Food For Thought

Today I went to the very last session of my last graduate course at Syracuse University. This same day, I had my telephone interview with some Irishman at the International House of pancakes (well, I added that last bit). After talking a bit, he decided that my grammar and general fluency of the English language was at a high enough level to be able to impart classes. He'll be sending my acceptance letter in the mail, thank you very much. He was very nice, but it was a silly conversation, since he had a checklist of things he wanted to go through and didn't much care about my comments or attempts to be funny. He would ask a question, and I would be halfway through some babbling response before I realized that his "hmmm-mmms" and "aahhhhs" were really "oh, just shut up, you've been accepted." I stopped that foolishness and began imitating his "hmmm-mms." He seemed pleased. So it is a rather odd feeling, having finished one chapter in my life and beginning the next with barely a moment's notice.

In what seems to be a general tradition at the end of the semester, my course had a "congratulations you're done with this class" party. Being the pretend Spaniard that I am, I made a perfectly comestible tortilla de patatas (roughly translated as Spanish omelette). Anyways, in addition to being a pretend Spaniard, I'm quite the pretend chef, so I've got the recipe here. Enjoy, although it's helpful if you have the special tortilla pans. But good luck anyway.

Tortilla de Patatas
2 medium potatoes
8 eggs
1/2 medium onion
Oil (preferably olive)

Peel the potatoes, wash them thoroughly and cut them into thin slices. Chop the onion. Heat oil in a frying pan and then add the potatoes. Sauté them, adding the onion once they have cooked a bit. Cook until onions are transparent. Stir the contents, add seasoning to taste (garlic, Goya adobo). While cooking, beat the eggs. Add the cooked potatoes and onions and mix well. Turn the heat up under the frying pan and add the egg and potato mixture. Brown on one side and then turn the omelet over (this is the tricky part, good luck) to brown it on the other side.