Zoe at the mercado

So I had to go shopping today. Well let me be honest I didn't really need to shopping but I had to get out of the piso because it's like 400 degrees in here. The upstairs neighbors are watching tele-novellas with the volume at 11 while at the same time listening to mid eighties Spanish Pop at 12 and hooting like wounded blood hounds, not to mention that the school in the back has decided to throw a fiesta for the remaining remedial kiddies featuring 1980s disco and traditional catalan songs of love, death and sepia. And speaking of sepia, AKA cuttlefish, it ain't my favorite thing to eat in the sea. It's basically a fat squid with shorter footsies. Mostly is comes out tasting like art gum erasers ala plancha. Cheweeeee. These critters are much more interesting alive and underwater than dead and swimming in olive oil on a plate.

So my five year old Zoo Zoo and I supped at Manu's bar at the mercado. I had some lovely salt cod with great, thinly cut potatoes and Zoe had her favorite croquetas and patatas bravas. Manu has Pilsner Urquel on tap which is like McDonald's having some swanky merlot as part of a happy meal. I of course partook of one of the finest beers in all the world, Zoe wisely went for a Fanta.

OK back to the sepia, after we bade Manu and his bird whistles adeu, we strolled by the big fish stand where they did in deed have the aforementioned sepia as well as cap de rape, which is monkfish head. Even in the best of times a monkfish is one oogly fishy but when you are staring at a pile of freshly decapitated specimens, well they don't look like fishsticks.

Zoe has been on this aquisition knowledge regarding cartlidge for the six months. Every day begins with questions about this miraculous material somewhere between bone and tissue. And a pile of monkfish noggins is of course going to peak her interest. The heads were all placed upside down for esthetic reasons one could presume. One of the nice vendedoras flipped one over for us. Yep... Oogly! We checked out the merluza, AKA hake, another looker. Now a dorada is a lovely looking fish, a fish as if designed by Disney. Big eyes, stylish flippers and a lovey almost pink sliver color. They are also lovely to eat. A recipe shall be forthcoming.

Underwater Brilliance

I get my ideas in the shower. No not those kind of ideas. Well sometimes those kind of ideas but usually insights of various sizes that are the sum of other little insights. I have had some doozies. Not that I’ve been able to carry through with them. But that’s another entry. New slimemold project. Shower revelations. When I have ‘em, so shall ye.

Same pan different dish

So this Sunday's comida highlight was Fideus. Fideus is prepared in a paella pan and in many ways is a similar dish. The big, big difference is that fideus uses short pasta rather than rice. It also tends to be simpler and even more unadorned. OK here you go. Take one paella pan and place it over medium heat, add a little olive oil and fry a few 2" chunks of monk fish (It really is the right stuff) and a few prawns. And like a paella you want to try to have the pan as evenly heated as possible, a gas barbique works swell. When the monkfish is browned on both sides remove the monkfish and the prawns and toss in 3 peeled and finely chopped tomatoes and a medium onion. This is called a sofrito and is an instrumental part of many Spanish recipes. Cook until the onions are translucent. At this point add a teaspoon or so of sweet pimento and salt to taste. Toss back in the seafood and add the pasta You'll need 500 grams of fideus which is also known as fideo in Castillano and probably can be found in Latin American markets. If you have the option the correct size is number 4. Spread the pasta evenly in the pan and try to coat it with the sofrito. Now add 2 liters of fish stock (I cheat and use chicken stock), stir once and bring to a boil and then reduce to medium. Without stirring wait for the liquid to be absorbed into the pasta. It should take about 20 to 30 minutes ar so. There should be no liquid remaining. That's it. Oh and serve with Allioli. What's allioli? Espera... espera...

A Dark Joy

"I wanted to account for something that is demonic but also joyful, and so I came up with the idea of "dark joy" because I think this force is life-giving, and life-enhancing, and yet it's also tied to death. What Lorca means by duende, when he says that a singer has it, or a that a flamenco dancer has it, or that a poet has it, or that a particular performance has it, he means that something else takes over, some kind of haunting or possession. Something lifts off in the process of creating the work that leads an artist to the summit of the work, to somewhere that he or she hasn't been before. And so it's a kind of demonic enthusiasm, a kind of dark force."

