Longaniza para Longanice

En la calle Gascón de Gotor se encuentra el Bar Naranjo, vestigio del casticismo baruno. Estamos en los predios del carajillo y la faria, del vermú de los domingos a la salida de misa, de los azucarillos usados y las colillas en el suelo. Hay una pantalla gigante para los partidos de fútbol y, además, un gran surtido de fritos. No se trata aquí de buscar el acabado sublime sino de encontrarse con el gusto popular. El ambiente puede estar en ocasiones algo cargado por el humo, los camareros un tanto secos o el volumen del televisor demasiado alto, pero es que este no es lugar para un té con pastas, aquí triunfan la caña y los flamenquines, las croquetas...

Hay también raciones y bocadillos. En cuanto a bocatas, no esperéis innovaciones, ni cocina creativa ni mezclas exóticas ni... Aquí un bocadillo de chorizo es eso: chorizo y pan. Tomé un bocadillo de longaniza doble, esto es, con dos piezas de longaniza. Tal vez le faltaban unos segundos en la sartén, pero el pan estaba bueno e incluso diría que era de leña, nada que ver con el pan gomoso que venden al principio de la calle.

Las raciones son generosas y los precios ajustados, todavía es posible pensar en pesetas. Los domingos por la mañana es un clásico.

Disgusting but lovely tapas

There's a special sort of restaurants where you'd only go when ten more people go with you, where I would never take my lover for a romantic soiré. There used to be one of those called "Savoy" (nothing to do with the traditional Savoy) in Zaragoza.
Really close to the Ramblas, in a tiny street where streets can't go (Xuclá) Los Toreros turns up. At first sight, there are not many tables, but there's a huge hall inside. Tables of about 15 hungry people who hardly have seen each other out of their jobs or their classes are always waiting for their dishes.
And there goes the long-suffering waitress carrying three dishes on each arm. Don't expect anything special: spicy fries, grilled prawns, cured ham, chorizo, spicy sausage,... a great number of different snacks (the world known "tapas"). The waiters start taking out dishes and they don't stop for a long time; anything you want, you can eat it twice.



However, I can't lie; what makes the place so attractive to people is the fact that you can drink all the red wine and sangria you can (they also take out some water,... I think...). After half an hour people from different tables are talking with everyone. The day I visited the place, a quite confused couple from some nothern country where really frightened. One of my friends is an strict vegetarian who hates bull-fighting and doesn't eat meat or fish at all. As you see, it was a very original night.
At eleven o'clock the cook comes out from the kitchen and in a very ungry way he "invites" you to leave the restaurant. They have booked tables for more people and wants us to leave. Once you're out you notice you smell like a croquette.

This weekend

Longaniza for Longanice and something about Colombian cuissine

Quince Paste:

Ingredients: 4 lb/2 kg quinces
juice of 1 lemon
sugar

Wipe the quinces to remove their downy coating, but do not peel. cut them in quarters and then in eights and put them in a heavy pan with the lemon juice and water to cover. Cover the pan and simmer until the fruit is soft - about 30-40 minutes -. Drain and press the fruit through a shieve to purée it. Weigh the purée and for each pound/500 gr. take the same weight, or slightly less, of sugar. Put the purée into a preserving pan over a very low heat and add the sugar, a little at a time. Stir constantly with a long handhled wooden spoon to avoid being burnt because as the paste thickensit erupts and spits. Make sure the paste doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. It needs to cook for at least an hour, until it thickens so that a spoon drawn across the bottom of the pan leaves a clear trail. Turn the paste into shallow metal trails lined with greaseproof paper. Cover with light cloth and dry thoroughy for 4-5 days in an airing cupboard or on a cental heating boiler, until the paste has dried completly and is firm to the touch. Then cut into small pieces, dust with caster sugar and store in an airthight container. Quince paste makes a good after-dinner sweetmeat.

This recipe is from "Jams & Preserves" by Jill Norman. I adapted for warmer and dry climates and it works. I used quinces taken from abandoned land in Spain. No pesticides or chemical products involved in its growing. try it!

