la spezia market

I'm not going to say a lot here, only that the market in La Spezia (very close to Riomaggiore and the other Cinque Terre towns) is outstanding. Great FLP and a lot of really special elaborated foods (breads, cheeses and olives stand out, although we missed the olive boat).


artichokes



grana padano cheese


Side note about that Grana Padano: I was saving half of it to take home with me to Bilbao. Then, on my last night in Milan, I broke down and ate it ALL, by myself, in the hotel room, watching QVC in Italian.

It was so good I didn't even mind that I was watching QVC in Italian.

Focaccia: Greatest Hits

And so there I went, blabbering on about different travel styles and the Cinque Terre. Too much self-awareness, especially when I know what you people really want.

Food.

And so here are what I´m going to call my Top Three Focaccia Moments, even though really the pesto-mozzarella one I had in Genoa should be in here. But it´s not, because 1) I couldn´t delay the gratification to take photos and 2) my hands were too freezing to take photos. So my Almost Top Three, as follows:

3. Vegetarian Focaccia.

Ingredients, besides focaccia bread: Black olives, artichoke hearts, mushrooms
Where I ate it: Monterosso
Other notes: Greasy, greasy, greasy, in the best way.

2. Potato-cheese focaccia.

Ingredients, besides focaccia bread: Potato, amazing cheese (asiago?)
Where I ate it: also Monterosso
Other notes: Perfect amount of crunch (from crispy cheese) and squish (from perfectly cooked potato). Mmm.


And the #1 focaccia of my trip, my life, ever:

Ingredients, besides focaccia bread: mozzarella, green beans, focaccia
Where I ate it: Princi bakery, Via Speronari #6, Milan.
Other notes: This is the best baked goods place I´ve ever been to. I know them´s fightin´ words, but I´m sticking with it. There was just enough pesto on here to give you that tangy, salty kick but still left you wanting more rather than overwhelmed. And green beans! Amazing. I wasn´t gonna, but I went back for a cream-filled carnavale pastry afterward. Couldn´t help it. I´m ´bout to start drooling, Homer Simpson-style, just thinking about this place.

I can´t stress this enough: Milan is worth it just for Princi bakery. The place will possibly be packed when you go, so it may take you a while to get your order in. Take it as the good sign it is and use the time to build the anticipation.

genova!

Shortly before we left on this adventure, the friend I was traveling with suggested we make a pit stop in Genoa on the way to our destination in the Cinque Terre.


We should have booked at least two nights there.

The city has really everything you could want: a university vibe in some areas, gorgeous buildings, free blood oranges on the ground (ok, just the one).

And pesto. My golly, that pesto. All I can say to explain how much I loved my piece of focaccia with cheese and pesto slathered all over it is I'm seriously considering naming my first dog "pesto." "Here, pesto! Roll over! That's a good boy!"

Sorry, no pictures. I was too busy stuffing it into my gaping maw. You'll just have to imagine it.

There was also an incredibly greasy but incredibly good rabbit lunch. And a pizza that involved raw tomato, which I managed to be pretty cool about, considering.


It certainly is.

you'd best believe we played in those vineyards

vineyards in november. la rioja alavesa.



some fabulously moldy bottles on a bodega tour. laguardia, la rioja alavesa.

the catalan snack that changed my life

Check out this raw tomato, just chillin' on my plate like it ain't no thang.


It's finally happened, folks. I think I've found my gateway drug to raw tomato enjoyment.

Regular readers will recall my long-standing distaste for raw tomatoes. I had almost resigned myself to a life of missing out on that sharp, acid bite of a raw tomato that people with more fortunate tastebuds are always raving about.

Then, last saturday, came pa amb tomàquet. That's right, you clever linguists: bread and tomato. It's crazy simple: toasted bread, rubbed with garlic, smeared with a raw tomato cut in half, and drizzled with olive oil. Oh no, you don't get to cook it once the tomato's on there: you just rub that tomato snot all over the place, then go to town.

I tried it; I liked it.

Then I had it again on Sunday; I loved it.

Then, curious to see if perhaps it was just something in that magical Catalan air, the same something that had possibly influenced the fantastical thought lives of Salvador Dali and Antoni Gaudi, I bought my own crusty bread and a tomato back in Bilbao.

