I haven’t written a real post in a week and a half, and I still have so much to tell about my trip in Europe. I still have wonderful photos and recipes from Spain, France, Italy and Southern Germany, some of the best food I had on my trip. Unfortunately, lack of solid internet connection set me back while on my trip, and I never caught up. Then, just a little over a week ago, I came home. The time has already flown by. I’ve been spending time with my boyfriend, catching up with friends, cleaning the apartment, applying for jobs and pushing through jet lag and laziness. And I’ve been enjoying America. There were a lot of things I missed about my American lifestyle: Food Network, driving, Char-Grill, Pandora radio, etc. I’ve been soaking it all back up. So today, National Fast Food Day, seemed like a good chance to really celebrate my American-ness, and also get back on track reminiscing about Europe.

Our celebration of the “holiday” actually came about completely coincidentally. As Boyfriend and I were trying to figure out what to have for dinner, we landed on the frozen burger patties we had leftover from a shipment of Omaha Steaks deliciousness. I always love a good burger, and I wanted to create something a little more special than the standard build-it-yourself burger. Thinking back to the hours I spent at the Miami airport, I remembered walking past an advertisement for the Bacon Portabella Melt at Wendy’s, and I decided to recreate it, in a more delicious, less processed, homemade form.

And what goes better with a burger than fries? I did a quick Google search in an attempt to find a good technique for crispy fries. A result from the Epicurious Google+ page popped up, and I decided it was a good place to start. That’s when I learned it was National Fast Food Day, which delighted and disgusted me at the same time. But I love any reason to celebrate with food, and I had already coincidentally planned to make a burger adapted from a fast food restaurant. After a few more searches, I decided on a recipe for crispy oven fries. I was a little skeptical at first — no one likes soggy fries — but I didn’t want to deal with frying, and this blogger made the fries sound pretty good. And they turned out freaking spectacular. I actually like them much more than deep-fried fries. This is definitely my go-to fry technique from now on.

So without further ado, here’s a menu to help you enjoy a fast food inspired (but better) meal at home:

Bacon Cheddar Portabella Burger

Hamburger // Sesame Seed Buns // Cheddar Cheese // Portabella Mushroom // Bacon // Lettuce // Tomato // Mayonnaise // Garlic // Lemon Juice // Salt // Pepper // Olive Oil

1. Prepare garlic aioli. Allow flavors to combine in the refrigerator.

2. Cut bacon slice in half and fry. 

3. Make hamburger patties and season well with salt and pepper. Grill.

4. Slice portabella mushroom in long slices and gently cook over medium heat in generous olive oil with salt and pepper. 

5. Slice tomato, shred lettuce.

6. Grill buns and melt cheese on burgers. 

7. Assemble:

Perfectly Crispy Oven Fries (adapted from the Cook’s Illustrated technique)

Yukon Gold Potatoes // Salt // Pepper // Olive Oil // Seasoning, if desired

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Place baking sheet in oven to heat as well.

2. Cut potatoes into 1/2 sticks. Place potatoes in a pot and cover with cold salted water.  Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat and gently simmer until exteriors of potatoes have softened but centers still offer resistance when pierced with paring knife, about 5 minutes.

3. Drain potatoes well and transfer to large bowl. Drizzle with a olive oil and sprinkle generously with salt. Combine. Drizzle again with oil and salt until coated; continue to toss until exteriors of potato slices are coated with starchy paste.

4. Working quickly, remove baking sheet from oven and drizzle oil over surface. Carefully transfer potatoes to sheet and spread into even layer. Bake until bottoms of potatoes are golden brown and crisp, 15 to 25 minutes, rotating sheet after 10 minutes.

5. Remove baking sheet from oven and loosen potatoes from pan, carefully flipping each slice. Continue to roast until second side is golden and crisp, 10 to 20 minutes longer.

6. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I didn’t need any more salt at this point, and I also used a cajun seasoning for extra flavor. You could use a variety of flavors: Old Bay, garlic and rosemary, seasoning salt, Parmesan cheese and oregano, etc.

Note: I roasted my potatoes on the longer end — 25 minutes on the first side and 20 minutes on the second, in order to get really crispy fries. Don’t be afraid to let them go for a while, just keep an eye out that you aren’t burning them.

