Entries tagged with 'Spain'
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Chef Santi Santamaría is not okay with liquid nitrogen in the kitchen. In public attacks on Spanish avant-garde chefs, Santamaría has denounced the use of additives like dry ice and methyl cellulose, advocating a return to simpler, more natural cuisine. Santamaría even got personal, saying that he feels Ferran Adrià, Spain's most celebrated chef and owner of El Bulli, "is headed in a direction that is contrary to my principles." Yet Adrià and other Spanish chefs feel that there is no conflict between cooking locally and avant-garde techniques, and even Slow Food Spain agrees with them. Is high-tech cooking innovative or unnatural?...
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Spain...On the Road Again is an upcoming PBS series documenting Mario Batali during his four month-long eating spree through Spain with a few of his friends. Maybe you've heard of them: actress Gwyneth Paltrow, food writer Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols. Take at peek at their fooding adventures with this four and a half minute montage of their travels. The full series will air in September....
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Good news for lovers of saffron! Beginning in May, you'll be able to buy certified saffron from Spain's Castilla La Mancha region at your local Costco. Costco buyer Gary Kotzen says, "We want the best of the best, and we want to offer it to our members without them having to pay the premium. We'll bring it in, package it ourselves and offer it to our members at about one third or even one fifth of the cost of similar saffron."...
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If Lisbon was the culinary equivalent of permanent press chinos, Seville is more like a pair of Zegna slacks, comfortable, exciting, and a little bit mysterious. I loved everything about Seville: the people, the incredible Moorish architecture, the sense of slightly decaying history lying around every corner, the narrow six-foot-wide streets that one particularly friendly local told us were nature's form of air-conditioning in Seville, the nonstop energy, and, of course, the food. The only thing I didn't like was the cab driver who ripped off me and my son, Will, because he didn't have to give us the proper change from the €50 bill I gave him (admittedly it was a short ride and subsequently a low fare). The...
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Photograph from Fresco Tours on Flickr The ongoing revolution in American artisanal cheesemaking really had its origins in the "back to the land" movement of the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1979, Laura Chenel began teaching people in this country that cheese didn't have to be made from cow's milk. Even before that, in the fall of 1975, Mother Earth News ran this wonderfully detailed story about farmstead goat cheesemakers in Andalusia, Spain—an article that I happened to stumble upon this week thanks to the wonders of the web. I'm assuming this article was aimed at hippie homesteaders experimenting with "off the grid" communal living, but for us plugged-in 21st-century cheese lovers, it offers an amazing glimpse into some...
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El Bulli is now taking reservations for 2008. Don't bother calling, just cross your fingers and follow Louisa's instructions: If you'd like a reservation at El Bulli next year, then send an email now to bulli@elbulli.com. Simply state your desired dates and number in your party. Remember to include your name, email address, and telephone number. The restaurant is open from April until the end of September/beginning of October, Wednesday to Saturday, for dinner. It's open for lunch in April, May, and June on Sunday only. Related: How to get French Laundry reservations...
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Heading to Barcelona, Spain? Check out these recommendations from Serious Eaters that'll have you saying
muy delicioso.
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Photograph from Enzo's Flickr Fulfill your dream (or nightmare) of standing before a towering wall of ham legs by visiting Museo del Jamón in Madrid....
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I love the design of Happy Pills, a hallway-sized candy shop in Barcelona that packages standard gummies in plastic medication bottles labeled with pink crosses and cranky phrases such as, "Against Mondays." It's playful packaging and branding for the post-pubescent crowd who want to indulge in simple sweets. No prescription is required for Happy Pills, so you may as well stock up. [via notcot.org]...
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My friend Rion Nakaya is an amazing photographer who now lives in Paris and takes train rides across the continent for short weekend trips, just like a good European. This photograph is from a set she put up recently of the wares on display at Bilbao's Riverside Meat Market; I love this photo in particular because most of us are so disconnected from the realities of what we eat, with supermarket aisles full of plastic-wrapped ground beef and freezers packed with boxed chicken nuggets, and this shopkeeper's display leaves you no choice but to consider that yes, your pork chops came from an actual animal because here is its head right in front of you. It's both real and...
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