27 June 2010  eat the cup 2010, part 4     granted, we have seen
more of spain since the onslaught of over-hyped, trendy "tapas
bars" in the last five years or so. but a real spaniard would
turn his or her nose up at those places. (or, more likely, roll
his or her eyes and grunt "conyo"- a charming all-purpose
spanish insult that has the same meaning, but not the same
connotation, as a similar-looking word in english.) tapas are
really just the spanish variant of pub bites. in north america,
they've been transformed into an excuse for restaurants to
charge their patrons the same amount of money for a lot less
food.  two small spanish dishes that have a combined prep time
of less than fifteen minutes and boast a huge flavour payoff are
the tomato salad (tomatoes and diced spanish onion tossed with
olive oil- of which spain is the world's largest producer,
accounting for staggering 40-45% of world production- and red
wine vinegar) and gambas al ajillo (shrimp stir fried in olive
oil with enough garlic to take o