San Sebastian

I have been a longtime fan of Anthony Bourdain. I've always admired his writing, his callous coarseness and of course his passion for food and travel. Before I came to Spain, I saw his episode of "No Reservations" that was filmed here and it was then that the realization came to me, "Spain is now the gastronomer's paradise." I followed everything that he did here and made sure I was able to do many of the same things. I have now become a champion Calcot maker, I have tasted canned fish like Sardines and Anchovies that I have always, like many Americans turned my nose up at, that were so well done, so refined, one could not enjoy them. And now, I have gone to Spain's mecca, as Anthony Bourdain did on his show, for food lovers, Donostia-San Sebastian. San Sebastian is home to countless Michelin restaurants, the freshest locally grown ingredients and of course the odd, ancient Basque language and its people. Something I didn't realize about San Sebastian, is that while it is a city unto itself, what surrounds it is quite the opposite. The Basque have really seemed to maintain (at least in the hills above the city) a traditional, simple lifestyle that harkens back to what one would think of as eighteenth century-esque. The roads are hilly, narrow, difficult to maneuver and yet there is so much there.
We stayed in a rural house about twenty minutes outside of the city. It was silent and unspeakably green. There were countless animals that were seemingly unafraid of people. I mean, I had a sheep run right up to me. Additionally, San Sebastian is home to wild apple trees that seem to grow like weeds in their climate and as a result, a huge part of Basque food and culture is based around the cider houses that dot the land. It is here that you can drink homemade hard cider and eat local delicacies at a good price. Honestly, however, the cider was the only thing I tasted in San Sebastian that I did not like.
We walked along La Concha beach the first night that we were there and had dinner at the La Concha cafe. It was good but nothing to write home about. The second day there, we had the lunch tasting menu at Bodegon Alejandro. It was unbelievably good. The food was the perfect blend of gourmet, wow factor and heart. I truly enjoyed it along with too much wine for a midday meal but I laid in the sun until all was digested and I was fine. The following day, we headed to the Chilida-Leku outdoor sculpture museum where a famous Basque architect turned famous Basque artist works are displayed. It was a loverly property to walk around although I must be authentic in admitting that I didn't really "get it" aside from the fact that it was large scale metal working which I knew, required skill. This I did appreciate. That evening, was our big dinner. We had made reservations about a month in advance and drove out deeper into the country to Zuberoa. It was a beautiful restaurant in an old stone home but was a bit stuffy for me. There were only four or five tables in the entirety of the patio and yet four servers stood behind us monitoring every sip of water, look on my face, ect. for anything they could do. I don't enjoy things like that. Other than that, however, the food showed great technique and was seasonally appropriate and well done. I, personally preferred the lunch tasting we'd done at Bodegon Alejandro. I liked the flavors more and it was a quarter of the price.
Back to Bourdain, so, in this episode of "No Reservations" Bourdain visits a bar called "Haizea" and eats with the Father and daughter of Arzak, the most notorious and well respected of the Michelin collection in San Sebastian. There were some tapas (or Pintxos as they call them in Basque) in that scene that I wanted to try so badly. Plus, if the Arzaks say that it's their favorite we'd better try it before we leave. So, before we hit the road the next morning, we checked of Katxkarre (the house) and headed to Bar Haizea. Sure enough, the tapas that I saw on the show were on the bar and waiting to be picked up and eaten. My personal favorite was the pickled peppers, olive and anchovy on a toothpick, heavenly, acidic mouthful on a stick. Anyway, the part of the bar that was played down on the show (I think on purpose) was that it's literally all fat old women who eat there. They were all sitting there in their moo-moo dresses, smoking, reading the paper and kissing little fat kids that came running in to say hello. We stood out there. However, fat old woman usually know how to eat and I consoled myself with this thought as I gulped down impressive quantities of Pintxos that are not nearly as good as the ones traditionally eaten in Catalunya.
And it was with that, that our gastronomical adventures and misadventures came to close there in beautiful San Sebastian. I admired it's old bridge lined with beautiful white and green topped columns as we strode across it. The bridge is very important by the way in San Sebastian as it connects the old city with the new (the old city cannot be parked in only walked into via the bridge). The old city was the beautiful part of the city, the part people really come to see. I looked this way and that at all the beautiful architecture that lined the water way flowing into the sea, much of which reminded me of Paris more than anything else.The French influence here is evident in much of what they do and how they are. The food is handled more precisely, the architecture is undeniably French but the Spanish-ness makes it noteworthy and unique unto itself. Here's to San Sebastian! Salud!

