"Forget Cadaqués, give me the west of Catalonia, which is still free and authentic things happen there"

Ada Parellada isn't interested in summer nights "in the towns on the Catalan coast that have become shopping centers at all." "Forget Cadaqués, give me western Catalonia, which is still free and where authentic things still happen," she claims. "You go to Les Garrigues and you still find authenticity there, doors that don't lock, the sepulchral silence at three in the afternoon because everyone is home napping, the neighbor who arrives and parks in the middle of the main street, and the couple of kids who defy the scorching sun and play football".

One of these "truly authentic" towns that the chef loves so much is Fulleda, in Les Garrigues, where she spends one of the best nights of the year every summer. "Nobody goes to Fulleda by chance. It's a town at the end of the line, you have to want to go there," she assures. She went there because a friend invited her, and since then she and her husband have gone every year.

Around August, a local festival is held which, for Parellada, sums up a way of understanding life in villages and summer nights that "is ending." "The Matallonga winery provides the tables and the wine, and everyone brings their own chair and dinner from home. The whole village attends, as well as people from surrounding villages. I'm amazed that the same show happens every year: a villager who puts on high heels and sings great hits, named Conxa, and who drives the crowds wild with her jokes "picantons".

Her childhood summers, recalls the Semproniana chef, also took place a bit off the beaten track. The youngest of eight siblings spent her first summers in an isolated house in Aiguafreda, without water or electricity, only with a small generator. Her parents worked at the inn and they were looked after by a woman who, she says, "didn't exercise much authority." There could be up to fifteen children and young people, including siblings, cousins, and friends, spending the day by the river or in the pool in swimsuits, t-shirts, and flip-flops. "I think I could have perfectly gone through the whole summer with the same bikini bottoms and without a single shower," she remembers.

At night, when the generator started to fail, the small television would turn off mid-movie. Then came the card games, backgammon, and the stories of the older siblings. "I remember it as a fairy tale. No one forced me to go to bed, and I was fascinated to spend time with my older siblings," she explains.

Later, in adolescence, friends would come, nights of painting ourselves "like a monkey" and going out to see "what we could catch", the beaches and the first loves that always ended with watching the sun rise. "Let's not kid ourselves, the goal wasn't to see the sun, it was to end up rolling around with someone on the sand," she says, laughing.