I made it myself; I liked that, too (though not as much as the Sunday one; see picture. Seriously, that stuff was killer).


Sunday's p amb t


I'm still not up to full tomatoes yet, but that distinctive flavor and tomato snot are right there, on the bread, and I'm pretty into it.

There's hope for me yet.

la boquería market, barcelona

My loot from the market: raspberries, strawberries and lychees. none of these were grown in Catalunya.


So about Food People: there are certain "buzz words" that have a tendency to make us go weak in the knees. "Playfully combined texture/flavor" is one; another is "fresh local produce." By golly, do Food People love Fresh Local Produce. That sounded ironic, but it wasn't. I truly do love me some FLP.

La Boquería, Barcelona's famous indoor food market, is not primarily about Fresh Local Produce. La Boqueria is about So Much Variety It Makes Your Head Spin.

Did you want some cherries? Got those from Chile. Mexican Habañero peppers? Got 'em. Strawberries come from Huelva, lychees from Madagascar, durian fruit from Thailand. Dragon fruit, papaya, kiwi, coconut, sweet potatoes, every dried chili you could want.

My Iberian friends and I have had this discussion a few times - which is better, the "Spanish" way (cheap and good quality, but mostly only what's good locally at the time) or the "American" way (the more variety the better, cost and quality - to a certain extent - be darned). After last night in La Boquería, my senses entirely flooded with so many colors, smells and flavors from so many places, I'm not sure I can bring myself to decide which I prefer. Maybe I won't choose at all. Maybe I'll enjoy my FLP here in Bilbao but revel in the memories of the dizziness-inducing multitudes of treats on display this past weekend.

love is in the air. so is onion breath.

Ever noticed something adorable about the souvenir shops in Barcelona, Bilbao or San Sebastian? All those T-shirts and keychains featuring a Basque flag and a Catalan flag squeezed in next to each other, as if to say, "hey, baby, mind if I move in closer?"

This is because Euskal Herria and Catalunya have big regional crushes on each other. Both have languages distinct from Spanish, after all, and both have sizable independence movements. And both have a seriously righteous - sometimes downright intimidatingly so - food tradition. Today being both Valentine's Day and the day I got back from a mini-vacation to Catalunya, I've decided to indulge the puppy love for a few extra days with Catalan Week on Life in la Capital del Mundo.

First up: calçots.

All you really need to know to be successful at the event known as a calçotada is this: get ready to get messy, and you pronounce the "ç" like an "s."



These poor little guys have no idea what's coming...

Phase one: calçot growing. Sometime in the late summer or early fall, plant some nice white onions. Spend the next several months gently packing dirt up around them so they grow long and green, like leeks. These guys have some great instructions if you care to create your own little slice of Catalunya somewhere. Then, in late winter, pull them up! On to phase two: calçot cooking.


To cook calçots: grill to the point of charring. Remove from grill/fire pit, then roll them up into bunches and let them steam in their own goodness until they're a little squishy. You may do this part yourself, or you may, as we did, go to a restaurant where everything up until here is handled for you. Don't worry, I have big plans to grow my own calçots next year.



Phase three: calçot eating. First, put on a bib. This is key if you don't want to wind up with romesco sauce all down your front.



Next, holding calçot by the green part in one hand, strip off the charred outer layer. Allow Anselmo to demonstrate:



Finally, dip calçot in romesco sauce, then, in the immortal words of Tony Bourdain, "coil gracefully into your grateful, gaping maw."






The only appropriate response to a calçotada invitation.

In Defense of Foodies

An article came out recently on CNN Eatocracy about, basically, why "foodie" is a dirty word among chefs. I'm gonna lay it out here: it made me mad.

I should confess that I have a vested interest here. For me growing up, "foodie" was not a dirty word at all - it was praise my dad gave me whenever I was a good little eater. It meant you loved food, were willing to try new dishes and enjoyed discussing food with people. That's it.

Sometime between my upbringing in a food-loving and minimally pretentious house (my family's from Asheboro, NC, for goodness' sake), "foodie" acquired some negative connotations. My friend Marti describes foodies as "gross," "navel-gazing" and the foodie movement as "[l]ike some kind of commercialization or trendifying of the love I felt for food." Seattle Weekly writer Jason Sheehan (quoted on Eatocracy) takes it a step further, calling foodies "coup-counting, lock-jawed, cake-eating, nose-in-the-air dimwits."

