12 Dunworth Mews

The famous Gracia festival is going on and one of the highlights is the performance of Castellers of the Villa de Gracia. Castellers form human pyramids, anywhere from 6 -10 “stories” high. The top two/three stories are teens and kids, with the top story being a kid, 5-7 years old, who scales the entire pyramid, crosses over the top, raising his/her arm at top and slides down the other side. We saw three Castellers groups form four towers of 6, 7, 8 and 7 people stories. Here are some pictures:

Next to Dubrovnik, Girona is the most gorgeous city we have been to (and Dubrovnik only takes the prize because it is next to the sea). Here are a few images.

The view from the beach club:

A street festival near our flat:

A kayak exhibit at the Olympic Museum:

This yacht followed us from Barca up the Costa Brava. It’s the 79th largest yacht in the world.

We have affectionately dubbed our time in Barca as “fake life”. Why? Take a look at a typical fake life day…

10:00 wake up
10:00 – 11:00 surf internet, read, drink chocolati
11:00 motivate to run or go to gym
11:00-12:30/13:00 work out at gym
12:30 – 17:30 sit in lounge chairs at beach club (alternating days, visit museum or some other cultural site)
17:30 – 19:30 any of the following: shower, shop, read, surf internet, nap, wander
19:30 – 20:30 cocktails on the terrace or at the local, play backgammon or cribbage
21:30 dinner
23:30 – 1:00 digestifs, watch Seinfeld DVD*, read, surf internet

Optional, 3:00 – 6:00 read, check out the activity in the placa, all due to annoying insomnia

* Two seasons down, seven more to go

Last week, we had two of the best meals ever and they could not have been more different.

The first was a tasting menu at Cinc Sentits. We didn’t realise the restaurant was tasting menu only, which can be problematic for me (or I can be problematic for it). But the restaurant was accommodating and did a seafood tasting menu for me (it is rather difficult to stay veg in Barca so I have resorted to pescatarianism at times). Our 9-course “Sensations” menu was incredible, delicious, outstanding… The highlights for me were the shot of maple syrup, crème, cava foam & sea salt; the liquefied pan i tomatoquet (a tomato & garlic bread that is a staple with meals but this one was liquefied with a tomato sorbet and superb olive oil); the scallop with sunchoke puree, the strawberries with fennel and rose water, and the chocolate bread pudding – olive oil and vanilla ice cream, bread, chocolate, macadamia nut & salt. We had five of the courses wine paired. A fabulous experience.

Our second outstanding meal was at a bocadillo shop downstairs from our flat. We have walked past this joint countless times and have always remarked that we would eat there. After tonight, I only wish we had tried it earlier. Bo de B serves bocadillos (sandwiches), a few salad plates and postres. I had the veg salad, Sean the chicken salad. The salads were piles of marinated cucumber, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, feta, rice and tzatiki, all drizzled with a lovely herb vinaigrette. This amazing meal set us back a whopping E 10,50 (the bocadillos are a steal at E 3-4 each, piled thick and high with goodness). This cheap meal helped offset the Cinc Sentits one

Hola! Thought we’d let people know what we’ve been up to. We’ve been in Barcelona for 3 weeks now and it is definitely feeling different than just a long vacation. We’ve done lots of exploring in the city, found a gym/beach-club, a few great local pubs, have started to venture outside of the city (with more day-trips planned) and have adjusted quite nicely to a slower pace with a more relaxed routine. Below are a few of the highlights.

A Spanish cooking class….
Just before leaving Seattle, C and L gave us a gift to a Spanish cooking class. The class was fantastic, it was small, just Stef, me, a couple from Perth and the instructor (Theresa). We learned to make four classic Spanish dishes. The starter was, chupito de sopa de tomate al aroma de idiazabal de peio gracia amiano (cold tomato soup with idiazabal smoked cheese). The second course was tortilla de patatas y pan con tomate (potato omelette with tomato bread). The main dish was paella de marisco (seafood paella). And dessert was crema Catalana (similar to crème brulee). The class was hands on; we each helped to prepare the dishes and all listened/watched intently as Theresa showed us some of the subtleties in their preparations. Once the meal was ready, we enjoyed a bottle of wine and the fruits of our labor. After Theresa learned that Stef and I were in town until the end of August, she drew a map of the open-air market where she purchases her ingredients and gave us the names of each of the vendors that she feels has the best clams, fish, cured ham, etc.. This was a definite highlight and we’ve enjoyed using her favorite vendors to purchase ingredients on the nights that we cook in.

A trip to Milan….
We spent this last weekend in Milan. One of our friends from London grew up in Milan and each year he has a birthday barbeque at his parent’s house. We flew to Milan on Friday evening and stayed at R’s parent’s place. After a late evening on Friday, we rolled out of bed at the crack of 10:30a to help get ready for the bbq. Their house is beautiful, 3 floors (I believe that each floor had a kitchen), a large grassy yard and a covered area with a communal table that seats 20. For me the highlight was that R’s dad has two wood-fired, brick pizza ovens. There is one in the ground-floor dining room, for use in Winter, and another outside near the communal table which is used in the Summer.

We had a great time helping R, K and his parents get ready for the party. R’s parents’ know enough English for them to coach us as chef’s assistants. I loved being able to help to pull some of the dishes together. I am also convinced that his parents could do a great cooking-school-bed-and-breakfast. R’s Dad has been making pizza for 25+ years so it was especially fun to have an opportunity to see him at work. I now know that I need to get a pizza oven.