Edward Hirsh

But it's just...

Had lunch at a bar that has perhaps the best Patatas Bravas in all of Spain. Insert castinet flourish here. Why, I dunno but the place is always packed. The waiter is one of those classic Spanish camereros with a voice like a foghorn and a heart as big as his size 12 shoes. Simple stuff, prepared right. After all Patatas Bravas are just fried potatoes, a slightly spicy sauce and alioli (which is another example of the mystery of "but it's just..."). But in Spain everything can have duende, even fried potatoes.

Barca-iti

OK I think tagging is stupid. Hey you kids, stop that! But those of you who can man a can of spray paint for something more than the equivalent of poodles pee peeing on fire hydrants... Dudes and Dudettes an awful lot of your stuff is fuerte, vibrant, stunning and sometimes makes me want to cry... And lay down my brush. Ah Kant doo any bedder...Here's a few recent works from the area around MACBA and the CCCB.

This coffee is the bomb.

BBC Link

I am ill. This seems funny to me. What italian prisoners? I thought all the criminals were working for Berlusconi. And what do the anarchists have to do with the oppressed Italian prisoners being held in Catalunya? Is this part of a terrorist exchange program or something? It would have to be an espresso machine. One of those 2 part metal jobs that we all had and retired as soon as we could afford a nice cheaply made german plastic job. I know it. But the question arises, why would that cause undo attention in front of the Italian Cultural Instituto. I mean the French Cultural Instituto has hundreds of spent snail shells lying around and nobody thinks this is suspicious. Stupid. And a dog got killed and a policeman got hurt. Stupid. Again... Less thumpin' mas humpin'. Amen.

The explosion...

El Pais says an explosion has happened at the Italian Cultural Institute. Yep that's the little street. It's a half a block from here.

Yes it was a bomb...

BBC Link

A loud boom...

So a half an hour ago there was this loud boom. I went out on the balcony to see what was going on. Most of the nieghbors were out on thier balconies as well. About five minutes later I heard sirens.

I went on the street and saw that the police and emergency services had blocked off the area in front of the little street that has the Italian embassy among other things.

I could see that something had happened. The police were holding back any pedestrians from entering the street.

So far no news on any of the services.

I can hear helicopters.

Blind Willie Johnson

"Praise God I'm Satisfied" (Blind Willie Johnson)

OK, regarding that certain intangible something...It ain't Flamenco but it is duende. The tune you want is, "Dark Was the Night." Oh man. Check I Tunes, they have a copy.

Tapeworms exposed!

A full expose with pictures and everything will be forth coming. Please check back regularly.

"The" book on Catalan Cooking...

"Catalan Cuisine: Europe's Last Great Culinary Secret" (Colman Andrews)

I just thought I should give credit where credit is due. Mr. Andrew's book is one of reasons I live here. It's so good that the vendedores in the mercado often physically grab it out of my hands to get a look.

Escalivada

Escalivada is a wonderful dish that is found everywhere here from working man's granjas to super upscale eateries. It as easy as falling off a log to prepare.

Take a few unpeeled onions, a couple of big red peppers and eggplants.

Stick them on a baking sheet in pre-heated medium highish oven.

Let the pepper's skin blacken. Turn the peppers and the eggplants.

Let everything bake. When they be soft they be done.

Remove from oven and place them is a paper bag. Close the bag and let cool.

Peel the peppers. Just sort of strip off the blackened skin. Cut in half and carefully remove the seeds. Cut into more or less inch wide strips.

Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise. Peel off skin. Cut into 3/4 inch wide long strips.

Peel the onions. Cut into 1 and half inch wide strips.

The cutting is not that critical. You should wind up with sort of similar size strips.

Put in a container and refrigerate. To serve get rid of excess liquid and arrange on a plate. Add a little bit of balsamic vinager and maybe some salt.

Escalivada makes a super open face sandwich (a torrada in Catalan, tostada in Castillano-hey all it means is toast!). Toast some good sliced bread. Drizzle on some olive oil. A little bit of salt. Put the escalivada on top. And if you toss a few nice anchovies and couple of pitted green olives on top of that, and oh man... Cielo! I think I better go make one. If one was into gilding the proverbial lily one could use pan amb tomaquet as a base. Mind your cebollas and aberginas and I might just show you how.

