You are here: Home / Spanish

Spanish

El Día E is for Me and You

06/19/2012
Posted by Maria Amelia in , ,

What is ¨El Día E¨? El Día E is a celebration of the Spanish language, which started in 2009. It was created and organized by the venerable Instituto Cervantes (http://www.cervantes.es/default.htm) , an organization developed by the Spanish government in 1991 to promote the Spanish language, and the varied and beautiful cultures of the world’s Spanish-speaking countries, around the world. It is an organization created for all lovers of Spanish, whether they are Spanish or not. It welcomes people who wish to learn the language or perfect it, and for countless individuals it has provided them with a new understanding of just how beautiful and diverse it is. According to the website for El Día E in NYC (http://www.eldiaenyc.org/home.html), there are currently 73 outposts of the Instituto Cervantes worldwide, and growing.

Why Spanish? For me personally that is an easy question. It is the language of my ancestors. It is the language in which I speak to my family. It is ancient. It is evolving. It is beautiful. Language grows and changes. Languages evolve. All languages evolve. In our ever shrinking world it is easy to note that languages are blending, as well. Words from one language are adopted into the common parlance of others, and just as the world’s cultural boundaries are softening and vibrating and occasionally spring leaks, so do those of language. Is there one language that is more beautiful than others? That depends on the nationality of the person you ask, doesn’t it? I don’t think there is. I suppose it depends on what your ear is accustomed to hearing or what might seem melodious to you. I am not chauvinistic about my love of Spanish. For me it is simply evocative of home, and it is beautiful.

This June 23, the 4th annual Día E will be celebrated around the world. The day on which it falls is determined by the summer solstice. The Saturday closest to it is the day on which it is celebrated. Why not? The longest day for one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. More than 495 million people speak it worldwide. (Would you like to see more staggering statistics? Visit http://www.eldiae.es/la-situacion-del-espanol/) That is a lot to celebrate! What it IS NOT is a celebration for Spaniards, or Mexicans, or any specific nationality or ethnicity. What it IS is a celebration for everyone from every country and ethnicity and culture, to learn and explore the Spanish language and ALL its beautiful cultures.

Here in New York City it is going to be a tremendous day! There will be live performances, tastings, dance workshops, Spanish workshops, raffles and more, organized around a street fair at 49th Street between Third and Second Avenues, from 11AM to 4PM. There will be authors, musicians and tons of activities for people of all ages. It will be a wonderful experience for kids and adults alike. Don’t be shy about coming out to this one, or the one nearest to you. As they say on the Día E site, it will be celebrated from Sidney, Australia to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (http://www.eldiae.es/el-dia-e/) You don’t need to know Spanish to go. All you need is the desire to have fun, eat great food and become a joyful part of the world around you. Locate your local Instituto Cervantes here (http://www.eldiae.es/actividades-en-los-centros-2/) and find out what they have in store for you.

See you there!

| Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Wordless Wednesday – Miércoles Mudo

05/30/2012
Posted by Maria Amelia in , ,

Read more about the “Spanish Soho Mile” here next week!

| Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a response

My First “Real” Roscón de Reyes

01/06/2012
Posted by Maria Amelia in , , , ,

Roscón purchased from La Tienda

Despite spending almost every summer of my young life in Madrid, I never had the good fortune of spending Christmas in Spain. As such the “Roscón de Reyes¨ was a somewhat mythical creature to me – the stuff of legends. Each Epiphany my mother would tell my sister and I stories about the roscones she ate growing up in Spain. She also bemoaned the fact that after moving to the US with my father, she had never been able to eat a Roscón from Spain. Her last bite of one was some 48 years ago!

Last year I endeavored to change that, so after much research on recipes for a classic Roscón, and watching videos demonstrating how to make one, I found a good recipe and went to work.

Basic ingredients

Freshly grated orange

It was a fair amount of work at that for an inexperienced baker, but it was fun.

Risen dough

What I ended up with was a pretty good looking cake, but I could only guess at whether it actually tasted like a real Roscón from Spain.

Roscón made by yours truly

This year I was fortunate to learn that one of my favorite suppliers of goods from Spain, La Tienda, would be importing Roscones de Reyes from Galicia, and shipping them via UPS to clients. I promptly ordered two, one for my family and one for my parents.

Roscón purchased from La Tienda

To my delight I saw that my first time Roscón was actually not too far off from the “real thing”. Likewise, it was delicious. We shared it first thing this morning, and my youngest found “la figurita” in her slice, a portent of good luck for the year. My husband also had the “good fortune” of finding “la haba” or bean in his piece signifying next year he has to pay for the Roscón. Around noon I stopped by my parents house and dropped of theirs. My mother immediately cut a piece, ate it, and beamed. Then she had a couple more…

La figurita which my little one found

I hope to be able to share a Roscón de Reyes from Spain for many years to come with my family. Better still, perhaps one year I will be able to eat one in Madrid. ¡Feliz Reyes!

| Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Response

La Churrería

01/04/2012
Posted by Maria Amelia in ,

Churros were not something that I could talk about with my friends here in the States when I was growing up. Nobody had ever heard of them, at least not that I knew. Churros was a reality reserved for the summertime. I did not eat them frequently. As a little kid we had them on Sundays, once the local churrería opened in Hoyo de Manzanares, or on special days when we´d venture into Madrid and my mother might suddenly crave them. As I grew older, my pandilla would visit the churrería a handful of times each summer, sharing a large “ración¨ and some “chocolate caliente” or “churros con chocolate” as we call them.

