The Catalonian version of "swords into plowshares" is: bomb shelters into wine caves!
Our Barcelona Experience (September 12 - 17) took us to Ignasi Seguí's biodynamic Vinyas Singulars vineyard, where he uses a Spanish Civil War bomb shelter to develop cava. He gave us an exclusive look inside the bunker — we're sworn to secrecy and can't tell you where it is!
We emerged from the shelter to toast life with our friend Florian Porsche (co-owner of VisitPenedes). And it was the bomb!
So little time, so much to taste.
Our Gastronomad Barcelona Experience headed straight to the cava country’s best affineur, called Xerigots. (An affineur is someone who ages cheese. The dairy farmer makes the cheese, and the affineur brings it to perfection through temperature, humidity, proper handling and time.)
Xerigots’ owner Jordi hosted us, and Victor gave us insights into Xerigot’s history, cheese and facility.
Xerigots is located near the old railway station where trainloads of cava were bottled, packed and shipped out of this region and into France and elsewhere, especially during the mid-19th Century Great French Wine Blight.
Cava is stored in underground tiled caverns, and Xerigots ages cheeses in modified caverns. Individual tanks can be controlled for temperature and humidity. We got an exclusive, up-close look inside these caverns.
Xierigots is an extremely high-quality affineur; they select cheeses from various places in France and Spain, age them to perfection, then sell them to restaurants and also to the public.
After our exclusive tour of the aging rooms, we sat down for a guided progressive tasting (progressing from mildest to strongest) with Jordi, along with the obligatory cava, which paired flawlessly with the full range of cheeses we sampled.
If you ever encounter Xerigots’ cheese, do yourself a favor and buy all you can.
Next morning our Gastronomad Experience Barcelona headed out to the nearby “cava country.” First stop: the Mas Comtal winery in Avinyonet del Penedès.
The winery has belong to the Mila family since the 15th Century. Co-owner Marta gave us a tour of the house, which was built in part from a 2nd-century Roman building, and the vineyards, which grow organic Xarel-lo, Chardonnay, Müller-Thurgau, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.
After checking the place out, we were treated to a tasting of Mas Comtal’s Clàssic Penedès, which is a style of wine like cava but of higher quality.
Incredible!
A Spanish feast!
In addition to the gazpacho, seafood paella, sangria and crema Catalana we all made together, Ella prepared a scrumptious board of local cheeses, extremely high-end jamon iberico (Spanish ham), an assortment of veggies fermented by our chefs, teachers and hosts, Alberto and Ella, at Espai Egg.
We did a David Copperfield on that sangria (we made it disappear) and moved into a nice Catalonian table red.
Ella showed the group the finer points of drinking wine from a porron, which is a glass pitcher that pours wine in a stream through the air and into your face (or, if you’re drunk or uncoordinated, onto your face and the front of your clothes — as in "porron your shirt!").
Our gazpacho had a crazy twist: It was made with watermelon as one of the ingredients!
The paella was truly amazing, as was everything we made. What an incredible experience with great food and great friends.
After dinner, we were treated to a truly brilliant and intimate Flamenco performance that brought us to tears, and then to our feet.
And that was our first full day of our Gastronomad Barcelona Experience!
After shopping for seafood at Barcelona’s biggest market, La Boqueria, brunch at Cova Fumada and cava at the beach, we headed for the Main Event: cooking class at Espai Egg!
Alberto’s and Ella’s Espai egg is an innovative gastronomic space for professional chefs, pop-up dinners, cooking classes and special dining events.
Alberto and Ella are brilliant chefs, and leaders in Barcelona’s organic movement and culinary renaissance.
Both our market tour and cooking class covered the broad strokes, as well as countless insights and details that go into making fantastic Spanish food.
While most of our Gastronomad Experience this week will be all about Barcelona, tonight’s adventure focuses on Parts South — Valencia’s cuisine with paella and sangria, Andalusian cuisine with gazpacho, and then back to Barcelona with a dessert of Crema Catalana.
