/marmalade is spread on top and two slices of Camembert were on top.  Camembert is a really creamy cheese.  It was so good.