I interview the chef Julià Bernet (Olesa de Bonesvalls, 1992) at his restaurant, Vilagut, in Vilafranca del Penedès. Vilagut is about to turn seven years old since it first opened its doors and has become a benchmark for good cuisine for the capital of the Alt Penedès and also for the country. There are dishes that everyone highlights, such as the roast cannelloni and thepithivier, which is the round puff pastry pie. I especially highlight the wine and sparkling wine list, which shows appreciation for the nearby landscape, for the twelve Catalan denominations. It is also a menu designed for different budgets and to be tasted by the glass: with the Coravin, everything is possible. Let's start by talking about the dishes you cook.

We have had a day that was as dark as a wolf's throat, we arrive home and think we will solve it with chocolate. It is not the first time we have turned to it, and it has worked for us. That is why we thought of it quickly. Perhaps even when we were already imagining ourselves sitting on the sofa eating it, we started to feel better. We eat it and manage to make the sadness, anger, and boredom of the day go away with that piece that we know perfectly well we have stored away. Behind this action there is a reason. Science says that chocolate stimulates a pleasant state because it has phenylethylamine, and linked with the memory we have of it, it makes us seek it out to leave behind an unpleasant mood.

It is Tuesday, it is six in the morning, the sea is as flat as a plate and the fisherman Oriol Serra (Barcelona, 1978) is sitting on his boat, the Fila, at the Port d’Aiguadolç in Sitges. Everything is dark, the street lamps are still on. In the sky, a thin moon, concave like a slice of watermelon. Oriol unties the moorings from the dock, where the only two fishing boats in the port are, and we head out to sea, into the blackness. While the boat is sailing, we leave behind the red serpentine made by the cars passing on the Garraf coast road in the direction of Barcelona. Also the breakwaters and the bell tower of the church of Sitges. Everything is left far behind our backs, because we are heading to the 'galls' (roosters), the markers with a red flag that Oriol placed in the sea the previous afternoon to cast his artisanal nets. The goal of the day is to catch prawns. Will we find any?

The RíasKRU restaurant in Barcelona (c. Lleida, 7) "is not for sale for more than two million euros despite what a real estate agency says," states manager Borja Iglesias, who adds that he has asked the agency to remove the advertisement stating that it is for sale, and that, if they do not do so, they will take legal action." It is a fact that this year marks forty years since the Rías de Galicia was inaugurated by the Galician couple Cándido Iglesias and Purificación García. Later, their three children took charge, but during the covid pandemic they took the restaurant into insolvency proceedings, and it was bought by businessman Manuel Lao, the current owner.The RíasKru is the fusion of Rías de Galicia, which is located on the ground floor, and the Espai Kru, on the first floor, both specialized in fish and seafood, and both restaurants have marked an era of fine gastronomy in the city of Barcelona.

Peanuts deserve a lot of reverence and also four clarifications. The first: botanically they are a legume, but we eat them as if they were nuts. The second: they do not generate cholesterol, as has probably been said and believed. In fact, from bags of mixed nuts, it has become customary to believe that peanuts were the worst. “No food of plant origin contains cholesterol, which is only present in foods of animal origin, because it is a molecule that is part of the membranes of their cells”, explains dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols. And the third: peanuts not only do not generate cholesterol, but they help to regulate it, as demonstrated by one of the most important clinical trials on nutrition and cardiovascular health, carried out in the State with the participation of the Rovira i Virgili University, among others.

I am interviewing Diego Alías (Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, 1977) on a summer day when I need to put on a jacket. It is early in the morning, which in Josa de Cadí is experienced with mild temperatures and leaves a green landscape, clear of clouds. In the kitchen of Ca l'Amador, as Diego's restaurant is called, the fires have been lit for a while now. They have all the tables full, as is usual in high season. Ca l'Amador has become a desired restaurant, and that is why they are full every day. Everyone knows that in Josa del Cadí there is a very good cheese shop, Serrat Gros, and Diego, who is cheerful, welcoming, and energetic. The day we speak with Diego, he is very busy between the daily menus and the 'pianatada' he is preparing, a piano concert on the restaurant's threshing floor. He lacks hours. We begin our conversation about the school where he trained, the Joviat of Manresa.

