I am interviewing Manel Batet, from Cafès Novell, from Vilafranca del Penedès, so he can explain to me the history of the company where he works and about the coffee we drink every day. I noticed the Novell brand the day I found out that the restaurant Disfrutar was the brand they used to prepare coffees. As Manel is a great enthusiast, he knows facts, dates, stories and the evolution of the drink that is more fashionable than ever. And it is also sold at higher prices than ever, probably. Current geopolitical situations and climate change will not favor it in the coming years for the situation to change. We will continue to pay a very high price for a cup of coffee.

Extra virgin olive oil is the liquid gold of our kitchen. We revere it, respect it, and know that it is one of the healthiest fats, and probably the most studied. When From 180 degrees, extra virgin olive oil begins to oxidize, but it is also true that it will do so more or less depending on the amount of time it is kept at this temperature, and "it will also depend on what we cook in it," states dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols, who adds that despite this, "extra virgin olive oil is much more stable than is often believed thanks to its high content of two components: oleic acid and natural antioxidant compounds such as polyphenols and vitamin E". A maximum of two times

To the point: we can reuse extra virgin olive oil between one and two times, "as long as we have never taken it to high temperatures, as long as it has not reached the smoke point, if it does not contain burnt residues, if it has been filtered and if it has been stored correctly after use". On the other hand, "when extra virgin olive oil darkens, when it smells rancid, when it produces a lot of smoke or when its texture changes, it is a clear sign that the quality has been lost", says Grífols, who assures that this advice is general, the one that people can follow at home. "We could reuse it ten times if we did not heat the oil beyond 180°, if we fried vegetables in it, if we completely covered the food, if we filtered it after use and if we then stored it in a suitable place". Since meeting all these requirements is difficult, the recommendation is to reuse extra virgin olive oil a maximum of two times. A note on the idea that frying vegetables in it makes it more profitable: "It is not the same to fry vegetables in extra virgin olive oil as battered or protein-rich foods, because the organic and protein residues they leave behind accelerate the degradation of the oil and, moreover, increase the production of potentially toxic compounds", states Grífols, who underlines the idea that extra virgin olive oil should not smoke: "When it burns or is used too many times, it stops being a protective food and becomes a source of oxidized compounds that do not help our health".Finally, extra virgin olive oil can be solidified (not frozen) if you need to keep it for months with the same properties as when you bought it. "Below zero degrees, we manage to solidify the saturated fats in the oil, which are 15%," says dietitian-nutritionist Anna Costa, who suggests the idea of taking an ice cube tray and adding sauces that contain extra virgin olive oil (like a pesto sauce) and then using them according to the use we want to give to our dishes. The extra virgin olive oil will have been preserved intact with all its benefits, for health and for cooking.

]]>

A dinner on the terrace of the Windsor restaurant in Barcelona (Còrsega street, 232) with live music on Fridays and Saturdays for fifty euros, all-inclusive, including desserts, coffees, and drinks. This is the proposal launched by the director and owner, Joan Junyent, who explains that the dishes follow the basic premises of the restaurant: Catalan and local cuisine.

]]>

It is a spring Saturday, it is twelve o'clock noon sharp, and the chef Joan Roca sits at one of the tables at bar Normal, located in Plaça de l'Oli in Girona, opposite the Normal restaurant. Ten minutes later, all the tables are full. The bar Normal was inaugurated just a few weeks ago, and it is clear that they have succeeded again with an informal offering, which can serve for having a vermouth (they always open at twelve noon) as well as for all other meals of the day. Bar Normal has its own kitchen, but they share the wine and beer menu with the Normal restaurant, so you can have some fried potatoes with chipotle sauce, which are Joan Roca's favorites, with a good Catalan wine from Empordà, as is fitting where we are, or from Burgundy.

