!Hemos encontrado los Calcots!

?Parecen estos a calcots?

Hemos los encontrado a Berkeley Bowl en Berkeley, California. ?Puede creerlo? Berkeley Bowl es un mercado un poco similar a la Boqueria, pero no tanto fantastico.

Me voy a escribir de la fiesta un unos dias....

Desastre en La Cocina

Después de muchos meses en los Estados Unidos (San Francsico, CA), tuvimos ganas de comer una tortilla perfecta como comimos muchas veces en Catalunya.

La otra noche, Teo y yo hicimos uno pero fue un desastre:

?Alguien sabe que paso? 

Es posible que no usemos aceite suficiente o usemos demasiado patatas.

No lo sabemos. !Ayudados!

A Few of My Favorite Things

Now that we've been back a while, I can admit to being completely nostalgic for a few things from our previous life, right? Here goes, in no particular order:

Carrer de Lleo, Our Street

I always loved walking home, seeing all the same people going about the same business on our block. It's just not the same kind of community in a car-culture. I wonder if the neighbors miss me as much as I miss them?

Never Knowing What You're Going to Get

When we first arrived in Spain, I was longing for familiar foods like burritos, but I quickly became a fan of trying dishes I previously never considered food items, such as Rabo de Toro (Bull's Tail):

Weekdays Between 6pm and 9pm

This is when the neighbors come out on the plazas to have a beer or a chat or a kiddie game of street ball. The whole world slows down, lets the day go and actually enjoys time outside with friends. It's a beautiful thing.

Totally Un-P.C. and Sometimes Just Wrong

I once wrote about how the Spanish can seem offensive when viewed through an uber-politically correct American lens, but sometimes their awkward humor is just down right funny. I loved seeing odd uses of the American language, such as the following name for a clothing store. Do you think Granny realizes what she's posing under?

Celebrating Barsa

Clearly, if you read this blog, you know we are devout Barsa fans. Watching every game at BJ's 100 Club with all of these crazy fans was definitely the highlight of every week. We still stream the games live from our laptops, but jumping up and down by one's lonesome just ain't the same.

Sunday Paella

Is there anything on earth more tasty-looking? I don't think so.

For my birthday is this weekend and I'm making myself a big pot of paella to help cure my Spanish-homesickness. The Sunday Paella tradition lives on...!!!

 Note: This list does NOT include any of our dear friends we miss terribly. Come visit!

To Make: Paella!

It seemed fitting that before my dear friend Caterina left Barcelona to work as a chef in a Pyrenean mountain lodge - I miss her already!!! - a group of us got together to make a giant Catalan paella in her honor.

Each region of Spain has it's own take on paella and Catalonia isn't especially well-known for it's particular version but I can't get enough!

 The following recipe is a combined effort of many of Caterina's friends remembering how their Catalan mother / grandmother used to make it. I was a very happy observer in this undertaking.

One thing everyone agreed upon: only fresh seafood will do. Don't bother otherwise.

Seafood per person

2 large prawns in shells

3 mussels

3 clams

1/4 lb squid

Other than the seafood, the remaining ingredients are easy to find:

Ingredients (for 6 people)

3 cups of white short-grain rice

6 cups of fish stock

olive oil

6 cloves of garlic, minced

2 onions, chopped

24 oz of chopped tomatoes in juice (canned or fresh)

2 tbs of red bell pepper paste

Handful of peas

1/4 cup chopped parsley

(optional: one chopped carrot, red pepper, green pepper, if you are feeling healthy)

Note: they tell me saffron is just for color and tourists. Who knew?

First, soak the mussels and clams in salty water so excess sand dissolves. Throw away any shells that don't close once in water, but then reopen them with a knife once they are clean.

Next, chop the squid into thin, bite-sized strips. You may have to use scissors for the tough parts:

In a large pan, heat the olive oil and add the onion (and carrot / peppers). Once soft, add the can of tomatoes with juice and the squid strips. Stir this mixture for about 15 minutes until the squid soaks up all the juices. 

In another pan, stir-fry the un-peeled shrimp until they turn an appetizingly pinkish-orange color and set aside:

Next, add the peas, rice and parsley to the squid and let heat for a moment. Then add fish stock, clams and mussels and stir until the rice gets completely cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, arrange the seafood in an beautiful pattern and viola! 

