Chilean Fjords 2012

We spent the better part of a week navigating inside the fjords. There was a piercing chill in the air at the southernmost tip of Patagonia; the water had a grey-milky hue and was thick with glacier silt. Tall mountains with dabs of ice surrounded us from both sides, their peaks lost in the clouds. The silence of the landscape was only broken by the sounds of the boat and the human conversations. The Zodiacs, specially crafted rubber boats for 8-10 persons, were hoisted down into the water every morning for our outings. We had to don special light weight life vests and swipe our room key before getting on the boat. Most passengers wore their free red parkas and from a distance the boat looked like a bowl of poinsettias. Some days we used the Zodiacs to tour the glaciers, others to reach land where buses were waiting for the inland excursions.

Our first foray on the Zodiacs took us to the mouth of the Garibaldi fjord (Garibaldi enjoyed lasting fame as a South American freedom fighter before securing his place in Italian history) where two glaciers seemed to pour out into the water except that the massive rivers of turquoise blue ice stopped vertical at the edge of the mountain slopes as if cut with a giant cleaver. We rode the Zodiacs past rock formations populated with large groups of sea lions basking in the sunless sky. We spotted birds on the crags and the ice floes and marveled at narrow vertical waterfalls. When we came close to the glaciers we stared slack jawed at this wonder of natural geology taking pictures of the color and the immensity of the ice masses. Small scale calving was actively happening before our eyes, boulders of ice crashing into the water raising clouds of fine mist.

The second glacier was Pio XI (this is a Catholic country), a somewhat smaller formation that was receding. A barren beach had formed at one side, where we disembarked in a wet landing with our rubber boots. Shallow rivulets were streaming out from under the ice carrying opaque, opalescent, silty water over pebbly banks. We knelt at the mouth of a small cave with rocks and grey ice but did not venture inside. We were surprised to see a flock of birds on one of the waterfronts; they could have been in Galveston except that all the colors and the temperature were different.

We spent only one day in the open Pacific Ocean; though not as turbulent as the infamous trip around Cape Horn, the boat rolled and swayed as we waddled down the hallways and up the stairs careful to hold to the side bars. Needless to say, the dining room was almost empty the whole day. (Our appetites were undeterred.) The waves rose and crested outside our window all night while we stayed snug under the blankets; less than 24 hours later we were back inside the calm waters of the fjords and were able to take our Scopolamine patches off.

Chilean Wine Country 2012

From Valparaiso, once the most important harbor in Chile, the road to the wine country took us through hills and valleys, mountains and cultivated plains. Unlike previous visits to wineries, this time we happened upon the harvest season and ripe grapes were hanging from the vines! We made an impromptu stop at Emiliana, an organic vineyard in Casablanca valley for a brief afternoon tasting before reaching the Hotel Almacruz in Santa Cruz, a town in the middle of the Chalpagua valley, the most important grape growing region of Chile.

The hotel’s deceptively plain façade on the town square hid a tropical resort complex; rooms in the main building and individual cabanas were spacious with real queen beds and air conditioning. The interior space offered a relaxing pool, a thatch roofed palapa with bar service and gift shops. The building, though new, had a warm colonial Spanish décor and a comfortable dining room with an ambitious menu that fell short in execution. The hotel faced the town square, where the residents took their evening strolls.

Our first stop was the small Neyen vineyard, one of the oldest in the area. Our guide, a petite teacher who conducts wine tours during the summer school break, told us about the process of growing and propagating vines. This vineyard believes in stainless steel fermentation containers. Neyen’s owner is in his 80s and the winery has been sold to the large Veramonte consortium but no change may be noticed for a while because they keep the wine for five years before bottling.

L’Apostolle is a much larger enterprise owned by the Laffitte family but we visited one of their small wineries where higher grade wines are prepared. We were lucky to be there during harvest. The grapes are handpicked and then put in white plastic cartons and brought to the processing room. A team of silent local women with blue aprons and plastic gloves were sorting the grapes. We were told several times that this was specifically “women’s work” because men have neither the hands nor the patience to do it. The grapes were then dropped onto a conveyor belt for a final round of hand-sorting and sprayed with liquid nitrogen before being tossed into a large steel barrel on wheels and dropped into the wood fermentation barrels through a bottom chute. We visited the cavernous cellars, several stories deep inside solid rock where the casks are allowed to age impervious to the conditions of the ground above.

We had lunch on a beautiful terrace with a grape arbor at Viu Manent. (We passed on the wine, pacing ourselves for the day.) One dish was conger… we are still trying to figure out whether this is conger eel or a fish of some sort. Delicate white flesh something like monkfish or perhaps halibut. It must be conger eel since Neruda has written an ode to conger eel soup.

The third visit was to the Laura Hartwig vineyard; it was the smallest and least commercial outfit. The lady of the land loves horses and had a semblance of polo grounds on site. Our guide talked mostly about the process of bottling and showed us labels prepared for sales to Russia and other unexpected countries. (Laura’s visage graces the label.)

