#438 Barça

Parc Guell (detail).

Vietnamese in Barcelona. √√√

#437 in Amsterdam

#436 to AMS

Sushi in St Pancras

#435 London

On our way to London:
Went through security check at Valencia airport - my metal hip did not set the buzzer off (bit of a worry).

We got on the very crowded plane couldn't sit together but my new companions, a young couple, looked very worried and within two minutes the girl freaked and demanded to get off the plane, which they did. The cabin crew came and checked nearby overhead luggage bins for unknown bags or bombs (bit of a worry).

We arrived in England half an hour late, but Ryanair still announced that we were an on-time arrival (wtf?).

Anyway, finally arrived at my mum's in Muswell Hill - all OK :-)























On Wednesday went shopping in Covent Garden and lunched in the new Raymond Blanc Brasserie.
I had Steak Tartare and a plate of odd cheese.

Our guest of honour was Jasmine Flatters one of our very good friends from the triathlon days.

Then to the Barbican to view a Bauhaus exhibition, was OK.




















On Thursday had a pleasant day walking around Muswell Hill, including a stop for salad in a café in Highgate Woods. I had a glass of excellent ginger beer - not the same as Rioja - but a nice change.

#434 Leather Tape mmmm.

55€ for handle bar tape?

Yes, it's true but I'm hoping that it will last a good few years and prove cheaper than fitting new cloth tape each season (and it's made by Brooks of England :-)

*Late News* My box of bar tape arrived missing one of the two cork bar end plugs. Sent a mail to ChainReaction, they said "no problem, we will send you the missing bar end plug". I eventually received a complete new box of tape and bar ends. I imagine it was more economical to send a replacement than to actually go through the hassle of contacting Brooks, finding a new plug, having them send it off, then re-posting to Spain. But, to be honest, I don't need another set of leather tape. Pues nada.

#433 Sunday Ride

#432 Sushi and . . .

There is a new tapas bar called MariSushi across the road from our house. It's a bit bizarre, it serves Sushi and Flamenca (not the music but some type of Southern Spanish tapas) plus very exotic booze.

The other thing is the decor is a bit . . . rococo, if I were to be polite. Anyway, I fit in very well when wearing my new pink jersey ;-)

#431 Not Much

I went to our local green grocer and bought this selection for a total of only 2.68€. They even had an offer of a free kilo of spuds if you spent over 5€. You can live pretty cheaply in Spain.

#430 More from Amazon +

French Sentence Builder by Eliane Kurbegov.
The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
Chrissie Welligton - A Life Without Limits.

I've  just read Chrissie Wellington's book, I really enjoyed it. Possibly because I know the most of the players and most of  the venues but I think even a non-triathlete would have found it a good read.

I didn't have high hopes after reading the first paragraph (of the foreword). Clichés came thick and fast, I've used them all myself - but that was twenty years ago. One other gripe - the front cover pic, hard to say why but . . . . . . no.

The rest of the book settled down and I was carried along with Chrissie's story from Norfolk to Kailua Kona. Doc, Lessing and Scott came over just as I remember, in fact spot on. An honest book I thought, I'm glad I'm not Crissie or have her mind set; OTT doesn't begin to describe her! 

#429 Pink Prize Day

Sally and Christine and Annabelle teamed-up for the Mirador Challenge, a 27km walk/race round the Miradors or Viewing Points in Javea. They won first women's team and were also third overall!

I did the hard part, I dropped a blackberry and a raspberry into each glass of prize bubbly :-)

Christine, Annabelle, Sally.

#428 Curry Nights

#427 Sunday

You can't see L'Era Restaurant that we just came out of. Or the paella cooked on a wood burning fire that we just ate. Or our friends who dined with us.  . . . . . . .

#426 Fallas 2012

A few days before this years Fallas Fiesta in Denia the weather was good - up to 25c max.

However, on the day of the burning the temperature fell to v cold, then it rained, so we stayed at home.

#425 29er

Tom came to visit and also collect his new titanium 29er.

#424 Tapas

#423 Flu

#422 Cassoulet (My Way)

This is my Faux Cassoulet made from leftovers and a jar of white butter beans.

One jam jar of Tomato Salsa de la Casa*
One jar of Butter Beans
4 Rashers of Bacon
4 Sausages
4 Pieces of Black Pudding
Half a bag of Parsley
Olive oil.

