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Spain

Tastarròs toasts Valencia’s gastronomic heritage

Posted on April 8, 2022April 8, 2022 by Pat and David

Once in a while, we have perfect timing by accident. One year, when we arrived in Spain to research a new guidebook, we stumbled into the Trujillo National Cheese Festival in Extremadura. Us and 10,000 or so Spaniards. When we landed in Valencia on a Friday this year, we had just enough time to shake off our jet lag before Tastarròs began the next day. Spaniards rarely miss a chance to throw a party, and when they can combine the party with the celebration of some kind of food—all the better. “Tastarròs” is a Valencian word that translates more or less as “taste of rice.” The rices of Valencia have protected status in the European Union and are considered part of the region's heritage. The...Read More

Back to Spain – and the great Valencia market

Posted on April 5, 2022April 5, 2022 by Pat and David

Since flying back from Paris in early February 2020, we basically stayed home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the last two years, we got fully vaccinated and boosted, washed our hands raw, and wore KN95 masks everywhere except in open spaces. We continued to test negative after a few close exposures to COVID-19, so all the precautions seemed to be working. (Fingers crossed.) It was time to return to Europe. As soon as we began looking for an apartment in Spain, one jumped out at us. It was in Valencia (visitvalencia.com), a city we wanted to know better but where we had already discovered that the food was fantastic. When we saw a spacious one-bedroom literally across the street from the Mercado Central, we leapt at...Read More

Sopa de ajo cures whatever ails you

Posted on February 12, 2022February 10, 2022 by Pat and David

When we were working on our various guidebooks to Spain, we would often spend an intense period of time researching and photographing from dawn into dark. We really couldn't afford any down time. But when we arrived in Madrid one January for a month of work, David was completely knocked out by a head and chest cold. He picked up an over-the-counter cold syrup from a friendly farmacia and promptly went to bed. Pat hit the streets with notebook and camera in hand. When she returned to our room at the Room Mate Oscar (room-matehotels.com) in Chueca that evening, she dragged David from the bed, made him get dressed, and headed for the outdoor dining spots around Plaza Mayor (photo above). Her answer for David's...Read More

World on a Plate: elusive ketchup bun from San Sebastian

Posted on July 31, 2020July 30, 2020 by Pat and David

Trying to choose a favorite pintxo from San Sebastián makes us throw up our hands and sing the end of the first verse of a particular 1965 Beatles song: ‶...in my life, I loved them all.″ That said, we're haunted by a simple slider on the menu at A Fuego Negro (31 de Agosto; tel: 650 135 373, www.afuegonegro.com/). The current incarnation is listed as ‶MakCobe with txips,″ which is a smirking play on words in English, Spanish, and Euskara that you almost have to be there to appreciate. We do know that you do have to be there in person to appreciate the little burger. Sure, the meat is richly beefy and meltingly tender. That's to be expected. What blew us away was the...Read More

Patatas a la riojana feeds the pilgrim body and soul

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Pat and David

We have all become pilgrims, if only in spirit, during our days of worldwide plague. The sign above marks a bar in Plaza del Rey, San Fernando in Burgos, Spain, named ‶The Pilgrim.″ The insignia above the name shows the scallop shell of Santiago (St. James) on a field of blue—the universal marker along all the variants of the Camino de Santiago. We say ‶variants″ because there are innumerable paths that lead finally to the cathedral in Santiago de Compestela in Galicia, just as there are a multitude of paths to any form of enlightenment. One of the most popular routes of the Camino is the French Way across northern Spain from Roncevalles (where the Basques repulsed Charlemagne's forces led by Roland in 778) west...Read More

An American shortcut to Spanish tortilla

Posted on July 22, 2018 by Pat and David

Wherever we go, the local cuisine always seems to have a go-to item—something easily ordered, quick to prepare, widely available, and nearly foolproof. In much of the U.S., that's often a hamburger. In France, a slice of quiche and a salad. In Spain, it's the potato omelet, or tortilla española. You never know where you'll get a great tortilla. The lowliest dive bar serves tortilla and bars attached to fancy restaurants offer it. You can even get a decent one in the refrigerator cases in many supermarkets. The tortilla can be the model of simplicity—a magical amalgam of eggs, potato, onion, and olive oil. That's the first image on the right, shown with tomato-rubbed bread in La Gardunya at the back of La Boqueria market...Read More

‘New Spanish’ gives NYC accent to Iberian food

Posted on May 26, 2018May 29, 2018 by Pat and David

Chef Jonah Miller and restaurateur Nate Adler are the combined force behind Huertas (huertasnyc.com) in New York's East Village. The restaurant skews Basque in its inspiration, but the pair's cookbook, The New Spanish, is a playful take on contemporary Spanish cooking with a pronounced NYC accent. Case in point: “Arroz al Chino” is a mashup of paella and Chinese fried rice inspired by Zhou Yulong, the Chinese restaurant in the parking garage beneath Plaza de España in Madrid. It's saffron fried rice with lots of bacon, shrimp, and pea tendrils. Covered with zigzag tracks of aioli, it's not far from the fried paella balls that many Spaniards make at home with leftovers. It's pretty clear that Miller and Adler are most at home in “Green...Read More

A Dalí-ance in Catalan gastronomy

Posted on January 12, 2018February 23, 2018 by Pat and David

When we visited Salvador Dalí's home and studio in Port Lligat, Spain, late last year, we didn't know that the cookbook by the most surreal of Surrealist artists had been re-published in 2016. But we knew he loved to eat. Dalí and his wife and muse, Gala, spent a lot of time in their house-studio in the fishing cove of Port Lligat, about a mile away from Cadaqués near the Spanish border with France. The property began as a fisherman's shanty when Dalí bought it in 1930. Over the next 40 years, the house accreted new rooms and wings and gardens and statuary and.... Well, Dalí was prone to excess. That's a photo of the building at the top of this post. It perches above...Read More

Relicatessen: heavenly products for earthly delights

Posted on October 1, 2017February 28, 2018 by Pat and David

Relicatessen in Barcelona solved a problem for us. When we're in Spain for any extended period, we enjoy seeking out the cookies, sweets, and other foodstuffs from the country's 38 monasteries and convents that make products for sale. Often that means placing money on a revolving window (called a retorno) and getting a box of cookies, a jar of jam, or a pot of honey in return. But we're not always in a town with a cloistered order that makes products for sale. Thank god (so to speak) that Francisco Vera opened Relicatessen (www.relicatessen.com) three years ago in stall 988 in the Mercat Sant Josep, better known as La Boqueria. Located right on La Rambla in a Modernista-style iron frame shed, the Boqueria is one...Read More

Bobal brings friends to the barbecue

Posted on July 30, 2017June 6, 2020 by Pat and David

Our previous posts on D.O. Utiel Requena (see here) have concentrated on wines of the indigenous Bobal grape. Finca San Blas (fincasanblas.com) in Requena makes a well-regarded 100 percent Bobal. But the bodega also has extensive vineyards planted in Merlot, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. Its 2014 Lomalta blends 40 percent Bobal with 30 percent each of Merlot and Tempranillo. The resulting wine is a world apart from the black cherry and resinous spice profile of traditional Bobal. The Bobal characteristics are largely overshadowed by the other two grapes. We had to double-check the label to make sure it wasn't an experimental bottling from Rioja, which has had a love affair with French grapes for 150 years. The nose has the pronounced hot-climate menthol of...Read More