I hated being the one to have to go buy the churros to bring home. Spaniards do not line up in order at a counter of any kind, and certainly not for churros. I´d have to make my voice heard over those of other kids, or worse, stout little old ladies who were shorter than I was, sporting black sweaters and pinchy mustaches, and whose voices boomed over the crowd at the counter. Eventually I learned how to make myself heard, but there was a learning curve of missed turns for sure. I´m quite sure I was passed over for one of these women many, many times. It´s the Lord of the Flies when ordering something at a counter in Spain.

Walking home with churros was both fun and challenging. Spanish churros have the shape of the beginning of a simple knot before it is tied; it is just one end of a rope crossed over the other. Most of the time they would be strung on to a switch or bendable branch, which would then be tied into a loop. I’d hold the knot and have to be careful not to bang into anything so I wouldn’t lose one by cracking it in half. Alternately, they would be placed in a “cucurucho” or paper cone. This presented the greater challenge of being so close to your face that you would want to eat them on the way back. My sister and I would rush home, or to my uncle’s home, so that they might still be a little warm by the time we ate them.

My mother never really tried to make churros here. First, she was not so inclined to deep fry anything, but more importantly she never believed she would be able to make them taste the same here as in Madrid. That was basically true of any Spanish food cooked here. Without authentic ingredients, all the efforts resulted in a “quiero y no puedo” or a futile effort. She did make “chocolate” but the brands imported into this country from Spain back in the 70s and 80s were not the best quality, and the other caribbean brands – though delicious – just didn’t taste the same. Taste is an extremely powerful sense, and when your brain expects something to taste one way and doesn’t, it is devastating. So, every year we waited for the big trip back to eat those things we loved and treasured most of all, churros among them.

This is why last week I was overjoyed to learn (from the folks at Despaña) that the owner of Socarrat restaurant here in NYC were about to open a real Spanish churrería called, you guessed it, La Churrería. On Monday, Jan 2, I packed the kids into the car and gave my husband the coordinates – Mulberry and Houston. And there, two doors down from Socarrat and a few doors north of St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Church, was the fulfillment of one of my childhood dreams – churros in NY. The churros were authentic to Spain, and almost as good as those you would traditionally eat at the Chocolatería San Ginés in Madrid on New Year’s morning. (This, by the way, is a huge compliment.) They were thin, crunchy and as light as anything fried could be, and the chocolate was thick and warm and delicious. I sat my three girls down at the long bar and their past experience and genetic wiring went into overdrive – dunk, eat and dunk again. Double dipping? Ha! I dare you not to.

As we sat there Spaniard after Spaniard arrived all with the same introduction ¨Er, we read that this place just opened and wanted to see if it was for real.¨ A well dressed couple who told me they were from ¨el barrio de Salamanca¨ one of the finest in Madrid, left saying ¨son de verdad¨. These are for real. That is high praise from a Spaniard commenting on something claiming to be from Spain. After we were all done we bought some more to take home for my parents, and my mother LOVED them. She is the toughest critic of all.

So this weekend I am going to see if I can meet my sister down in NOLITA with her boys. Who knows? Perhaps an old tradition can be resparked here in NYC.

La Churreria. 284 Mulberry St (between Houston and Prince Streets)

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I was not paid for or asked to write this post. I wrote it because I am happy that it opened, proud to be the daughter of a Madrileña and hoping to visit it time and time again.

 

 

| Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a response

Apps for Kids from Todobebé

07/05/2011
Posted by Maria Amelia in , , ,

My children use my iPad more than I do. I’m sure I am not the only parent saying this either. I remember when I first got my iPad. For a month and a half it was relatively fingerprint free and only contained two pages of well organized and intuitively grouped apps. Social Networking here. News in this folder. Books in that folder. Clean, neat and organized just like I like it. Then my kids realized there was an iPad in the house. First chance the tween got, she confiscated it, hooked it up to iTunes and I went from two pages of apps to many, many pages of apps. On my once pristine iPad now resides everything from talking bacteria to cupcake makers to the afterdead battling vegetation to furious fowl.

I don´t mind but it can ocassionally be embarassing. Case in point, not too long ago I was asked to participate in the interview process for a Director of Finance for the school district. At one meeting, I opened my iPad to look for a briefing document and treated those around the conference table to the sound of a blood thirsty ninja attacking an irate pirate. It was a tad embarassing. ¨No. It´s not mine. Really. It´s my daughter´s game.¨

And so we arrive at the point of this post.

Recently, my friends at Todobebé released their own set of apps. The great thing about these apps, especially in the case of my seven year olds, is the fact that they are fun and educational. Fun and educational. These are words which, when used together, make me very, very happy. There are four Todobebe apps in all, and all come in Spanish, English and Portuguese.