Method
Fry the bacon, when crisp remove and continue using the bacon fat to cook the sausages then the black pudding. Dice all the meats into bite size pieces.

Heat a big pan and slowly warm the salsa and beans. After 5 minutes add the meats. Then gently stir in the parsley and maybe some olive oil. That's all.
 

Salsa de la Casa.
Fry a big diced onion until transparent, add 3 cloves of diced garlic.
Add one tin of tomato pieces. (In Spain I use Tomate Pelado Troceado).

Optional additions: 
A couple of spoons of concentrated tomato purée or some squirts of Heinz tomato sauce.
Chili pepper (fresh or powdered) or quite a few drops of Tabasco
One cup of stock or a glass of red wine
Sliced red bell pepper
Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
Salt & pepper and two tea spoons of brown sugar.

Cook on a low heat for half an hour or more - until the consistency is not wet and the colour is a nice dark red.

#421 Crisis Menu

We went out for lunch, not something we do that often, but at 8€ how can you refuse?

To start we had a big plate of rice with pieces of sausage, black pudding, chorizo and rabbit. Then a very acceptable chicken dish cooked in herbs & beer with fries. It was all so delicious and copious that we refused the dessert (various flans or ice creams) and had coffee instead.

Included in the set price was bread, a bowl of olives and a bottle of red wine. Total bill for two 16€. . . . . .

When you go to a very expensive restaurant you have a level of expectation equal to the prices on the menu. Here there was nothing to spoil your buzz, even if the food and service had been crap for 8€ you wouldn't complain (too much ;-)

As we left, at about 3 pm, it was just starting to fill up, it was a bit like the old Les Routiers restaurants in France which served the working man and truck driver with good French food at economical prices. What ever happened to them?

#420 Brilliant Blumenthal

This is Heston Blumenthal's top tip for making consommé.
It is simple. It works.

You wonder why it's not common practice. Instead of boiling your pot of stock and then adding egg whites and stuff in a laborious clarifying process, Heston recommends just freezing overnight, then next day (or whenever) thawing in a muslin covered sieve. The clear consommé drips through and the gelatinous solids stay in the sieve. Simple.

He made his consommé a little more chi-chi by adding jasmine flowers, I didn't have any to hand but dropped in a jasmine tisane tea bag for a similar effect.

Even if I say it myself - it was all right :-)

#419 With Captain John Paul Jones.

Posing with Captain John Paul Jones
(and three months with new hip).

#418 More Soups

I'm in a Manic Soup Making Mood!
I've got stock pots on the go night and day.

Here is a Swede Soup, I got most of the recipe from a Gordon Ramsay link. But as you can tell, I added far too much cardamom, much as I like cardamom in my Hot & Sour Curry today's soup was over cardamomed.

(All my life I've been spelling and saying cardamon with a final N - spell checkers aye?)

#417 Jazz

There are a few dozen versions of Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez. A very Spanish classical version by Paco De Lucia, a really nice jazz track on Chet Baker & Paul Desmond's Together (which I can't find on YouTube) but this version by Jim Hall is 99% there. Enjoy!

#416 Spring Clean

Bike spring cleaning time:
pic 1 - in bits
pic 2 - together

#415 eBay Pot

Back in the 1970's we supplied dairy products to Cranks Health Food Restaurant in Soho in London. Next door was a shop called The Craftsman's Potter Shop selling all sorts of nice hand-made pots and ceramic art and stuff. We bought most of our tableware there including half a dozen bowls, cups and mugs by a potter called Owen Thorpe and we still have most of the pieces in regular use to this day.

I don't know what succession of mouse clicks brought me to an eBay page selling an Owen Thorpe coffee pot, but being overwhelmed with nostalgia I bid and bought the pot (and a similar milk jug).

So, 40 odd years later we can make our coffee in a matching pot, jug and mug while we nibble on our organic nut rissoles :-)

Peace.

#414 Soups (various)

I just bought this super-duper new stock pot (as recommended by Raymond Blanc).

For its maiden voyage I filled a third of it with a mix of chicken bits, a selection of vegetables and some spices, another third with water, then simmered the lot for about five hours.

Result - a stock you could eat with a knife & fork!