This event was a professional-level course in cooking all this from scratch, and included detailed insights into the ingredients, equipment, methods, processes and presentation that goes into making this mind-blowingly delicious foods.
Thank you, Alberto and Ella!
Here comes the video here!
After buying fish for our evening paella at the Boqueria, we headed over to the most delicious and authentic family-run Catalonian spot in the seaside neighborhood of Barceloneta.
The restaurant is called La Cova Fumada. It's tiny, loud, bustling and jam packed with locals. You can't normally get a table and certainly can't make a reservation for a group our size, but the grandmother who lords over the operation fell in love with Squishyface and she accommodated us.
Cova Fumada is probably the most perfect expression of traditional Catalonian food, especially seafood. It seems like everything you eat there is the most delicious thing you've ever tasted.
Our waiter brought plate after plate of pan con tomate, spicy bombas, sausages, fish, shrimp, clams, squid, octopus and other delicious tapas, along with a chilled red table wine.
After brunch, we went down a couple blocks to the shore and drank some ice-cold cava on the beach.
Here comes the video!
#GastronomadExperience #BarcelonaExperience #Barcelona #Spain
First thing day one of our Barcelona Experience, our group went shopping for seafood at the Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria, Barcelona’s legendary food market.
Our excursion was led by the couple behind Espai Egg, Alberto and Ella, two of our favorite Barcelona food visionaries. (They’re teaching the cooking class we’re shopping for.... more on that in a future post.)
We learned about the history of the market, and also insidery intel on exactly how and where to choose the very best seafood` at la Boqueria.
Our first Gastronomad Experience in Barcelona kicked off in style.
Our band of traveling super-foodies gathered together in our beautifully restored and eclectically designed old Barcelona apartment for tapas and cava before heading out to the coolest new restaurant in the city: Artte!
We enjoyed a spectacular, innovative meal with a mini wine tasting and, of course, more cava!
Best of all, we got to know our wonderful new friends, with whom we'll share a week of incredible Spanish and Catalonian food culture.
Discovering great restaurants is harder than it seems. Ratings apps help, but the users of an app aren’t necessarily the best collective judge. (I’ve been in towns in America where the highest rated pizza restaurant is Domino’s according to Yelp reviews. That can’t possibly be right.)
You can look for signs of quality and innovation by scanning menus, which often reveal if the menu changes seasonally (which is good) or is the same year-round (which may not be good).
Check out what’s on the table. Does the food look good? Is everything deep fried? Also: If you’re in Europe and see what looks like high-quality olive oil on the table, that can be a good sign.
Sometimes beer selection unmasks restaurant quality. Most restaurants around the world serve some kind of mass-produced national lager, or possibly pilsner. Every country seems to produce one, two or a few. Coors and Budweiser in the US. Brahma in Brazil. Snow in China. Many European joints serve Heineken and Estrella, for some reason. Here’s what to look out for: Restaurants that offer nondescript beers exclusively telegraph indifference to the craft beer revolution sweeping the planet, and tend to be equally uninformed or uninspired in the kitchen. When we don’t have a lot of time for exploring restaurants, we’ll just look at what’s on tap at the bar, and move on if it’s limited and boring as it’s a clear signal that the restaurateur is indifferent about food generally and lacks creativity or knowledge specifically.
Bathrooms offer another clue. You’ll often find a positive correlation between cleanliness and attention to detail in the bathroom and the quality of a restaurant overall.
Some restaurants around the world don’t have posted menus, anything on the tables or even bathrooms. Our gastronomad son, Kevin, keeps a checklist for authenticity in Latin American and Southeast Asian street food: Plastic chairs? Check. Fluorescent lights? Check. No menu? Check. Family staff (i.e. child labor)? Check. Packed with locals? Check.
The point is that every region in the world has its own clues to restaurant quality, which can be divined before commitment.
Ultimately there’s no test of a restaurant better than tasting the food. But how? There are so many restaurants and so little time.