]]>

The winner of the competition for the best panettone in the world, Ton Cortés, has two new developments: the first is that he has teamed up with pastry chef Jon Cake to create an innovative cheesecake with panettone flavor. And the second is that he has just opened a new bakery in the Sant Andreu neighborhood (c. Sant Andreu, 232). As soon as you enter, your gaze is drawn to the counter, with all the breads and pastries, and also to the ceiling, from which hang three rows of nine panettones facing down. They are dissected, if the adjective can be used to explain that, on the inside, they are empty, and only the outer shell remains, brushed with varnish to keep them dry. "Jon Cake has kept the inside, which he uses to create the panettone-flavored cheesecakes," explains Ton Cortés one spring afternoon, just a few days after opening the shop. Each slice of the new cake sells for five euros.

]]>

I interview the sisters Rosita (Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1943) and Nati Camps Franquesa (Santa Coloma, 1947) at the Hostal Colomí in Santa Coloma de Queralt after a meal in which they have shown me that, together with Pep (Santa Coloma, 1974), Rosita's son, they are unbeatable. The restaurant room, full, Nati, in front of the grill, Pep, carrying dishes up and down, and Rosita doing the numbers, who adds at a speed that the MareNostrum supercomputer would envy. "No calculator adds as quickly as my mother," Pep tells me, who calls out the dishes he has served at the tables for her to calculate. When I started writing about gastronomy, twenty-five years ago, the Camps sisters were a benchmark for well-made Catalan cuisine, for local produce, for the seasons. Today it is still like that, and they deserve to be recognized. Why is it so hard in this country to give deserved recognition?

]]>

Rice or corn cakes are the trendy food, and through marketing we perceive them as healthy. You'll find all sorts: rice and corn with salt, with yogurt, with white chocolate, with dark chocolate... There are also organic ones. The reality is that they are an ultra-processed food: rice and corn are industrially subjected to high temperatures, and precisely because of this, the starch chain is broken, which causes the food to turn into sugar when we ingest it. If they add salt, it's to disguise the sweetening of the ultra-processed rice and corn, but if they add yogurt or chocolates, they increase the sweetness. For all these reasons, they are less filling than a slice of bread with extra virgin olive oil, of which, if we count the ingredients, there are four: flour, water, salt, and oil. "The nutritional labels of the cakes do not reflect the real sugar content from the processing of rice and corn because they do not take into account the industrial method with which they have been cooked," explains dietitian-nutritionist Anna Costa, who adds that they are regulatory labels, but, despite this, they do not fully reflect reality."Popcorn are an ultra-processed product even when they only contain two ingredients, rice and salt," says Costa, who adds that the explanation is the high temperatures to which the industry subjects the two foods. "If it takes us ten minutes at home to make popcorn, the industry takes less than a minute, and for this reason, the starches, which we have to imagine as a pearl necklace, break and the sugars become individualized," explains the nutritionist. When we eat them, if we don't accompany them with any other food, they will cause a blood sugar spike, a hyperglycemia, because the individualized sugar from the popcorn quickly passes into the blood. The body, by definition, does not like such high sugar spikes, because the pancreas has to respond, it has to play the role of a solver, which means producing insulin to counteract it. Of course, popcorn eaten exceptionally cannot have more consequences, as stated by the dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols, but as a regular food, yes. "The excess glucose in the blood is transformed into triglycerides, which go to the arteries in the form of particles known as bad cholesterol, with all the consequences it entails," says the dietitian-nutritionist Anna Costa. Ideal for athletes

Finally, as a source of processed carbohydrates, there may be some situations where they can be "interesting to eat, because in nutrition the most important thing is not only the food but the whole diet and the context in which we consume it," says dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols. The fact is that for athletes "it can be useful before or during exercise, because they provide quick energy and are easy to digest; moreover, they help increase sodium intake." For non-athletes, if we want to eat them, the recommendation is to combine them with protein, fiber, or healthy fats. If not, they generate little satiety, leaving you hungry and thirsty shortly after, because the body has converted them solely into sugars.