Let's start with a comparison. The feeling of a diner stepping onto the red floral carpet of the Via Veneto restaurant in Barcelona (c. Ganduxer, 10) must be similar to what a football player feels when entering a historic stadium. Respect. And it is not because of the bellhop who took our coat and opened the door for us, Carlos Fernández. It is not because of the carpet, always spotless. It is not because of the greeting we will receive from the manager, Pere Monje, who will lead us to our table. Nor because of Xavier Regàs's modernist decoration, with that elliptical glass that allows one to observe who is in the dining room from the lobby. Nor because of the elegant white curtains with ruffles in the room. It is not just because of all that. It is because we find ourselves in a unique place, where fifty people work who seek to serve hours of happiness with the finest tableware, those that are not measured by a clock. Seated at one of the tables, with the waiters and maîtres dressed in tuxedos, we will forget the coordinates of space and time. You enter Via Veneto thinking about your daily chores, and you leave grateful to life for the hours spent. In between, there is a family of owners and a team that we have interviewed so they can explain the inner workings of a restaurant that will turn sixty years old next year.

I interview the chef Lluís Fernández on a summer evening at his restaurant Els Pescadors, in Llançà. He radiates good nature and love for his work, which he does as a family, with one of his sisters, Maria Àngels, and his brother-in-law. Both of them in the dining room. The restaurant is full of tables that speak to Lluís with familiarity, as the loyal customers they must be. Whoever goes to Els Pescadors knows they will eat lobster from Cap de Creus, because the family has one of the most important nurseries in the country, but it is not just about eating lobster for the sake of it. Lluís cooks territory, serves culture, and since these are his mottos, this year he has printed them on a tote bag. And the lobsters are numbered. Those who eat one take home a card, with a drawing by his chef friend Paco Pérez, with the numbering and a note from the restaurant.

Until January of next year, when you buy a canned product labeled as zamburiña you will likely be purchasing Pacific scallop, Galician scallop, or variegated scallop. All three have an affordable price, and have traditionally been passed off as an expensive mollusk: the variegated scallop, zamburiña in Galician. However, all this will end in January, because a new law will force canning companies to label them with the correct name: they will not be able to pass one off for the other, neither in the name nor in the labeling photograph. Meanwhile, they have these remaining months of the year to finish the canned goods that have the erroneous labeling, the one that tries to pass off as a big deal what is not.

The company Blai Peris, from Bot (Terra Alta), wants to demonstrate that innovation can also be applied to the food that has civilized humanity since ancient times, olives. “The idea of personalizing them came to me while thinking about what we could do with our olives to take a step further in the market. Then I proposed to my cousin to try it with his laser machine, and the surprise was to verify that yes, it worked on the first try,” explains Àlex Peris, who together with his brother Blai is at the head of the business. As he explains, olives have the particularity that they are packaged in a liquid that protects them from the outside, a fact that allows them to be preserved even after engraving their skin. And that is how they have made olives with the Barça logo, which they served on the day of the team presentation through the catering offered by the company Cal Blay. “This innovation, which no one had done before, we have not been able to patent, but we hope that we will be able to do so soon, since we are working on a process that will help to better visualize the engraving: olives dyed with natural dyes and personalized,” continues explaining Àlex Peris.

It all began twenty years ago. Encarna Castillo (Cadaqués, 1974) and Ton Mata (Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, 1970) bought a small plot on the Muntanya Negra in Cadaqués, seven thousand square meters (0.7 hectares), on which they planted vines one by one, gifted to them by winegrowers from the region. It was a shared couple's dream, to return to Encarna's native land with Ton's winemaking and enological knowledge, as he works at Recaredo with his cousins. They knew it wouldn't be easy, but they didn't imagine it would take them fifteen years to produce their first wine. Nor did they imagine they would have to accept the wild climate of Empordà, the wind, the drought, and also nature itself, with genets, foxes, badgers, wild boars, and birds that have been eating a large part of the bunches vintage after vintage. Last year, the vineyard narrowly escaped fire, as it acted as a firebreak along with the neighboring plot, which belongs to a Swiss friend named Sylvan; and it also managed to recover from a wasp attack. Today, Maiadeu, the wine that never says goodbye to Cadaqués, is an exceptional white wine, around three hundred bottles depending on the year, which is served in the country's best restaurants.“Taste it, tell me what you think,” Encarna tells me while Ton sets up a table, three chairs, and an awning in the vineyard itself. We could be on a paradisiacal island in Greece, but no, we are in Montanya Negra, green vineyards by the sea of Cadaqués with its white church, always simple and imposing at the same time. “It’s a wine we’d like to give ten more years to, but it’s also very good now,” they comment. Maiadeu is a Mediterranean wine, which gains depth and complexity over time, and has significant acidity. The grape varieties are white and grey carignan, lledoner (as they call garnacha in Empordà) white and red. “Every year we’ve changed the blend, depending on the production of the vines; this year it was 60% carignan and 40% lledoner,” says Ton, who mentions that they always indicate on the back label the day they harvested the grapes. Wine interprets Empordà