OK, so let's be honest here. When people who are passionate about food are that quick to declare themselves absolutely not foodies, what they're really trying to do is distance themselves from people who are elitist and more interested in the impression they make on others than the actual food in front of them.

Let me ask you this. Why is it that adventure travelers can swap Everest-climbing stories or Bruce Springsteen fans can trade tales of the time they were at this concert and they swear the Boss actually looked at them, but the minute a foodie mentions to another foodie how good that mole they had down in Puebla was, or how sweet and down-to-earth Elena Arzak really is, or how perfect North Carolina Sandhills peaches are in the summer, they are immediately branded disingenuous and elitist?

Since when is it by definition elitist and affected to share my passion with other people who have the same passion?

Let's get even more honest, though, since I was really giving anti-foodie food lovers the benefit of the doubt there. In some cases, it seems an awful lot like distancing themselves from the elitist boors they call foodies is a way to show how much more elite they are than the elite.

Because here's what frustrates me about exhortations from anti-foodies to "shut up and eat:" you know they're not about to. Of course they are still going to talk about food; they're interested in it and for Pete's sake, talking is what people who are interested in something do when they're with others who share their interest. And so what may have been intended as a battle cry for the purity of flavor, untinged by the flapping of gums about it, ends up sounding like: "I can talk about food; you can't."

Another common complaint against foodies, so the argument goes, is that it's a label used to differentiate oneself in a separate (higher) social class. Of course there are plenty of people who will seize whatever they can in a bid of "look how rich I am," but I'm calling BS on foodie-ism being intrinsically so.

First of all, people of the very lowest income brackets can get ingredients and take an interest in how to put them together in tasty ways. They can appreciate things they think taste good, and they can talk with their friends about it. For goodness' sake, have we learned nothing from Anthony Bourdain's countless diatribes about how the best cuisines of every nation sprung from necessity - poor people figuring out how to cook the cheapest things well? If anything's elitist, it's the assumption that people without a high income can't be foodies.

Second of all, and I know this is a crazy thought, but terms exist to differentiate things from other things. What do I mean here? Not all people are fascinated by food. This doesn't make them less civilized or lower-class any more than not being a kayaker or a pop art fan or a ukelele player.

People have different interests, and not everyone's is food. Anyone who looks down on people with different interests then theirs is first and foremost antisocial, not a foodie.

Oh, but cooks hate foodies, you say. Foodies are always being jerks in restaurants and making the chefs come out so they can look important in front of their friends. Foodies are always sending food back because they can. Foodies are only interested in chasing trends, not the purity of flavor.

Here's the thing: you haven't just described foodies. You've just described pretentious jerks, obnoxious bullies, and silly trend-chasers. And excuse me, but I guarantee you that there are pretentious jerks, obnoxious bullies and silly trend-chasers who are rock climbers, art fans, ukelele players and so on. We don't stop using the terms "rock climber," "art fan" and "ukelele player" just because there are jerks who do those things. We let the words keep their original meaning.

"Foodie," I should point out, came about as a term to describe people who loved food because "gourmet" sounded too pretentious. Sound familiar? A question for all the foodier-than-thou anti-foodies out there: what term do you suggest? If we go running from "foodie" next, how do we describe people who have a serious interest in food?

Another question: let's say you have a deep respect for cooks as professionals. You truly appreciate good ingredients prepared creatively or even just well and simply. You tip generously. You don't look down on people who don't share your interest in food. Now, how many cooks are seriously going to hate you just because you call yourself a foodie?

I thought not.

A thought for lovers of food: let's spend less energy punishing the language for the behavior of a few pompous jerks and more energy on being good examples of what a foodie really is.

My name is Kit Cox, and I am a foodie.

get ready, because this one's a doozy.

sunset, monte urgull

Jessica and Allison's visit to Basque Country was fantastic, just fantastic. But before I tell you about that, I need to take you back in time about a week. Come with me please...

So my mom had mailed me some packages of gear I had put together to hike the Camino de Santiago this June. Don't you love getting packages in the mail? Especially in a foreign country? I know I do, and so it was with much anticipation that I looked forward to getting these little boxes of goodness from me to myself.