We play what we call restaurant roulette.
Instead of sitting down and ordering drinks, appetizer, entree and more, we order a single item to share. If it’s amazing, we’ll order another thing. If not, we pay the check and leave, then find another restaurant. And so on.
In other words, the process is to order one thing at a time, and order the next item in any given restaurant only if the last item was very good. If the food is amazing, we keep ordering food and enjoy a great meal, but that’s not what typically happens.
We’ve been known to dine at as many as six restaurants for a single dinner. It’s a great way to cover many establishments in a short period of time. Best of all, restaurant roulette is a fun way to spend an evening, discovering, tasting and exploring.
If you've been following our adventures on this blog and newsletter, you know how much fun we had in the Prosecco Hills region of Italy in April.
That trip was busy with early preparation for The Prosecco Experience, which now has a page on the web site: http://gastronomad.net/the-prosecco-experience-2018
(Go here to grab your spot: http://gastronomad.net/prosecco-experience-2018 ) Only 4 couple spots left for this small-group Gastronomad Experience!
Wait, what's a Prosecco Hill?
The Prosecco Hills or the Prosecco Road is a undiscovered wine-growing region halfway between Venice and the Austrian border.
Prosecco (which is a sparkling wine made in this region with the Glera grape variety, plus sometimes a small amount of grapes from a few other local varieties) is more than just a refreshing alternative to French champagne. It's a unique and special kind of wine that has to be experienced in-country, because most of the best proseccos are never exported.
The overwhelming majority of land in this region is covered with jaw-droppingly beautiful rolling hills as far as the eye can see (we found the best spots for the most sweeping views that only locals know!).
The awe-inspiring land feels like heaven on Earth. The hills are covered with beautiful Glera vineyards punctuated by ancient farmhouses and charming old villages perched on breathtaking hilltops populated by friendly, food-loving locals. And it's all mostly undiscovered by tourists.
Not all prosecco is created equal. We've already identified and partnered exclusively with what we believe is the single best prosecco winery in Italy. The vineyards are grown with organic and biodynamic methods, tended and harvested by hand. The wines are exquisite and entirely handcrafted. And they're not available in the United States. Our Experience will include a deep immersion in understanding the Prosecco wine making process, the grape varieties, and an intimate vineyard tour by the owner and winemaker. And, of course, a leisurely tasting at sunset overlooking magnificent decades-old mature vineyards.
We’ll learn to make traditional Italian foods and cook alongside one of the most talented chefs in the region and his brilliant wife (who happens to have one of the most beautifully restored ancient farm houses on their incredible farm and homestead). We'll forage wild foods and freshly laid eggs from free-roaming, pastured-raised chickens. We’ll visit with sheep and goats, too.
We’ll make cheese with one of the top cheese makers in all of Italy and, needless to say, we’ll do lots of tasting with wine pairing to finish with a beautiful celebration of the art of natural cheese making.
(A long list of exclusive and gastronomad tailored activities will take place in this once in a lifetime gastronomad deep travel adventures.)
We’re going to indulge our senses and stimulate our minds and enrich our knowledge of all things Prosecco and Italy.
Amazing prosecco, paradisiacal environs and the piece de resistance — a spectacular array of incredible local tastes — the food scene in the Prosecco Hills is informed by its proximity to the sea the medieval spice-trading center of Venice and to the Austrian Alps. Most of all, it's derived from a local history of self-sufficiency and centuries of local farming.
In other words, the current food there is quintessentially European, Italian, Venetian, Austrian — and also unlike any of those things — all at the same time.
We're going to explore, discover, learn, taste and experience this relatively undiscovered culinary world first-hand directly from the district's most inspiring food visionaries and traditionalists.
Gastronomads strive to reconnect to the local land, culture and authentic traditions no matter in what part of the world we live in or travel to. By focusing on the sustainable practices and cultivation of seasonal food, we honor local farmers, food artisans, traditional hand crafters and makers, foodie visionaries and gatekeepers of the local culture.