Pintxos in San Sebastián are delicious, exciting, and an entire lifestyle. One does not just eat pintxos (pronounced peen-chos). You have to experience it.

After my Basque cooking class and my hike, I went on a pintxos tasting tour, run by San Sebastián Food. While you can easily go out and wander the pintxos bars yourself, I thought this would be a good way to do it as a single traveler, and also would allow me to try the best of the best. (For each pintxo, I’ll post the bar as well, but I highly recommend the tour for first-timers. The guides are great, you pay one flat fee for food and wine at each place, and you get to learn so much more than doing it on your own.)

Pintxos are much like tapas, with slight variation. The cold pintxos are spread along the counter at a bar. You grab a little plate or a napkin and load up with what you want. You can also order hot pintxos, which are usually posted somewhere. At the end, you just tell the barkeep what you had and pay up.

You can’t find tapas served like these pintxos are elsewhere. In other cities, sanitary and food regulation keeps the food in a cooled case, where a server has to get you what you want. Luckily, the government turns a blind eye to the beautiful spreads in San Sebastián because it would pretty much kill the entire experience, and likely the local economy.

How do I know this? Our lovely guide, Lourdes, who was about as Basque as you can get (while still speaking English):

We started out with cider, poured like the txakoli we had in our cooking class. It was much like the txakoli too, and not much like American or English cider. It was light and crisp, more like wine than beer.

And then our first pintxo: txipi relleno, grilled squid stuffed with a beschamel sauce of prawns and mushrooms, on toast, with red pepper and parsley sauces (at Munto). It was pretty heavenly. The squid was perfectly cooked, and the thick sauce stuffing added a great texture, while the two accompanying sauces dressing the plate gave the dish an incredible range of flavors.

So, after two bites, I was already hooked. 

Once everyone finished up, we headed to the next bar. A lot of tourists make the mistake of camping out in one bar and eating several pintxos there, which is fine, but not the way the locals do it. The locals bounce around from bar to bar, sampling a pintxo or two everywhere. (And then they still eat dinner after. Whaat?)

Next up was another seafood pintxo: brocheta de rape, a skewer with monkfish, shrimp and unsmoked bacon, coated in olive oil (at Egostari). The flavor was good, but I was a little disappointed that the shrimp weren’t deveined.

Between bars, we also got a quick hit walking tour of the city, which was really nice. One of the cool sights was the square. It’s surrounded by apartments, all of which have prominently displayed numbers. Before the city had a bull ring, the bullfights were held here. And even though the apartments were private, the city held the rights to sell the balcony spaces for spectators. Eventually, the families in the apartments started selling food, and people would seek out the best numbers for a good meal during the fight. I mean, San Sebastián is just steeped in culinary history.

But, back to the eating part. 

Simple, but easily my favorite: solomillo, a lovely medium-rare cut of delicious, tender, salty beef on toasted baguette with a slice of pepper (at Gandarias). Maybe it’s just because we had eaten so much seafood all day, but I was so excited to sink my teeth in. And I was right. It was perfect.

We also sampled these mushrooms cooked in with oil and salt, eaten on slices of baguette. Another simple but delicious execution of food that will likely be served at my next party.

Another cool thing we got to see because our guide was so awesome was a gastronomic society. These are usually pretty private, but her brothers and father belong to this one, so she was able to let us see inside. Instead of rugby clubs or poker nights, the men cook. Women aren’t really allowed to join (though I think there is one society with one female member). They pay dues so they can use the professional kitchen all they want, then they can cook up a meal and invite friends and family to eat as if it were a restaurant, or just enjoy cooking on their own. 

After we got to peek into the society, we headed over to a more “modern” pintxo bar. The food was quite a bit different here, and the atmosphere was much younger.

And the pintxo blew my mind.

Bonfire, a fun and stylish pintxo experience. We were given a plate holding a terracotta pot with a grate over it and a smoking coal. You “grill” your slice of cod on both sides, place it on your carmelized onion and aioli tart, and then make a huge mess stuffing the whole thing in your face. You follow it with the test tube shot of celery and lettuce juice. (at Zeruko) The cod with the hot smoke flavor and the cool, slightly sweet tart were absolutely amazing. The juice shot? Not so much.

