spanish food

I am fat. I have gained at least 10 lbs since landing in Spain. I don’t know if the airline will let me fly in one seat when I go back.

I spend my time in this wonderful city eating and sleeping on the beach. Today, for example, for breakfast, I had a fresh baked croissant that dripped of melted cheese and a café con leche. Then for lunch, I had tapas, gambas y calamaritos with a glass of the world’s greatest tempranillo. For dinner, I had paella that dripped with crawfish so big, it made me choke. It was wonderful.

Also, I am realizing that the Spanish don’t really believe in vegetables.

For example, 2 days ago I went to dinner with my roommate, a beautiful young Polish girl who is absolutely my favorite, and I ordered some dish that I didn’t know. Turns out, the dish was deep fried pork wrapped in bacon, served with a side of steak. For the vegetables, I got fried bread loaded with butter. It was so good I almost cried. My heart coughed.

Because of all this, none of my clothes fit. They don’t altogether tear when I put them on, but I do look really Dominican in them now.

I eat caviar like elephants eat peanuts. I liken myself to an elephant now.

The other day I walked by a matador den and the bulls thought I was a cow. It didn’t help that as I walked by I was eating ice cream.

The food here is like a drug. You can literally get addicted, and your body metaphorically can represent your bank account and dignity. You start using a little, then a lot, then all day, then at night it beckons you and one day you look in the mirror and you don’t recognize yourself.

El Palo, where I am staying, is a beach town. Fishermen line the sand catching fresh prizes to be deep-fried or pan seared for your enjoyment. The paella is like some kind of pornographic mélange of happiness with rice.

In Spain, you typically have 4 meals: desayuno, almuerzo, comida, y cenar. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner. Not to mention, helado, ice cream. And you must have the ice cream! It is sumptuous. Tarron (my favorite flavor) is like chocolate and pralines and cream together. None of this should be legal, it is so good.

There are calamaritos; little calamaries who still have eyes when they are deep-fried. They are so cute. They look at me with their big sea eyes and plead, “please don’t eat us, fat black woman!?” they remind me of the sheep on the Simpsons episode when Lisa decided to become a vegetarian. They are adorable. And delicious.
Caviar grows on trees here. Fish are literally in the street selling their egg babies the way Mexicans are at home selling everything. A fish flopped up to me yesterday with a handful of her egg babies and told me, “Look, just take them, please. I’ve got to get back to the water and make more.”

They were delicious. I put caviar on everything now. When I was in New York I used hummus to dress my turkey and cheese sandwiches. Now I use caviar. Sometimes, I put it in my orange juice for breakfast. In a grind, I find I can get through the day if I just dab a little behind my ears.

My body is feeling the effects of such an incredible and wonderful and ridiculous diet. I jiggle now. And I don’t mean 2-in-a-room-wiggle-it-just-a-little-bit-jiggle, I mean full on, I walk and as my foot hits the pavement, there are reverberations felt by my meaty backside and my ample cheechos that have taken up residence next to my ribcage. My breasts have even gotten bigger.

To work off this newfound weight, I have a great pastime- sitting on the beach. I eat, go to class, and then bake in the sun. Sometimes I will dip in the Mediterranean, then go sit back on the sand (topless-it’s totally cool out here. There are droves of naked FAMILIES). Then I eat some more and go back in the water. Sometimes I like to switch it up- I will eat in the water or on the sand. It’s all very confusing sometimes.

I am as black as the night sky. My skin looks like that of a woman trapped in a dessert without clothes. I notice I am getting much darker than when I came, because my new Danish roommate (she is the whitest woman in the world) keeps staring at me, and touching my skin every chance she gets. The Polish children at school stand close to me sometimes, because I think that they think I am the sun. I am that black. I literally give off heat.

I sat with myself in the mirror tonight and gave myself the naked once over. Yes. I am definitely fat. My booty is much more ample, my pouch more pronounced, my breasts more dense and heavy, my thighs more roomy and soft. And my skin looks as if I were just dipped in boscoe. I like it a little. I look like a full-grown woman. And I feel good. I like to sleep on the beach, fingers smelling of ripe, newly eaten shrimp wrapped in the freshest tasting bacon, with a glass of tempranillo at my side, my book splayed across my naked chest. Much more fun than running 5k everyday.

I know I’m big. But I don’t care, at least for the moment. I am happy. I am comfortable with how I look, and what I am doing here, and who I am, and most importantly, who I am becoming. I haven’t been this happy in a long time.

Enough typing. I’m gonna go get me some ice cream.