Spaniards Love Jamón!

On a recent trip to Seville to study flamenco, I discovered an unexpected fact about Spaniards. They adore jamón (pronounced ha-MOAN). Perhaps it's not all Spaniards, but in Andalucia it's a way of life.

When you say it out loud, it must be spoken very proudly and seriously with a deep throaty voice and sharp accent on the 'MOAN'. It's even better if you imagine yourself to be Antonio Banderas when you say it and shake your head slightly from left-right while maintaining eye contact with whomever you are speaking to. I am not kidding ... jamón is serious business. Jamón!

You can get jamón everywhere! It is served proudly in every tapas bar ... on a baguette, on strangely pale, thick and stale pretzels or all on it's own. You find legs of it hanging behind every bar. They even have dedicated jamón shops intermingled in the busiest shopping district. In some cases there were a few jamón shops in one block. Legs and legs of jamón just hanging there begging to be purchased.

Jamón definitely has an elevated status in Spain. You should be aware ... it's not meat ... it's jamón. It is so important, in fact, it comes served on top of everything. For example, you order a sandwich ... the sandwich is described as grilled chicken, cheese, lettuce, tomato. There is no mention of jamón. Jamón is implied. And, it comes on top of the sandwich attached delicately with a cocktail toothpick. Jamón is implied in every recipe. You may ask "does this dish have meat?" and receive the reply "No. No meat." But, don't be surprised if it comes with jamón. In fact, anticipate that it WILL come with jamón and if it doesn't come with jamón, you should be disappointed.

One last word of advice, do not insult the jamón. It is a great source of pride for Spaniards. They love it and may even be obsessed with it. To insult jamón is to insult the Spanish way of life. Long live jamón!

Bridal Show Adventures Part II

So it was my second attempt at a bridal show this past Sunday... knowing how well I enjoyed the first one (not!) completely hung over and newly engaged for 5 days... and I thought I'd write about it.

This time I was smart though, so I fared much better. In Round 2, I was fully armed with all 3 bridesmaids (Kim, Chelene and Megan) and my mom, including one whole whopping sheet of pre-printed labels for the various draws at each booth. This came in handy as I had a bag carrier and various draw enterers :) Thanks ladies hee hee...

As always, I elbowed my way into booths and to the front of the lineup for draws, caramel covered pretzels, chocolate covered strawberries (thanks Travelodge!) and info packages. I think I took out 6 - 10 brides in my determined quests to make my way past the crowds of bridezillas (no just kidding, that was the OLD sarah, the new sarah is much nicer).

In the end, it was much better than my first attempt but I have vowed to not return to another bridal show (note: there are still 2 between my wedding and this blog). If you already know what you want and are uber-organized as I like to think I am at this point, then those shows are not for you. Unless, that is, if you want to go to win crap.. like I did! Wahoo! $250 gift cert for photos. Not to mention it ended with some nice martini-fun with the girls and mom at the Freehouse apres!

Sarah out (7 months bridezilla free and counting!)

White & Nerdy

Still Alive!

Hey, Sarah here. To those three or so fans of my blog entries, I am still alive and cooking up my next blog. Life has been a bit hectic for the past month with a big career move, amazing-raciness and vacationing but I promise to come up with something interesting soon! Plus, I am too mad at the moment to blog anything :@ (don't you hate that?)