On our last day, we visited the Maipo valley location of Conche Y Toro, one of the largest wineries of the country. This is the oldest site for the company established in 1883 by don Melchor, the dynasty patriarch, and in continuous production since. No handpicked grapes here; everything mechanized and efficient except for the priciest reserves. In a small demonstration area different types of grapes were grown next to each other identified with a plaque bearing the name of the variety. We will search for these wines when we get home. A bottle of wine always tastes better when you have seen where it started out.

Chile: Coastal Towns 2012

Tortel is a most peculiar small town deep in the Chilean fjords. Everything is made of wood; all the walking paths are narrow wooden bridges like a continuous narrow boardwalk. Wooden steps lead up to the houses many of which are built on stilts perched on the steep slopes of the mountain. The houses are generally very small wooden bungalows with corrugated tin roofs and occasional small flower patches in the yard; some are painted with bright colors, others appear deserted. The town is connected to the rest of the world with one road or by water. The business of the town is lumber and tourists, though besides our group we saw little sign of either. The week of our visit even the one road had been cut off because of regional unrest and riots and the town was running out of basic supplies. In the town square music and pisco sour from a carton had been prepared for us along with a meager array of crafts for sale. The children seemed well groomed and happy though, busy with their cell phones and game apps. Despite the obvious limited resources of the people, most shacks were equipped with satellite dishes.

Castro, a picturesque town with multicolored houses and capital of Chiloe Island, is tucked deep in a calm bay protected from the turbulent sea. Mussel farms dot the waters, their colorful buoys bobbing in the gentle waves. As we drove through it, we noticed more shabby small houses, though the streets and the people appeared well groomed. We stopped at Delcahne, another small quaint town to inspect local crafts including some unusual sock-shoes with soles made of sheep wool, fur on the inside. A rickety ferry boat took us across to Quinchao Island and the town of Cichao, famous for several old churches built entirely with wood. A small music band and chorus entertained us during snacks at the local restaurant, several local pros demonstrating regional dances and encouraging willing guests to join in.

Our stop at Nembla was only notable for the opportunity to learn something about Chilean history: in the 1500s Spanish forces were temporarily repelled by an aggressive local tribe. A fort was erected in this narrow strait to protect against hostile incursions. Later in the mid 1800s Chilean patriots, mostly sons of immigrant European families claimed independence from Spain, somewhat like the American patriots who wished sovereignty from England. Once in control of the area, the new masters recognizing a severe shortage of skilled labor and taking advantage of economic conditions in Europe recruited a large number of Germans whose cultural influence is very much felt throughout this area today.

Further inland from Nembla lays Valdivia one of the older Chilean towns destroyed by earthquakes and rebuilt several times. Today it appears the most modern city we encountered in southern Chile. It has a central square with a gazebo, tall trees and landscaped enclosures with shrubs and flowers. And a McDonald’s. It also has the only open air food market we ran into. Fruit and vegetable stands line one side while fish and seafood are arrayed on the other. Piures was the most unusual seafood, a spineless orange mollusk which was included in a salty and very tasty cevichi that we bought for the equivalent of $4. The fishmongers stood behind their stalls on the edge of the river filleting fish and tossing the bones and entrails into the water where obliging sea lions scarfed them up before they even hit the water, efficient and ecologically minded garbage collectors.

buenos Aires 2012

Buenos Aires was built to resemble an elegant European city: large avenues, spacious parks and majestic buildings punctuate the landscape. La Playa de Mayor, a large central city square, spreads behind la Casa Rosada, the president’s mansion; today it is amply decorated with protest placards and large print graffiti and is surrounded by majestic buildings and a cathedral. La Boca is one of the older neighborhoods, located at the mouth of Rio de Plata; it was originally populated by Italian immigrants. The small houses of corrugated tin are brightly colored and preserve an atmosphere of quaint shoddiness. Its center of tourism is Caminito, a tiny tangle of small streets lined with open air cafes where young Portenos entertain the visitors with music and tango demonstrations.

The graceful Puente de la Mujer connects the mainland with Puerto Madero, the old harbor. It has been completely gentrified, the river walk now flanked with chic restaurants and crowded with young people kissing and families strolling. On Sundays, Plaza Dorrego, in the neighborhood of San Telmo, becomes a colorful and noisy antique market. Under white canvas tents, the locals and the tourists peruse displays of old seltzer bottles, gaucho gear, linens and all manner of collectibles. The parade of street vendors stretches down Defensa and Florida streets. We were enticed by a bola, with three wooden balls, attached to leather braids of rope, that gauchos used to herd cattle.

Other noteworthy stops:

The Teatro Colon, a palatial structure built in the early 1900s with all European materials and artisans in the grand style of continental opera houses, currently under extensive renovation but still hosting art events. The interior seven stories are lavishly gilded and decorated with large tableaus, statues, red velvet seats and stained glass.