Perpignan, France

We took a day trip to France. We left Spanish Catalunya and entered French Catalan territory as we drove on towards the Pyrenees. We had decided that we would go to Perpignan as it was the nearest place in France that had nice beaches and some things that one could do there. Once we were off the highway, we realized that we were a bit lost. However, it was a good kind of lost as we were able to see small, cute towns that had copious amounts of charm and style. When we finally realized the error of our ways we ended up back on the highway for about ten minutes and then in Perpignan we arrived. "Straight to the beach!" was our motto for the trip and to the beach we did go. While the drive from Barcelona is only a couple of hours, the beaches here were shockingly different from those in Spain. They seemed to go on forever and had a completely different set of surroundings. It seemed bigger and had a quality of vastness unlike the cove-like beaches of Spain. It was here that we stopped at a beach shack for lunch. Well, we thought we'd have a nice, simple plate of food here and then onward we'd go to explore more of the beach itself. We were wrong, the food was jaw dropping and so cheap! We ordered a salad and dare I say, it was the best salad I've ever had and that's saying a lot because I've had my share of salads. The greens were fresh and vibrant, lightly dressed with champagne dressing and generously tossed with thick-cut bacon. Framing the salad were small toasts slathered with melted brie and herbs d'Provence. We had lovely olives in the thatch of greens as well. After the surprise salad, we each had a plate. I ordered a whole Dorado and it was crispy and yummy, grilled with the skin on and the now clouded, semi-cooked fish eyes staring right at me the whole time. After we ate, we had some cafe solos, digested and when in search of a place to beach our bloated bodies. No dice. The wind started to kick up before we could even think about laying down our towels. Smiling at the derailment of our whimsical, last minute plans, we remembered seeing a sign for mini-golf, correction, "Le Mini-Golf" (really) on the way to the beach. Sure enough, we packed up our towels, got in the car and played the most rousing round of mini-golf one could ever hope for. I won. And for these efforts, I was handsomely rewarded with a cup of soda of my choosing and of course the score card itself. The score card now rests on my dresser as a reminder as who the boss of the house really is. Ah, Perpignan.

Mallorca

We went to Mallorca this summer. It was a truly amazing place to go, to see, to eat, to swim and to beach yourself in the sand. We had the privilege to stay in one of the oldest villas on the island that also happened to be right on one of the beaches. The villa itself was truly poetic. The architectural style of it was an undeniable nod to Moroccan design and it had intricate shapes and formations that enveloped the structure. We had a huge yard in the front with a cabana that overlooked the beach and the back was beautiful as well, covered in grape vines and equipped with a wood burning oven.
The majestic beauty of Mallorca is firstly noted when one sees the turquoise waters that seem to never end. They are dotted with patches of deeper, more intense hues of blue and protected by naturally formed cliffs of jagged rocks that are inhabited by the local and wild goats. The goats peruse the hillsides of Mallorca, eating God knows what and "baaing" frequently as all the German tourists ( many, many) make the interesting choice of sunburning their often fleshy bodies on the lounge chairs.
We rented a paddle boat for 10 euros for an hour and paddled out to the coves, dove into the unspeakably pleasing and warm water. Afterward, we laid in the sand and drifted in and out of sleep whilst enjoying the Mariachis singing "Guantanamera" at the beach bar to a table of hungry Germans.
The world cup was going on while we were in Mallorca and to watch the U.S. V. Ghana match we decided to walk to Don Pedro, a seemingly normal middle of the road hotel where all the German and British visitors were staying. Well, normal it was not. The minute we entered the bar on the bottom floor of the building, we heard a "version" of "Proud Mary" that made me want to pluck out my own eardrums. "Karaoke?" I thought. No, not karaoke, rather a trio of hired, horrible, haggard performers who were decked out in red sequins. The two women in the group looked like ex-cruise ship performers and the one, very gay man just seemed to be relieved to be performing at all. Oddly, the small TV that was playing the match was off on a side table next to the stage, in order to watch the game, we had no choice but to be deafened by "Rollin, Rollin, Rollin on a river- ONE MORE TIME!" over and over again as we pleaded amongst ourselves for the madness to cease. The audience was full of old British and German couples who looked like something out of the Shining's ballroom scene, drinking cheap wine by the bottleful and digesting the Paella buffet dinner they'd had an hour prior. Needless to say, sitting in the smoky, dark room that held all this, the sweat, the booze and the glitter eye shadow, made me want a shower desperately. To make things even worse, once all had been endured, the U.S lost the match to Ghana.
Once we left the Don Pedro, I felt that I was once again on sane ground and we walked back to our villa, the sea sloshing in the warm, blue night.
While staying in the Villa, we had the difficulty of tourists walking in to our villa from the beach. Many people thinking that it was a museum of some kind or an old church. Indeed it was not and for the first time I felt baffled. I needed to know German to communicate in Spain in order to keep these people out of the house. In the end, we had to just keep locking the door despite us only being feet away on the beach. Silly Germans, they never developed the concept of ,"not yours", now, did they?
All in all, Mallorca is a beautiful, majestic place with the most incredible water I've ever seen in person. I wouldn't go there expecting to have a conversation with the locals as most of them, it seems, have been all but pushed out by the British and the Germans. However, if you get the chance to go with someone whom you can converse with endlessly, it will be a fabulous and memorable time.