By this time, I was starting to feel quite full, and a little bit tipsy at the innumerable glasses of wine we were given. But I pressed on. (I know, my life is so hard sometimes.)

Our next pintxo was quite hearty: cheesy risotto and beef cheeks, with a savory tomato gravy (at Bar Borda-Berri). The cheeks were the texture of a very tender pot roast  and they went incredibly well with the sharp risotto, made with a local sheep’s milk cheese similar to Parmesan. I would eat this as a full-fledged dinner. It was so good.

Last but not least, we even had a dessert pintxo.

A delightful take on cheesecake with a glass of Pedro Ximenez red sherry (at La Vina). The cheesecake was really, really fluffy. Airy. Light. Baked, but in no way like a New York style cheesecake. Less sweet than most cheesecakes I’ve ever had. It could have used a little more flavor, but that’s where the sherry kicked in. It was a beautiful, sweet, red, Spanish sherry. I had three glasses, mostly because the other girls thought it was much too sweet, but I wasn’t complaining.

After hanging out with the group a little longer, I had to head back to my hostel. I was 13 glasses of wine into the day at that point, and couldn’t make it out until 3 am like they did. I found my way to a cab and murdered the pronunciation of the street and number I needed, but got back safely all the same. Somewhere along the way, I realized that going out for pintxos is indicative of the Basque lifestyle: relaxing, drinking, eating, having fun, socializing. It wasn’t a meal at all, but an entire experience, an education in enjoying myself for no reason at all. With that in mind, I snuggled up into bed, waiting for the hangover that would accompany my early morning pintxo cooking class.

On my first full day in San Sebastián, I set out for my first cooking class with San Sebastián Food, a company that organizes specialist food and wine experiences in the city. Armed with the knowledge that I was about to take a cooking class in the city that is arguably the best place to eat in Europe, I was over-the-moon excited.

And then when I learned that we’d be crossing over to a little fishing village across the way to cook in a real Basque restaurant, I could hardly contain my joy.

We arrived in the small village of San Juan and headed over to Ziaboga, the restaurant we’d be cooking in. The village was lively with kids on a school trip, and we were all excited to get in the kitchen.

The format of the class was much different than the others I had taken, which were in professional educational kitchens. This one, instead, was in the kitchen of an open restaurant. Business is slow in the off-season, but our class was still taking place alongside Ziaboga’s regular lunch service. It was exciting to be in a kitchen where everything you needed wasn’t just ideally set out for you and ready to go. 

We helped Chef Alex and his assistant, who graduated from Ballymaloe, where I took my foraging class. And Eli, our guide, helped us by translating everything we needed to know. It was amazing to be in the kitchen cooking with someone with whom you couldn’t actually speak, and realizing that it wasn’t all that necessary for communication in the kitchen. A few times, I found myself learning from Chef Alex, with no translator, based on gestures and taste. 

With our two chefs and hilarious guide, we got to break down big fish and squid, chop, stir, saute. In the end, we would be creating this traditional delicious menu, which was obviously packed full of fresh seafood:

We even made a few things that aren’t on the menu, since we were lucky enough to have some extra fish that day. One of the extra items was fried kokotxas, which are the chins of hake or cod, a Basque delicacy. We were using the kokotxas in another preparation as well, but these little fried soft pieces of deliciousness were a great way to hold us over until the full meal.

Once the food was almost ready, we started on our first glass of wine, which was followed by many more. Txakoli is a very dry white wine produced in Spainish Basque country. It’s crisp and acidic, with almost a cider-tasting bite. And the proper way to pour it, Eli demonstrated, is from up high, so you get a little happy effervescence. 

With our fried kokotxas and txakoli, we also had these simple and delicious fried peppers. Eli described it like a lottery, since one out of the plate might be fiery hot. 

Finally, it was time for our meal.

Marmitako: a hearty tuna and potato soup, which is surprisingly usually eaten in the summer (since that’s when the tuna is fresh). 

Txipirones en su Tinta: squid in a black ink tomato sauce. It’s weird to eat something black. But this was delicious. The sauce just tasted like a well-flavored tomato sauce, and it was kind of a fun mind-bender to see something black when it tasted so red.