Then they came: the letters from Madrid. We have your packages here, they said, and we hope you weren't wanting to get them too easily. Please come to Madrid in person to pick them up, or else contract an expensive company to do it, but if you choose the company you must send us a copy of your ID, birth certificate, college entrance essay and a drawing from when you were six years old that your parents put up on the fridge. After a long and hectic process that involved lots of document-scanning and talking to post office officials on the phone, I figured out that one could have one's friend go in one's place, provided one's friend was in Madrid and was going to be where one was shortly.


rescued backpack


Eureka. So Allison - who I believe should be recommended for sainthood - went to the post office for me, picked up my huge backpack and brought it all the way up north for me. I luh you, Allison.

But wait, you said. This post has "donosti" and "food" tags. Where is all the food and the picturesqueness?

Patience, grasshopper.

Saturday morning we arrived in Donosti to a surprise:


...IT WAS SPRINGTIME.

We took advantage of the perfect weather to do the following: walk to el peine de los vientos. get Juantxo's for a picnic (Juantxo's is a bar that specializes in sandwiches. Its name is not actually Juantxo's, it's Juantxo Taberna. Enter How Southerners Handle Establishment Names). Play in the sand on the beach. Walk up Monte Urgull for some perfect views of the city at sunset.


Juantxo's on the beach

Then pintxo-poteo was on (I told you we'd get there sometime). We made it to 4 places that night, and I have to say I think it was the best pintxo experience of my life. I hate to be that person saying pretentious-sounding things like "the foie at La Cuchara de San Telmo was revelatory," so I won't (except I sort of just did, in a cheating way). I'll just show you a picture of it and tell you we went back for more the second night.



Another landmark: my first Gilda. Perhaps the most emblematic of Donosti pintxos, the Gilda consists of guindilla peppers, an anchovy and an olive on a stick I wasn't sure I'd be into it - anchovies aren't usually my thing - but this was Donosti, where things you don't like are still somehow delicious. Salty, briny, tart, with a little bite at the end.** We got ours at Bar Haizea, over near La Bretxa market.


Anyway, not going to describe every pintxo. Suffice it to say: Mmm.

Sunday was lots more walking, including a second (sunset) visit to a very lively Peine de los Vientos, the Eduardo Chillida sculpture at one end of the city's La Concha beach walkway. When the tide's coming in or the sea is especially playful, big jets of air and water are forced up the blowhole part of the sculpture. The tide was coming in.



After that, it was time for Jessica's Basque hazing. I took her into Bar Herria, a locale decorated with propaganda, murals of masked men, and photos of political prisoners. I had only been once before, and on a Real Sociedad-Athletic Bilbao game night when every bar was packed and so the atmosphere was a bit different. This is a class of bar called a herriko taberna, or bars that support the (now-illegal) leftist independence party Batasuna. They're the ones with the big basque flag out front. I ought to mention that these bars are not representative of mainstream Basque society - even most people who support independence are heavily opposed to violence.

Basque hazing complete, we were exhausted so we went to bed at the ungodly hour of 10:00 PM. Wuss-out... or opportunity for crazy amounts of sleep? I think you know.

Monday afternoon we parted ways, and I got back to Bilbao yesterday afternoon in time to teach my evening classes.

**a note to my fellow auxiliares in Bilbao - don't try to get a Gilda in Bilbao. They're always messing it up with onion chunks here.

hey, Ferran Adria hates bellpeppers, ok?

so pretty, and yet they repulse me


Circa 1991, a 5-year-old me was confronted with something that, to my little girl mind, was truly terrifying.

My parents had ordered pizza with artichokes on it.

Of course, I had no idea what artichokes were, only that they were green and must be gross. Mom and Dad quickly nipped that one in the bud, telling me I didn't have to like them, I just had to try them. You can see what's coming next: little Kathy (yes, I was Kathy then***) tastes artichoke pizza; little Kathy loves artichoke pizza; little Kathy grows up to order artichokes on her pizza all the dang time.

The valuable lesson I learned there was, of course, my parents' philosophy on food adventurousness: you don't have to like everything, but you ought to give everything a try. This has served me well and maybe later I will do a post on the weirdest or most interesting things I have eaten and liked, but for now, I want to talk about the failures. The foods where I tried them, usually really wanting to like them, but couldn't stand them just the same.


