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It has been nearly 2 years since I’ve blogged. I have no excuses except that life has turned, twisted, and changed as it does for most people, and I wasn’t sure I felt like blogging anymore. But, last night I got inspired again, watching Chef with our great friends MM and CT at their gorgeous home in New Hampshire. These past 4 days have been a food and wine fest combined with swimming in their pond, long walks, a few hikes, and one restricted calorie dinner. As this blog’s subtitle notes, this is about “Food, Love and Life (not necessarily in that order)”, and it is again time for me to reflect on those and write about them here.

I have done so much and so little in the past 2 years since I’ve returned from Spain. Maybe one day I’ll revisit those years, but for me – for now – this is the time I want to write about. So, here it goes…

The top picture is a lobster boil we had on Sunday. Fresh lobsters, sweet corn, chorizo, baby potatoes, steamers, shrimp and garlic butter for dipping. Spectacular! Two nights ago, MM made pesto pizza with garlic, basil, and tomatoes from his garden. For several days running, we’ve had gorgeous beet root salads (again from his garden). Today, it’s cubano-esque sandwiches with fresh pickles and marinated onions (See Carnet’s ala David Chang’s salt and sugar quick pickle recipe, below), a sesame-tamari-dry mustard-olive oil-mirin-worcestire reduction from the pork tenderloin I marinated, gruyere cheese, and MM’s “mushroom bacon” (see recipe below). And, there has been cava, cava, and more cava, involved, every day – an ode to Quim. Cava goes with everything, especially rose cava on an 80+ degree fahrenheit day while floating in a tire in the pond.

There are no pics of us in the pond (thank goodness), but below are a few pics I took of this gorgeous farmland and NH’s wildflowers while I went on a long walk today. This is Americana at its finest.

Sunflowers (ignore my finger in the upper corner)

Yummmm, sweet corn!

Flag and pond in NH

To temper our very large and very fun caloric intake over the past several days, last night C and I decided to embark upon a new eating regime that MM and CT have instituted 2x/week at their house. It’s a calorie restriction “diet” (although I hate that word and dispute that I will ever go on a diet) that has some foundation in science. I’m not an expert, but MM (a software engineer with a very analytical mind) has done a bunch of research on it and he and his wife have been experimenting with it for about a month. The very broad idea behind calorie restriction for short durations (also known as intermittent fasting) is to change up your metabolic rate. There are some studies that show animals live longer and there are some that suggest that humans live healthier lives – less metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, less of the bad type of cholesterol that blocks your arteries – with less caloric intake while upping their fiber in the form of fruits and vegetables. This “eating regime” (not a diet) is more akin to eating vegan or vegetarian for a day or so and eating minimal or no grains.

MM strives to eat 600 calories on Mondays and Wednesdays. His wife: 500-600 calories each of those days. Here’s what we ate on the restricted calorie day:

Breakfast:
1/2 cup corn and quinoa cereal with 1/2 c. almond milk – about 150 calories

or you could eat 2 hard boiled eggs and some steamed greens for about the same amount of calories

Lunch:
Salad of all greens, cucumbers and carrots with a fresh lemon juice, shallot, rice wine vinegar, water, salt and pepper dressing – about 30 calories

or

Christine’s lunch: 2 Tbl. hummus, 1/2 cup carrots, several cucumber slices, 10 almonds (6 calories each for a total of 60 calories in almonds), 1 slice of cheese – about 250 calories total

Dinner

MM’s zucchini pasta with fresh tomato sauce – tomatoes from his garden, onions, garlic, fresh basil, capers, salt, pepper in 1 tablespoon of water, all steamed down to form a chunky, hot tomato sauce, served on top of thin strips of zucchini that have been steamed for 1-2 minutes + 1 glass of wine = 300 calories total (5 oz. glass of wine is about 120-150 calories, depending on the type of wine).

We also had a salad of fresh beet roots and baby lettuces, topped with a shallot, lemon, balsamic, water, salt and pepper salad dressing. About 30 calories.

Throughout the rest of the day, I sipped on lemon water and iced black coffee. I did not do any cardio or hardcore exercise that made me burn a bunch of calories but I did go on a 1.5 hour walk. Surprising to me, I wasn’t super hungry until about an hour before dinner (6:00 p.m.) and then my stomach was growling.

Here’s the trick: you can eat as many raw veggies you want throughout the day, as they are very very low in calories and high in fiber. Some are high in water content (especially cucumbers and celery), so they fill you up.  You have to be a bit more careful about which fruits you eat. For example, a small red apple has about 70 calories, but peaches and nectarines in season now have less.

