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.

The death of Joan Roca, the bassist of Antònia Font, was one of those low blows of life that fit badly. Last Saturday his friends and bandmates – Joan Miquel Oliver, Jaume Manresa, Pere Debon, Pau Debon – paid him a tribute on the last day of Mobofest, the festival born and raised in Sant Joan, in Pla de Mallorca. It wasn't just any concert, nor is Mobofest just any festival. Mobofest celebrated its tenth edition this year, which will have been its last, because it is a festival that was born with a very well-defined spirit (collaborative, non-profit, understanding culture as a form of coexistence, knowledge, collective improvement) and despite the impressive success it has had in each of its editions, it has managed never to deviate from this foundational spirit. When Mobofest began, Antònia Font was already a star band, and they bet on this small festival because they felt a full affinity for it. Joan Roca wanted to do this concert one way or another. For a few days, it was no longer possible. The tribute (a mini-concert with the enormous Bathyscaphe Katiuscas performed by the choir La Corrala; the previous day Maria Jaume offered a beautiful version ofSamurai climbers, another flagship song from the Antònia Font repertoire)will always be remembered. Mobofest too. Joan Roca too, but we would have liked him to be on stage, the tall, strong man with white hair, an indestructible smile and an inner metronome.Before the tribute to Mobofest, the premature death of Joan Roca had been news in the media.Some of the headlines had repeated a rather cliché phrase: “the discreet and reliable bassist”, they said. Discreet for sure not, and not only because his physical presence was striking. His artistic personality was also striking, and without his bass, albums that are true peaks of Catalan pop music –A Rússia, Alegria, Taxi, Batiscafo Katiuscas, Lamparetes, let me add Vostè és aquí and Un minut estroboscòpica– would not sound as they do, nor would the more than a thousand concerts the group has offered in the years Joan Roca has been its bassist, from 2000 until now. Joan Roca was a bit more than reliable: he possessed a talent and musical knowledge as inexhaustible as his ability to improve the lives of the people he loved."Things aren't easy for anyone / inside this igloo", says the lyrics of one of the many hits by Antònia Font, songs that make you smile but also tend to carry a touch of melancholy, as with good pop songs. Now things will be a little less easy, without Joan Roca. I know it's basic and whatever you want, but every time a good, brilliant, talented person who loved life and made it better for others dies prematurely, I can't help but think of the overwhelming list of boring and dangerous scoundrels who overwhelm us every day. I think Joan Roca would have agreed.

Saturday evening. The tenth anniversary of Mobofest is drawing to a close. Around 11:30 p.m., practically everyone was heading towards the main stage to accompany "the band of our lives," they said, the band "that changed everything for music in Mallorca and in Catalan," it was commented. Yesterday, more than ever, the audience couldn't miss it.

The question was posed by Josep Vallverdú in a poem, and it comes to me readily to answer with a list of responses full of gratitude to this Lleida gentleman: the good things in life are in his sustained work, in his prolific generosity with child and youth readers, in the intelligent good nature that followed him like a perfume, in the wisdom of a recent word, when he said that we must strive to have only "affections and hopes left in the closet", and that "the greater the affections, the closer hopes will be to becoming reality".

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.

It's Friday, the weather is good, the train to Girona has gone reasonably well despite the delay, and when I arrive at the Fontané restaurant, located on the first floor of theEsperit Roca Hotel, in the Sant Julià castleI find myself in a brightly lit room, tables with white tablecloths, waiters and waitresses dressed in black trousers and jackets, and diners who have filled every table. There are entire families, couples, and colleagues, and I sit next to the large window that projects the green of Sants Metges Mountains onto the table.

Joan Roca says he doesn't celebrate his birthdays, but the day he turned 61 he will surely remember him. Yesterday in Leña restaurant in Barcelona by chef Dani Garcia There was an unusual density of chefs per square metre (71 Michelin stars in total). The aim was to pay an emotional tribute to Joan Roca, in the same way that the chef from Malaga had paid tribute to Ferran Adrià, Robuchon, Nobu and Arzak in Marbella. "I am not at the level of all the chefs to whom previous tributes have been paid," said the chef from Girona. In his usual modesty, he stated that the chefs present had "improved" their dishes. The tribute consisted of versions of 21 dishes created by El Celler de Can Roca. An ambitious menu that included creations from Disfrutar, Mugaritz, Atrio, Casa Marcial, Noor, Quique Dacosta, Miramar, Lasarte, Les Cols and Nandu Jubany, among others.