]]>

The Tragaluz group has opened a new restaurant on the Costa Brava. It is Sa Marinada, located in front of the port of Sant Feliu de Guíxols and is the second gastronomic proposal on the Costa Brava after the great success of Tragamar, located in Calella de Palafrugell. Sa Marinada is located in a large, white building with large windows, a terrace, and has a menu specialized in rice dishes and fish. You will find all types: soupy, dry, black, and paella. The soupy can be with lobster or with local lobster, from its own tank, which they will show you before cooking it. As for the fish, depending on the day, you can find different types: scorpionfish, turbot, monkfish. They cook them in salt, on the grill, in the oven, with toasted garlic and with shallots and white wine (Duxelle sauce). You can choose how you want them cooked.

]]>

Quim Martell was supposed to be a butcher, because his parents owned the Fonteta butcher shop, but one day he followed the recipe for recuit that his grandmother, Grandma Rosita Rosacals, knew. In Girona, recuit was a well-known preparation, but it had become forgotten due to being so traditional and homemade. "More than thirty years ago, when I started, there wasn't a single professional producer in the Girona region dedicated to it; it had been lost," explains Quim Martell in his workshop, where he shows me the process of making Fonteta recuit, the name he registered when he saw that this preparation sold so well at his parents' butcher shop. "It was so well received by the public that I got excited, and little by little I started making more daily," he says. Today, he prepares an average of fifteen hundred units daily, every day of the year (except Sundays and Christmas), and depending on the time of day you go to buy, it's possible you won't find any unless you've pre-ordered one. "I sell them here at the shop, and I also distribute them to other towns." The price per unit is one euro and twenty-five cents.

]]>

I interview Manuel Raventós i Negra (Barcelona, 1947) in the library of the family estate, at Raventós i Blanc, located in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. The winery is majestic, with a circular architecture, respectful of nature and of the great oak tree, today propped up, which is the emblem of the house, of all the labels of the sparkling wines they produce. Codorníu is linked to his personal and family history, which he has studied in great depth. Manuel Raventós is a wise man, who knows the country well, from the cultivation of tomatoes and rice in the Ebro Delta, where he worked for years as an agricultural engineer, to the functioning of the economy – he worked at La Caixa (now CaixaBank) for 25 years and was part of the governing bodies of companies with shareholding participation from La Caixa, such as Abertis, Repsol or Aigües de Barcelona.

]]>

The potato omelette is so ours that it generates debates that polarize the population: those who put onion in it, those who don't; those who make it creamy, those who don't. But there is another more intense debate in nutrition with the potato omelette: resting it in the fridge to make it tastier, less caloric, and more digestible.

]]>

The inventor of the Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, died yesterday at the age of 76 in the Italian city of Bra. Petrini, who often visited Barcelona, assured that our food choices always have a social responsibility, that they help our neighboring producers and therefore strengthen the local economy. "There is still another factor linked to what we decide to eat: taste. Because good, clean, and fair food, the triad that drives Slow Food, is always a pleasure for the senses," he assured.

]]>

A year and a half after its forced closure, the Bar Boia is still a talking point in Cadaqués. Those who pass by see the number of people taking photos, stopping to contemplate the wreck it has become and to comment on the sadness of seeing it closed. Sadness and also indignation, because "right now it is very ugly for Cadaqués to see it like this," Mari Carme, a resident, tells me. She is not the only one who thinks so. The most photographed town in Catalonia, the most seafaring, cannot have a building that is falling to pieces. The former owner, the Vehí family, can do nothing because the last legal recourse to dismantle it is missing: the declassification as a cultural asset of local interest (BCIL), which will surely be approved by the full session of the Council of the Empordà at the end of this month."In December 2024, when we received the letter announcing that we had to close the Bar Boia, we proceeded to do everything they indicated," explains Pere Vehí. The last day it was open was January 4th. They didn't have time to do anything special, no closing party, because if they opened one more day after January 4th, they were threatened with a fine of 28,000 euros per day open. The letter they received at the end of December informed the Vehí family that they could not renew the concession because a coastal law regulation was coming into effect, according to which on an urban beach there cannot be two bars if they are not separated by one hundred and fifty meters or more. In the case of Marítim and Bar Boia, the distance is seventeen. This meant that Bar Boia could not continue, because it was the first to have its concession expire, but after Boia, no one else will be able to open in this same location."Thousands of euros to dismantle it