Merluza en Salsa Verde: Merluza, or hake, is very popular in San Sebastián. I can’t really count the number of times or ways I ate it, but luckily it’s super delicious. The salsa verde here comes from lots of parsley. 

Kokotxas al Pil Pil: This time the hake chins were cooked in an incredible oil and wine sauce. The most important part of this preparation is the mimo, which is Spanish for the love and care you give a baby. I think the reason San Sebastián has such amazing food is because everything is prepared with mimo, given intense love and care, and patience. In this case, the mimo coaxes the gelatin out of the kokotxas, creating a thicker, velvety sauce (that makes a “pil pil” noise when served piping hot!).

Tuna belly with garlic and herbs: One of the extra dishes we had time for. Incredible.

Leche Frita: We didn’t actually prepare these, since the fried milk takes quite some time to set up. It was like no other dessert I’ve ever had. Lighter and less sweet than a marshmallow, but that’s the closest consistency I could think of. A fun way to end the meal!

As usual, here are some delicious recipes. Enjoy!

Txipirones en su Tinta

32 baby squid, or large squid cut into chunks // 6 small onions // 2 garlic cloves // 1 can chopped tomatoes // 200 ml fish stock // olive oil // salt

1. Clean the squid well. Seperate the tentacles, bags of ink and the main body. Discard everything else.
2. Finely dice the onions and garlic. Melt with 3 tablespoons olive oil on low heat with a pinch of salt. Cook until very soft without browning.
3. Add the squid, fish stock, tomatoes and inks. Let simmer slowly for about 20 minutes. 
4. Remove the squid and reserve. Blend the rest of the ingredients and pass through a sieve. 
5. Add the squid back into the sauce and gently simmer for anouther 40 minutes, or until squid is done.

Kokotxas al Pil Pil

800g hake or cod chins, cleaned with skin // 1/4 liter extra virgin olive oil // 1 garlic clove, diced // chopped parsley

1. Heat the oil with the garlic in a deep pan. When the garlic starts to gently cook, take it off of the heat and add the hake chins.
2. Rotate the pan in a swirling motion, with lots of mimo, slowly and continuously. Continue moving until the sauce is thick, about ten minutes. 
3. Just before serving, add chopped parsley.

The sauce is formed from the emulsion of the gelatin in the chins with the olive oil. The technique needs to be done slowly on a low heat for the gelatin to emerge bit by bit. If the sauce becomes too thick, add some white wine or warm water. 

Leche Frita

1 liter of milk // 100g sugar // 7 tbsp flour // 4 tbsp corn starch // eggs and flour for breading // sunflower oil // sugar // cinnamon 

1. Blend milk, corn starch, flour and sugar in a big pot and heat it on the stove. Let it simmer until it becomes a thick creamy foam.
2. Pour milk mixture onto a rimmed baking sheet, and cool in the fridge.
3. Once hardened, cut into rectangular pieces.
4. Heat the sunflower oil over high heat.
5. Dredge the milk pieces in egg and flour.
6. Quickly fry on both sides.
7. Cover with mix of cinnamon and sugar immediately.

Versailles is arguably the most beautiful home in the world. But Marie Antoinette wasn’t happy there. And neither was I.

Just like Marie, I couldn’t wander around Versailles without getting overwhelmingly homesick.

Don’t get me wrong. It was absolutely beautiful. But after spending two days in one of the most romantic cities in the world alone, I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of extravagance.

Luckily, Marie also needed a break from her lavish life at court, so she built a little hamlet at Versailles, a veritable scene of country life and a farm that ended up actually producing food for the palace.

So, bristling with contempt at the musical gardens, I wandered out to Marie’s hamlet, where she spent time with her lady companions, enjoying the simple life, just like she had back home in Austria.

Of course, she still had dinner parties, and a boudoir, and all of the things she might need to entertain, but she also had farm animals and a dairy tasting cottage.  She was lonely at Versailles, and I was too, and I took immense comfort in that fact as I wandered around, stopping to pet the donkey and admire the active farm.

And so, almost 230 years after Marie Antoinette ordered the hamlet built as her refuge, another young girl far from home was able to find solace and comfort, and even a little bit of companionship, at her country home.