I’m not going to lie and say it will be easy if you’re used to eating a ton of food each day (especially rich foods), which C and I are. However, if you have some will power and treat it as a part of your eating regime, knowing that 5 out of the 7 days, you’re not restricting your calories, it is much easier than I thought. We’re going to try it 2 days/week and see how we do. To help each of us do it and to share new recipes with the calorie restriction theme, Carnet created a blog called the Hungry Wino at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hungrywino. You’ll find the dinner recipes from last night on that blog.

But, back to today’s lunch:  Cubano sandwiches done the New Hampshire way: thinly sliced roasted pork loin with the pork marinade reduction on baguettes with Carnet’s salt and sugar cucumber and onion pickles, freshly sliced tomatoes, mustard, gruyere and white cheddar cheese and MM’s mushroom bacon.  They were sooooo good. Here are a few pics from prep to finished product.

Here are two prep pictures of the insides of the cubanos, pre-grilling:

Post-grilling and wrapped for safe transport:

hungry winos with the cubanos in the barn

inside the cubano after it is grilled

Finally, here are a few of the super simple condiment recipes:

Carnet’s salt and sugar quick pickle recipe:

Combine 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon salt in a bowl (so a 2 to 1 ratio of sugar to salt). Cut up fresh veggies – cucumbers, carrots, onion, watermelon, whatever you want to pickle, and sprinkle the sugar/salt mix over them. Toss and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Serve immediately.  We found that the onions needed to be rinsed as the brine was too salty on them, but the cucumbers absorbed the sugar/salt mix perfectly.

MM’s mushroom “bacon” recipe:

1 large bunch oyster mushrooms, thinly sliced. If you can’t find oyster mushrooms, shitakes are a decent substitute. Put the sliced mushroom in a bowl with a splash of EVOO, salt, and pepper (more pepper than the salt). Don’t use too much olive oil, a what you’re doing is drying out the mushrooms, essentially. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and put in the over at 180 degrees F for about an hour, depending upon the moisture content of the mushrooms. Then, crank the heat up to 350 and let them go for another 10 minutes or so until a little crispy. These are a delicious and healthy alternative to bacon on salads and sandwiches!

So, this is it for the day.  Happy eating!

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• Categories Uncategorized
• Author rachelogdie

After Madrid, it was 5 more days in Catalonia to finish up my time there. We rented a black Mini Cooper and set out for Cadaques. C had never been there and I felt like I talked about it so much that he had to see it. We did my favorite things – ate the best pulpo ever at Can Juli in Port Lligat, drove through the beautiful Cap de Creus national park up to the lighthouse for just after sunset, and had dinner at Compartir under the stars. The smoked ham at Compartir is still the best ham I’ve ever had.

I had a new dish for dessert – the cherries and cheesecake. That was sensational. It was a new take on cheesecake and I adored it. The soft cheese was super luscious and the sweetness was balanced perfectly with dried, tart cherries as well as the tart cherry sorbet. Here’s a pic:

The service at Compartir was better this time, but it still had some problems. People, train your staff!

After saying goodbye to my favorite street friend, La Sirena,

and buying a 5.65 Euro bottle of Oriol (great red wine from Emporda at a great price!) from the Lowrey-Seymour and Ogdie-Williams’ favorite wine-by-the-barrel and wine shop, we set out for Aiguablava, another favorite of mine.

We got caught up in a huge 1 day rain storm but that didn’t prevent us from eating at Toc Al Mar (soaked to the bone but nothing a couple of salads, lots of pan con tomate and a bottle of cava wouldn’t fix) and enjoying the next morning on the cute little cove beach before we set out again. I should mention how much we loved our hotel in Fornells, which is a small cove town on the water right next to Aiguablava. The hotel is called Hotel Aiguablava (www.hotelaiguablava.com/) and it was awesome. The service was exceptional and we had a spectacular suite room with a balcony on which to chill and look at the ocean.

This part of our journeys would take us on several one-night trips. C wanted to cover as much as he could in 8 days before we left Spain, so after 1 night in Aiguablava, we set out for the castle in La Bisbal. Here’s a pic of what we saw as we left Aiguablava on our way to the castle:

Here’s a pic of Carnet with our Mini in Pals:

One of the things I’ve found so funny are the signs that tell you when you’re leaving a town. Here’s an example:

Out, done, finished, no more. They all have a red slash across the name. Hilarious.

