Erik’s Blog

On Saturday morning, my wife got a call from her boss, who had just sold his motorcycle, and, as part of the sale, had acquired way more barnacles than he could consume, so he offered us some. Barnacles are a special delicacy in Spain, particularly in northern Spain and Galicia. At Christmas time, barnacle prices can reach 99 €/kg ($65/lb)! The best, most expensive ones come from the Cantabrian sea on the northern coast of Spain. On Saturday we were given 1.5 kilograms of the good, expensive barnacles, so on Sunday we had a feast.

I had never eaten or cooked barnacles, so everything was new and fascinating to me. Here’s what I learned…
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We had another successful Hamburgerfest this year for July 4th, with friends Agustin, Ana, Ivan, Veronica, Manolo, Elena, José Luis, and Azucena attending. In 2009, we came up almost short on hamburger meat, so this year we decided to make sure that definitely didn’t happen. As a result, we have about eight hamburgers left over to freeze or eat this week. Nora was very well behaved with the guests once her initial “who are all these people in my living room??” confusion wore off. And they were very good about warming up to her slowly. Agustin fed her a pretty big portion of his dessert of flan, ice cream and whipped cream, which endeared him to her at least for the duration of the dessert course.
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As soon as I learned that my friend and grocery store manager, Andrés, cultivates mushrooms, I knew immediately that we had to do a timelapse photography project with his next batch. The particular species he cultivates is Pleurotus ostreatus, the oyster mushroom. He buys preprepared bails of hay wrapped in plastic, to which nutrients, mushroom spores, and water have been added. Holes have been cut in the plastic on the top and sides of the bail. Before you can see any mushroom growth, the whole bail gets warm to the touch, as the nutrient consumption begins inside. When the little fungal sprigs started appearing in the holes, Andrés came to me, with a big grin on his face, and said, “Today’s the day!” So I returned that afternoon and set up the tripod, flash, and intervalometer pointing at the bails of hay in his grocery store’s warehouse right down the street from where I live. And then we waited…
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Yesterday was my father’s 61st birthday. Ever since we celebrated his sixtieth birthday last May by eating a mariscada at a local restaurant, he has been planning on/hoping for/not-so-subtly requesting a repeat celebration this year. A mariscada is a platter of marisco, which generally translates to “seafood” in English, but usually specifically refers only to shellfish. The region of Galicia is very famous for its marisco, but the mariscada we had in Vigo was a big let down after that of our local restaurant, El Guti, which is where we dined last night. The restaurant is owned by a friend of ours, José Luis. Now, on to the photos… (more…)

This morning during my daily visit to the grocery store, my friend, neighbor and butcher, Bruno, had something to show me. Normally he doesn’t get whole calves to sell, but today he did. When I was there, he was in the process of carving out the kidneys, heart, and other parts (it was a male calf). If you don’t want to see the insides of dead things or my local butcher, look away now.
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During the recent flying ban in Europe because of the volcano in Iceland, some of the grocery stores in the UK started to run out of fresh fruit. This reminded me of a few years back when the Spanish truckers union was on strike for a few days and the grocery shelves became empty surprisingly fast. These little reminders about how quickly our global food supply chain can collapse with just the slightest hiccup are a little sobering. When we hit Peak Oil any day now, “eating locally” might not be for the rich suburban housewives anymore.

Last week at the grocery store, I noticed a sign saying “Peas from Colindres” in the vegetable section, so I asked how they should be prepared and bought a kilo. I was told to boil them for a little bit first, and then place them in a frying pan with some small diced bits of jamón, Spanish cured ham. The result was very, very nice.
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Previously, in Rioja…

On Sunday we woke up at 11:00 to the peaceful sound of no baby crying. After a quick breakfast at the pub neighboring the hotel, we checked out and the group of eleven of us took our three vehicles and headed towards Haro. I have wanted to visit Haro for some time, ever since learning about the Batalla de Vino they host every year, which I detailed in the 17th post on this blog back in June 2006. At some point on the way to Haro, the Tom Tom GPS unit in the leading car, decided that it wanted to visit the town of Cenicero. I have noticed Cenicero on the map a few times and chuckled at its horrible name, which is Spanish for “ashtray”. Wielding my trusty GPS-enabled iPhone, I volunteered to lead us to Haro, and in twenty minutes we were there.
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The group of friends that Marga and I dance salsa with a couple times a month organized a trip down to the Rioja region this past weekend. On Friday evening we drove to my in-laws in Mondragon to drop off Nora. Because of my work and errands Marga had to do, we left home at 22:00, a full hour and a half after Nora had gone to bed. While docile all the way from crib to car seat, she ended up crying the whole ninety minute trip. I dislike driving late at night, and it was nice to have someone in the car to keep me awake. On Saturday morning we got up fairly leisurely and left around 11:00 to head south to the Rioja region of Spain. We had a hotel booked in Logroño, but, after getting in touch with our friends who were driving down from Cantabria, we went first to a tiny, tiny town named Tirgo to have lunch in a restaurant that one of our friends knew about. There was no menu, they just had what they had that day. Luckily it turned out to be fried peppers, chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), salad, and lamb chops. [I started salivating again just typing that sentence.]
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Last week we decided to take advantage of the short strawberry season and I bought two kilos of strawberries. Marga had mentioned that we should buy some, and then Nora’s friend, Tona, who works the fruit section of the local grocery store gave her a strawberry when my back was turned, reminding me that we should get some. From what I could tell, Nora really liked the flavor of the strawberries, but she wasn’t very fond of having the meat of the berry in her mouth, spitting out whatever she bit off. Of course her nice white shirt was stained in no time at all. But I did get some adorable photographs.
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Last weekend I was all alone. Marga and Nora went to visit Marga’s parents in her hometown. While they were there, they went to some sort of festival where migas were served. Migas is a dish of fried bread crumbs, normally with some fried garlic, peppers or bacon mixed in. It’s delicious! Apparently Nora enjoyed some migas as well. She also tried some rosquillas, which are like Spanish doughnuts. What follows are some pictures my sister-in-law sent me of Nora’s activities over the weekend.
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