less adventurous

I made Spanish food today. A big, brilliant, acidic pot of gazpacho and two gooey, oily, delicious Spanish tortillas. My roommates wondered where the corn and flour were... and I wondered where the taste was. The taste of Spain. I concede that it was a valiant effort. The gazpacho was thick enough and the tortillas stayed together (thanks to my good friend, Cooks magazine). But it just didn't taste the same. The tomatoes are grown in different ground and the eggs are laid out of different chickens... or gallinas, I suppose, in Spain. I try to remedy the problem by using Spanish recipes, hoping that taste will just come by virtue of the fact that i'm reading in Spanish, words that were delivered with Spanish intention. But these recipes tend to be overly vague and strange to my American eyes. And if I went by memory, my señora's verbal instructions, I would put a cup of oil in to a frying pan and not know where to go from there. So instead of trying, I shy away from Spanish cooking and eating all of the exotic previously living things I ate in Spain because the air is different here in Santa Barbara, and for some reason, nothing tastes the same.