The paella was surprisingly easy to make and more delicious than anything I've been served in a restaurant. As for Caterina, she is the best too!

Views from Asturias

Asturias 

(northeastern Spain near Galicia),

is mostly rolling green hills and the occasional happy cow...

But also has beautiful old cities by the beach....

Water flows freely...

 As does the sidra, an alcoholic beverage made from apples which is poured like so:

Or like, so, if you have a porcelain Asturiano man siting on your table:

Our friend, Jano, invited us to his hometown of Gijon, for the weekend:

In Gijon, people of all ages gather in the plaza to share sidra...

 And more sidra...

And nobody goes home until the wee hours of the morn. This is the lively scene at 4AM, when I was ready for sleepy time:

  But the next day, if you're lucky, Jano's Mom will serve you up a hearty lunch. Here we're eating Fabada, a traditional stew of many pig parts, white beans and a kale-like vegetable. !Riquisima!

We had a great time with the Silva family in Asturias.

!Gracias por todo!

Easter in the Country

Last weekend, we were invited to the country, to Terra Alta, a beautiful rural region, two hours south of Barcelona, to spend Easter with friends - Nuria and Pau - and their families. 

Upon arrival in Gandesa, we realized why Nuria goes to her pueblo so often: the lush green flora, dramatic mountain landscape and tranquil country roads make Terra Alta a true Medeterrian Paradise:

We were greeted by her exhuberant father, who gave us a tour of the world though his liquor collection:

And by her mother, who made several traditional meals rivaling only those my grandmother's Texas cooking. Unfortunately, we didn't snap any photos of the squid with white beans or slow-roasted chicken or home-made lasagna with beschamel sauce she made. Cheers to Senora Cid-Puey!

The next day, we headed to Pau's family house in Horta de Sant Joan, a town famous for it's beauty but also for having hosted Pablo Picasso for several months in 1898 when he and a friend lived in a cave and painted like madmen. This could have been the view from their cave:

Before arriving, we stopped off in a nearby medieval town, Valderrobres, to see a traditional Good Friday procession of Nazerenos:

As soon we saw these white cone hats, Nuria and I were ready run for the hills:

Nazarenos pre-date the KKK by a thousand years, but they still have a dominating, oppressive presence, especially, when the scary creatures start banging very loudly, in unison, on large drums:

Fortunately, we had a nice, cozy house to go home to. This is Pau, his mother and his 91-year-old grandfather:

On Easter morning, there were no colored eggs or hunts of any kind, but the Bunny did come:

And we ate him!

During the reminder of the five hour lunch, Ted received more hazing by the Fortuno brothers, Pau's father and uncle, who appreciated that the American knows a thing or two about home-made liquors:

Later, we wandered around the medieval streets of Horta,

And realized why the young Picasso stayed here so long.

Sunday also happened to be the day of Horta's Annual Fast Painting Contest, which may or may not have anything to do with Picasso. Every year, hundreds of painters set up their easels around town and paint from 9am-6pm:

I could have stayed all day, watching the painters work and admiring Horta's beauty. Picasso once said, "Everything I know, I learned in Horta."

This is the view from Pau's kitchen window:

And this is "L'Horta de Saint Joan" by Pablo Picasso.

It was a wonderful weekend and one Easter we'll never forget!

Bones Pasqües! 

I moltes gràcies a l'Cid Puey-família i la famíliaFortuno-Estrada per un cap de setmana bonic.

Drama and Waterworks

Last night we were jolted out of bed by a sound like an angry bull gorging our front door or maybe the upstairs neighbor pushing her sofa down five flights of stairs.

As it turns out, our piece-of-shit water-heater, formally plastered on the wall in the bathroom, decided to unhook itself and come crashing down. Water squirting everywhere, broken tiles, broken wall. It was 3AM.

Normally, I would have been irritated, but this water-heater has been the bane of our existence here in Spain.

