It’s been a little over two weeks since I’ve arrived back from Barcelona – land of impeccable taste in eyewear, graceful architecture, and some of the most well-manicured public gardens in all of South-Western Europe. It’s also home to an inordinate number of men – gentlemen, really – with very high sartorial standards, especially those having reached the salt-and-pepper ranks of manhood. Holy Toledo, espadrilles never looked so good.

That said, not even a well-groomed, tanned Iberian man in a linen suit can distract me from good food, which, luckily, is also plentiful in Spain.

When it comes to food, Barcelona excels at many things, but there a few things that were especially memorable – the beautiful, unrefrigerated eggs and rosy Saturn peaches from the market; the honeyed coca flatbread and peppery Manchego cheese, sold by the pound; the dense potato omelettes, creamy béchamel croquetas, and sandwiches with tomato-rubbed bread (Pa amb tomàquet) at the tapas bars; the saffron-infused paella, dotted with shiny black mussels and rosy prawns, still in their shell.

These are the edibles that left their mark.

Of course, there is one additional thing that Spain does particularly well and that is, beyond a doubt, cured meat. Every sandwich I ordered from the moment I stepped off the plane until the moment I stepped back on included some version of cured pork – each of them as delectable as the last. The chorizo at the Boqueria market was so good I nearly wept. I am not ashamed to admit that in seven days I ate my weight in Iberian ham, or that it took a whole afternoon to talk myself out of trucking an entire leg of Pata Negra and a dozen chorizo sausages with me on the plane home. If the sheer absurdity of arriving at the airport with a suitcase brimming with pork products wasn’t enough to dissuade me, my brother (and travel partner) kindly pointed out that the risk of being handed a hefty fine at customs wasn’t worth it (a cautionary piece of advice that lost all its weight when we were handed that miserable, cellophane-wrapped “Asian-style chicken” on the plane – a reminder that there is so much bad food out there that the feat of smuggling a few pieces of hand-crafted cured meat would have been VERY much worth the risk of getting the stink-eye from the authorities.)

Suffice it to say that Barcelona had several shining food moments – some while eating out and others from meals put together at the apartment (despite the sad use of dull, dull knives). There are many more that I’d love to share with you, but I’ll cap it here and spare you the detailed play-by-play of my Spanish food escapades, which, let’s be honest, would be the equivalent of gathering you round for an infernally-long slideshow of blurry vacation photos, charming only to the person manning the projector.

Instead, I have put together a quick slideshow of some highlights (plus an little Spanish omelette recipe further below). Buen provecho.