I'm sensing enormous excitement for this Experience, so grab your spot before it's too late -- only 4 couple spots left in this 10-person gastronomad group:
A “nomad” by definition (my definition) is someone who can travel while working.
That means anything from taking a three-week vacation (while only getting two weeks off) all the way to full-time travel.
The trick isn’t the travel, but the work.
Nomads don’t need special equipment, for the most part. Laptops serve as the form-factor of choice for most white-collar types, and laptops are perfectly nice computers for working while traveling.
Special equipment may include (depending on how you travel and where you go) outlet converters and additional protection, including water coverage, for your gear.
Two additional considerations: 1) stealth; and 2) efficiency.
Carrying your fancy first-world problems (your pricey laptop, expensive smartphone and other shiny objects) to less-than-fancy districts is probably a bad idea. So for some types of travel I recommend camouflaging gadgets.
Apple products are particularly identifiable as high resale-value objects that, as such, are attractive to crooks.
You’ll want to hide that Apple logo.
Also, I’ve found it enormously helpful to make my work situation highly efficient.
It takes a long time to boot a laptop, find the password for and log in to a WiFi network, then struggle with slow WiFi. It’s time-consuming to manage files across multiple devices. It's inefficient to find oneself unable to work offline. And if you’re a heavy keyboard user, as I am, a less than perfect keyboard can really slow things down.
Another bonus for efficiency is the ability to capture ideas and get incoming notifications on the fly, even if your hands are full or while you’re walking around.
I’ve been working to solve all these problems for myself (your mileage — a.k.a., your “computing” requirements — may vary).
The result is my new setup. Let me explain what I’m doing, then why.
The centerpiece of my work is a 10.5-inch iPad Pro maxed out on storage (512 GB). It’s got a SIM card in it. It’s not a duplicate SIM — I removed the SIM from my phone and I’m using it in the iPad. When abroad, I get a local pre-paid SIM for data, and use it in the iPad, not the iPhone.
My iPad is protected by a Pad & Quill Contega Linen case.
I have an Apple Pencil and AirPods.
And the pièce de résistance, my keyboard, is an Apple Wireless Magic Keyboard. The keyboard travels in a case specifically made for that keyboard by Hermitshell. Happily, that case also has just enough room for the Apple Pencil.
All this goes into a tiny, nondescript backpack I carry around. Or, I carry the iPad (in its case) and the keyboard (in its case) together in my hand. When I carry it, the iPad looks like a paper notebook. And the keyboard case doesn’t look like anything interesting. The AirPod case goes in my pocket.
When I’m ready to work, I open the case and flip the cover around to the back, using it like a “clipboard,” usually with the Pencil. If I have a table, I open it up at an angle and break out the keyboard, then use it like a laptop.
I don’t always have to fuss around with random WiFi connections, and instead use the mobile data connection.
Walking around, I may wear one AirPod to interact with incoming calls and notifications and as a way to get random information via voice.
Meanwhile, I use my iPhone only for taking fast photos, listening to music and podcasts while trail running and a few other limited uses. It connects only via WiFi.
This setup is the ultimate nomad rig for me. It’s mobile, efficient and camouflaged. The use of an iPad as my main computer is heavily improved by the beta of iOS 11 I’m running. (I am, of course, looking forward to more stable future versions.)
Your perfect set of gear may be different. But when you’re living nomadically, it’s a great idea to optimize for mobility, speed and stealth.
It’s easy to travel, these days.
The “experience economy” drives an impulse to travel the world and take pictures of oneself experiencing things for Instagram.
I don’t blame anyone. People are thrust into the tourism impulse by the needs of the industrial economy. Most people don’t have much time off. When they do take a trip, they feel the need to make it worthwhile by doing surgical strikes on the world’s cliché moments. Our desire to see for ourselves what we’ve only heard about — and to share our experience — is a very human one. “Happiness is only real when shared.” Still, tourism isn’t working.