Looking for Duende

Duende is not a delicate body part. Duende is not some strange puncuation. Duende is a word that basically means real, deep, profound, from the heart. It's the same emotional quality that you can find in the Blues or Fado or Mourna. It's sort of hard to describe what it is. It's just obvious when it's missing. Blind Willie Johnson, yep. Cheap Trick, no.

So I just got back from a interesting night. I started out the evening with the intention of meeting up with a friend and seeing some real deal flamenco. It was to be held at a strange park in one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the city. The park used to be a hideous dirt pit conveniently left that way by speculators and the city after they knocked down a couple of buildings that had been full of families. The vecinos got together and said screw it, it’s ours and then started planting trees and grass and putting in benches. What was the city going to do? Start tearing up the shrubbery? Anyway me no connect with my friend and it seemed not much would happening at the park for quite awhile. So after 20 minutos of watching a 3 legged dog court a much smaller pooch and the Dominican kids play basketball I decided to go look for Gitanos and Flamenco authentico.

Let’s face it Barcelona is not Andalusia when it comes to flamenco culture but it does exist. Gitanos (Gypsies) live in three parts of the city; the Gracia, Besos, a tiny part of the Raval and apparently around the aforementioned park.Oops I guess that's four. OK first of all 8 p.m. on Saturday night in Spain is like 10:30 on Sunday morning everyplace else in the world. Something will eventually get going but when is not exactly sure.

I hop on my bike and ride over to a little plaza in the Raval. From what I hear is known as the traditional home the Barcelona Gitano establishment; famous Gitano singers, musicans and artists have all lived here. It’s also where St. Eulalia, one of the two patrons saints of Barcelona was crucified by the Romans but that’s another story. The route I took between these neighborhoods is interesting in that it cuts through so many diverse sections of the city.

First the Ribera now home to Dominicans, North Africans, hip media professionals and art types and of course soon the gentry. Then the Born the beautiful but formerly seedy port adjacent neighborhood now throbbing with uber fashionable bars, clubs and restaurants. Then across Via Laietana, a wide boulevard cut through the lower heart of the city around the the turn of the century. It's not one of it’s most most beautiful. Then through the medieval Barrio Gotico which is located around the Cathedral. Then the scruffy but popular tourista areas adjacent to the famous or infamous Ramblas depending on how you feel about it. Then over the beautiful but tawdry Ramblas crawling with tourists and pick pockets and restaurants selling bad food and giant beers to drunken Northern Europeans among others.

The Ramblas is also known for the 9th wonder of the western world, the Mercado de Sant Josep, better known as the Boqueria. Then through the Raval, also known as the barrio chino. Once known as Barcelona’s roughest neighborhood it’s now a mix of Pakistani, Philipino, north African families and upwardly mobile pioneers. Apparently the barrio chino tag comes from a time when anybody who wasn't white was called a chino. We've come a little ways I guess. There were apparently never any real Chinos in the barrio chino.

So arriving at the plaza in the Raval I can see no signs of smokey gitano bars and duende but again it’s too early. I call my friends Mick and Georgia to see if they wanna join me on my quest. They invite me to go to dinner with them in the Gracia. Ah ha! The Gracia another potential Gypsy barrio. So a change of directions.

I head up through Barrio San Antoni, a wonderful working class Catalan neighborhood, though my neighborhood the Eixample, up Enrique Granados, a lovely tree lined narrow pedestrian friendly street, which to me may be the prettiest calle in the town. Across the Diagonal and into swanky San Gervasi. Then around plaza Lesseps which is in reality an always under construction attempt to heal the Olympic Games installed wound called the Ronda de Dalt which is a freeway furrowed around and through the upper parts of the city.

I eventually drop into one of my favorite neighborhoods. The Gracia used to be a village and still for the most part feels like it. Like a great deal of my favorite parts of the city it has always been a working class mix of workshops, mom and pop tiendas, simple restaurants and old apartment buildings. Now however like every place else in Barcelona real estate prices have skyrocketed and the little old ladies with thier shopping carts are gradually being ousted and replaced by well to do younger folks and foreigners like me.