Thus, the day after January 4, the Vehí emptied its interior while the indignant voices of Cadaqués and everywhere were raised. "There were those who cried, who told us that it couldn't be that we were closing it." By the end of January, there was nothing left inside, only the clean structure, the glass, the walls, the two doors that held the shell. It was a soulless body. "Since March 2025, I have had a dismantling budget, which I have been updating as time has gone by," recounts Pere Vehí. The budget to remove the structure amounts to a large sum, because a shear rotator machine; two trailer trucks with pop and four operators are needed.But despite the budget, Bar Boia could not disappear because it was cataloged as a cultural asset of local interest. For this reason, it has remained there for a year and a half, because it could not be touched if it had this qualification. The novelty is that at the end of this month of May, a plenary session of the Alt Empordà Regional Council will vote on its declassification, and immediately afterwards a period of one month will be opened in which the resolution will be exposed to the public. After this month, we find ourselves at the beginning of July, the dismantling company, which is Femevi, from Vilamalla, will enter there with its trucks to eliminate forever more the structure that had contained so many summer nights, with cocktails from Pere's son, Manel Vehí; so many breakfasts and vermouths looking at Playa Llarga. The Vehí family opened the beach bar in 1946, and it was currently run by Manel Vehí, Pere Vehí's son, who had turned Boia into a gastronomic reference, by day, and a mixologist, by night. The sandwiches, the bikinis and all kinds of cocktails, like the famous Sex on the beach. The tables were always full, especially at night, when everyone was looking to watch the sea. Otherwise, there was always the side that touched Salvador Dalí's sculpture or those located on the Cadaqués promenade itself. Curiously, that sculpture by Salvador Dalí that the neighbors wanted to be demolished because the artist provoked with his blunders that the peasants did not receive aid for the frosts of a very harsh winter, that of 1956, still stands. Dalí's blunder was: “I have been fortunate enough to be the first person in my village to see the olive trees sprout, when no one expected such a thing, after the devastating frosts of the past winter.” Because of these phrases, the dictator Francisco Franco did not give the aid that would have greatly helped the peasants, who were then dedicated to the olive trees, with which they made one of the oils that is still highly sought after today.This summer, then, Bar Boia, which elevated the cultural and gastronomic life, the gateway to good food and drink in Cadaqués, will disappear forever more.

]]>

We interviewed the sommelier and communicator Meritxell Falgueras (Barcelona, 1981) in her native neighborhood, which she has called the Soho of Barcelona in her novels: the Sants neighborhood. We meet at Bodega Bartolí and afterwards we will go to the family shop, Celler de Gelida, where we will meet her brother Ferran and her father, Toni Falgueras. Meritxell has just published the book Women of Wine (Planeta Gastro), in which she has included studies, interviews, and surveys to which she has dedicated four years of her life.