Going to Italy? Ok, let’s go to Pisa and pose like we’re holding up the Leaning Tower. France? Definitely want to get an Eiffel Tower picture in. India? You guessed it. Gotta get a Taj Mahal moment in.
The trouble with tourism is that too many people go to the same places and do the same things.
Tourists ruin the local food scene. Because tourists aren’t regulars, restaurant success has more to do with appearances than quality.
Tourists make life harder for many locals, who have to cope with extra traffic, higher cost of living and all the problems that attend lots of people drinking all night in large numbers.
And tourists degrade tourism itself for other tourists. (In some visitor hotspots, everyone jumps through hoops to take pictures that cut out all the other tourists, who are jumping through the same hoops.)
The solution is for everyone to change how they travel, and do things the way nomads do.
To contrast the two styles of visiting another place, consider that:
Tourists...
- stay in hotels, resorts and cruise ships
- eat in restaurants
- surgical-strike on cliché tourist spots
- photograph themselves in scenes everyone has already seen
- buy trinkets and souvenirs
- favor “safe,” easy or convenient spots to vacation in
- try to live like they do back home
Nomads...
- stay in homes and apartments (usually via AirBnB type services)
- vary sources of local foods, including shopping, cooking, street food
- explore to discover the previously unknown and undiscovered
- capture authentic and surprising moments, not cliches
- avoid spending on “stuff”; instead spend on experiences
- favor the new, exotic, interesting, undiscovered instead of the “safe”
- try to live like the locals do
In short, nomadic living isn’t necessarily a lifestyle. It’s more of an attitude. And vacationers, holidaymakers and tourists can make their travels better — and minimize their impact on the hotspots around the world now burdened by the behavior of tourists — by spreading out, blending in and embracing an open, exploration mindset.
In other words, tourists should learn from nomads about how to live better abroad.
(My upcoming book, Gastronomad, is my master class on nomadic living. Sign up to get information about the book by clicking on the “Book” link at the top of this page.)
After months of work, our Barcelona Experience is coming together beautifully!
Amira and I are back in California now. But in a month we’ll be heading back to Barcelona to finalize everything for the Big Week (September 12 to September 17).
(It’s still possible to join us; we have one spot left for a couple! CLICK HERE TO GRAB THE LAST SPOT!)
Wait, Mike, did you say “months” of preparation?
Yes. Putting together a week like this requires painstaking exploration, testing, tasting, research, legwork and, above all, relationship building.
We’ve assembled a cast of brilliant food visionaries, including (in our opinion) Spain’s best baker, affineur, wine-maker, organic chef, mixologist, vermouth maker and others.
Some of these amazing people are innovators. Others have been faithfully preserving Catalonian traditions for decades.
We’re going to enjoy Barcelona’s best beaches, tapas, markets, wine bars, chocolate and churros, neighborhoods.
But some things are best when homemade. So we’re going to make them, together, led by our carefully selected local experts.
We’re doing this event in Barcelona only once. We’ll never do another event in that city.
One event. One spot open. Get it here.
(Or, send me an email at mike@elgan.com) if you have any questions!
Living nomadically will change how you think about everything.
We all feel that sense of familiarity, attachment and security at “home.” But the feeling of home is actually more complicated than that. You feel some version of the feeling in your neighborhood and town generally. There’s a version for where you work. And there’s another version for the towns you used to live in.
The place where you grew up is called your “home town” for a reason — it evokes strong emotions.
When we travel to a new place, especially one very different from the places we’ve been before, we feel the opposite of a home feeling. It feels new and possibly confusing — dangerous, even. At first, you don’t know where anything is (this is the very definition of “disoriented”). People look different, dress differently, and perhaps speak a different language. The entire “vibe” of the place is challenging and unexpected.
This effect can be magnified by the size of the differences. For example, if you’ve never left the United States, a trip to India will hit you harder than if you visit Canada — even though both are foreign countries you’ve never visited before.
