It all began twenty years ago. Encarna Castillo (Cadaqués, 1974) and Ton Mata (Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, 1970) bought a small plot of land on the Muntanya Negra in Cadaqués, seven thousand square meters (0.7 hectares), on which they planted vines one by one that were 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 oenological knowledge, as he works with his cousins at Recaredo. 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 expect to 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 avoided the 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 paradise island in Greece, but no, we are in the Black Mountain, 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 another ten years, 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 have changed the blend, depending on the production of the vines; this year it was 60% carignan and 40% lledoner,” says Ton, who mentions that on the back label they always indicate the day they harvested the grapes. Wine interprets Empordà

El Maiadeu is the wine with which Ton Mata and Encarna Castillo interpret Empordà. "We 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 from one hundred and fifty to four hundred bottles. "The four hundred 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 the restaurants Es Baluard, El Vincle, Es Racó and El Compartir”, they comment. Beyond Cadaqués, at Miramar and Els Pescadors, in Llançà; Miramar and Els Pescadors, from Llançà; Casamar de Llafranc; Villamás, from S'Agaró; Celler de Can Roca; Ca l’Enric; Les Cols from Olot, and in Barcelona, Shanghai, from the Kao family; Dos Palillos, by Albert Raurich, who is from Cadaqués on his mother's side; Los Hermanos Torres; Disfrutar; Gresca. “We know of other restaurants that would like to have it, but we don't even have enough for ourselves; from 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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There is a popular street conversation about the fact that sardines are smaller than ever. Summer is the peak season for these fish, because that's when they eat a lot to accumulate fat for autumn; then they can lay eggs and reproduce. For this reason, it has always been said that sardines should be eaten in the months that do not have an 'R': June, July, and August, because that's when they have more fat and are tastier.In the city of Porto, sardines are the typical dish in many restaurants. Both in street food and in Michelin-starred cuisine. At the hotel The One Monumental Palace, located in the heart of the city, the chef Julien Montbabut has a menu that travels through Portugal dish by dish. It is a journey through traditional cuisine, filtered through his French lens after years living in Portugal, which earned him a Michelin star last year. Sardines, of course, cannot be missing. He cooks them to perfection, with bread and oil, and they are a meaty and flavorful bite. Meanwhile, in street restaurants, near the river, you will find grilled sardines. Also meaty. And that is because in the Atlantic, sardines are big, very big.In the Atlantic, bigger“In the Mediterranean, in general, many marine species are smaller than in the Atlantic,” says scientist Anna Bozzano, who assures that it is due to the environmental characteristics of the sea; the Mediterranean has a higher temperature and less nutrient availability than the Atlantic. When the sea temperature is lower, fish have a slower metabolism and, therefore, can grow more, says Bozzano. In the Mediterranean, there are many other factors that could explain why sardines are small. All together, they could lead us to understand it. To begin with, there is plankton, which has lost quality and quantity due to the warming of the water. If the sardine's food is less nutritious, it will not favor its growth.To continue, there are microplastics that sardines ingest. “They feel like they have eaten, that they are full, and then they do not eat their food. Microplastics worsen the metabolic condition of sardines, which end up being smaller and thinner,” says scientist Anna Bozzano, who points to rising sea temperatures as a factor that stresses sardines. “They can end up laying smaller eggs than usual because environmental stress can accelerate sexual development,” she says. Therefore, multifactorial reasons explain why our sardines have nothing to do with those from the Atlantic.To conclude, let's look at the data to check that we have fewer sardines than ever (beyond whether they are small). According to data from the Catalan Institute for Research for Maritime Governance, in 2025, 3,935.7 tons of sardines were caught, counting all Catalan fish markets. This figure represented a reduction of 33.3% compared to the average catch between the years 2022 and 2024. So we eat smaller sardines than ever, and fewer than ever. Probably, overfishing also explains this decrease. All this makes us envy the city of Porto, with those large, plump sardines. Ours are meager. And all this doesn't seem to have a solution.

