BATTY VISITS

Had visit from best friend. we go back a long way and share various obsessions such as food, markets, travel, wine etc. so had a great time. It's nice to share the experience so all visitors are welcome. Managed a one night in BCN which was nice. That city needs some serious time spent to really uncover it's hidden treasures. Gastronomic highs included Pete's baked Hake on sliced potatoes with garlic, (menu del dia €12 for 3 courses) the Priorat red at Bodega where they give you wine straight from the barrel (see Priorat label) chipirones (fried baby squid), a tapa of wild mushrooms and jamon in BCN, as well as a sausage and bean tapa. Of course we went to the market as well. Bought Galeras....mantis shrimp....which seemed too cheap to be true. €6/kg. ~They looked great and indeed tasted FANTASTIC, a real sweet prawn flavour. The reason for cheapness is that they are very hard to peel and contain little meat. You can't suck the shells either coz they are razor sharp and adorned with defensive spikes. But for the money would be amazing as the base for a rice dish, soup or pasta sauce. Well worth a try. Played 'russian roulette' with a plate of Padron peppers...small green peppers, sauted whole and served with rock salt (I add a squeeze of lemon and black pepper) the catch being that one in ten of the peppers are hot like chillis.....eat at your own risk!!! Finally Pete decided to join my special 'club for travel-navigation disasters' and gave me a panicked call from Vilanova i la Geltru when he should have been at the airport. Suffice to say he was in the wrong place...and time was ticking. But to his credit he hatched a plan involving a train/taxi combo based on me looking a googlemaps at home and approving his proposed route via mobile. He made it!!! the wonders of modern communications.

There's something about walking down a tree-lined rambla at 11pm in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt with a paradoxically warm/cool breeze blowing that makes me want to kiss strangers!! The paradox is, of course, that the breeze is distinctly cool compared to the heat of the day, yet by British standards it feels like a giant hairdryer on a low setting is blowing in from the horizon. Just went to Bodega, a bar full of wine barrels where u can take any old bottle to be filled from their selection of 10 generics for about 2e a litre. It’s not a wine mecca....you get what u pay for, and the Rioja is definitely better than the Priorat....but you can't get a more authentic snapshot of Spain’s fundamental connection to food and wine as an integral component of every day existence. It’s a filling station for wine which happens to have some good things to eat. That’s all. But I definitely got the faint echo that places like this (like many a good English pub) provide people not just with cheap wine, but with an antidote to the often harsh realities of daily life. Dark wood, blue and white tiles, hanging jamones and chorizo. An austere glass chilled counter housing tortilla, sliced ham, anchovies and marinated squid. A bell jar of tanned, shiny, salty whole almonds. Now i've seen many of these since my arrival but most make my alarm bells ring when the ham is starting to curl, the anchovies look yellowish and the backdrop features a microwave. This one didn't. Can't tell you why. But I was right. For all its simplicity it was superb. The tortilla was at room temperature. Moist and tasting of fruity olive oil, sweet onion and soft potato. Spiked on a toothpick with a leaf of ruby ham. The almonds burst under your teeth with a salty, roasted explosion. Asked for a tapa of ham. Unusualy, she seemed pleased I'd asked. She rubbed bread with cut tomato and topped it generously as if she were feeding a son. The taste was wonderful, musky, sweet, soft, meaty, and moist from the tomato. Wow.