Remember, all these games are available for the iPad and the iPhone which means if you don’t have an iPad, or simply don’t want to lug it around, you have options!

PhotoMoments/PhotoMoments HD

PhotoMoments is Todobebe’s first and free app for the iPhone and the iPad. In essence it is a cute photoframing program which you can use to put themed (holidays, new baby, etc.) frames around the photo of your choice. What photo to frame is up to you. If you have an iPhone with a camera you’re all set. If you have an iPad which you like to download photos to, there is your source of images. Of course, in my tween’s hands, the first photo she framed was one of me which she had aged in another program to make me look like I was 78 years old. Juventud, divino tesoro…

Nevertheless, once framed you can send the photo of your darling little angels to your sister in Saskatchewan, your tia in Tijuana, or your abuelo in Argentina. The possibilities are endless.

Oh and NO I am not posting the photo of me aged 70+ that my daughter framed.

FirstColors/FirstColors HD

FirstColors HD on "my" iPad

A favorite of my most artistic daughter, FirstColors is a great game both for learning the names of colors, as well as the names of objects which reflect the color learned. For example “Morado. La uva es de color morado.” If your child already knows his/her colors, in English, Spanish or Portuguese, s/he can also pick an object to color. As your child touches the color s/he wishes to use, the game’s “voice” will repeat the name of the color to reinforce the learning.

This is not a cheesy, throwaway coloring game. Kids have to actively “color in” the drawings making the game challenging, good for fine motor control and – my personal favorite – time consuming. Why is this my favorite? Because it comes in SUPER handy in situations where the girls have to wait for something. This is the theorem I have developed after years of scientific investigation and deductive reasoning:

Maria Amelia’s Time Principal #1

Waiting + Children = Tortured Parent

Maria Amelia’s Time Principal #2

Waiting + Children + Entertaining and Time Consuming App = Stress Free Parent

 

FirstSounds/FirstSounds HD

This is another favorite of the twins. In FirstSounds kids can click on a picture and hear the sound the object in the picture makes, can select either Spanish, English or Portuguese as the base language, and can learn all the images in all three languages. The pictures are grouped into like sets such as “Nature”, “Instruments” and “Household.” If they prefer, instead of picking a picture and listening to the sound, they can challenge themselves to pick the correct picture as based on a sound being played. Both modes offer vocabulary instruction and reinforcement.

What I most like about this game is that the sounds are real. That is to say, the dog does not say “woof woof” in English and “guau guau” in Spanish. If you click on the dog, the sound you hear is a dog’s bark. In summary, the game doesn’t “talk down” to the kids.

FirstSounds HD on "my" iPad

FirstABC123/FirstABC123 HD

The fourth and final game is FirstABC123. This game, simply put, teaches children the letters of the alphabet as they are pronounced in either English, Spanish or Portuguese, as well as provides examples of words which begin with the letter being taught. In letter learning mode, children are asked to identify one of 3 images which begin with a given letter. Upon selecting the correct answer, the letter is reviewed complete with the example. In number learning mode, children are asked to pick the grouping with the same quantity of images as the number being taught.

In addition, the game also provides kids with the opportunity to practice writing letters and numbers. The screen will show a traceable image of a letter and number, and kids then use their fingers to connect the dots. This, again, is great for reinforcing learning – and in this case, learning that takes place in school as well!

All in all, Todobebé´s games are intelligent, child appropriate and conference room friendly. I would recommend them highly for the young grade school set, as well as for tweens looking for an opportunity to antagonize their mothers.

_____________________________________________________________________

I was not compensated by Todobebé for writing this post. I am the Community Leader for Blogs de Mamás (http://www.blogsdemamas.com/) but I was not asked to write this post. I’ve written it because I am a gamer, because I believe that not all games are bad, because I believe that there are some good quality educational games out there, and because I would like to see more non-latinos embrace language learning. To learn more about these games visit: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/firstcolors/id438062605?mt=8.

| Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a response

Am I an Expert?

11/20/2009
Posted by Maria Amelia in

I never fail to be impressed by assertive people. I´m not certain whether or not this is a character flaw. It seems to me that just because someone is assertive does not mean that they are necessarily worthy of my awe, so to speak. And yet, when someone enters a meeting or social function or any other public event and presents themselves with authority and ease, I get impressed.

This always makes me wonder who do I impress? For some reason or other, I have always wanted to be an expert on something. However, time after time I have found myself in “generalist” roles of one sort or another. And so I often ask myself, am I an expert in anything?

I think sometimes it is difficult to grow up bilingual and bicultural – Spanish and American. The pressure to become fully one or another, to completely fit in, is immense. This is as true as an adolescent as it is as an adult and a parent. Providing one’s children with security and good self esteem and little wings to help them fly one day is challenging when you grew up in a world where everything is held sacred and where, even as an adult, you are expected to respect your elders.

And so, while I work to become and expert at being myself, I will explore the challenges of motherhood, daughterhood and just plain living in the US today here. Feel free to join me.

| Tagged , , , | Leave a response