The Recoleta Cemetary holds elaborate mausoleums, above ground shrines for the important Porteno families; it dates from the early 1800s and is still accepting new arrivals. In contrast to most well manicured tombs, there are signs of neglect and decay when the families cannot spend the resources to maintain the sites. Evita Peron, nee Duarte, lies in her family plot. Gigantic rubber trees tower over the park outside the cemetery, their overlapping roots like man-high tentacles and their tall canopies shading La Biela, another landmark café with a popular outdoor patio, where people come to watch and be seen.

We opted not to go to a glitzy tango show, but rather La Ideal, one of several dance halls where Portenos gather after work for the milonga, a ritualized tango exercise; some dancers come in pairs, others alone to pick a partner from those who also came without a partner. Unlike the staged tango performances, we found the milonga more evocative and authentic. Clearly, the tango remains organically woven into the fabric of the people.

The Café Tortoni, the oldest in the city is situated just off the Playa de Mayor and draws tourists by the busload. It evokes an atmosphere of old Vienna with stained glass ceilings and walls covered with autographed photographs of the rich and famous. We stepped in for coffee and to cool off and soak the scene after a long afternoon walk in the city.

Buenos Aires appears a prosperous city. The streets are clean (except for some unexpected sightings of loose pavement and garbage), the cars are new and well maintained, and the people are well dressed with a sprint on their step. We were surprised to see almost no black of Indian people on the streets, despite the reality than not that long ago both lived and worked in the European immigrants’ homes and plantations. No one could quite explain where they went.

We joined a tour to the Estancia de Santa Suzanna, an Argentinean dude ranch, once a working farm, now a tourist destination where we strolled through the old owners’ home quarters, we sampled hearth roasted beef, and we saw a demonstration of traditional dances and of horsemanship. The road travelled to the Estancia was as interesting as the ranch itself; we drove into the countryside for a little over an hour passing by manufacturing plants, local businesses, and small towns.

Beef reigns in the Buenos Aires food scene; skewered on huge spits next to piles of smoldering wood fires they fill the air with the aroma of burning suet and robust red meat. After drinks at the café Juanito, a tiny funky bar, we tasted the most delicious steaks and grilled molejas at La Cabrera, a small, dimly lit restaurant in the neighborhood of Palermo. Even when we attempted to vary the cuisine in seafood or Italian restaurants, we seemed to always return to at least one serving of beef. Alas, the renowned Las Cabana des Lilas in Puerto Madere disappointed.

pig roast fest: truss and verify

Ever since we acquired a place in the Adirondacks, we have dreamed of hosting festive parties under the trees with family, neighbors and friends enjoying the cool breeze from the lake with food and conversation. The centerpiece of such a bucolic scene would always be an old fashioned in-ground roasting pit with a whole lamb or pig slowly turning on the spit and wafting delicious smells as the skin turned golden crisp and the meat cooked over hours, to be sliced and consumed on the spot when the sun started its path toward sunset. Of course, there is enormous distance between fantasy and realization. We enjoyed the idea of a spit roast for several years and kept putting the making of one off every time we were at the lake for way too short a time to get our act together. We kept talking about it though and, at some point, our neighbor Sherm heard our musings and decided to beat us to it. During one visit, he proudly showed us the roasting pit he had installed in his own place with a thick layer of insulating dirt and with large tree trunks sawed in half and made into sturdy benches on which to sit and monitor the roasting. Having accomplished the process for himself, he vowed to help us build our own roasting pit any time we were ready. Sherm does not give up even when his grateful beneficiaries are wallowing in inertia and indecision. Last summer then, he announced that he had enough dirt to start creating our pit and the adventure was set in motion.

We identified a reasonably open and flat area between the house and the lake and Sherm started to offload masses of sandy dirt from his Kubota tractor until we had a pile big enough to spread a ten foot square shield between the ashes and the ground soil; this precaution is, we were informed, critical to prevent the intense heat from seeping into the small tree roots underneath and starting a ground fire. The “look” of the roasting area had already become a topic of significant discussion and contention. I was imagining a relatively structured, tame appearance with something of a wind-shielding wall made of small stones that we could pick from the lake and put up by our own hands much like Peter Mayle’s wall. Joe had a manlier view of the thing, more like a small scale Stonehenge with boulders surrounding the pit such that one could sit on and mind the roast; he had his way and started selecting massive rocks from the back of the driveway. He and Sherm undertook to maneuver the Kubota and slowly transported enough boulders to form an oval around the pit making sure that several were flat enough to sit on. Sherm also had the idea to make for us large benches from tree trunks much like he had around his pit. I was not at all sure about that style and we were able to put it off for awhile. The winter and the long snow cover served to season the pit base and make it flat and dense enough to protect the ground.