Guests started arriving at 1p and a few jugs of Pimm’s and lemonade were consumed before folks started in on the prosseco and Campari. Sometime between 2 and 3p, R’s Dad started cooking the pizza. The pace was steady, about every 10 minutes a new pizza would come out of the oven: caramelized onions and salt; olive oil, salt and fresh rosemary; tomato sauce, salt and anchovies; caramelized onions, salt and squash blossoms; olive oil and salt; tomato sauce, mozzarella and anchovies; mozzarella, tomato sauce, roasted red pepper and aubergine. And so it went for roughly 2 hours….14 pizzas were cooked. There were 18 or 20 of us at the party, each time a pizza would come out, it would be cut (with scissors which I though was brilliant) into 16 pieces and circulated. After the pizza course was finished, we opened some wine and chatted for a few hours before the next course. Between 6 and 7p, sausages, hotdogs and shish-kebob skewers were put into the brick oven. Soon after, we all sat at the communal table and enjoyed the meat, roasted red peppers, roasted zucchini, roasted eggplant, salami, and veal in tuna sauce with anchovies. With great conversation and great food, suddenly a few hours had passed. Another break for more chatting and just as things started to slow down, the roasted pig leg was put into the brick oven to warm (it had been cooked earlier in the day). As soon as the leg came out of the oven to be carved the entire party (except Stef ?) descended upon it as if we hadn’t eaten in a week. I’ve never seen so much meat disappear so quickly. As the evening went on, wine gave way to limoncello and coffee, the birthday cake came out and folks started to head home. Suddenly it was 1am. I couldn’t believe that this had been going for 12 hours. Certainly a hedonistic and fantastic day!!

While a few folks at the party knew each other, many did not and it was fun to see how easily the group mingled (it helped Stef and I that R’s friends speak English very well). We definitely enjoyed meeting R’s friends and are looking forward to seeing them at R&K’s wedding in late Aug. (Thanks again R&K for a great weekend)

Sunday we spent a few hours on Lake Como before flying back to Spain. W are now back at the flat and are looking forward to the coming weeks. We hope that you all are doing well and looking forward to seeing you soon.

Below are a few more pictures:

The view from our flat

The view from our flat

Port Vell and Barceloneta

Love the art in this city

Cheers….Sean and Stef

Hola de Barcelona,

Apologies for my pathetic Spanish but I am trying. We have had a fabulous first week in Barcelona! We managed to find a good mix of relaxing, exploring and doing practical things. And of course, there has been plenty of eating and drinking.

Our flat is perfectly situated. We are on the edge of the Barri Gotic, across from Barceloneta. It’s just a few minutes walk to the beach. We get a nice evening sea breeze to cool off the flat but Sean has negotiated for one air conditioned night per week. When at the flat, we spend most of the time on the balcony, looking out over our placa – Placa Antonio Lopez. We have no idea who he is/was, but the main Post & Telegraph office is also on the square so it’s usually bustling with activity. below is the view from our terrace.

We have been going to the beach every few days, reading books and working on our tans. There’s also a long beach path that we’ve been running almost everyday. Have to be up and out early – by 10am – before it gets too warm to run.

We’ve found the fromagerie that we will be buying all our cheese from. Oddly, it’s run by a Scotswoman and I tried speaking my kindergarten Spanish with her. We haven’t found a regular market stall for our fruit & veg yet but will likely do our shopping at the less touristy Santa Caterina Mercat. Fruit and veg are definitely cheaper here than in the States. As is the wine Cooking on our two-burner electric range has been interesting; I think the range was meant for a small-ish boat. Our fridge is also small – dorm-room size, so we have had to be economical in what we purchase.

As always, our holidays revolve around food and wine and we’ve been scouting out restaurants and tapas bars. We’re working on booking dinners at a few Michelin-starred restaurants. But we have cooked in several times and have enjoyed our meals on the balcony. Interestingly, Irish bars seem to be a trend here and we’ve enjoyed a few pints at one – Guinness is a perfect pre-dinner bevvie.

I had hoped to send along some pictures but we forgot the card reader for my computer. You’ll just have to trust me that Barca is beautiful and we are enjoying every minute of our stay.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying summer.

Adios,
Stef and Sean

Well, we have been back in the States for one very busy week and now it is time to wrap up 12dunworthmews.com. We’ve never considered ourselves as “bloggers”, but www.12dunworthmews.com has been a great way to keep in touch and to keep you all abreast of our adventures and travels in Europe. Thanks much to those of you that have tuned in. It is hard to believe that it has been 9 months since we arrived in London. This has been an absolutely phenomenal experience. We have met some fantastic people and have had so many great experiences that it is hard to know where to begin this post. Read more »

We arrived Monday afternoon, 2 July, to sunny skies and warm temperatures. Our first activity after checking in was to go poolside and have a local beer (Ozujsko – good!). We knew we were in the right spot when we didn’t have enough cash for our beers and our server told us to come by the next day and finish paying her (which we of course did!) Our first night’s dinner was at Levanat – a short 10 minute walk along the bay from our hotel. We feasted on local Croatian wine, which was quite good, a caper mayo spread amuse bouche and bread, black seafood salad (cuttlefish ink), black risotto, mussels Bouzarra (spicy tomato sauce), stuffed squid (aka, Squid Cordon Bleu) and a seasonal salad. Read more »

This morning, I ran the British 10K London Run as a fundraising event for Age Concern Kensington & Chelsea. The course wound its way through the capital, passing many of the major tourists sites. The weather was fairly decent, which is much better than what we had during the week. 24,000+ runners particpated in the event and most were running for some charity or another, which was heartwarming to see. And with respect to fundraising, our generous friends and family donated almost L 800 on my fundraising website. Many, many thanks to you who donated! Our 5-person Age Concern Kensington & Chelsea team raised a total of over L 2000! This amazing amount will make many Kensington & Chelsea older adults happy, as we’ll be able to expand the services and activities we offer them. I’m looking forward to participating again next year!