First exposure to a developing or what they used to call a “third-world” country can intensify the feeling. The air is permeated with the smell of burning trash. Nobody forms a neat line. So many pedestrians. Livestock wandering through city streets. Children selling trinkets, flowers and food between fume-belching cars in gridlocked traffic. Nobody obeys traffic laws. An entire family balanced on a scooter, weaving between the cars. Street vendors aggressively hawking their wares. Meeting people with an entirely different idea about “personal space.”
Yes, first exposure to foreign places can be stressful.
This sort of intense culture shock — the feeling like you’re not at home — is probably why people often prefer resorts, cruises and tours. You get to experience foreign places while remaining in a bubble of familiarity.
That’s fine for shorter vacations: You won’t have the time to acclimate anyway.
But one of the joys of living nomadically is that while you may experience the initial culture shock of being far from home, it fades after a week or two. One day, you wake up and feel entirely at home. Because you are at home.
In fact, after allowing yourself to “feel at home” in several countries, your ideas about the whole world change. The world becomes small, friendly, comfortable, familiar and welcoming.
Nomadic living makes you generally more open-minded, tolerant, empathetic, easygoing and non-materialistic.
One last thing: We still have one spot open (for a couple) for our upcoming Barcelona Experience!! Get more info here.
We took a bus Saturday morning from Cannes, where we're staying, to nearby Antibes — probably 7 or 8 miles from our apartment.
Then we walked.
We walked up and down and around the incredible outdoor food market there. (Amira bought spices and brownies.)
We walked all over the town.
We walked down and around an ancient nearby sea-front fortress, down the full length of the nearby peninsula, and all along the shore. (I jumped in the water and swam across a tiny bay. It was cold, but beautiful.)
From there, we walked along the shore all the way back to Cannes, stopping to check things out, eat pizza, drink beer, take pictures and watched a glorious sunset. From the elevated sidewalk next to the shore, we saw restaurants and weddings and picnics and fishermen. Everybody was drinking rosé. Everybody. Most in chilled glasses at restaurants or on picnic blankets. We saw at least 5 young guys drinking rosé from the bottle while walking around on the sidewalk.
One group combined fishing with picnicking. We were on an elevated part of the sidewalk there, and were looking down at what a great time they were having. One guy saw us, and waved us down to join them. It was late already, so we declined, but regretted it.
By the time we got back to Cannes, it was midnight. We walked around 15 miles.
The people who are driving and the people who are walking live in different worlds. Walking lets you see everything up close, and lets you stop and check things out. You really get to know the places you go when you walk.
Walking also seems to be good for your thought process. We always come up with great ideas while walking. And it's only when I walk these days when I get to catch up on my podcasts.
Whenever we move to a new city, we get to know it by walking on every street, over and over. You really get to know a place, what its rhythms are and how it all works.
Walking is fun. It's great exercise. It's good for the environment. And it's easy.
My favorite part, though, is that you get to see everything up close and personal. And discover the world, one step at a time.
Admit it: You just want to run away sometimes.
That “run away” feeling is just a normal, temporary impulse — a reaction to the frustrations and banality of everyday life.
It passes, though. Soon enough, you come to your senses and remember all the reasons why you can’t run away.
But here’s a thought: What if that impulse is right? What if you actually should follow your instinct to run away? And what if all the reasons you think you can’t are wrong?
It’s ironic, really. Running away from it all would make you happy. But you can’t run away because of all the responsibilities and obligations, which you chose… in order to be happy.
In pursuit of happiness, you got an education. Then a job. Then another job. You moved to a town where there are lots of jobs. You rented an apartment or bought a condo or house. And you bought a car. And started a family. You got into levels of debt that would have shocked your grandparents. You delayed gratification a thousand times. You scrimped and saved and sacrificed. You endured study and confinement. You put others first and postponed or canceled your dreams. And you did it all in the service of happiness.
So why do you feel the impulse to run away?