Meanwhile, we had begun to search for a suitable spit apparatus by visiting BBQ places and by searching the Internet. For almost a year we tried to figure out how to put together a motorized spit on that location without spending a fortune for an adventure that remained elusive at best. At some point we found a site that offered a long and sturdy steel spit with a motor capable of handling 50 pounds of meat and we ordered it on line and had it shipped to the lake. As we were imagining the process we thought it would be fitting to have a rustic and rugged looking frame and asked Dan the blacksmith to make one for us. He worked on it during the winter and installed it on the pit the following summer during one of my short visits. A month later, we both went up for two weeks with grand plans for an inaugural pig roast. We created a cute invitation and sent it to the people we knew on and off the lake. We had more regrets than acceptances but we were determined to try out the contraption and were undeterred. No sooner had we arrived and contacted Sherm than there he was with our other neighbor Chuck, also invited and planning to attend, and the Kubota in addition to a great big chain saw. We were reminded of the offer to make benches as soon as we reached the house because two large tree trunks had been saved from the tree-felling of the previous summer and were sitting by the side of the driveway. During one of the first days we were there, we returned home after town errands to find the trees split into huge pieces, the guys waiting for the lady of the house to instruct them where exactly to place the two benches and the massive six foot long table made out of the center section of one trunk. I really was not at all sure I liked the plan but had no tactful way to avert it. Ultimately, the furniture proved quite a-propos the rural setting and the location, naturally natural and immortally solid. The table actually quickly proved an excellent and perhaps necessary piece for handling a big, hot and slippery roasted pig.

Procuring the animal proved exceptionally difficult out in the country despite the heartwarming accounts of local farming and the inroads of the locovore movement. Already a couple of years earlier we had begun to frequent the local farmers’ market and to search the local papers and the Internet for accessible sources of local, organically grown meat. On a rare occasion we ha been able to find some piece of meat but it certainly was a great deal more elusive than what we could get our hands on in Houston. One meat guy had already told us that raising pigs was much too expensive; they ate too much and fetched too little money to make the effort worthwhile. As for lambs, they were too expensive and usually went to higher-end venues or to the members of the co-operatives. The one place that was organized enough to get foodstuffs not locally available on special order was Shaheen’s grocery store. That is, for example, where Sherm got his 50 pound bags of clams for his annual clamfests every summer. I approached the butcher, therefore, a month earlier and asked if he could get a lamb or a pig for us. No luck on the lamb; he could not think of any available source. As for the pig, there was one possibility: order it frozen from North Carolina and thaw it for us in his cold room. The animals were as a rule closer to 100 pounds than fifty but he could promise something under 50 pounds; we had bought a spit fit to handle that weight and no other choice so I told him to go ahead and order us a frozen pig under 50 pounds. True to his reputation, and without accepting a down payment, he ordered the beast. Our first stop in Tupper Lake was to the grocery store to purchase eating supplies and to inspect the pig. With a measuring tape we ascertained that this 49 pound carcass would fit the length of our spit and went back on line to refresh ourselves with the technologies of mounting a pig on a spit, trussing, basting, determining cooking time, needed inner temperature etc.

On the party weekend, we welcomed Marj and Isaac who drove up from New York late Friday night and went to collect the pig from the grocery store. We reviewed the mounting and trussing instructions and purchased metal string since we did not have and had not been able to find a trussing needle in the local stores. We calculated the cooking time and added an hour to be safe and started the process after the morning coffee. We pulled the pig out of its box and installed it on the solid table that Sherm had made for us. Then we started the arduous process of fitting in on the spit and trussing it with the metal string. It is critical, apparently, to approximate the spine as closely as ossible with spit and to bind the legs tightly in order to create a cylindrical mass to facilitate the torque on the motor. A few prior successful roasts in Houston had given us unearned confidence that quickly gave way to frustration. Piercing the skin was extremelydifficult. Once we had a sharp knife slit on it, the slender metal wire was unwilling to go through. We spent an hour approximating the spine to the spit and semi-securing the ends with the metal prongs. Once we had it, we discovered that the motor side of the spit was too far out to fit the motor. There then ensued a ridiculous battle to slide the pig to the correct position on the spit, by the end of which the metal wire had broken and the spit was hanging at the bottom of the abdominal cavity, the spine too many inches away from it, and Shem had arrived unable to stay away from what he correctly assumed would be our fruitless efforts. He left for his home and returned with thick wire and pliers and strong metal needles and we re-trussed for another hour. He also re-fashioned the motor bracket and the motor finally fit onto the spit. The next disappointment was that the motor was not strong enough to turn the pig and a potentially moving piece of the spit apparatus began to uncoil as the motor tried to turn. Rather than risk having the pig fall off onto the fire, we decided that pigs had been successfully roasted with manual turning and got a thick pair of garden gloves and proceeded to quarter-turn the pig by hand every 15-20 minutes.

