Photo of the Day

...notice the trail of snail goo on the palm of her hand. 

Fig Frenzy!

Human Highlighter Suit Tally:  7

Figs are the most fragile of fruits.  And, when at their best, incomparable.  But the season is short, and these fruits seem to suffer more than others from mass production and long travel times.  To experience fig perfection, you must eat them in season and perfectly ripe.  And it seems as if there are about 5 minutes in each fig´s life when it is perfect.  When eaten under other conditions, figs are often bland, mushy and flavourless.

Fig season is at its peak in Barcelona, and I’ve never had such good ones.  I´ve been eating them for a few weeks now—mostly just popping them into my mouth, but also in salads, with cheese, on my morning yogurt.  But I can tell that the bounty will not last much longer, and I feel the need to exhaust my appetite so that I will be sated until next fall. I love figs, so I´ve gone a bit overboard this week.  I started my fig marathon with a tart.  The crust has a bit of rosemary in it, which balances the sweetness of the fruit. The recipe, which you can find at Epicurious (search for fresh fig tart with rosemary cornmeal crust and lemon mascarpone cream), says to eat the tart as soon as it is assembled.  We ate half of it after dinner, and I thought it might not keep well and that perhaps I should give the rest to my neighbour Francesca.  But it got late, so we stuck it in the fridge and it was delicious the next morning for breakfast.

I found pomegranates in the market, so remade the salad that contains roasted figs, pine nuts, cabrales cheese (a Spanish blue), and pomegranate.  It was delicious without the pomegranates but even better with.

Next I made a pizza with figs, jamon iberico, cabrales, balsamic and arugula. You bake the whole thing and then mound the dressed arugula on top.  It was like pizza and salad all in one—really fresh and rich all at the same time.  The perfect lunch.

And, I’m also keeping a few extras around, just to pop in my mouth on my way through the kitchen.  Too good.

Photo of the Day

Our ship has come in!

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 7!

… and with it, all 21 of our boxes.  They were not supposed to arrive until tomorrow and, given how much longer it has taken until now, I was not holding my breath. The kids were so excited, knowing the boxes were on their way, that we had made a countdown chart for them to mark off the days.  But I had made it clear that the 13^th was the day our boxes were supposed to arrive—not the day they would arrive.

Today was a national holiday, so we were off at the Miro museum (great Pipilotti Rist show there that the kids went crazy for) when Alec’s phone rang.  It was the truck driver, asking if it would be okay if they brought the boxes today instead of tomorrow.  Was he kidding?  Of course we said yes.  We arranged for a delivery at 6:30 pm, and we emerged from the train right about that time.  There, parked right in front of the train station, was an enormous truck—an eighteen wheeler really. 

Now, we had told the folks at the shipping place that there was no way a huge truck would be able to navigate the streets up to our house.  But the two guys who showed up with the truck were not the least bit fazed.  There are two flights of outdoor stairs up from the train station to our street, and these guys just carried all 21 boxes up those stairs and into our building.  And it was their fifth delivery of the day.

The moving guys were sweating up a storm by the time they were finished.  I offered them a drink and the guy who seemed to be in charge, who was a bit on the heavy side, said (in a very thick British accent):  “No thanks, mate.  I’ve just had me four donuts and a red bull.”  I guess that’s what it takes.

The kids were overjoyed to get their toy box—Milo is sleeping with his monkey family, and C.C. is tucked under the quilt I made her with her dinosaurs.  And although I was worried about the mountain the boxes would create in our place, it’s not so bad.  Not nearly as overwhelming as I expected.  Not that we’ve begun to unpack anything…

Photos of the Day

Cadaques, to Figueres, and back home

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 7!

We spent the day at Cap de Creus, which is the part of Spain that sticks out farthest into the sea.  Given that Cap de Crues is the tip of a Peninsula, and that Spain/Portugal is a peninsula, we realized that, as we stood on those rocks, we were standing on a peninsula on a peninsula… on a peninsula. 

The weather reports called for a major storm in Cadaques on Saturday night.  When we got back to Cadaques in the afternoon, folks were pulling their boats out of the water, and Isabel asked us to move the plants down from the ledge onto the terrace.  We were ready and, frankly, I like a good storm.  I was looking forward to it.  The wind kicked up again, but we went to bed with no sign of rain.  I woke early to the sound of wind and rain falling on the roof—I love being in bed and listening to the rain.  But the Spanish version of a Nor’easter, it was not.  It stopped by the time we needed to load up the car and head out of dodge.

Our friends Darryl and Matt would be arriving in Barcelona on Sunday evening, and we wanted to stop in Figueres to visit the Dali museum on the way home, so we needed to get a relatively early start.  Well, early by our standards, which was about 11 am. 

Of course, as soon as we found a parking spot, several blocks from the Dali museum, it began to pour.  We had one umbrella and two rain jackets for the four of us, so we were basically drenched by the time we got to the museum and faced a thirty minute line to get in.  I have little patience for lines, and even less for crowds, but we stuck it out, knowing that we might never pass that way again.  Dali created the museum out of an old theater after he left his home in Port Lligat (right next to Cadaques) following the death of his wife and muse, Gala.  The roof of the entire building is adorned with giant egg-shaped sculptures and golden statues of women in a range of poses, appearing as if they are about to dive off of the building.

The interior, because Dali created it, is basically a visual autobiography of the artist—a tour of his mind, if you will, which, n my opinion, is a rather freaky place to be.  All of the dripping clocks and elephants on stilts made the place pretty accessible to the kids, but given that it was nearly as crowded as Times Square on New Year’s Even, we had pretty much had enough by the time we’d been there an hour.  Which was fine, because that was about all we had.  I will say this—although I’m not a huge Dali fan, I came away impressed by the range of styles in which he worked.

The kids were off today and will be off again tomorrow.  You have to love the way the Spanish do holidays.  Here’s how it works:  tomorrow, Tuesday is a holiday—La Hispanidad, which is actually the Spanish version of Columbus Day.  Whereas in the US we’d just move the holiday to Monday and create a three day weekend (which I’m sure the Spanish find strange), the Spanish celebrate it on the actual date, October 12^th. But it doesn’t make much sense to go to work on Monday and then have Tuesday off, so folks are given Monday off, too.  It’s called a puente, or bridge.  And to sweeten the pot even further, the kids’ school gave them off on Friday in order to have a professional development day for the teachers.  And voila—a one day holiday becomes a five day weekend.  I’m not complaining, and neither are the kids.

So Darryl and Matt arrived yesterday evening, and we eased into the day today, sitting around in our pajamas for hours and drinking coffee while the kids made collages and dinosaur videos.   We finally left the house at about 1 pm to stock up at the market, came home with our booty and made some sandwiches, and then took the bus up to Parc Guell in the late afternoon.  It’s a tourist magnet, but much more sane in October than in August, the last time I was there.  It’s a magical place.

Photos of the Day

Note that Milo has accessorized his highlighter suit with his green crocs, as well as a lizard hat.