How I Churro

freshly fried churros - yummy!

If churros were a daily occurrence, I wouldn't like them half as much. Picking up an almost too hot to handle loop, breaking it in half, dipping it in coffee - leaving oil traces behind in the tiny mug - and taking a crispy-mushy bite is coziness itself. It's a simple food providing a simple comfort - flour, water and salt dough fried golden in olive oil to warm your soul while the rest of Spain is sleeping.

It's a weapon against dark, cold mornings and a long commute - there's a bar near my school that opens at the crack of dawn where you can get a churro and a scalding cup of coffee for less than two dollars, commiserating silently with the other early birds. I pop in for breakfast every once in a while, but the churro I save for the first truly cold day.

Or I have one after a blood test - it's doctor recommended over here; there's even a discount in the hospital cafeteria when you're through (an ploy, perhaps, to ensure people keep their yearly checkups?).

It's a calming, fortifying moment when a flight is so delayed I'm not home until the churro shops are opening, or I'm jet-lagged and neither asleep nor awake.

A churro is not for rainy days, and it's not for afternoon tea. I say "a" churro, because I believe churros are best appreciated in isolation. One churro, one tiny cup of coffee, one black-as-pitch and cold-as-Canada morning.