The next fiasco was the fire itself. We have successfully cooked all manners of food in all kinds of settings for decades and have a healthy confidence about charcoal. Chuck our neighbor insisted that we needed to roast the pig with firewood so vehemently that it became almost a dare to succeed with charcoal. In addition to being unfamiliar with the heat and speed of a wood fire we were also concerned that it raises more flame than charcoal and were afraid of loose sparks onto the grass especially during a day when the oppressive heat was increasingly being eased by a gusty breeze from the lake. And that turned out to be the real problem. No sooner the heat rose from the blistering hot charcoal bed above the metal frame of the roaster, it was deflected away from the meat above it by the constant gusty wind which created a cool insulating sheet of air between the fire and the meat. We probably used twice the prescribed amount of charcoal and the bottom of the roasting platform was as hot as any we have created in prior endeavors. Yet, hour after hour we stuck the thermometer into different parts of the pig and the temperature refused to budge above one hundred degrees, one hundred and fifteen at the most. Enter Chuck, vindicated and ever helpful: all we had to do was ask for his help, he said and went to work amassing piles of fire wood and stacking it over the coals. Soon we had a blazing fire such that would warm anyone’s heart and feet on a freezing winter night. I was again afraid of loose sparks and had the hose on standby; the flames lapped and roared inside the metal pan but the wind kept them from making contact with the meat just the same. The guests arrived, they gathered around the fire and admired our fortitude and spirit of adventure and eventually lost interest and gathered on the porch near the beer and the snacks and started munching as we turned the pig and checked the temperature and watched the clock advance and the sun lower itself in the west. At eight o’clock we declared the war over and took the pig off the fire.

Here is where Sherm’s table proved its mettle and made a believer of me. The tabletop was as solid as the hemlock it came from and held the pig steady for the removal of the wires and the prongs. It held the pig steady for the hammering that was required to start separating the joints and the head. I sliced it superficially like a loaf of gyro and took off peels of crackling skin and warm, properly cooked slivers of meat and plated enough for the guests to finally experience the luscious food we had promised. When I reached pink flesh I stopped. Before the evening was over, we hacked the pig in a few manageable pieces and transferred it inside wrapped in large plastic garbage bags which we stuffed in the refrigerator. The bulk was made lighter because Aidan, the Sayles’ grandson had expressed the wish to take the eyes to his home for dissection and seeing the amount of stuff on the table and the degree of rawness of the head, I offered that he could take the whole head and his eyes sparkled and he said that would be great! So before the party was over, Joe took cleaver and hammer, he cut the head off and stuffed it in another plastic garbage bag which Aidan proudly slung over his shoulder before leaving for his home. After the guests left, we started collecting all residuals that could be of interest to a bear as a black sheet spread over the sky and thunder rumblings competed with the loons. We made a mad dash to the dock and brought the John boat out of the water in the lick of time before a torrential rain came along and took care of the smoldering embers.

The next day, after Marj and Isaac left we put the pig in the oven in two batches and cooked if for several more hours before it reached an FDA acceptable temperature. We had delicious bits and pieces for breakfast and lunch and snacks and allotted portions to take to Houston and to leave behind for our next visit. Luck eluded us again, however, and on Saturday morning, the day before our departure the freezer melted and we had to hurry the still frozen containers to safety in Sherm’s freezer. The problem corrected itself for some unexplained reason but it was too late to retrieve the leftovers; maybe there will be something for us in October, maybe Sherm and his family will have enjoyed every last bite. This undertaking proved a real battle and / but taught us quite a lot about our set-up. For the next trip, this fall we will purchase and whip ahead good trussing needles, trussing twine and sturdy kebab skewers. We also plan to carry frozen lamb or goat from Houston and have another practice run of the bucolic in-the-ground-spit roasting so we can refine both technique and equipment for future celebrations.

Enjoying a roast has proved much harder in the country than in our Houston backyard contrary to our expectation. When we first started putting together the makings of the lake pit, we mentioned our exploits to Marcelo and Staci Vela who brought to our attention the technology of the Caja China. After reviewing the on-line information we purchased it, assembled it and have used it on two delightful occasions. It is a very backyard-friendly process with reliable cooking times and outcomes and it will be the subject of a separate account. Of course, it lacks the visual drama of the open air in-the ground roasting, the smells, the sizzle and the opportunity to sit around the fire watching the meat slowly turn to ambrosia.

Girona Dining: El Celler de Can Roca

The one hour train ride took us out of bustling Barcelona, across small town countryside to Girona, an attractive provincial town of 90,000 with mature neighborhoods and ample squares surrounded by cafes and restaurants. After walking through the streets for an hour or so, we found a taxi and drove across town to the restaurant. The Rocca brothers own several very successful restaurants in Barcelona proper. El Celler is their 3 Michelin star country kitchen, in the European tradition of travelling far for the perfect meal. There was nothing “country” about the setting of El Celler. Behind a wooden fence and door we walked into a sleek lobby with granite, marble, steel and glass. More like a high end health spa than a country inn.