I join Mick and Georgia at of all things an Australian restaurant. The food firmly embraces the South East Asian vibe and is refreshingly spicy. Spicy is hard to find in Spain. Friendly folks. I should get to know more Aussies.

We talk about men. We talk about women. We talk about men and women. We talk about our kids. We talk about ironing and dishwashers. About real estate. About movies and the biz. We talk about being naked on the beach and how this freaks out American guys like me and I suspect Irish guys like Mick and how it doesn’t bother Georgia who was raised in Germany by hippy academics. After dinner we wander through the Gracia and stop and have a night cap at a bar on one of the plazas. I bid them goodnight and decide to head back down to where I started from.

The park is now packed with people. A generator chugs away powering a PA and a few crude spot lights. It’s a fiesta. The neighborhood is fully represented; the aforementioned Dominicans, North Africans, old Catalans, young pierced squatters and the three legged dog. And miraculously on the crude homemade stage are 2 young purveyors of Flamenco Puro. They look to be no older than 22. But they have the feeling, they have the duende. A young girl gets up and dances. She is lithe and beautiful and seems to be very good. An old man tries to join her. His friends laughingly hold him back. The crowd adds the syncopated rhythmic clapping, las palmas. At 3 in the morning I get my flamenco and realize that I’m still in love with this strange and wonderful place called Spain.

Paella

OK chicos here's a snap of last Sunday's Paella. A "guiri" (foreigner) whupping up the national dish is really somebody looking for trouble. Still the locals wolfed it down like it was going out of style and there were no leftovers so I guess I must be at least on the radar. Next time no pineapple.

Tinto de Verano soaked discourse...

So it’s Friday night. Having returned from the neighbors, where I was happily force fed Tinto de Verano and pizza, I am still mulling over the disturbing issues that are seem to be invading our every waking moment. My neighbor is a well travelled South American who speaks perfect unaccented American English thanks to his many years in the USA. He knows his stuff and he understands much about Columbian US relations. Oye... Scary stuff. Very scary stuff. It’s really strange to watch his little boy pull on his ears, head butt him and in general just try to get his beloved Dad’s attention while he shares mucho information with me about cartels, the CIA, multinationals, Fidel, the rampant use of a certain white substance though out every strata of society, etc. Now he’s really good guy and not prone ranting and raving. It’s completely logical and seemingly absolutely true. Hay-zooz.

Except for the Zapatero led government of my beloved adopted country it seems and feels that everything that is legit ain’t. The multi-nationals, the oil companies, the drug trade, obviously the US government, the French government, Blair, Schroder, Denmark’s and the Netherlands swing to the right, Venezuela's swing to the left, the middle east, renewed tension in Northern Ireland, the oncoming Chinese juggernaut, the G8 conference, the London bombings, the lack of water pressure and of course let us not forget erectile dysfunction and Tom and Katie, etc., etc., etc. Puta Madre... Oh and global warming. And pod casting. The problem is all this stuff is real (well except for Tom and Katie and pod casting which both rank right up there in importance with the heartbreak of toenail fungus and post nasal drip).

So they hit the working class folks in London, like they hit the working class folks in Madrid. Why? I don’t understand, if you are gonna go for it a few hundred miles to the North there are a whole bevy of the worlds biggest wankers sitting in a swank hotel overlooking a golf course discussing how to save the officially poor poor and dancing around the melting of the polar ice caps. Why the real people?

So I heard about the London bombings and immediately got a hold of everybody I know there. I SMSed my friend Lizzy who SMSed back, “Right as rain! Thanks for thinking of us. Karen is fine and in the country. Love to the family. XOXO, Lizzy” Man is that strong or what. Brits, you are really something, God Bless You.