Onto our castle! Yep, I loved Castell d’Empordá (www.castelldemporda.com) so much the first time with mom and Diana, that I decided to take C there. Here are a few more pics. It is amazing there. Gorgeous, serene, and a must-stay place for anyone traveling in this part of the world.

View from tower:

View from room:

Sunset over the Empordá:

C with the black cat that followed us everywhere. This pic captured us perfectly: constant cava in hand (thanks to the management of the castle for spoiling us with free cava) with our gato negro.

And, finally, us on these great, white double bed like lounges in front of the pool:

Back to Barcelona for the final 2 days. On Friday night, C, Diana and I ate at a terrible restaurant that was highly rated in Tripadvisor called Gelonch (www.gelonch.es). The very expensive, tasting menu was really bad. Not just a little bad, but very bad. I never turn away dessert and I turned away 2 of them.

You could tell chef Gelonch has a creative mind by the different products he puts on the same dish and by the descriptions on the menu. However, there were fatal flaws in almost every single one of the 11 dishes! We were so disappointed that Diana made a comment to the waitress. We prefaced our critique with that we want them to succeed and their menu is creative but that many of the dishes just didn’t work at all.

The waitress started to defend the food and then brought out the chef. Chef Gelonch then defended his food, as well, but admitted that the sauces on his plates were too thick and starchy (they were and were very off-putting) as well as the avocado being of bad quality. If you know this, why do you send the dishes out? Why serve the bad avocado?

The excuses continued with “we’re a very small kitchen”, “we don’t have a Michelin star” (well, then why charge Michelin star prices?), etc.

Carnet and I were pretty miffed by the end. Diana was more gracious about it. The company is the only thing that saved the dinner. Sorry, C and D! We should have gone to Alkimia or Cenc Sentits.

The next day in Barcelona, we woke up to a gorgeous sunny day, walked down to the beach and then stopped by one final time at Quim’s to say goodbye to the boys. We had a terrific meal there, as usual. Yuri made Carnet an extra large foie burger:

Then, we did a little shopping for Carnet’s god-daughter’s birthday.

I had bought tickets for the afternoon show of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. It was fabulous. If you’ve never seen this dance company, it is a must. They hail from New York City and they started as an all-black dance troupe by Alvin Ailey in 1958. He revolutionized modern dance. This company is something special and the show in Barcelona was excellent. I had seen a show in NYC 20 years ago and I was equally thrilled with this show. Plus, the Liceu venue is a stunning venue in which to see anything in Barcelona. Here’s the bill:

Next stop: our favorite gin and tonic bar we call the “burrito bar” which isn’t its name, but it is next to a place called burrito, which in Spanish is not the eating burrito but a small donkey. The bar is next to the weird sculpture behind Placa Jaume that looks like a bunch of wire coat hangers put together.

Here’s the crazy sculpture:

After a g&t, it was time for our final Barcelona dinner at Tickets. C had always wanted to go and he loved it! We started out with raw tuna belly topped with salmon roe and seaweed, followed by their infamous “olives” (made through spherification). Then, we had the cheese puffs and the navajas, which are both of my favorites.

Here are a few pics:

Navajas

olives

We finished with 2 of my new favorites: the rabbit taco and the “wild things” dessert. The rabbit taco was so incredible we ordered 2 more. I loved, loved, loved it. Here’s a pic:

And, finally the grand finale: the dessert called wild things.

This was such a whimsical, inventive and delicious dessert, I would have ordered another one but I was really full by this point. Awesome dinner! Here are the two very happy Tickets goers:

Then, it was time for bed in our very comfy, ultramodern and hip hotel right off Placa Catalunya called Room Mate Pau (pau.room-matehotels.com/index.php/en). Funny name, but the rooms are dynamite and the hotel staff could not be nicer. The rooms have surround sound speakers into which you can plug your iphone or ipod or whatever you have to play music, or you can choose from the hotel’s selection. The beds are plush, the rooms have fun purple and blue mood lighting and the whole place is exceptionally clean. Finally, even though you’re right in the middle of the city, the rooms are super sound proof. I highly recommend this place. Ahhh, such a delightful sleep.

Next stops: Peñíscola, Valencia, Segovia and San Sebastian.

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• Categories Restaurant Review, Spain
• Author rachelogdie

I met C in Madrid a little over a week ago and we started our journeys by eating and sleeping, of course. We actually didn’t see that much of Madrid as both of us needed sleep. But, we had some tasty meals, we saw a flamenco show, and we spent 2 hours watching the finish of the Tour de Spain bicycle race. That was exciting, as it was right outside our hotel.

