Bent-back tulips

Calçots are sort of like green onions, except that they're Catalan and they're a much bigger deal here than green onions have ever been anywhere (I'm pretty sure). You can order them in restaurants, but what you're really supposed to do is get yourself invited to a calçotada (or, if you're not me, have your own calçotada). That's what I did today. It was good. The only slight catch is that because it's impossible to make friends with Catalans if you don't speak Catalan*, there were no actual Catalans there (there were a bunch of Spanish people, for the record) and so it took a few rounds to get the calçots made right. All you have to do for a calçotada is grill calçots on a barbecue (well, plus drink wine but that is easy), but you have to figure out about how long to grill them if you want them to be good (maybe that goes without saying). Once you get the timing down and grill them, you sort of slide the skins off and dip what's left in romesco sauce and eat it. Romesco sauce is red pepper-based and flavorful and definitely a sauce, not a condiment. I like calçots about as much as I could imagine myself liking a food that's part of the onion family, and the skins get all charcoal-y from the grill so you get messy which is kind of fun. Apart from that I sort of don't see what the big deal is, but I guess they're as good a reason as any to have a barbecue.

*That's a fact, not a value statement. It's also basically impossible to make friends with Spanish people in Spain if you don't speak Spanish, or French people in France if you don't speak French, or Americans in the US if you don't speak English, etc.