The dining room was flush with natural light streaming in from the large floor to ceiling windows and the skylights. A central courtyard defined the center of the room, a triangular glass enclosure with three white-barked tree trunks rising to the sky. All the lines were clean and symmetrical; a serving station stood next to each table and a dedicated waiter ministered to our needs during the meal. As we sat, the waiter appeared with an unopened bottle of El Celler Cava for our consideration. It seemed too hot and too early for alcohol on an empty stomach; also I have grown weary of restaurant offerings that come without a price and a menu and I declined in favor of cold bubbly water which was arrived promptly and kept coming throughout the meal. The other two diners also did not go for the Cava. In retrospect, this was part of the amuse-bouche and was gratis for the table.

Joe asked for the wine list and in rolled a large book stand with two oversized tomes one for white and one for red wines. We have never seen the likes of this wine list in all our prior adventures in good dining. Even more unexpected was the large variety of wines offered at incredibly modest prices. We ended up tasting a bottle of Zarate El Palomar 2006 and a bottle of Baron de Lay 2007 F. Monasterio both delightful. I don’t recall if the pre-lunch freebies started coming before or after we selected the first wine; the parade was as delicious as it was spectacular. The waiter brought to the table a small bonsai tree; hanging from its branches were caramelized green olives stuffed with white anchovies “take it with your hand” he said, how clever! This was followed by a “bellini bombon” with a cocoa butter shell filled with Campari and grapefruit. A white porcelain platter adorned with seaweed sprigs was topped with skinned, filleted and grilled anchovies, lightly crispy and salty and playfully delicious the “anchovy bones”. The next sampling was labeled a chicken cracker, the least interesting of the procession. An “essence” of Russian salad was perhaps the most molecular taste the ingredients reduced to their gustatory essence (this potato salad appears to be a regional preference because we ran into it at the first luncheonette we lunched the very first day desperate for calories and a place to sit out of the sun). The “calamar adaptation” was a thimbleful of calamari carpachio and micro corn also sitting pretty on a clean porcelain platter; one mouthful of light pleasure.

Already this was more than a normal lunch in calories and taste if not in volume and we had not yet tackled the menu. As the appetizers ended, so did our white wine; transitioning to the main courses also meant moving to more classic flavors and ingredients. The bottle of red that followed proved immensely satisfying with a deep, rich personality so much better suited to the line-up of the meats that came to the table. As is our tradition, we order different things and rotate the plates around so everyone can have a taste of all the dishes.

So, here is the meal:

Truffled brioche and pot-au-feu broth
Timbale of apple and duck liver with vanilla oil
European lobster parmentier with black truffle mushrooms
Sierra Mayor suckling pig, grilled baby onions, melon and beet root
Steak Tartare with mustard ice cream consisting of spiced tomato, caper compote, pickles and lemon, hazelnut praline, meat béarnaise sauce, Oloroso-sherry raisin, chives, Sichuan pepper, Pimenton de La Vera, smoked paprika and curry all minced together and served as a log topped with mustard ice cream and mustard leaves; what a hamburger!!
Warm duck liver with roses, lychees and Gewurztraminer sorbet; a sensational composite
Oysters with Cava, ginger, pineapple, lemon confit and spices
And the grand prize of the meal: lightly smoked pigeon with anchovies, truffle and blackberries
Each dish was balanced, surprising and harmonious despite the often disparate contents
The milk desert was a diaphanous symphony in white: ice-cream, foam and flan. Following desert, came the après-bouche tray of sweets with three each little chocolate bombons of praline, palet d’or, Yuzu, Mont-Blanc and raspberry drops of chocolate goodness.

We lingered a bit longer with coffee and the remainder of our wine and rolled out into the humid afternoon sun blissfully full and in no condition to handle anything beyond a taxi ride to the station and the digestive one return train trip back to Barcelona. It was a long satisfying day, our last in Spain. We walked off the lunch slowly strolling down the Rambla, looking and taking a last set of pictures in the street market and selecting for dinner a prosciutto baguette from Mark Bittman’s “best sandwich in the world” eatery.

There are memorable dining experiences that linger and perhaps expand in significance over the years.
Sometimes it is the element of the “first”: for us, Le Negre with the theatricality of the room, the Versaillean lard sculptures in the shape of each course; for Jonathan, L’Arpege with the maple syrup in the eggshell and the ethereal asparagus soup. Sometimes it is the magic of the setting and the moment: “L’Hostelerie de Beaumaniere” with the Provencal room with Jean Cocteau menu cover and the perfect moonlight under the giant bauxite rocks of Les Beaux, or the rooftop terrace of the medieval castle in San Gimigniano with the succulent suckling pig. Other times it is the absolutely unexpected circumstance like picking mussels off the rock and making an omelet on the roadside in the north of Italy.

