Barcelona :: chapter 3

The food.

Jet lag has surprised me this morning.  Both the kids came to the big bed...maybe that woke me up, too (it is really no longer comfortable for the four of us to be in the bed together, what would be bigger than a king...a kingdom bed...)

So, I'm here to post before we leave for Massachusetts for the weekend, but I don't have much energy.  Posting about food?  Perfect.  Easy.  And pleasing.

The food in Barcelona was fantastic.  It is clearly a culture that cares about food.  And has long standing traditions around food.  I knew I was going to love the food aspect of being there, and I did.  I decided to eat anything I wanted and though I definitely felt the strain of eating both dairy and gluten every day, the miles of walking burned a lot off and kept the qi flowing.  I practiced qigong every other day, as well, which helped.

The humble yet utterly satisfying bocadillo de tortilla de patata.  The first thing I ate once on Spanish soil (Madrid airport).  I have yet to master this "simple" dish, but I am inspired to keep trying!

Eva introduced us to a wonderful gelato place.  They had traditional and innovative flavors, all incredibly fresh and natural.  This was my first one: a scoop of avocado and a scoop of crema catalana.  That there was heaven in a cup.

Downstairs from the apartment was a cool cafe where we could hop onto wifi for the cost of a cup of cafe amb llet or a glass of agua con gas.  On occasion, I would get something to eat, as well.  I had a perfect, small blueberry muffin one morning (the plate dusted with cocoa powder), on another, I had a slightly salty, but delicious slice of truita de carbassó i ceba with an unexpected side of pa amb tomaquet.  The staff was incredibly friendly and I appreciated their quick familiarity and ease of being.

Chocolate was one of my highly hoped for food destinations (the others being olives and cheese).   One afternoon we visited Cacao Sampaka based on a strong recommendation from my Frommer's Barcelona Day-By-Day (a book I definitely recommend and will happily lend to you...I am usually a Lonely Planet traveler but knew Barbra would have the LP guide so I chose otherwise).  We ate a way overpriced lunch in the cafe which was built around a living tree and had a very gruff waiter.  The chocolate appealed conceptually, but didn't blow me away.  I got: pistachio, orange, jasmine tea and cardamom (starting at the upper left and going clockwise).  I was so underwhelmed by the jasmine tea, which I ate that day, that I didn't have anymore of them until after I was back home.  The pistachio was okay, I liked the orange the best.  I gave the cardamom to Cap.

We stopped into the gift shop of the Museu de la Xocolata which happened to be down the street from our apartment.  A few times.  I enjoyed their dark chocolate bark with almonds and white chocolate bark with hazelnuts.  The white chocolate was revelatory.  It was nowhere near as sweet and processed tasting/textured as other white chocolate that I've had (particularly American made white chocolate).  I ate most of the bark on the plane ride home.  If I hadn't needed to rest so much my last two days (my period came on very unexpectedly and knocked me down) I would have definitely gone back for souvenir chocolate.

In this shot taken from the front row seats of the upper deck of the Barcelona Bus Turistic (sometimes my NYC subway riding childhood comes in handy when navigating the crowds of a tourist-heavy city) you can see the colorful wavy roof of the Mercat de Santa Caterina.  We didn't prepare and eat food in the apartment anywhere near as much as we thought we would.  I typically ate twice a day, never feeling hungry in the morning (unheard of for me, typically...)  But, I wanted the market experience so off we went.

We picked up heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, leek, mushrooms, three types of Spanish ham, some white botifarra (another of my favorite things I ate), and four types of Spanish olives.  We already had cheese back in the fridge picked up from the Scottish woman's cheese shop (a raw manchego and a strong goat).

We snacked on the olives, meat and cheeses over the course of the second half of our stay.  And one night, Barbra cooked up some delicious veggie scrambled eggs.  It was really nice to have a home cooked meal.

I am out of time, and steam, for now.  There will be a second installment of my food adventures in the near future...