First up: raw tomatoes and raw onions. It's a tie for these two - raw onions taste abrasive and have a horrifying texture, and raw tomatoes are gag-inducing and have a horrifying texture. The tomatoes one causes me a lot more grief, though, because people are always getting good tomatoes in the summer in NC and making sandwiches out of them and I know I'm missing out.

Second: Chorizo. I know, I know, I live in Spain and don't like chorizo. The horror. Actually, come to think of it....

Second.five: all cured meats. That's right, country ham, jamon serrano, proscuitto, bacon that is not from America, and all their cousins. I don't actually hate these usually, but never do I love them. Of course I suck it up here: I will eat jamon on things, and obviously when someone gives me a piece of their jamon I eat it and praise its deliciousness. I'm still Southern, people. But sometimes when those cured meats taste really stinky, I do hate them. I'm looking at you, you nasty piece of Virginia country ham messing up that biscuit I was going to eat.

Third: bleu cheese. I go through phases where I am OK with it and where I hate it, and right now I hate it.

Fourth: horseradish. I can't even explain to you how much I hate horseradish. Except you know when you have mustard on something, and the first bite is just a little sour and spice, and then you taste the horseradish in the mustard in that second bite? Yeah, I can't go past bite 1.

aaand fifth: canned tuna on or in anything but tuna salad. Which I made. On a tuna melt. Here tuna winds up on everything: salads, pizza, you name it. True story: once I went with my roommates to a telepizza (think Domino's but much, much worse) to get pizza for a party. They started looking at jamon and tuna pizzas, and I, thinking I was getting around this problem of pizzaingredientsKatadoesn'tlike, requested a 4-cheese pizza. Guess what one of the 4 cheeses is here? BLEU. Cultural adjustment fail.

So... there it is, the embarrassing edibles a self-purported foodie can't bring herself to get on board with. Feels freeing to get that off my chest.



***side note for people who only know me from Spain/this blog: you most definitely canNOT call me Kathy. I go by Kit in America (or "real life"), which you may call me if you promise not to introduce me to a Spanish person as Kit, because then they will forever call me "Keet" which, let's be real, sounds like an ugly bug.

German food: or, how I saw the light

First of all, let me say that I am pleased to report that my German vocabulary has expanded considerably. I can now with some reliability say "good morning," "thank you," and "a hot chocolate with whipped cream, please."

And now, the food.

You would think someone with as much Anthony Bourdain viewing under their belt as I would not fall into the trap of heartlessly stereotyping a nation's cuisine before even going, but apparently, you would be wrong. I braced myself before I went, thinking, "I don't like bratwurst and sauerkraut very much. I certainly hope I can be cool about all that sauerkraut and bratwurst."

In retrospect, if the nation of Germany had wanted to bar me entry for even thinking such a thing, I would hardly blame them. Because - and I'm sure you saw this coming a mile away - food in Germany is varied, and it is really, really good.

I'm not saying you can't have a bad meal in Germany; I'm just saying I didn't have one.***

Highlights: creamy chestnut soup; wild boar with cherry and plum sauce; baked apple on top of crème anglaise with, get ready for it, homemade marzipan where its core used to be. OH YES.

Parmesan-truffle soup and pheasant ravioli with cognac-saffron sauce, at one of these places:



Currywurst, basically bratwurst (yep, turns out I like that sometimes too) cut up and covered with a ketchup-curry powder sauce. If you know me, you know I 1) won't get drunk and 2) have a special fondness for drunk food regardless. This, my friends, is drunk food at its finest.


Currywurst

Hot chocolate mit schlag, or with a hit of fresh, homemade whipped cream on the side. Love, love, love.

Lots of fresh produce - oranges, apples, artichokes and other local items, but also, interestingly, I saw a lot of tropical fruit around. I tried my first fresh lychee nuts in Germany (yes, duh, they are better fresh, by the way).


tropical fruits at Wiesbaden Saturday market




Mom buying fresh bread


Needless to say, I am fully converted.



***This is partly untrue: in my last breakfast at the hotel, the lady who made our eggs and bacon BOILED the bacon. It looked like big grey wobbly tongues. Exception proves the rule.