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Barcelona Update #2

Sean says:

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.