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We interview the president of the DO Cava, Marta Vidal (Puigdàlber, 1984), in the town where she lives, Vilanova i la Geltrú. She took office on June 11th, after elections she won against four other candidacies. Marta Vidal is also the general director of the Vallformosa winery, which brings between ten and twelve million bottles of cava to the market annually. Her father, Vicenç Vidal, is one of the winery's shareholders, and it was the partners who proposed to the father that he give the position of general director to his daughter, who was educated at Pompeu Fabra University, Esade, and has work experience in banking, specifically at Bankinter. When she was thirty years old, she left everything and went to live in the USA, in San Francisco and New York. Upon her return, in 2017, she joined the winery, located in Vilobí del Penedès. Marta Vidal arrives at the interview prepared with written pages, with underlined phrases, and with a very clear discourse, which she summarizes with constant words: dialogue, future, and sustainability.

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It is Friday at noon, and the shade of the mulberry trees of La Terrassa de l’Hostal La Gavina, in s'Agaró, becomes a climatic refuge. A moment of calm from the heat while the sun, scorching, is seen from afar, with the sea in the background. We are in one of the restaurants of one of the hotels in the centenary urbanization, where you can eat whether you are staying there or not. In fact, the barrier separating Sant Pol beach from the urbanization can be crossed on foot and by car if you say you are going to eat at the restaurant. Once inside, everything changes. There is tranquility, space to park, and silence, as if the beaches of Sant Pol and sa Conca, two myths of the Costa Brava, were in another world, even though they are right next to it.On the menu there are dishes to share: coca bread with extra virgin olive oil; squid; Palamós prawns; low-temperature roasted aubergine, and more. I choose the escalivada with Kalamata olives, which is cut into thin strips, and is a success in taste and presentation. For the main course, among hamburgers, biquinis and free-range chicken sandwiches, hard-boiled egg, lettuce and fried bacon, I opt for sea bass with vegetables. There were also mini pizzas and, even better, cold soups, which are always a hit in summer: gazpacho, fish soup with croutons, vichyssoise.

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It is Monday, market day in Olot, and Sant Rafel street is a hive of people entering and leaving the Can Carbasseres pastry shop. It has a large display window, showing a sample of what can be bought inside. On the sign, with the name, there is a date: 1884. I go inside, and I find a whole family working there. The father, Jordi Vilanova, is retired, and talks with the customers who are queuing to buy; the mother, Judith Ribera, serves behind the counter, and the children, Alba and Nil Vilanova, are in the workshop. "I am the first woman in the family in five generations to work in the workshop," says Alba. She is the first to braid the tortells of Can Carbasseres, which are known throughout Catalonia, and which can be eaten for both sweet and savory dishes.

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It's Monday at noon, and on the terrace of the dining room of Hotel Almadraba in Roses, the wooden cart with wheels where rigatoni, the iconic dish, is prepared, moves from one table to another. Perhaps it is one of the most well-known dishes of the Subirós family, or perhaps it is because everyone wants to watch their dish being prepared in front of them. If one table orders it, be sure that the ones next to it will too. "It all started in the city of Lugano, in Switzerland, on the trips my father made with the Almadraba team to work in the winter," recalls Lluís Subirós, the youngest son, who says he must have been nine or ten years old when the Almadraba cooks went there.

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I interview Gemma Urgell and Jordi Bertran at Xerigots' headquarters, in Vilafranca del Penedès, who this year celebrate fifteen years since they started as cheese maturers. There they show me the cellars where the cheeses mature, which are as Catalan as those from other countries around the world. Especially impressive is the quantity of Mahón cheeses they have, all neatly aligned. Xerigots works for the hospitality sector, for four hundred restaurants, to whom they serve cheeses for a thousand and one dishes, savory, sweet. They prepare them just as requested so they can be served. As we walk through the cellars, they tell me that artisan cheese is in crisis. And with this question I begin.

