Comer Comida

One of the most convinient things about living with a host family here in Spain is that for the first time in over two years, someone else is responsible for feeding me and doing my laundry. My host mom is a widow with seven grown up children and a small handful of grandkids. She doesn´t really speak any English, but that´s more than alright.
There are piles of old letters, folders and spiral-bound notebooks crammed haphazardly into a cupboard next to my bed. The first night I was here I spent a few hours browsing through them, absorbing scrawled declarations of amor, grammar lessons broken down point by careful point, clipped pages from New Wave fashion magazines, tourist brocures and at least one ski pass. Written in at least three different languages and dating back since before I was born, they suggest that La Señora has been hosting students in my room for quite a while.
She mostly leaves me and Luke alone, popping her head in our room a few times a day to ask "¿quieres comer?"
Meals happen oddly here. Breakfast takes place whenever we happen to get up and consists of the same three elements every day: a cup or orange juice, a mug of unusually thick milk and two pieces of toast. There is also a large plastic container of Cola Cao, chocolate powder to add to our milk. It dulls the odd, creamy flavor of the milk, but even after two or three minutes of vigilant stirring, always fails to completely dissolve, leaving clumps of chocolate powder skimming the surface. It´s nothing to complain about, though. The toast always comes with raspberry jam to spread on it, except for two consecutive days when we had muffins instead of toast at all.
Lunch is served between two and three in the afternoon, and this is the "big" meal, the one visiting family and friends will usually join us at. There are typically three dishes of some sort, ranging from panella (rice with chopped meat and vegetables), to stew, to straight-up meat of all varieties, to spinach soup or just a bowl of chopped tomatoes.
And always, always, always water and a loaf of french bread.
When I was in Puerto Rico they called this same style of bread "pan de agua," or "water bread." I wondered at the time where the name came from -- if it was made with more water than most kinds of bread, or typically eatten with water.
Now I understand that it´s because it´s eatten LIKE water. Every bite or two of lunch of dinner is followed by a bite of bread. I´ll cut myself four of five slices in a meal, and Luke and I by ourselves usually go through half a large loaf in twenty minutes or less.
Dinner is less formal than lunch, and usually Luke and I eat alone -- the Señora considers a cup of juice to be enough for her dinner. The meal is smaller, and sometimes a little more off-beat. Last night we had breaded chicken patties and french fries. And a lot of bread.