altafulla

If that's not a picture of contentment, I'm not sure what is.

It's not a bad way to spend your last weekend of February, basking in the warm sun of the Mediterranean, in a town full of summer memories, vacant of tourists, where everything is carefully orchestrated by some unknown force to cater to your maximum enjoyment.  Even the wind knows just when to blow.

I don't actually know anything about this place, other than what my friend told me about his lifelong vacation home.

A leisurely stroll from his street level apartment is the Maritime Club, the de facto meeting place. Essential Maritime Club activities include eating sandwiches of sobresata, tennis, and reading the newspaper over coffee for at least an hour every morning.

The backdrop couldn't be more different than the one I'm used to. Where I see typical Basque colors, fonts and characters in my daily life, in Altafulla I saw images that were distinctly more Spanish. Or maybe they were Catalán? Since I know embarrasingly little about the country that is Spain, I can't be sure.

This salad, however, was quite Catalán. Xato-bacalao with frisee and anchovy, tossed with a romesco sauce.

Then calçots, perfectly fried by the people who know them the best, then dipped into romesco. Seriously, people, I challenge you to name a more delicious sauce.

Pure, sunshiney happiness.

paradise...

Have you ever been to paradise?

I would argue I live there. However, a recent weekend trip may have revealed the Catalán equivalent....here's a sneak peek until I have time for a full post this weekend. 

Any guesses???

A Calçotada

This past weekend I had the pleasure of experiencing one of the most legendary food festivals in Spain: a calçotada. A Cataluñian tradition, it's a celebration in which a most treasured crop, calçots, is charred over a fire, wrapped in newspaper to steam to tenderness, and then dipped in romesco sauce and eaten. Well, that's the calçotada on paper, and in one sentence. Really, it's so much more, and we got to go behind the scenes.

The calçot is an onion, a generic onion, pulled from the ground, allowed to sprout, and then reburied. The farmer then continues heaping soil over it during its growing period, preserving the whiteness and the slim shape, similar to a leek.

This guy is a farmer from the Valls region, which is the most famous calçot-producing area. His family farm is the Brothers Blanch, and he explained us the abc's of calçots. Can you produce calçots outside of this area? Sure, but they won't be the same. And he does not recommend it. Good thing I'm not very capitalist minded...I was perfectly happy to allow him to pile his authentic calçots on a huge, roaring fire and let them char to black.

Then the party begins.

 It's a party made for Marti: fire, messiness, and lots of sauce.  The star here is romesco sauce (Bottega cooks, I'm waiting for my USA-made romesco over here...), a sauce of nuts, red peppers, the dried ñora, tomato, olive oil, a splash of vinegar and...Catalan cookies!

Surprise, surprise, American chefs...process all the grilled fancy bread you want, but a LOT of folks over here are making their romesco with soggy, cheap cookies. Word from another source (we were drinking a lot of wine, but it rings true) is that you can just use any old stale bread-y item...croissant, baguette, whatever.

Take calçot. Derobe, scattering charred onion bits EVERYWHERE. Swirl in romesco. Dangle over your mouth and lower. Preferably with bib, and preferably in between drinks from the porrón, a wine dispensing instrument made to distract from the quantity of wine being imbibed via showmanship. Photo at the end of post.

Of course there's more than just grilled onions. Beautiful white beans, drizzled with olive oil and parsley.

Golden, roasted artichokes.

And the crema catalana, which, according to my tablemates, is just creme brulee with a nationalist name.  I love researching food during a four-hour drinking session. The answers just get more and more honest.

 Thank you, Cataluña. Thank you, porrón.

pa amb tomàquet (madrid v. barcelona)

Tonight, in a few hours, begins one of the biggest soccer rivalries in Spain, if not the world: Real Madrid versus FC Barcelona. Bars across town are flying flags from one of the two clubs to prevent innocent fans from ending up in an unfriendly atmosphere.

Chip is out with his friend, and they are going to eat and have "some guy's dinner". Meaning they will be drinking (a lot), yelling (a lot) and, since he's shacked up with Barcelona fans, eating pa amb tomàquet.

Pa amb tomàquet is an appetizer from Cataluña, the region that is home to Barcelona. When we were there, we had this typical dish several times, and it's one of those plates that amazes with its simplicity.  It's nothing more than bread, tomato, a little garlic, olive oil and salt.

But.

There's a couple things you should know.  First, bread's important, very important. It must, above all, be good. I like ciabatta, or as we call it here in Donosti, txapata. And really, you should toast it. The crusty points formed by toasting will help in the next steps.

You continue by rubbing with a whole, peeled garlic clove. Then comes the tomato. But...WAIT. Make sure you cut it along the equator, not along the stem, in order to get maximum use of the juice and flesh.  Rub a tomato half on the bread until the only thing left is a maltreated skin. Then, a generous dousing of GOOD olive oil and just the right amount of salt sprinkled across the top. Simple, right?

pa amb tomàquet

• one loaf of ciabbata
• four ripe tomatoes, cut in half down the equator
• two peeled garlic cloves
• extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle
• a pinch of salt

Slice the ciabbata down the middle horizontally to part the loaf in half. Cut into desired size pieces and toast.

Rub with garlic cloves. Then rub with tomato halves, covering the entire bread, until only tomato skin remains and the bread is covered in seeds and juice.  Drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.