Thursday, April 7, 2011

Tasting


The Spanish verb catar means “to taste.”  But the meaning is quite precise; it is more serious and intentional than probar, which means “to try.”  If you wanted a bite of your companion’s dessert, for example, you might say: “Puedo probar tu postre?”  (Can I try your dessert?) But if you wanted to figure out if you wanted one or another rioja in a restaurant, you might ask: “Puedo catar los dos?” (May I try both?)

I have been doing a lot of tasting lately, the catar kind of tasting.  Yesterday I went to an olive oil tasting conducted by a woman named Ana Maria who has a shop in the Santa Caterina market.  As I have traveled farther down this tasting road, I’ve found that there are two types of people who care about the provenance of their food.  The first group consists of people who tend to be educated, worldly, and have enough disposable income to spend on more exclusive food products.  The people in this group--the foodies--purchase their way in.  The other group lives closer to the land and its products.  They often grow up in families and in regions where materia prima is key.  Terroir is in their blood.  Many make their living by growing or making one of these products, or using these products to make another—buying local fruit to make jam, for example.  I belong to the former group but am drawn to people in the latter.  Ana Maria is one of these.  A heavyset woman with glasses, she arrived at the tasting rolling her shopping cart behind her.  She unpacked five bottles of oil, her notebook and a couple of books from the cart, and began.

We tasted five oils—the maximum one can taste without becoming unable to distinguish the differences between them.  It turns out that Spain makes more olive oil than any other country, but has less success in exporting it than has Italy.  Many years ago, some producers were found to be tampering with the oil—one person died and several more were disfigured.  Needless to say, this incident caused the exporters to back away.

We started with two Catalan oils—these tend to be softer and less intense than those from other regions.  Which makes sense given that Catalan food is quite strong and more complex—sauces are more common here than in other parts of Spain. Regions that have simpler food—grilled vegetables, fried fish—can handle a stronger oil.  So a regional cuisine develops out of the local products—the taste of the olive oil, the local fish, the vegetables that grow best there.  And the wine that is produced locally tends to complement the cuisine best.

My favorite was one called Portico de la Villa, which is made from a blend of picuda and oji blanca olives. It’s been named one of the 20 best olive oils in the world and, during its production, there is never more than five hours between harvesting the olives and pressing their juice.

After the tasting, I chatted with Ana Maria, and told her I was researching slow cities.  She invited me to visit her shop, to see the slow food snail sticker that graces her door.  I’ll go to see her next week.

Photo of the Day


Monday, April 4, 2011

Tibidabo!


Barcelona’s Tibidabo is, hands down, the best amusement park I’ve ever been to.  To get there, you either drive, or take the bus WAY up the mountain and THEN get on a funicular, which is basically the old Partridge Family bus hoisted up the rest of the mountain by a cable.  The same guy who sells you the funicular tickets drives the funicular up, up, up.  You get off and you are high above the entire city, at the level of the Norman Foster telecommunications tower, in Wonderland. 

Although we have had many visitors, Jim and Raquel are our first visitors with children, so it seemed like an opportune day to go.  The day was a bit overcast—not quite nice enough for the beach—so we made our way up the mountain.  If you saw Woody Allen’s Vicky, Christina, Barcelona, you may remember a scene that takes place in an amusement park—that’s Tibidabo.  The setting is spectacular—the park is set within the woods on the mountain and the whole place has a low key, old fashioned feel.  The kids were crazy happy to be there.  We went from Ferris Wheel to Log Flume (see photos below) to Tea Cups, to roller coaster (I opted out) to bumper cars.

The thing is, I’ve never been much for amusement parks.  Even as a young child I took a purely pragmatic stand on the whole thing—why would anyone pay good money just to feel like throwing up?  Or worse, actually throwing up?  Give me the cash any day.  And, given the siting of the park on the side of a mountain, several of the rides are designed to make the rider feel as if she is hurling off of the side of it only to plunge into the city below. I realize I’m in the minority here, and I am a happy spectator.  The log flume almost did me in.  The kids had a fabulous time on the roller coaster with their dad while I cheered them on from below.  When the three of them do things without me, they call themselves “The 3 Marauders.” I am fine having been excluded from this club.

After we had our fill of the park, we road back down the funicular, and then the bus, and then the FGC to hit the Casa Battlo, which may be my favorite Gaudi building.  I first saw it after being stranded in Barcelona as a result of the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano that grounded so many planes last spring.  I was here alone, looking for an apartment, and was about to pass through security on my way home when the airport closed.  I returned to my hotel and called Alec, frustrated at not being able to get back to Brooklyn.  “Face it, Lisa,” he said.  “You’re going to be there for a whole year, but you won’t have a whole lot of time by yourself, without two children.  Get out there and enjoy yourself.”  So I did, and the Casa Battlo was the first stop on my fun tour of Barcelona.

The entire house consists of curves, wavy lines, shapes can colors that evoke the sea.  I just feel good inside that space.  I even like the tile floors (see below).

I was happy to be in my office today, reading and phoning around to my Slow Cities contacts.  I finally got a good person on the phone for awhile, and I think she may be the key that helps us unlock the network.  To be continued…

Photos of the Day




Sunday, April 3, 2011

Another Life is Possible


Manuel Castells, my mentor, writes a weekly column for La Vanguardia, one of Barcelona’s daily papers.  He is the person who brought Alec and me here to Barcelona and, although we had no plans to do direct work together during my time here, I have become involved in one of his projects, and my new line of work is connected as well.  Yesterday, he wrote about the project I joined in his weekly column.  To read it—in Spanish—click on the “weekly column” link.

The project began with a documentary that was finished before I arrived.  We then conducted a large survey—which is what the column covers, and are currently doing a series of focus groups.

In this work, we are examining the extent to which people in Catalunya engage in what we might call “alternative economic practices”—cooperatives, bartering, ethical banks, etc.  What we are finding is that many, many people engage in these practices, and that the numbers are growing.  Our hypothesis is that at least a part of this growth can be explained as an adaptation to the economic crisis. When we talk to people who are doing these things, they tell us—over and over again—that they do so because they value quality of life over money.  59% of survey respondents indicated that they would prefer to work less in order to have more free time, during which they would spend it with family, or do work that they loved.

More than half have become disillusioned with capitalist values, but 78%--and 85% of people between the ages of 25 and 34—believe the world can change for the better.  More than two-thirds believe they can contribute directly to that change.

Perhaps the finacial and economic crisis, then, has created an opportunity for these alternative practices--which have existed for a long time but have historically been seen as fringe ways of living—to grow and to spread beyond a small group of modern-day hippies.  I’ll keep you posted on what we find and, as always, I’d love to know what you think.