First, let me say, I recommend staying at the Westin Palace Madrid. See www.westinpalacemadrid.com . It’s in an outstanding location in which to walk to the jazz quarter and good food, and it’s surrounded by gorgeous buildings. It’s also a beautiful hotel with very nice and large rooms.

The first meal we had was at the oldest restaurant in Spain called El Botin. Andrew Zimmern did a show on it. Here’s the YouTube clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGhhHsIfoAE

It’s all about the suckling pig here. So, we had it. And, we had the roasted lamb, as well. Both were incredibly rich and tasty. We loved the environment. There are so many little nooks and crannies that serve as dining rooms and it’s old school service – men waiters in suits, all very serious. We washed it all down with a pitcher of their sangria, which was necessary on a hot Madrid day😉 The feature picture at top is one of the cooks roasting more pigs. You can see the pigs on the shelf behind that are done.

The image below is what you first see when you walk into the restaurant. It was a fun meal!

Then, it was on to a flamenco show that night at Corral de la Moreria. C had not been to one and people in Madrid claim to be excellent at flamenco, so we decided to go. Plus, I wanted to see another one to compare it to the show I had seen in Seville a few days earlier. Here’s a photo of a dancer in action:

I have to say I didn’t think it was as good as the show I saw in Seville, but it was also different. I thought the singers and guitar players in Seville were much better, but I think the dancing was about equal in both cities. The Madrid show certainly was entertaining, however.

Then, it was lots more sleeping and our big adventure out the next day was to watch the Tour de Spain. Here are a few pics of the peloton and some riders out in front.

We also met some very cool Bulgarians. This was the first time they had left their 3 and 1 year old kids and had a vacation together. They saw us looking for an outside table at a bar and they invited us to join them at their table. They were super nice, very smart and had taught themselves English just by watching t.v. Very impressive! Here we all are:

A few more days of resting and we were ready for our last big meal in Madrid at El Club Allard, which is a 2 Michelin starred restaurant. It was a bit of a strange place to find and it was in a business building. But, when the chef comes to your table within the first 10 minutes after you sit, that’s a great start.

I learned that he came to speak with every table shortly after they sat down to ask their likes, dislikes, dietary restrictions, etc. Yep, the chef. He caters – within reason – to what types of food you like. You have a choice of how many dishes you want and he goes from there. We chose the medium-number of dishes and here was our menu:

Here are a few pics of the dishes. See if you can match the pictures with the menu.

Our favorites: The butterfish tapa, the egg in pastry, the smoke and foie dish, the mushroom soup, the rabbit in mole sauce taco, and the chocolate, sea-themed dessert. All dishes were technically executed to perfection. We thought some flavor profiles were outstanding and others just really good. There wasn’t one dish we didn’t like. So, overall it was superb. And, it was the same price we’ve paid for several bad 1 Michelin star (and some no Michelin star) restaurants in the past. I highly recommend it!

And to boot, they brought us out a “Happy Honeymoon” pre-dessert. Soooo nice!

Next stops: Back to the Costa Brava, the Empordá, and Barcelona.

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• Categories Spain
• Author rachelogdie

Day 3 of the trip was the first of two days in Seville.

Don’t you just love when you get back to back hotels that are awesome? I arrived at Hotel Amadeus La Musica in Seville in Barrio Santa Cruz (the best barrio to stay in if you want to be close to the sights and fun narrow streets you can get lost in), and the staff could not have been sweeter. I booked the only room on the third and top floor and it was perfect, although anyone visiting should note that the elevator only goes to the second floor and from there it is 2 flights of steps up to the third floor.

Thank goodness I packed rather lightly for me and so I made the ascent quite easily. The elevator to the second floor was fun as it was glass and you could see all the Amadeus and period piece decorations and furniture on each floor. I should mention that hotel only has something like 11 rooms and each has a theme.

I arrived at my cute and very spacious room with classical music playing and the A/C already on a very good temperature. It was about 95 degrees outside when I arrived, so I appreciated the thoughtfulness in having the room comfortable. I walked up to the rooftop bar (above me) where there was a jacuzzi (handy only in the winter, I’m sure) and a smiling bartender. Cute, all very cute!

Here’s a pic of my hotel in the narrow, pedestrian-only street:

I decided to take a quick nap in my king bed because it was plush and I could. Also, it was time to wait out the heat of midday and journey out afterwards.

After my nap, I decided to walk the old quarter, which I was staying in and it was sooo cute (I was thinking everything was “cute” at this point). Like Córdoba, Seville’s old quarter is compri