Using the stock as a base I've made three soups:

Sort of Bortsch. Red Vegetables, including a Beetroot

Channa Dhal - seen here as thick lentils but it will be a smooth soup as well

Pea Soup (with a bit of Mint)

#413 Five Christmas Books.

Two Wheels over Catalonia by Richard Guise.
Blokey bloke rides round Catalunya and gives a bit of interesting local info on the side.

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.
I *think* I've read this many years ago, but I'll still enjoy it, I hope.

Born to Run by Chistopher McDougall.
Some American writers think they're Ernest Hemmigway, but still . . . .

Moneyball by Michael Lewis.
I know nothing about baseball, but this is a good read, apparently.

One on One by Craig Brown.
Picked this as a present from my Mum, so it better be good!

#412 Making Progress

First ride - 10km :-)

#411 Pieds de Cochon Farcis

Having nothing better to do after Christmas, I decided to have a go at making a classic French dish as described in (one of) my Marco Pierre White cookbooks. He says to allow three days for the preparation for Braised Pig's Trotters 'Pierre Koffman' - and he's right!

I laboured and laboured  but after two and a half days I came to a halt (I have to say I wasn't helped by my Spanish butcher slicing them on the wrong side). The feet are supposed to be emptied of bone and gristle leaving the skin to be filled with a mixture of sweetbreads, morels (I was using setas instead) and  chicken mousse. This takes a lot of cooking and cutting and slicing and dicing and blending and boiling and somewhere I went off course.

Setas and a big Sweet Potato

Anyway, I finished up making the stuffing into a passable meatloaf, the sweet potato planned as an accompaniment made soup (with a bit of ginger for luck) and I also have a litre or so of stock that you could use to stick back your broken bathroom tiles. I don't really know what to do with the remains of the trotters . . . . .

On the positive side the egg poacher from Father Christmas works a treat and makes a satisfyingly symmetrical egg, now all I need to do is get the bacon into nice straight lines :-)

#410 Crappy Christmas!

We are in Barcelona. We went for a walk down Las Ramblas and saw these Caga Tios for sale. Apparently it's a Catalunyan traditions for kids to have a Caga Tio, translated into English as Uncle Crapper!

It's a festive log with a happy face, held up on front legs and covered by a blanket. The idea is to feed it daily throughout December with sweeties so that on Christmas Eve the lucky children can beat it on the back, forcing it to crap a load of presents (cunningly concealed under the blanket).

We were a bit late to get one and feed it enough to excrete anything worthwhile, but we did go into the huge Boqueria food market and bought a kilo of fresh tuna for a mere 8€. It was delicious.

Continuing the crap theme, another Catalan tradition is to put a little figurine in their nativity scene of someone having a shit. All sorts of figures are made from President Obama to the entire Barcelona football team. It's not considered rude . . . . . . . I don't think - just a fecal thing.

pic from caganer.com

#409 This is London 2011

In Muswell Hill (London N.10) to pick up my Mum, on Friday we fly to Barcelona for Christmas.

Boxing Day we lunched by the sea, with Sally, Tom and Carrie, at restaurant Can Majó in Barceloneta.

#408 This is England 88

I liked the original Shane Meadow's film, This is England. It was about a group of skin heads who went their own ways for various reasons. It was absolutely believable, a bit gritty and nasty but overall - good.

Then came a follow-on as a tv series  (This is England 86). Same cast, same grit, added nasty rape scene but overall - good

Now we have just watched Episode 1 of the next incarnation This is England 88. I'm sort of sorry to say I won't watch any more. It's just too depressing and lacks the redeeming spots of humour from previous stories. Why would you want to watch an hour of miserable people being miserable?

Not so good.

#407 Aprofiti !

#406 Belgium to Barça then home.

Belgium to Barça (got buzzed going through airport security).
Dined on Senegalese with Carrie and a group of her friends.
I don't think they know about spice in Gent, but they do here!

Few more days in Barcelona. Had the best paella for a long time (botifara y langostinos) at a restaurant called 7 Portes. Very traditional, all the waiters looking the part in starched white jackets.

Then home: Taxi to Sants Station, Talgo train top Valencia, local train to Gandia, bus to Denia and a lift with Chelo to our front door. Six and a half hours more or less non-stop.

It's oh so nice to go traveling - 
but it's so much nicer, yes it's so much nicer to be home :-)