Empordà has been mythologized. It has been pampered. The media often talks about Cadaqués, Dalí, Josep Pla. Many people from Barcelona spend their summers there. The tramuntana is a wind with pedigree. Greco-Roman civilization reached us through Empúries: Manuel Brunet turned that beginning into the fable The marvelous landing of the Greeks in Ampurias. It is "the smiling plain" that Joan Maragall sang about in Enric Morera's sardana or the one that Jacint Verdaguer looked at from Mare de Déu del Mont to write the epic poem Canigó about the origins of the Catalan nation. The windy and rugged landscape of Alt Empordà and the abrupt and undulating landscape of Baix, with their small rural settlements, are a common theme in Catalan sentimentality, and the same can be said of the coves and beaches of the coast, which are so crowded.

There was a day, sometime in the 1970s, when Josep Pla visited the Motel Empordà, and he remained connected to it until his death. He became very close friends with Josep Mercader, the Motel's founder, and later with Jaume Subirós, Mercader's son-in-law. Upon Mercader's death, Pla asked Subirós not to change anything about the restaurant, to continue making the same dishes. His exact words were: "There are houses where the heir starts making changes, and then they collapse." He also gave him another piece of advice: "There are customers you'll have to watch out for, because they'll only come to see if it falls apart and closes; so don't change a thing."

At the Hotel Almadrava, located on Almadrava beach in Roses, the sea and sky are the landscape that captivates your eyes at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's as if you're inside a painting with all shades of blue. Restaurateur Josep Mercader liked this landscape when he built the hotel, and also because it was close to his hometown of Cadaqués. This is the assumption made by his four grandchildren (Albert, Jordi, Lluís, and Sílvia), his daughter, Anna Maria Mercader i Baret, and the son-in-law, the great and wise cook Jaume Subirós (Figueres, 1949). Together, they have preserved the legacy of the man who lived life to the fullest, worked tirelessly in restaurants in Girona and France, and founded two hotels: the Motel Empordà in Figueres and the Almadrava in Roses. Next year, in 2026, he would have turned one hundred. His son-in-law, Jaume Subirós, has worked at both hotels longer than his father-in-law did—sixty-five years, which is exactly the same age as the Motel Empordà and ten years less than the Almadrava. His children work with him in management, in the kitchen, and in the dining room. And his youngest daughter, Silvia, is making films and writing her grandfather Josep Mercader's biography. Together, they form one of the great families of Catalan cuisine.

It's Wednesday, the Virgin of Carmen, and in Cadaqués everything is ready for the afternoon procession of the boats; there will also be mass and a sardine feast. And if there's a festival in Cadaqués, there's no shortage of corks. In fact, they're never missing any day of the year, but it's in the summer when Mercè Cabrisas, from the Can Cabrisas bakery, sells 4,000 a day. If you go mid-afternoon to buy them and haven't ordered them, you probably won't be able to try them. "But this happens as it happens, because yesterday, for example, there were some left," she says. Each one costs 0.90 euros, and in addition to selling them in bulk, it's also traditional to buy them in boxes of 15 (13 euros) and 30 (26 euros). The boxes have the unique profile of the Alt Empordà town drawn on them, and this very wrapping is also what has made the corks popular, identified with the town.

Love is love if it is not unidirectional. This is stated with a mythical image by the actress Emma Vilarasau in the film The House on Fire When the daughter tells her that "to love is to give without expecting anything in return," and the mother responds with the expressive "Fuck you" raising her middle finger. That is, the gesture that the French saydo a good deed of honour, and in our house we complete the gesture with a sausage. In the grain: the journalist Xavier Febrés (Barcelona, ​​​​1949), perhaps one of those who is best known for the great restaurant that is the Motel Empordà (which we know as the Motel), says that he has always felt affection and love when he has gone to eat, and that he has done so at different stages of his life. Hence the title of the book he has written, Motel Empordà, praise of stable love, published by Gavarres publishing house (editor Àngel Madrià), in which he has wisely explained why everyone feels "comfortable".