Food and Drink

Everything about things to eat and drink. Recipes and restaurants and cafes too.

April fool

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

Two good things …on a day when I was counting them!

1. The box I sent from Cornwall finally arrived with lots of goodies including a stir fry sauce for tonights dinner with the family. I hope they won’t find the food too strange to enjoy. It’s a good way to send stuff from the UK if you don’t want to lug it over in a suitcase. It’s a door to door service and normally it arrives the next day.  Then it’s like opening a Christmas present as you have forgotten what you sent.
2. The birthday chocolate cake turned out ok!  I am worrying that it’s a bit British with loads of butter and chocolate and a more heavy sponge that is usual here but….I expect we’ll force it down!

I am sending this from my phone and have no idea where the photo will end up. Hope its not on its side like the last one.
Hope your April fools day was good!

Thursday market

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

It’s Spring Time!

8 Things That Annoy Me – or used to

~ Kate Wilson ~ 3 Comments

It’s funny how even on a lovely day you/I can get irritated by small things. Today I tried to notice what these things were and laugh at myself a little – life’s too short for all that but sometimes you can’t stop that silent gritting of teeth.
  • people who try to open the toilet door even when it says ‘engaged’ or has a red line
  • shop keepers who give you the change with the coins on top of the notes so they slide off as you try to put the note in your purse
  • people who stand on either side of a narrow lane when you are trying to drive past

We had an amazing lunch today in the Porthgwidden Beach Cafe in St Ives. but while enjoying grilled sea bass with a roast potato cake and two delicious sauces – one green and one red……. I couldn’t stop myself thinking of three things that annoy me in Catalunya!  I know it’s better to live in the present moment but instead I had a mini rant about –

  • how hard it is to get vegetarian food in Catalan restaurants
  • menus that always have more or less the same set of dishes instead of experimenting
  • the lack of awareness about organic produce and free range meat and eggs

To balance things up I need to record the really annoying thing about ticket machines in the UK

  • for some reason they never give you change. They normally inform you with a little message ‘This machine doesn’t give change’  Why not?  If they can do it in Catalunya then why not in the UK?

And for my eighth thing here is one that used to annoy me a lot and now doesn’t bother me at all!

  • men leaving the toilet seat up. What a liberation – this used to infuriate me but I can honestly say that I have let it go. Totally. No tooth grinding at all!

Today was a lovely day – apart from one of the best lunches I’ve had in years – did I mention the cheesecake? We also watched 6 or more dolphins swim across the bay just offshore from the beach.
Magical.

Tapas with friends in Barcelona

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

Two friends from Penzance arrived in Barcelona for the weekend to celebrate their 7th anniversary. What a good opportunity to pop up to town once more for tapas. We went to La Bodegueta on Rambla Catalunya but don’t tell anyone as it’s hard enough to get a table as it is.

Here are the floor tiles – a little dirty but so beautiful that I didn’t notice until I saw the photo.
Congratulations John and Erwin and thanks for the tips on using the camera!

I always wondered what those black grids were for…..

Getting your hands dirty

~ Kate Wilson ~ 4 Comments

It’s calçot time again!  This means I really have been here more than a year as I am able to enjoy great catalan traditions for the second time around. This time with a bit more knowledge about what to expect. Click here for some more information on calçots or here for last years experience.
The first ones we ate this weekend were at the house of a friend who lives in Montseny.
Cooked on a little bonfire in the garden, eaten in the mountain sunshine. Wonderful!
They arrived at the table wrapped in newspaper, just like the best fish and chips used to before EEC regulations banned that pleasure.

You peel off the outer blackened layer, dip the edible part in the sauce and tipping your head back, slowly take it into your wide open mouth. It is impossible to keep your hands clean and, for me at least, very difficult to look elegant in the process of eating. But the tang of the onions, the nutty flavour of the sauce, combined with the slitheriness of the flesh make it hard to stop once you have started.     And today we were offered them again, this time in a restaurant in Santa Eulalia where we had gone to see the procession of Tres Tombs. Of course we couldn’t resist.

I like outdoors food – getting your hands dirty, eating without a fork and knife, something simple that tastes extra delicious because it is fresh and cooked on an open fire.
Calçots fit the bill exactly!
For my main course I had grilled vegetables with some more of the lovely Romesco sauce

PS I have only just noticed Duna’s wild eyed face under the table on the first photo.  The mountain air always brings out the wolf in her.