Sunday, March 30, 2014

baluard

bread sacks
baluard
carrer del baluart, 38.

baluard—just a few blocks from the sea in barceloneta—is one of the few places in barcelona at which good bread may be found. at 7.15am, the shop is full of people buying bread and pastry, the shop van is stuffed with sacks of bread.

Friday, March 28, 2014

recuit

recuit de vaca

not a cheese but a traditional curd dairy product of catalonia. fresh, unsalted whole cow or goat milk is coagulated with vegetable rennet derived from cardoon flowers (C. cardunculus) dried and crushed in water in a warm mortar, the curd then partly drained in a rag pulp sheet that serves as a packaging material. note the patterning on the surface of this specimen of recuit de vaca from granja armengol—the result of the rag wrapper. the pressed curd is moist, dense, and finely textured, perfectly sweet and intensely delicious. clotet, mestres, and ponsati are the authors of an article titled "la problemàtica dels formatges de xerigot a catalunya" ("the problem of catalan whey cheeses")—worthwhile for those seeking clarity in the matter of coagulated dairy products.

Monday, March 17, 2014

some exceptions

to five months of mostly unmemorable beverages.*

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rouge; 80% carignan 20% grenache noir





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carema 2010

* neither a comprehensive nor an ordered listing. japan was the anomaly: a mostly unnavigable sea of delicious and drinkable novelty. ultra-low-alcohol cocktails that abandon the bitters model of flavouring in favour of amino acid savouriness, a profusion of what might be thought of as low-intervention terroir sakes, an entire world of umeshu.

Saturday, March 1, 2014