So what to do in the face so much insanity. Well obviously the straight and narrow is strewn with the bodies of those that thought they were doing the responsible thing. I think I’m one of those bodies. So I think the best course of action is to really jump into the scary void of the unknown. Look at real artists, musicians, dreamers and scientists. The more creative the more out there and the more out there the more popular. OK take Gaudi, I’m sure not a small portion of Barcelona income comes from tourist coming from around the globe to see the his work. Not that long ago they wanted to tear down the Pedrera (one of his most famous buildings) because it looked funny. Now there is a line around the block trying to get in from 10 until closing every day. The Sagrada Familia too is either loved or hated but all those tour buses must mean something. Look at Einstein. Look at Richard Feyman. Look at Picasso. Look at Mozart. Jeez, look at Radiohead. Look at The Simpsons ferchissake. The most watched animated TV series in the history of broadcasting is nothing if not uber quirky. So I wanna go towards the light. I wanna follow another path. I wanna not have a stomach ache because in my heart of hearts I’m doing the wrong thing. Follow love. Follow beauty. Follow empathy. I'm going to follow the lovely simplicity of my five year old. Mean people suck. There is God in Art. Less thumpin’ more humpin’. Amen.

Cheery Cherry Jam

Last night I made cherry, for lack of a better phrase, jam. I could use "preserves" but that sounds so Martha Stewart, or maybe cherry incarcerations might work best for Martha. Or how about Martha's Jail House Cherry Conserves. Interestingly Preservative in Spain (and France) means rubber and I don't mean galoshes. Oddly conserve too might apply to this as in "no thanks I am conserving myself". Anyway it's cherry time in here in Catalunya so I got 3 lbs for 2 euros. OK I didn't go to the beautiful mercado right up the street I was at the dumpy low rent Supermarket buying a box of roach hotels and there next to the cashier, the batteries and the preservatives were 2 kilo boxes of cherries. My favorite cherries come from a nearby region called Llieda. These came from there so I broke my rule about not buying stuff like this in dumpy supermarkets and well... bought them.

As always when I make jam it came out runny. I know the rule is an equal amount (in weight) of stuff to sugar. Whether it be gooseberries or stove bolts it's 50/50. In the health concious 80s using this much sugar seemed like shooting up in front of your grandma or having sex with a ferret at the downtown library, so everybody had runny jam or added way too much waxy pectin or made that weird stuff called freezer jam, which for all intents and purposes is a popsicle. But the truth be the truth if you want it to set it's 50/50 or nuttin'.

OK so I get this nice recipe for chunky strawberry jam from the BBC's website. It's from some swank gastro-pub in Upper Bottom Lick sur Mer or someplace. Cozy feel, nice picture of the stuff being held by 2 happy lesbians who have left there jobs working as editors at Penguin and invested their respective divorce settlements into this charming country inn located unbeknownst to them within spitting distance from a Nuclear power plant and The Royal Harrier Crash Jet Crash Facility.

The recipe said 3 stone 7 of luscious perfectly ripe english strawberries. So I got a few rocks and kinda guessed the same amount of cherries... no I am lying. It said 2 kilos of strawberries stemmed and cut in half. Personally I always leave the stems in, I love that christmasy feel that inedible green leaves adds to my strawberry jam... And 1.67 kilos of sugar. OK and the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Could the international food tribunal please come up with another word for zest? How about peel for example. OK I'm using Spanish cherries and not English strawberries but I figure we are in the same ballpark. 1.67 kilos? where did they get that number, from the local Wicken council?

Note: In Europa they only measure by volume when it comes to liquids or deducing the size of an apartment. No they go by weight which is good and much more accurate but requires a scale. So off I go to the tienda de Electricos Domesticos. Oddly it's inside the beautiful mercado where I didn't buy the cherries. I had to sneak past my fruit lady Angela on the way to buy the scale because I knew it would be all over the mercado that I bought the cherries at the dumpy supermarket and not from her. The result of this indiscretion would be 6 months os peaches like baseballs and rubber carrots. So the tienda de Electricos Domesticos has a few scales. OK let this known, this is the truth, European domestic kitchen equipment sucks. It's true! It's all plastic and looks like a fashion accessory for a french house wife who smokes long skinny cigarettes, takes classes in furniture restoration and waits for her next bikini wax while Jean Claude slaves away running spreadsheets in the acquisitions department of a multi national company that makes the batteries for a guidance system for handheld cluster bombs.

Oh darn!!! The coffee... Gotta go, mas tarde!!!