The last Cadaqués taps were sold by the Cabrisas pastry shop last October 31st. The creators themselves had invented and spread them, and they themselves decided to put an end to it after one hundred years of work. As soon as they closed, the pastry chef Oriol Balaguer states that he received orders from individuals and private parties asking if he could prepare some. Balaguer has been closely linked to the Girona regions since 2024 when he acquired the recipe for the bisbalencs and the pastry shop that created them, Can Sans, in La Bisbal de l’Empordà. “I also investigated whether I could do the same operation with the Cabrisas pastry shop in Cadaqués, but I found out that I could not do anything,” explains the pastry chef, who in recent years has also acquired other pastry shops in the country, such as La Duquesita in Madrid.

Fricandó is experiencing a golden age in the restaurant industry. If a few years ago we lamented that it was in danger of extinction, today one could say that it is a popular dish on restaurant menus, just as it is believed to have been in homes in the 18th century. From that time dates the cookbook Avisos i instruccions per lo principiant cuiner, written in a Franciscan convent, in which the recipes cooked by the people were collected, and left in writing because, at that time, culinary tradition in homes was passed from mothers to daughters, and for this reason, the men who entered religious orders wrote it down, to remember a wisdom that they had not received at home. Today, both Jordi Vilà, of the Alkímia and Alkostat restaurants, as well as Albert Adrià, of Enigma, and Bar Milagros have it on the menu and champion it.

I am interviewing oenologist Anna Espelt in her Mas Marès vineyards in the Cap de Creus Natural Park, an estate that has one hundred and seventy-two hectares, twenty-five of which are vineyards. The sun has risen bright in the blue sky, and if it were not for the constant tramontane wind blowing there, it would seem like a summer day. We start talking near a menhir located between the vines, which for Anna is a symbol of the human life that existed in the vineyards in ancient times. She says that one day she would like to live in the farmhouse nearby. Meanwhile, she balances her life between managing the family winery, Vinyes Espelt, in Vilajuïga, and her own winery, Mas Marès, where she produces a volume of ten thousand bottles, depending on the vintage, divided between three names: Pla de Tudela, Cala Rostella, and l’Escumós d’Anna Espelt (a blanc de noirs). The DO Empordà and the Festival Terrer organized some tastings in July in which Anna, also a biologist by training, captivated everyone who listened to her. For her wines, for the passion with which she transmits them, and for her way of loving the vineyard, some call her “the queen of the Empordà”.

The definition of luxury in food is tricky. Some maintain that luxury is eating a food that is not within everyone's reach and that arrives from the other side of the world. With these parameters we could talk about caviar. But there are also people who maintain that true luxury is eating what you yourself have grown, harvested and cooked: you know exactly what you are eating and you do it at the best possible moment: when the food is ripe. If, in addition, you savor it accompanied by those you love most, then the luxury is supreme.

We like mushrooms, and a sign that confirms this is the variation we find in the country when it comes to naming them. To understand each other, all speakers from Salses to Guardamar and from Fraga to Maó, we explain what all these names are.

I interview chef Albert Adrià one afternoon before the Enigma restaurant opens its doors. In his studio, he has some blank sheets of paper on which he has drawn eight possible new dishes. Apart from the dishes, we also talk about the series Gènesi, in which actor Carlos Cuevas played Albert Adrià. And above all, we discuss the 50th Best Restaurants list, because in Lima, Peru, it has just climbed positions in the English ranking: it has reached number twenty-nine, and everything points to it continuing its ascent in the coming years. Last year, Enigma was at number 34, meaning it climbed twenty-five positions compared to where it was in 2024.

“The power of the dining room” has been one of the first presentations with which the Gastronòmic Fòrum Barcelona has just begun, which is taking place at the Gran Via venue of Fira Barcelona, and will last until Wednesday. Throughout these days we will find out which is the best artisan panettone and best chocolate panettone in the country, who wins the innovation award, as well as the chef of the year in Catalonia. Directed by Pep Palau and Josep Alcaraz, the Gastronòmic Fòrum Barcelona combines the debate on the restaurant profession with food exhibitors.