El Maiadeu is the wine with which Ton Mata and Encarna Castillo interpret Empordà. “We have made it with great respect, with an alcohol content of 12.5 degrees; depending on the year, less degrees”. In the five years they have been bottling it, they have produced a small quantity, ranging between one hundred and fifty and four hundred bottles. “The four hundred bottle one is from 2024, and we don't know if we will release it because we are not convinced, because the 2024 harvest was very complicated; we were coming from extreme drought,” they explain. They hope to check its evolution, and if they don't like it, they won't put it on the market. El Maiadeu is a wine that has been very well received, especially in the restaurants of Cadaqués, l’Empordà, Girona. “They have it in restaurants that have a connection with the territory, with Cap de Creus; in Cadaqués itself, they have it in restaurants Es Baluard, The Link, Es Racó and Sharing”, they comment. Further on in Cadaqués, at Miramar and The Fishermen, from Llançà; Casamar de Llafranc; Villamás, from S'Agaró; Celler de Can Roca; Ca l’Enric; The Cabbage dOlot, and in Barcelona, Shanghai, from the Kao family; the Dos Palillos, by Albert Raurich, who is from Cadaqués on his mother's side; the Torres Brothers; Disfrutar; the Gresca. “We know of more restaurants that would want it, but we don't even have enough for ourselves; of the 2021 vintage we only have six bottles”.

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I interview Montse Molla at the family home, at Mas Molla, in Calonge. She is harvesting Claudia plums and, soon, grapes, now at the end of August. They have given a guided tour to a group of Dutch people that ends with tastings, which her mother has prepared. At Mas Molla everything is running smoothly and they are calm after the scare they had at the beginning of July. The Gavarres fire made them suffer like never before. They saw it start themselves, the three sisters, while they were picking peaches. Montse's sister, Núria Molla, went viral with a video that 3Cat broadcast in which she explained that "the Gavarres are a powder keg, that everything is dry and abandoned, that it is a shame". She also asked that we change our way of life, that we should live like our grandparents, simply.

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With figs we have certainties. We know they are a fruit that arouses lively passion. If we pick them from the fig tree and eat them immediately, we will feel the summer slipping through our fingers, because figs, especially the "coll de dama" variety, mark the end of August.

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It's Friday morning, and at the Serrat Gros cheese shop, in Josa de Cadí, there's a group of hikers tasting the five cheeses made by Mercè Lagrava (Barcelona, 1963) and Raül Alcaraz (Equatorial Guinea, 1962). “We always recommend everyone to taste the cheeses before buying them. Besides, we know that getting here isn't easy, so we also put a jug of rosé wine from La Seu d’Urgell on the table,” says Mercè. She's happy, has an affable character, and says that both she and her partner are very surprised by the welcome the news of the transfer has received, which they made public at the end of July. “In a month we've received 125 emails, and also quite a few messages on our Instagram account. We've replied to everyone, and given them more information so they can look at it carefully before continuing with the interviews,” she comments.

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I interview the wine waitress Aina Seriñana at Es Baluard, her family's restaurant, in Cadaqués on a day in August. Aina is a great defender of Catalan wines, and together with her brother Adrià, a chef, they have turned the restaurant into a benchmark for good gastronomy. Furthermore, Es Baluard has mythical tables, which have a waiting list to get them: two are by a window and another has a balcony. From all three you can see the sea. And all three, like all, all of them in the dining room, are good for having a good meal.

