There's Always Room for Dessert

If you have a sweet tooth, living in Barcelona can either be a heavenly or hellish experience. For me, it's a bit of both. With an abundance of various options to fulfill my regular cravings for something sweet, I can pretty much find something satisfying at any given time of day or night. Great, right? Not so much. Though I'm certainly able to get my fix, it ends up being money unnecessarily spent (FYI: exchange rate is roughly $1.51 to 1 euro now), and definitely isn't helping me maintain the relatively healthy eating habits I have back at school.

While most kids from my program have the issue of spending most of their money on alcohol, I face a similar problem, but with sweets instead. Basically, I have no will power when it comes to stuffing myself with junk. Since I normally I live off of a meal plan, I have little reason to venture beyond my campus' dining hall and go out of my way to waste hard cash on candy/junk food, and therefore I'm better able to avoid such temptation. But things are much different here. It's not at all uncommon for me to make a meal of some type of dessert, especially when there is so much unique variety, and my options for food are limited (both due to my laziness in learning to cook, and the presence of pork in almost every small meal option other than Doner Kebab, which I've already had four times in the past week).

What makes turning down all of this junk especially difficult is the fact that my stomach is able to make a fair bit of arguments to justify what I've been eating:
-You can't get it in the states
-You don't normally eat this unhealthily, so what harm is there in doing so for a few months?
-This is a once in a lifetime chance; you shouldn't leave it with any regrets (you may be thinking "who on earth would actually 'regret' passing on dessert?" I would. No, I'm serious)

So here's a roundup of what's been going into my stomach, and what you folks are missing out on:

Gofres

Words cannot convey how strongly I feel about Gofres. A crass description would be that a Gofre (a.k.a. The Liège Waffle) is a small, fresh waffle coated with a layer of caramelized sugar (giving it a slightly crisp outer shell), which is then topped with some type of sweet(s). The most simple of gofres will be topped with nothing more than a layer of nutella, though more can be added in the form of condensed milk, custard ("crema"), caramel ("dulce de leche"), whipped cream, bananas, nuts, strawberries, gelato, etc.

I can honestly say that the Gofre, in its many varieties, rivals the cookie (all varieties, cooked and uncooked) as my all-time favorite dessert. In fact, it would surely take the top spot if cookies didn't have the advantages of portability and the fact that they can be consumed in multiples without making me sick. (Honorable Mention: Crepes of any "sweet" variety, Cold Stone's "Mud Pie Mojo", and Chicken and Egg's "Stoner Cakes").

Churros

Churros are a lot more common in Spain than in the states (where I can only seem to find them at CostCo), and are markedly different from their American counterparts ("hombres"?). The churros I've encountered in the past tended to be much longer and more doughy than those you find here in Barcelona. Here they are generally short (3-4 inches) and much crispier on the outside, while being more dense on the inside. Also, a variety exists in churros here, as you can get them plain (with powdered or granulated sugar), chocolate covered (kind of like doughnuts, but 10 times better because they are crispy and more dense), or stuffed (with chocolate, crema, or dulce de leche). Another option is that you order plain churros, but ask for them con chocolate caliente ("with hot chocolate"). Because chocolate caliente is so thick here, it becomes a dipping sauce for the churros (it's actually the same stuff the chocolate-covered churros are covered in before they harden), which can be fun.

I'm personally a fan of the stuffed (not so much the dulce de leche, though) churros, mainly because they are cheaper than a small vaso (a paper cone; translates to "glass") of the plain or chocolate-covered (1 euro for one stuffed versus ~1,50 for five or six small at the stand where I get them), and are equally filling. The ones with chocolate caliente are too rich for me, as there's always leftover chocolate, and drinking that (which is it's actual intended purpose to begin with) is like drinking a cup of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips. Even I can't handle that.

Basically, the hierarchy of Spanish churros works like this (for me, at least):
crema stuffed > chocolate stuffed > chocolate-covered > plain > dulce de leche-stuffed > plain with chocolate caliente

Pastries
Though these aren't nearly as unique as the two aforementioned items, this is certainly worth taking note of. Pastry shops are literally everywhere. There are 4 within 100 meters of my apartment. This becomes especially difficult in those morning walks to school, during which I pass a dozen or so bakeries. The alluring scent of freshly made croissants, tarts, and the like, is impossible to ignore, so it is not at all uncommon for me to quickly stop in and grab a topped (powdered sugar, honey, nuts, or sprinkles) and filled (chocolate, custard, or apple) pastry "para llevar" (essentially "to go", although a more direct translation would be "for to wear").

Gelato
I don't really understand the big deal about this stuff. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but I don't find it to be that good. For as good as it looks, I would expect it to be much more satisfying. I suppose nothing beats my Mud Pie Mojo. Everybody else seems to think its the "cat's pajamas" (shout out to Saif-e Bhai, who probably doesn't know this blog exists), though.

In an effort to curb my consumption of all these sweets, I've tried to set some ground rules for myself:
-If you can get it in America, there's no sense in spending more to get it here.
-Never buy in bulk (our grocery store sells multi-packs of Twix, Mars, and other Euro candies), because you'll eat it all at once.
-One Gofre a week maximum (since I like them far better from one specific shop in the Gothic Quarter, which is at 15 minute metro ride from my place, this should be a piece of cake --no pun intended)
-A total of three churros/pastries a month (one or the other)


Morals of the story:
-Dessert is awesome.
-Gofres are enough of a reason for you to visit Europe.
-I may very well be 20lbs heavier upon my arrival (Thankfully, I've yet to pack on the weight, but that's probably because my caloric intake is too low for anything to be stored as excess).


Unrelated Note/Ridiculously Long Digression:
I've been thinking about opening up a "dessert lounge", perhaps a late-night restaurant specializing in serving various desserts (aptly named The Midnight Snack; equipped with nice couches/sofas, mood lighting, music, etc.). Here I would sell all types of dessert foods, including cookies, brownies, ice cream, sundaes, cakes, shakes, smoothies (there's gotta be at least one healthy option), cupcakes, and anything else, both with traditional and unorthodox varieties for each.

Anyway, I was thinking of modifying my present scheme by either giving it an international theme, or making it part the dessert menu for my recently thought-up gourmet sandwich shop, where I served traditional international dishes, but converted them into sandwiches/wraps/pitas (it would thus be called Around the World in 80 Bites-- potential dishes include The Italy, pasta with sauce and meat/veggies stuffed between two slices of pizza; Butter Chicken with Roasted Red Peppers on Nan, etc.). For the dessert menu, I would offer dessert foods from all over the world, thus bringing things like Gofres and Churros stateside. Here they would accompany other dessert foods like Baklava, Mochi, Sticky Rice, Crème brûlée (here they have their own version, called Crema Catalana), and other ethnic/international sweets.

Perhaps I'll have a restaurant by day, dessert lounge by night type of set-up, or just make it one of my many restaurants (one of my other ideas was to convert part of an abandoned train station into a themed restaurant called The Last Stop, where patrons sit in pseudo train cars and are waited on by people dressed in conductors' outfits; food would be brought to the tables via toy train set).

That ended up being much more longer than intended...my bad.