There are vendors who have started placing yogurts with the closest best-before date at the end of the row, and not at the beginning. They break the patterns we consumers have, who go looking for the food stacked at the end because we know those are the ones with the furthest best-before date, and that way we can store them for more days at home. Our inconsiderate gesture will cause yogurts to be rejected, which will most likely enter the food waste circuit. Furthermore, they will enter it unfairly, because yogurts have a best-before date, and not an expiration date. What does each of these concepts mean? Perhaps we should also ask ourselves why we buy a product if we have no intention of consuming it immediately. If we bought products knowing that we would consume them soon, we would take those with the closest best-before date. But since we would be entering another complex topic, let's address date labeling.

It is Saturday, not yet eight in the morning, and there are already people queuing at Es Portal in Cadaqués, in front of Can Cabrisas. Some have placed orders for boxes of 'taps'; others, for croissants. And there are many who have woken up early to buy whatever they are selling today, which is the final day of a century-old pastry shop. For more than fifteen days, Mercè Cabrisas has not been taking orders for either 'taps' or croissants because things were getting out of hand, she comments. She had to stop when she realized that the demand was higher than the work the workshop itself could handle.

It is Tuesday evening, and the Vinseum, the wine museum of Vilafranca del Penedès, has organized a star tasting; that is to say, they have invited an oenologist, Sara Pérez (Venus la Universal; Mas Martinet), who in turn has chosen four female winemakers who will be talked about a lot in the coming years, as she herself asserts. Sara is one of the great women of wine, who is passion and wisdom at the same time. She radiates enthusiasm when she speaks, and at the same time argues and debates the topics raised with rigor. "When I arrived in Priorat with my family, I was seventeen years old. I didn't start making wines until I was twenty-eight". The data is important because "I inherited what my parents had done there, I did what was established, and I think that they carried out the revolution, yes, but we all settled into our seats right away". "Right now the country, Catalonia, is experiencing a great revolutionary wave, and what I can do at my age is spread it", she says. How does she do it? She has chosen the wines that she likes, and those of Isa Serra (Horta Colomer, in Priorat), Anna Martín (Hattrick, Terra Alta), Marta Nieto (Vins l'Intercanvi, Penedès) and Júlia Faura (Vins Ric, Berguedà) excite her.

I am interviewing chef Jordi Jacas on the day he prepared a catering service at a private home, where the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition welcomed academic Sandro Rossell. He prepared a meal there with foods in which honey and oil shone. For dessert, the pastry chef Oriol Balaguer provided the 'bisbalencs', small puff pastry bites filled with angel hair. Jordi is an ambassador for the cuisine and produce of L'Escala, where he was born, grew up, and where he works at the restaurant El Molí. And L'Escala has always been linked to fishing since ancient times: studies indicate that between the 17th and 18th centuries, fishermen from Empúries and Roses settled there and it became a town.

The prickly pear is an invasive plant. This is indicated by the catalogue of species created by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability of the Government of Catalonia, which lists up to three different types: Opuntia maxima; Opuntia dillenii and Opuntia stricta. They come from Central America, especially, and have spread en masse throughout Catalonia. It is invasive because it competes with and displaces natural vegetation, which is why it does not have a good reputation. But since it is everywhere, it is cut and it sprouts again, a good remedy is to eat its fruits. However, it is true that it is one thing to say it and another to do it, because it is not easy at all.

Since we want to age well, we have assumed by osmosis that we must take supplements: magnesium in the morning, creatine and vitamin D in the afternoon, and melatonin at night to sleep better. And we take them because we have heard that they are good for aging healthily. Maybe our friends have told us, or we have read it on social media, but what we have forgotten is that if you eat healthily, which means vegetables and fruits, legumes, fish, meat, and nuts, you don't need any of them at all. "We know that 75% of the country's population has taken one during the last year," says the dietitian-nutritionist at the Alícia Foundation, Alba Coll, who gave a lecture at Món Sant Benet, organized by the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition. The figure is significant: 75%. It is clear, then, that supplementation is the latest trend in food, promoted and bombarded by a thousand and one channels that impact the population over fifty years old. And why is all this happening? Because the population aged 60 and over represents 15% of the global population, and therefore, 27% of global spending. The industry knows that this sector of the population represents a silver economy, as it is popularly called. And it will be even more so, because in 2050, the population over 60 will be even more numerous, according to data from the World Economic Forum.