The short answer: You’re bored.
The longer answer: You’re an intelligent, curious, adventurous person who’s been dragooned into servitude by the circumstances of time and place. You’re a cog in the wheels of the industrial economy. The world doesn’t care if you’re happy and free. It demands only that you produce and spend.
You’re supposed to own a house. So maybe you own a house. But it feels like the house owns you. So many repairs. So much maintenance. So much cleaning, mowing and decorating. So much money for the mortgage and taxes. Your life feels like an endless grind of dishes, errands and workplace drama. It’s the opposite of what makes you feel joy and happiness.
Deep down, you’re an explorer, a wanderer and — if we’re being honest — a bon vivant.
Facebook tells you that others are having fun. Other people’s lives seem to overflow with adventure, ease and joy. (It’s all a social media “success theater” illusion, but still… Why can’t your days be filled with such things?)
Wasn’t life supposed to be different?
How would you explain to your 19-year-old self what your life has become?
You have mastered the art of delaying gratification. Someday you’ll walk the Camino de Santiago. And the Appalachian Trial. Oh, and the Pacific Crest Trail. (That’s a full year right there, at least! Sigh…)
Someday you’ll experience the Egyptian pyramids. And the Mayan pyramids. And the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu, and Petra. And the Great Wall of China, for God’s sake. Are you really going to die without standing on the Great Wall of China?
Someday you’ll experience the mossy quiet of ancient Buddhist temples in Kyoto, witness the burning animal violence of the Australian Outback and bob like a cork in the Dead Sea.
Someday.
Or will you? When does “someday” happen, exactly? Vacation? Retirement?
How about September? Click here to sign up for our Barcelona Experience 2017!
Our plans for the Barcelona Experience are close to being finalized!
But here's the urgent news: We're down to one remaining spot for a single couple.
(Grab it now: https://goo.gl/ST6l9b )
Our small group is going to live for five nights and six days (September 12-17) in a big, comfortable luxury apartment in the heart of Barcelona.
Amira and I and our staff will lead the most amazing romp through Catalonian culinary culture ever assembled.
Using the apartment as headquarters, we'll gather for sessions, tastings, workshops and parties.
Plus, we'll take outings and excursions to places around town and to the nearby Cava country.
Here's a partial list of the incredible foodie stuff we're going to enjoy:
* Traditional bread baking class with Spain's #1 baker
* Day in the Cava country tasting biodynamic bubbles with the top natural winemakers
* Grape harvesting in Penedes vineyards and winemaking the Catalonian way
* Local artisanal cheese class with expert affineur to the Michelin restaurant chefs
* Wood-fire cook-out of Catalonian delicacies
* Quality time in exclusive studio with a famous Catalonian ceramacist and artist
* Guided walk around La Boqueria Market to shop the way the locals do
* Market to kitchen to table Paella and Sangria master class taught by Catalonia’s most talented couple (who are the leaders of Barcelona’s organic food movement)
* Authentic Paella and Sangria Party!
* Perfect Mediterranean picnic and beach day
* Spanish Vermut (vermouth) class and tasting
* Tapas hopping (a.k.a. restaurant roulette) at the city's best tapa joints
* Decadent and bohemian day and night in the Gothic Quarter
* A lavish Catalan gastronomy dining experience under the stars
* Journey through Spain's best wines with Spanish cheese pairing
* Traditional market-restaurant seafood culinary experience
* Intimate and exclusive Flamenco entertainment
* Old-fashioned Spanish hot chocolate and churro respite
* And other secret surprises!
Marrakesh is a one-of-a-kind and ancient Moroccan city that I love. But in recent years, it has grown a problem of overly aggressive tourist exploitation.
This comes in the form of "guides," shop-keepers and street vendors who mercilessly badger and harass you into paying for their services. It also comes in the form of phony food operations. For example, Berber tagine cooking is one of the world's greatest culinary innovations. The magic is in not only ingredients and seasoning, but also in the cooking of meat and vegetables together inside an earthen "oven" of exactly the right shape over an open fire. But many restaurants in Marrakesh simply cook stuff and throw it into a tagine at the last minute, figuring that tourists don't know the difference.