Heated by electricity because our batty landlord is afraid of people dying from gas leaks, the tank allows for exactly 3.23 minutes of luke-warm water before it spews an ice-cold waterfall on your head. In the dead of winter, when we had no heater, this was the simple reason we took no showers for many days and thus realized the true meaning of "dirty Europeans."

In February, Ted let it slip that he joined a gym just so he could take a decent shower and dry himself with a dry towel.

 Sucker! I would never sink to such a level (but I did quit shaving for a very long time).

Now it's Semana Santa, the most precious week of the whole year, and no plumber is going to leave his fiesta to fix our shower. We will be smelly grease-balls until Tuesday, at the earliest. No biggie.

Normally, one could ask a neighbor to borrow a shower, but in Lleo 9, we already know how that will go down.

Water, in our building, is like fine wine. Nobody lets a drop go free.

Case in point: Thursday is stair-cleaning day and each door must put out 1 liter of water so we all share the cost of a bucket of water (which must be like 0.0001E). I guess Spain really is in a "creeee-sis". 

The lady below refuses to do even this. Every Thursday, she marches down to the city fountain and fills up her bucket with the obligatory one liter.

I may seem like I am complaining, but I'm not. I love the drama. All afternoon, I've been hibernating inside our apartment listening to the neighbors chatter about that horrendous noise of last night and build theories about what happened. "Did So-and-So have that large man spend the night?" "I bet So-And-So quit taking her medicine, had an accident..."

I could easily explain the situation, but the neighbors will find out soon enough. The plumbers, when they come, will surely drag in dust and dirt, cause a ruckus and require more water from the cleaning lady who might have to come twice in one week! Heaven forbid! And the drama will continue...

Cowboy - Catalan Cook-Off

Before the Texans left Barcelona, my Dad whipped up a big pot of his Chili and my Mom made Texas Queso (microwaved Velveeta cheese with canned Ro-Tel tomatoes) - Yum! We wanted to show our Spanish friends how to eat Texas-style.

To bring a little Catalan flavor to the meal, my dear friend / language exchange partner, Caterina, prepared a regional delicacy, Crema de Catalana, which bears a strong resemblance to Creme Bruelee, but is "mucho mejor" (according to anyone from Catalonia). Both dessert and chili recipes are posted below.

Here are the dueling chefs:

No effort was spared in bringing the Texas to Barcelona, and everyone was impressed when the Velveeta log was unveiled:

Not to be outdone, Caterina busted out her grandmother's branding iron, which is used to to caramelize the top of the dessert.

We had our doubts, but surprisingly, Texas Chili and Crema de Catalana make a very good combo!

Crema de Catalana

Ingredients

8 egg yolks

1 liter of whole milk

200g of sugar

120g of white flour

80g of corn flour

1 orange peel

1 lemon peel

3 sticks of cinnamon

Put the milk, fruit skins and the cinnamon sticks in a pot to boil. In another pot, mix the egg yolks, two types of flours and sugar into a thick paste. If the mixture needs more liquid, add warm milk. Once the milk has boiled, add the egg yolk mixture and let it thicken, without heat but stirring it all the while. 

Pour the mixture into small bowls or into one large pan and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit in a cool place (or the refrigerator) for five hours.

Later, sprinkle sugar on each dessert and heat the top with an iron broiler or butane torch until the surface caramelizes.

Big Daddy's Texas Chili

Ingredients

4 New Mexico Chilis

4 Californian Chilis

2 red wrinkled chilis

2 smoked jalapeno chilis

3 white onions

5 cloves of garlic

2 or 3 pounds of beef stew meat

cumin seeds

dark beer

white corn tortillas

Cut beef into small chunks and brown in a pan without oil, working in batches. Rough cut 2 onions and garlic and sauté, also without oil. When onions are slightly brown, add the meat, one bottle of beer. a bottle of water, salt and pepper to taste.

While the beef is simmering, de-seed and de-vein all the chilies. Put chilies in a saucepan, cover with water and turn the fire on low. Then, toast the cumin seeds. 

After ten minutes, blend the chillies and cumin seeds and add to meat. 

Cut the tortillas into small chunks and add to the meat as well. Let the chili simmer for at least two hours. Serve over white rice and garnish with cheddar cheese, diced onions and tomatoes.

Enjoy!