And, invariably, some memories come together around one food. For us it has been pigeon: first on a dusty, sun-baked rooftop in Luxor, then in a cavernous old cathedral-turned-restaurant in Assissi, years later in small Italian towns or Saint-Emilion and most recently in Brussels at Come-chez-Soi. The pigeon we had in Girona stood exceedingly well to the memories of meals past and was the best, if not the most molecular or creative of the dishes we had that day. Then, there are the ratings of restaurants: who has how many stars and how well do they deserve the accolade. To what extent is the honor related to an ethnocentric predilection or a temporal food-faddism. We have our list of starred meals over the years. El Celler de Can Rocca clearly well deserves their stars and stripes.

Smoking Wood Chips

Precious little smells or tastes as luscious as grilled meat. Health gurus’ and cardiologists’ admonitions notwithstanding, we have sizzled beef, poultry, pork and lamb for 40 years.
First we charcoaled broiled chuck steaks squatting over this little Hibachi grill no more than a few inches tall in the driveway of our Bronx apartment downstairs from the Golds. Moving on to Chicago, we installed a taller and somewhat bigger grill on the cement-covered back yard of our brownstone and challenged our guests (and some of us) on the rawest, thickest sirloin steaks we could prepare. Through the 1970s it was always charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid, careful to store it away from flammable harm and to limit the smell of gasoline on the food. Our home in Houston came with an installed gas grill in the gangway between the house and the garage and we became “liberated” from the restrictions of weather on our menu planning. We grilled everything outside rain or shine; in fact, for a number of years the kitchen oven did not work but we did not miss it and did not bother to repair it until the kitchen remodeling in the late 1980s. At first the gas grill produced a hot and steady fire but over the years, and despite buying a new grill, we started to feel that the flame was not hot enough for the lean, fast cooking cuts and that the taste was tamer than what one could get in a real steakhouse. Truth is, we gradually forgot what a strip steak should taste like and got used to the acceptable gas version so handy and convenient just outside the door.
Then we ventured to our second home in the Adirondacks. The cabin came with a Weber grill left in the garage by the Scotts, with a wide open outdoors so inviting for early evening preparations and with plenty of time to sit around, ventilate the lighter fluid and watch over the fire as it got ready for the food. Of course, the weather did not always cooperate; we have pictures of Joe standing over the Weber with a large umbrella in the rain tending over the fire, braving against the elements all in the name of a good proper meal. Then we visited Jerry and Kass in their Lexington home and learned about charcoal chimneys. A chimney is a metal cylinder with an inverted wire funnel at the bottom. It requires 3 double newspaper sheets stuffed under the funnel, a supply of charcoal over the top of the cylinder and a lighter to ignite the paper. The fire goes up through the charcoal which turns to red hot embers within 20 minutes; no need for lighter fluid, no variation in the technique or timetable. A rare “aha” realization and technology that changed our grilling habits forever. We bought our first chimney at Bering’s and shipped it to Tupper Lake but quickly chimneys became available everywhere including the local Fortune’s hardware store. We failed to obtain a fire only once when we bought generic charcoal from the Save-a-Lot store and learned our lesson.
Still, we continued to gas grill in Houston for the convenience of predictable, weather and hassle-free dinner at the end of a long day at work. After a few sessions with the Weber at the lake, however, and with our daily routine a bit relaxed once the kids grew up and life became a bit simpler, we realized that there was no longer need to miss out on the superior flavor of a charcoal-fired grill. We bought a classic, black, round Weber grill and added it to our cooking armamentarium. Since then, we have charcoal grilled everything at the lake and reserved it for beef in Houston. We still use the gas grill for chicken and sausage or other fatty and slower cooking foods including fish and vegetables. Then, we discovered smoking wood chips.
In truth, we discovered meat-smoking 30 years ago when we first bought a meat smoker. The process was a bit cumbersome and prolonged. We had to pull the cars back, haul the smoker out into the driveway, load it up and wait for several hours before the low-level heat could cook a reasonable size piece of meat. Plus, the embers remained hot for over a day and the clean-up was fairly messy with all the fat drippings in the water pan. It generally seemed excessive to put it all together for a casual dinner or for a small piece of food. Over time, the smoker became a signature activity earmarking holidays, parties and special celebrations. Every thanksgiving we bought a medium size turkey; Joe and Jonathan were generally in charge of this culinary activity. Around ten in the morning, they spiced the bird, (almost always some honey was involved), took out and loaded the smoker and tended to it periodically checking and adding water until 4-5 in the afternoon when the bronze, glistening bird emerged from the smoker and plopped into a large baking pan to rest for a few minutes and then get carved onto the cowboy platter, ready for transfer onto the dinner table. We also smoked a turkey or a brisket for large outdoor parties and for Xmas sometimes. One refinement to the routine was to also “gravlax” a slab of salmon on the top rack of the smoker. Unlike the usual fairly understated smell and texture of a restaurant version, this fish was dusky and strong with thick tones of smoke and oiliness; it is hard to describe it there was so much depth to our smoked salmon than anything we have tried commercially. Of course, it was something to either love or leave alone and, at least Joe and I loved it; I would have to ask the kids if they even remember what they thought of it so many years ago.