Café y Té L'illa Diagonal

AVOID THIS PLACE. I'm serious, it's dangerous for your health.
Last week I had to go to a part of Barcelona that I hardly know, because I prefer to wander the Barri Gotic, it's older, nicer and more charming. I had no time to come back home and eat something, so I decided to go shopping to L'illa, a really fashionable mall, very close to the place I had to go later.
After I while I started to feel hungry and started looking for a place where I could have a quick but nice lunch. I had been told about a place where hamburgers were good, so I looked for it, with little success, so bad the instructions to find it had been given (Mr M.D. again). Well, it was late and time to make up my mind about the choice of the restaurant.
I had noticed there was one, I still didn't know the name, where there was a long queue of men and women who looked like being working in the area, waiting for the waiter. So crowded was the place, people were waiting for having a table! Then I found a place at the bar, where people could sit and eat quickly. I had a quick look of the menu, which looked fine and affordable. What a mistake had I done!
After having waited for 10 minutes more or less, the waiter approached and asked me for my choice. "Cous-cous salad with BACON and PRAWNS (notice the plural, please), roast-beef and a coke, please". I NEEDED that coke, and that's why I was really dissapointed when I saw a tiny little bottle close to my glass. The salad was fast served (not as the canneloni the man of my left wanted; 20 minutes later he left shouting he had to go back to work, on an empty stomach). The salad was made of a cup of cous-cous (not even mint on it), just one kind of lettuce (rucula, exactly the only one Jack hates), ONE prawn and, yes, there was bacon; but every single part of the bacon I found in my salad had a piece of those bones bacon sometimes has. The roast-beef was too cooked and the sauce was really poor. I didn't want to run the risk of an exotic dessert, so I asked for a yoghurt with some sugar. The yoghurt had not been in the fridge (and it was not one of those you can leave out of it), and as I didn't want to go ten times to the toilet while I was being interviewed, I didn't eat it.
Meanwhile two more people had been shouting at the waiter and then leaving or just left.
And I paid for that lovely lunch "only" 18 euros. Burger King would have been much better choice.

Cerdo ecológico

A veces nos reencontramos con sabores de la niñez de forma inesperada; a veces también bajo pomposas etiquetas que parecían prometer algo nuevo, distinto, reaparece aquello que desapareció lentamente de nuestras mesas. Esto es lo que me ocurrió la navidad pasada mientras tomaba una sopa de verduras en casa de mis tías abuelas, esto mismo es lo que me ha ocurrido hoy. Con la desgana propia de quien está tranquilamente en su casa y se acuerda, de repente, de que olvidó hacer la compra y de que al día siguiente los comercios están cerrados, me ví forzado a salir a la calle. Compré en el supermercado una bandeja de lomo de cerdo ecológico. Me sedujo la etiqueta. Lo he preparado a la plancha con sal y apenas unas gotas de aceite de oliva. Al darle la vuelta he colocado una fina loncha de queso de cabra fresco. Lo he acompañado en el plato de unas rodajas de tomate y listo. Aquí ha llegado la sorpresa: estaba sabrosísimo. Entonces lo he entendido. Al cerdo alimentado como Dios manda, ese al que no le pinchan con clembuterol y otras porquerías, que ha conocido la luz del día e incluso ha retozado en el barro, le llaman ahora ecológico. Viene con título. El otro, el cerdo cuya carne sabe a agua, ese que hace chispear el aceite en la sartén y se encoge como avergonzado de su mala vida, es el cerdo a secas. En que momento perdimos el gusto o empezamos a pagar como exquisitez lo que antes era corriente en nuestras mesas, no lo recuerdo.

Be Zen in San Miguel

This one is again in Zaragoza (San Miguel Street); there's one with the same name in Paris (the one from Paris is a Hotel and it has nothing to do with this one; don't make a mistake).



Its name is Buddabar, and it is supposed to be very cool and jazzy. Mmmm..., it is and what is more important, you can eat quite well and paying for your meal a reasonable amount of money (Sundays, the menu is less than 18 euros, and you can eat two dishes, a dessert and a bottle of wine, Viñas del Vero).
The music and the light are very pleasant, and you can stay for a while after you've finished your food. I have eaten a tuna carpaccio and a steak, with red wine; as dessert I didnt't feel like strange thigs, so my choice was an ice-cream (in Spain you can have it even in December; it's cold, but it's O.K.).



The whole restaurant is decorated in red, with lights and statues. I like it, although I know the owners would have prefered to have been born in Paris or Berlin. But I must admit it's very nice to spend two hours there with your guy, eating something very nice, and chatting for a long time. I would recommend, after this meal, a good gin and tonic, made with Wet by Beefeater or the great Bombay Sapphire. You can't regret that.

"Just" a sandwich

Again, a typical place from Barcelona. It's one of my favourites, where you can eat something cheap at any time. Many people from Barcelona come here and take a sandwich every week.
Can Conesa started half a century ago and now its sausage sandwiches are known all over the city, and probably beyond. The formula is quite simple: good bread previously heated in the grill and good ingredients in it. Mmmmm, I feel like eating one of those...



The place is open the whole day and it's located in the city centre, at Plaça Sant Jaume, at the end of the Llibreteria St. In this square you can find the City Hall and the Regional Government, so while you are eating your sandwich and drinking your cold beer, you may find a prostitute's demonstration asking for their right to work on the street or maybe some workers from the Seat car factory asking for help. Don't panic, that's quite common. Can Conesa is at the Gotic district, what makes the bar very helpful when you are visiting Barcelona. Saturday midday is a great moment to taste the sandwiches.



But, if you are in Barcelona and want to go out on a Friday night, you may feel the temptation of going there. Forget the idea, it's not worth it: usually the queue is so long that you would die before you have bit the sandwich. I will talk about some secret places for those occasions some other day.
By the way, I almost forgot there are also good pizzas and fine salads to refresh yourself during the hot Barcelona's summer.