]]>

As we approach the best time of year to eat prawns (Aristeus antennatus), in June, it's time to explain that the parental authority over red prawns lies with the Mediterranean. Not the port of Vilanova, nor Palamós, nor Blanes, nor Tarragona. The decapod crustacean that is the prima donna of our gastronomy moves tirelessly from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, and no one can scientifically say that it has spent its life in any specific town. The red prawn has no place of residence because it is nomadic: one day it's from Blanes and another day it's from Cambrils, for example.In a few days, the prawns will have a lilac-colored head (actually the cephalothorax, where the stomach is). This will mean they are females and are about to expel their eggs, which will be fertilized in the sea, and this might happen in Dénia. When the eggs are released into the sea, they will become larvae, and then the sea currents may transport them to Tarragona. Moving from place to place, they may have formed their exoskeleton in Vilanova, and also increased in size. And, finally, they may arrive, adult, in Palamós, ready to reproduce. We could explain the cycle in reverse: the egg could have been released in Palamós; the larva, in Vilanova, and the adult stage, in Dénia. And whoever says Palamós, Vilanova, or Dénia, also means other coastal towns. Therefore, it's anecdotal to say that the best prawns are from a fishing port, because they are all the same. Furthermore, there is no scientific basis for saying that prawns from the Costa Brava have an orangey hue "because in reality the red prawn has a predominantly transparent or white hue when alive, and once caught, the intensity and extent of its color gradually increases over hours and days," states scientist Arnau Subías, who runs the @gastrobio Instagram account. The only thing that indicates an orangey or red color in the prawn is how long it has been caught.

]]>

The Almarí restaurant, located within the Cala del Pi hotel, in the town of Platja d'Aro, wants to make lovers of pasta, vegetables, rice dishes, fish, and meat happy. For the former, rigatoni stuffed with oxtail under a langoustine topping. A memorable, indulgent dish, with a generous portion, one of those that makes a celebration just by arriving at the table. Pair it with varied starters, such as Roman-style squid, prawn carpaccio with extra virgin olive oil, or with lobster salad with red berries.

]]>

In Girona, they will soon change the idiom es ven com xurros to es ven com xuixos. All the pastry shops in the city, especially those in the center, have queues of people wanting to buy the fried sweets made with croissant dough. All means all. It's Flower Time, a top-notch tourist attraction for the city that shows that picturesque architecture can be even more beautiful if you decorate it with flowers. However, the surprise is that creativity or outlandish imagination has also reached xuixos, so you can find them filled with Oreo cookies, mango cream, pistachio cream (a suspicious fluorescent green), Maria cookies, Nocilla... It seems that with xuixos anything goes, but it is not so, because the Guild of Pastry Chefs, the Guild of Bakers, the Girona City Council and the promoter and inventor of the World Xuixo Contest, Salvador Garcia-Arbós, want to create the Xuixo de Girona guarantee mark so that only the one with pastry cream is the authentic one and with puff pastry, fermented and straight.

]]>

There was a day when in La Boqueria they weren't talking about the fried crests sold under the name of potato omelette or chicken paella, nor about the juices nor the squid legs displayed for hours at the fish stalls. There was a day in La Boqueria when everyone was talking about Quim de la Boqueria's fricandó. What a fricandó! The cook Carme Ruscalleda said so, the chefs from Disfrutar (Oriol Castro ate two plates), Albert Adrià and Rafa Zafra. Also all those who passed by his stall on the evening of the 150th anniversary party of Damm, which was celebrated on Sunday, April 26th, between the Liceu and La Boqueria.

]]>

I interview the chef Sergi de Meià (Barcelona, 1977) at the Centre Comarcal Lleidatà, located on Gran Via in Barcelona. On the second floor, while a group of elderly people play cards, we sit at a table illuminated by large windows. The conversation begins with his origins in Lleida, from Vilanova de Meià, and we move on to the restaurant where I first met him, Sergi Ferrer-Salat's Monvínic, which has since disappeared and been replaced by the Finestres bookshop.

]]>

We want to eat cheese when we buy a package of grated cheese, but if we don't look closely at the label, we might end up eating starches, milk proteins, melting salts, vegetable fats, flavorings, and water. All these are the ingredients that appear on the label of some industrial packages of grated cheese, some of which might not have a drop of cheese in them, because “they substitute it with vegetable fats, starch, and flavorings”, states dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols.

]]>