Ironically, the first time we considered having a quick, weeknight meal of smoked food happened in Galveston in our high rise apartment where grilling of any kind was impossible. In order to add some variety to the dining options, we bought a stove top smoker; we poured small aromatic wood chips on the bottom of the pan, covered them with a second metal sheet on which we placed the meat with seasoning; then the top lid slid over to seal the cooking space. After the stove was on for a few minutes a faint smoky smell wafted out from around the pan edges. As the pan heated up, the wood chip essence rose through the meat to flavor it with a delicate, subtle smoked taste. Also ironically, we almost always smoked a fillet of fish which was our staple animal protein on the island. We left the stove-top smoker for the next owners when we sold the apartment and did not do much about weeknight smoking until we somehow noticed bags of mesquite and hickory wood chips in the BBQ supermarket aisle over the bags of charcoal. This discovery, made decades later that it had to be made, once more changed our dining options and added a wonderful and lasting nuance to dinner.
It is a remarkably simple procedure: in a small bowl, we drop a handful of chips and soak them in water for an hour or so before the fire is started; when the charcoal is ready, we drain the extra water and simply drop the chips on top of the charcoal, set the grill up normally put the meat on and close the Weber lid. The aroma is phenomenal while the food is cooking filling the yard with rich, smoky air much like the old-fashioned smoker to Thanksgiving memories. The meat is also richly infused with the smoke and emerges a very different texture, color and taste from the normal grill charcoal. We have decided that this additional treatment overwhelms good quality marbled beef while it enhances the richness of chicken and transforms a thick slam of pork into an amazing experience. Smoking charcoal chips are very commonplace in Houston; most grocery stores have two or three varieties, while more specialty stores like Academy carry several types of wood chips. There are recommendations for pairing the fight wood to the appropriate meat and suggestions for variations on the theme. We quickly thought to add charcoal smoking to our dining menu at the lake. The obvious presumption was that the raw material would also be available anywhere charcoal was sold just the way we found things in Houston and no need to pack and transport bags of wood in the airplane.
Wrong again; in this era of globalization where every mall looks the same as every other mall in every other Us and even European city, there still are pockets of unexpected regional character. You cannot presume that the states recognize the superior importance of something as obvious as smoking wood chips just because they are a staple in Texas, as basic and necessary as toilet paper and Palmolive soap. And so, the final chapter of the quest that gave this essay its title began in earnest during the summer of 2009. I traveled to Boston for the annual endocrine Society meeting and in addition to spending some time with Kass and Jerry in town and at Becket, Kass and I went to lake together for part on the following week. The original plan to fly to Saranac got nixed because Kass has a strong aversion to small planes so we resolved to drive from Boston. It therefore seemed silly to pack woodchips and I deferred to buying what I needed locally… While surveying the goods in the supermarket I told Kass that I was especially interested in buying a couple of bags of smoking woodchips for the lake. She gave me a puzzled look, surprising already coming from such a charcoal-savvy lady; after all, if it were not for her household, we would have never discovered the charcoal chimney in the first place……. We made several stops wherever it seemed remotely possible that I would find wood chips. We looked in Boston proper, the suburbs, along the way while driving across the state. We even stopped at the Tail of the Pup, a self-professed smokehouse, for goodness sake and came up completely empty handed. I believe Kass got more than a little exasperated with the fruitless search by the time we got to the lake house chipless (and without simple syrup, another story altogether).
We resolved to respect the differences of the land and shipped woodchips to the lake as we were able, and packed bags of the aromatic scraps when we travelled and safely stocked the lake workshop with a nice variety and were finally able to enjoy smoked chicken and pork by the water. The following spring I returned to Boston and felt it my duty to carry a bag of hickory wood chips and introduce my friends to the pleasures of smoke grilling. Then regional individuality gave in to industrial globalization for wood chips as it has for so many other aspects of our lives. We travelled to New York for Jonathan’s medical school graduation and made our usual pilgrimage to Zabar’s on Broadway and 81st. We wondered about, marveled at the cheeses and the olives and mostly the incredibly thick crowd and narrow aisles and the feeling of New York and then walked up to the second floor to look for potato chip bag clips, a quest that had begun unsuccessfully back in Houston months earlier. Zabar’s failed us on this point as well and bag clips seemed delegated to an era past of incredibly useful common-sense inventions that somehow fickly fell out of favor like the table top crumber or the small, inexpensive camera card reader. Disappointed, we started to leave and then, right there in the middle of the floor was a bright display of Weber accessories for your grilling pleasure, including…….. yes, exactly right: several varieties of smoking wood chips in crisp colorful plastic bags. The last time we went to the lake in the summer of 2010 smoking wood chips were available for purchase at Fortune’s the local Tupper Lake hardware store. For the foreseeable future we will continue to buy things local up there and will now be able to add hickory and mesquite wood chips to our list. We still have to hand carry cherry and alder chips but that may also change in time.