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Hard-boiled eggs can be found in the refrigerated section of supermarkets. I'll write it again. Half a dozen boiled and peeled eggs, in the refrigerated section. There is a wonderful recipe, traditional to our region, made with hard-boiled eggs, which are deviled eggs. They are cut in half, the yolk is mixed with tuna and its olive oil, and then the filling is placed back inside the concave part of the egg. A little egg white is grated on top (from another hard-boiled egg we have). An important detail: the price of a package of hard-boiled eggs is similar to fresh eggs; it's around two euros for half a dozen.The question is: can't we make hard-boiled eggs or peel them? Is our culinary knowledge so meager that we can't put a pot with plenty of cold water on the stove and put the eggs in it? When the water boils, put the fresh eggs in with the help of a spoon and after twelve minutes they will be cooked. Let them cool, and then peel them. A note: if we leave the eggs in boiling water for six minutes, we will have soft-boiled eggs. If they stay in for three minutes, poached eggs. You don't have to have studied at ten cooking schools, or even one, to boil and peel an egg.Industry anticipates our needs, and what it gives us is time, because that's what we shouldn't have when we buy hard-boiled eggs. Nutrition specialist doctor Montse Folch tells me that a hard-boiled egg bought at the supermarket is "nutritionally very similar to one cooked at home." Dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols agrees, adding that supermarket hard-boiled eggs, like homemade ones, "provide high biological value proteins, fat-soluble vitamins such as A and D, B group vitamins, choline, selenium, and other essential minerals for health and sports performance. The mere act of cooking, peeling, and packaging it does not significantly alter its nutritional value." She also adds that there's no need to be alarmed "if ingredients like citric acid (E-330) or lactic acid (E-270) appear, as they are intended to maintain the microbiological stability and pH of the product." Among all the packages of boiled and peeled eggs you find, there is a warning: pay attention to the amount of salt. "If it provides more than 0.8-1 grams per hundred, it's better to look for another one, because the ideal salt quantity would be a maximum of 0.5 g per hundred," states doctor Montse Folch.Peeled with nutrients

Regarding the fact that eggs are peeled, the dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols also sees no problem. “It does not involve a significant loss of nutrients; the same are lost as if we did it at home, which are some water-soluble and heat-labile vitamins, but their nutritional impact is minimal”. So science applauds the invention; industry gives us time and consumers don't even boil eggs so we don't have to cook. But, alas!, there is one thing we will never have if we buy a package of hard-boiled eggs: taste! The flavor, the smell, the texture of a hard-boiled egg from a plastic supermarket package will not be the same as the one we made at home on an exhausting day, when all you feel like is a fresh lettuce salad with a boiled egg that you prepare in that pot you have designated for boiling. While you boil the eggs, you can put on your comfortable house clothes and slippers. Set the table with your tablecloth, the plate, the cutlery. Peel the eggs with your hands. If you are very hungry, you will burn your fingertips a little if the eggs are hot; if you have had the patience to let them cool, you will peel them in a moment. Some people place a glass bowl in the freezer while the eggs are boiling, because that way, as soon as the twelve minutes have passed, they can take the empty bowl out of the freezer and place the boiled eggs in it. Then the egg cools down immediately. Everything is easy if we want to do it right. We gain a lot, we gain taste, which no invention of the food industry will ever beat us in.

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Chef Joan Roca explains how to prepare a sardine escabeche to make and eat the same day. Although the technique is known because it helps to preserve food well from one day to the next, the chef from El Celler de Can Roca suggests seeking the freshest point of the fish. And for this reason, he suggests that it is a preparation that if made and eaten, much better.

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La Gracieta is the new restaurant of the Juncà brothers Joan, Isabel and Jordi, who have just opened on the road to Vall de Bianya, which connects Ripollès with Garrotxa. The establishment is very close to their restaurant Ca l’Enric (one Michelin star) and l’Hostal, and when you take the turn-off from the road, there is a clearing where you can park well. “In the region, there is a great tradition of hearty breakfasts, and La Gracieta, the owner of the restaurant, who lives upstairs, proposed that we take over the premises,” explain Joan and Jordi just as they are putting the finishing touches on before opening the restaurant. The siblings believe that taking over La Gracieta is a gift: “We are returning to our family origins, to a bar, where our parents started, and which Joan, the eldest brother, remembers. I, who am seventeen years younger, didn't experience it,” explains Jordi Juncà, the chef.

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I interview Sílvia Subirós i Mercader near the office where she works, in Barcelona. She tells me that her son is three years old, his name is Guiu, and between work and family, she has snatched time from time to write the biography of her grandfather, Josep Mercader. The creator of the Motel (Cal·lígraf). It is a book like no one has ever written it because she has been able to access unpublished material: recipes dictated by word of mouth by her grandfather and especially the films he had recorded. A large part of this material was already used for the documentary La cuina dels homes. In the book, there is the information that she could not fit in.

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