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Gazpacho, the preparation that is already Catalan according to the Corpus de la Cuina Catalana, is prepared with tomato, pepper, cucumber, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, a little bread (optional), vinegar, and salt. Everything is put together and blended with an electric mixer. It's easy, and the biggest difficulty is gathering the ingredients, chopping them with a knife, and blending them. However, so that we don't do anything, so that we always have everything done for us, the food industry gives it to us ready-made in tetrapaks. The cook Ada Parellada stated at the meeting with ARA readers that she would have said that such an invention would never have worked. Perhaps today industrial gazpachos have already entered a large part of Catalan homes. Which ones are the best?As always, we must read the labels. The fewer ingredients they have, the better; they will resemble homemade ones more. To continue, "the first ingredients should always be vegetables, especially tomatoes, which are the main component and responsible for a large part of their content of lycopene (antioxidant), vitamin C, potassium, and other antioxidant compounds," states dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols. If you read bread in the ingredients, "it is normal within the traditional recipe and should not be a cause for concern." However, there are other ingredients that can also be found in some industrial gazpachos, which are the ones to avoid. "Some partially substitute extra virgin olive oil with cheaper refined oils, such as sunflower oil, which is also healthy, but nutritionally extra virgin olive oil remains the most interesting option thanks to its content of oleic acid and polyphenols." You also need to pay attention to the amount of salt. "There are gazpachos that easily exceed 1% salt, a high amount if we consume a large glass. Whenever possible, it is preferable to choose options with less than 0.8 g of salt per 100 ml," says the dietitian-nutritionist.Vegetables, the first on the list

So, first there must be vegetables; then extra virgin olive oil and be careful with the amount of salt. But there are still other ingredients that industrial gazpachos can contain, which are the ones that must be rejected: "Some incorporate added sugar, unnecessary thickeners, flavorings or a long list of additives that have little to do with a traditional gazpacho". And it is so because "supermarket gazpacho is a processed food, which also does not automatically make it an unhealthy food". It can be healthy "if the vegetables have been blended, mixed with the usual ingredients and subjected to treatments such as pasteurization to guarantee food safety and extend its preservation". As a consequence of this process "the amount of vitamin C, which is especially sensitive to heat, can be slightly reduced, but it retains a good part of the rest of the nutrients and can even increase the bioavailability of lycopene from tomato, a carotenoid with a high antioxidant capacity," says Grífols.To finish, making gazpacho at home is simple, and there are two tricks that the Disfrutar chefs reveal so that the garlic and cucumber do not return. The garlic will not return if you blanch it three times. That is, once you have peeled the garlic cloves, submerge them in a pot with boiling water, and do so for a few seconds. You can repeat this operation up to three times, because in this way you will manage to lower the pungency of the garlic. And as for the cucumber, they say you have to peel it, chop it, remove the inner seeds and put it in salt on a plate for a while. Then the cucumber will sweat and extract water. When it has done so, rinse it well with a stream of water to remove the salt. And the two ingredients will be ready to add them together to the blender jar and blend them. A quick dish to prepare that also hydrates.

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We interview Josep Anton Vendrell (Subirats, 1974), winegrower and president of the Association of Winegrowers of Penedès, at his estate, owned by the family since 1374, Masia La Bardera, in Subirats. From the macabeu vineyards he harvests, there is a privileged view of the countryside with Montserrat in the background. He tells me to observe it well because this green landscape could be lost one day. This year, the farmers are crying out to the heavens against the abusive prices they are being charged for the kilo of harvested grapes. They have been doing this for years, but this year they consider that the three press releases issued by the DO Cava have angered them.

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Chef Albert Adrià explains how to make a recipe at home that requires a little over thirty minutes, and some good cherry tomatoes. The dish can be eaten as an appetizer or as a first course.

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We are facing one of the great families that produce wines, cured meats, cheeses, honey, and eggs from Empordà: Serraplà, with butcher shops in Figueres, Cadaqués, Besalú, and Palau-saverdera. Serraplà is the union of the Serra and Pla couple, who had three sons: Josep, Lluís, and Jordi. Each one is dedicated to a different branch of the family business. Josep, to the production of wines and cheeses; Lluís, to label design; and Jordi, to sales, behind the counter of the shops. It is precisely Jordi whom we are interviewing, on a Monday in August at the butcher shop in Cadaqués, located in the old town, which previously belonged to the Vehí family of the town.

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I interview the scientist Anna Bozzano (Genoa, 1966) on a summer morning in the middle of a heatwave. We talk about the sea temperature, which is high and causes changes in the fish she studies. Bozzano arrived in Barcelona in 1992 as a final-year undergraduate student to work at the Institute of Fisheries Research. She was 26 years old, and she has never returned to Italy since. In Catalonia, she started a family, has had two daughters, and works as a promoter of fish knowledge with the project El Peix al Plat (Fish on the Plate). She has been living in Barcelona for thirty-four years, where she has lived in different neighborhoods, and now she is in Barceloneta.

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