This guy is yet another example. Because the Marrakesh medina can't handle cars and trucks, porters work the peripheries with carts. For a little over $2, they'll roll your luggage in a wheeled cart from the edge of the medina to your hotel.
The standard rate is 15 dirhams, or 20 dirhams at the highest price (20 dirhams is around $2.05.) It's a good deal for visitors. And it's a good living for the porters, who can earn over $20 per hour in a country where the minimum wage is $1.50 an hour.
All the porters routinely charge 15 to 20 dirhams for their service and have done for years.
Still, Amira and I like to carry our own bags, and tend not to use such porters. But our driver figured that it would be easier for us to follow a porter, who knew where our riad was, than to convey directions through the maze-like medina. Our driver asked the porter "how much?," and he responded "twenty."
So we got to the riad, and handed him 20 dirhams, and he said, "what's this?" We said it was his 20 dirhams. And he said, "dirhams? no dollars!" He was pretending there was a mixup and that he told us his fee was $20 US dollars for five minutes of unskilled labor.
You'll note that $20 is more than we've paid for a night in a beautiful riad. It's a lot of money in Morocco.
So the porter got aggressive and hostile, which I assume would inspire many visitors to just pay him $20 to go away. But we've been around the block a few times and aren't easily intimidated by street husltlers. So Amira pushed $40 dirhams into his hands. I told him his con earned him double the agreed-upon fee and that he would have to be satisfied with that. Then I took his picture and shut the door in his face.
Welcome to Marrakesh.
I'm not a big bar guy, and generally don't drink distilled beverages (I do enjoy great fermented libations like very good beer and very good wine.)
But I make an exception in Barcelona. Some years ago, the city enjoyed a revival for certain types of beverages, especially vermouth. In fact, the entire nation of Spain got struck by vermouth mania about three years ago, with Barcelona leading the charge.
Today, you can find the best vermouth in the world house-made in some of Barcelona's coolest and hardest-to-find bars.
Vermouth, of course, is fortified wine enhanced with herbs and bark. And it's also used in a variety of mixed drinks.
A small number of Barcelona mixologists are masters at the art of combining vermouth into a delightful — and delightfully herbal and natural — cocktail, which is pretty much the opposite of your average mixed drink in your average bar.
Several Barcelona bars also make their own amazing gin. Interestingly, gin started out as a medieval medicine. And the gin you find at ordinary bars still does taste both medieval and medicinal — like some kind of industrial solvent.
But some of the gin I've tried in Barcelona is positively delightful in its herbal complexity.
Of course, we're going to spend some quality time enjoying the very best bars in Barcelona during our Barcelona Experience 2017.
We're not Muslim, but we were invited by our host in Fez, Morocco, to join his family in breaking fast for Ramadan.
In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain wrote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
And Twain is right, according to science.
A series of five experiments at Northwestern University and Columbia University found that the more countries a person visits, the more trusting they become of people generally. The researchers found that the time spent in each country doesn’t matter. Only the number of places and also how different those countries are to the participants’ home countries — the more exotic the country visited, the more trusting the visitor becomes.
I think something simple is happening here. In general, people naturally assume foreigners are more different and less trustworthy than the people in our own communities and nations. But when we travel abroad, we learn the truth — that people are in fact more similar and more trustworthy than we used to assume. Given enough travel, if I discover that people in this country and that country and yet another country are essentially just like me, I’ll trust not only the people in those countries, but also humanity in general.
And that sense of trust and empathy will apply to different groups back home. With enough travel, it becomes nearly impossible to hold racial, ethnic, socioeconomic or other biases against any groups or individuals. The power of divisive constructs fizzles, and the importance of group affiliation, national borders and other artificial labels fade. In other words: “Travel is fatal to prejudice.”
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