Freixenet will sponsor this year's TV3 New Year's Eve broadcast. This has been learned by ARA from sources in the wine sector and confirmed by the director of the public television station, Sigfrid Gras, who explained that the decision has been approved by the board of directors for days. Since the Catalan company Estrella Damm was the sponsor last December 31st, sparkling wine producers had shown their discontent because such a special toast was made with beer and, moreover, with the presenters, Miki Núñez and Laura Escanes, drinking directly from the bottle and not from a glass. Following the controversy that arose the very next day after the broadcast, TV3 made it known that it had been an exceptional case because Estrella Damm had turned 150 years old and, therefore, cava had been sidelined. The Catalan brewery, for its part, declared that the New Year's Eve toast was exciting for them in a year like 2026 and that they considered it the first of many commemorative events throughout the year. All of this led TV3 to insist that toasting with beer had been an exception and that it was committed to continuing to show glasses full of bubbles.

It is midday, three o'clock, when Raimon Braun (Arenys de Mar, 1968) and Marta Aulestia (Barcelona, 1972) sit down at the kitchen table of Hispània for lunch. I join them, and between the two of them they decide on the menu: to drink, Jean Leon's Gigi; for lunch, fritters, Russian salad, brains salad; Arenys prawns with salt; jig-caught squid; sea bass, and for dessert, small caramel custard and sponge cake cubes. Raimon and Marta are happier than ever: for a little over a year they have had a passionate partner for Hispània, with whom they have allied to undertake new projects: before the end of the year they will start serving fork breakfasts; they will build an outdoor terrace; they will host evening gatherings and will create rooms above the restaurant to recover the essence of the restaurant, the inn. And all this has come to them at a time when they knew they had no successor because their two children had told them they did not want to dedicate themselves to it: "We saw that we had no one behind us, that we were alone." So they emphasize it clearly: "Hispània is not for sale; we have joined forces with a passionate partner and we will make many more dishes."

I interview Jordi Pascual at the headquarters of Torclum, his olive oil production mill, during a break in the olive harvest, which began days ago. The first oil, the filtered green one, is already bottled and ready for sale. It is a bottle that is green on the outside and inside, half a liter, which they sell for twenty euros. They will be able to save this year's olive harvest because of the rains that fell in the area at the end of August, but there are other regions, also dryland, that have suffered more. We talk about prices, the harvest, and above all about the oil that enters the Spanish state from other places, especially from Turkey and Tunisia, and which, according to Jordi Pascual, is sold without indicating that it is made outside the European Union.

One in three food items ends up in the trash. The figure is staggering, and it should make us think about what we buy, how much we buy, and how we cook it. Chef Ada Parellada explains that she has seen a person throwing dry bread into the trash and, immediately after, buying a package of breadcrumbs (or cracker meal, as we can correctly call it both ways). “It is neither ethical nor moral, because bread should not be thrown away,” she says, adding that she entered the fight against food waste out of indignation and anger at seeing acts like the one we have just recounted.

Ernestina Torelló (Barcelona, 83 years old), co-owner together with her children of the Torelló winery (Corpinnat), has just written a page of history: the Cercle del Liceu, the social club located wall-to-wall with the Liceu de Barcelona and inaugurated in 1847, has chosen her as its first female president. New times for an institution that is changing little by little: the black and white balls, the ones that were drawn to accept new members, like those in the film La bola negra by directors The Javis, are still stored in one of the lounges. They are no longer used; now, to get in, four members must vouch for you and you must pay an annual fee of one thousand three hundred euros.

The Can Cabrisas pastry shop in Cadaqués will close forever on October 31st. “We didn't want to tell anyone, but Helena Garcia Melero found out and published the photo with me on her Instagram account, and it has already spread,” explained Mercè Cabrissas. Her tone is one of melancholy, not sadness, because she is looking forward to retiring. The reason they are closing is because they want to retire, to rest. Behind them remain five cousins, three children from Mercè's side, and two from her brother's side, who are the ones who could continue in the future. “The recipe for the taps de Cadaqués is well kept in the family, and it will not be lost,” says Mercè.

The confrontation between chefs Santi Santamaria and Ferran Adrià has been one of the narrative threads of the series Gènesi, which TV3 finished broadcasting on Monday, October 5th. “I have received many calls and questions from people who wanted to stir up trouble about what happened, but I consider it all closed, and I have told everyone that it is fiction,” states Pau Santamaria, son of Santi Santamaria. He considers it finished, as does chef Ferran Adrià, who at the public premiere of the series thanked Pau Santamaria and his family for being there. For this reason, “after watching Gènesi, I feel like having an escudella and some wine with Ferran to talk about it all.”