The Adventures of A Silly Disciple

Menu for Hope IV

2007-12-13T12:52:52Z

It's that time of the year again. Pim's Menu for Hope 4, now in it's 4th. year, is up and running. As I've said before I think this is a perfect way for bloggers to help others through donations to the UN World Food Programme.

So, as I did last year, I am offering whoever bids the highest a full-day gastro tour of Barcelona, starting at the Boqueria Market and with lunch for up to three people in one of my favorite tapas bar included! So if you are planning to visit Barcelona in the near future (offer is good until September 2008, but I could make an exception if need be), do not hesitate to bid (big bidding people, don't be shy, after all you're traveling to Barcelona, you MUST travel in style!) for this offer, think of all the money and food-illness-related-suffering you will be saving by having me as a guide instead of a local wise-ass taxi driver who only wants your money!

Go now and bid here (the prize code is EU37), or check other great prizes either directly on Pim’s blog or on Fanny's foodbeam blog, who is the European host for the campaign.

Keep on reading to get the details, the fine print and also details on how to bid.

The prize:
I will take you through a full-day gastro tour of Barcelona. We will start early in the morning having breakfast in the famous Mercat de Sant Josep de La Boqueria market, followed by a walk through the market. We will then visit the Barri Gothic, the old neighborhood next to the market and the Ramblas, where we will discover a few hidden gems, like a cozy little cheese shop, an all-sausage store and an old coffee and nut roasting house. Hopefully the walk will open your appetite because I will treat you and two friends to lunch in one of my favorite visit a tapas and montaditos bar, which has a very a particular twist!
After lunch you can decide to take a nap like some locals do, or we can keep on moving and visit, among other things, a wine store, a pastry shop, a chocolate factory (depending on availability the day of the visit), a classic "Colmado" or one of the 40 something other markets in Barcelona, and quite a few other delicious options in this amazing culinary city. I can also help you choose the perfect restaurant for a nice dinner to finish off the day!Also, and only if you really really want it, I will help you plan the rest of the trip, give you tips and help you make reservations for you in any place you want (no, I can’t get reservations to El Bulli, sorry!).

To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle

Here's what you need to do:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from the Menu for Hope list. My code is EU37.

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 - 2xEU01, 3xEU02.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

the small print:
Given enough time in advance I am pretty much available any day, but keep in mind that markets (and many restaurants) close on Sundays and Mondays, so Tuesday through Saturday are better options. Also please check with me as I tend to travel often, and would like to make it easier for both of us to plan ahead.
I will treat you and two friends for lunch in one of my favorite tapas bar, but should you choose to do something more upscale I will give suggestions and help with reservations, but won't include the cost of the meal (of course I will pay my own should you want my company). Offer is good until September of 2008, but I'm flexible if need be. The itinerary can be changed with enough time in advance if requested. Also, as a second option I can arrange for a different tour in the surroundings of Barcelona if you prefer it , in which case I'll pay for the car rental instead of lunch. I think this might be a better option for someone who has already visited the city and would like to see other stuff outside of it.

Pazzta920: The First Batch

2007-06-28T16:31:34Z

I'm typing this post sitting in our stall in the Boqueria market. Pretty much everything is in place, plus or minus a few details.

We just finished lunch and are about to start producing what should be the first batch of stuffed pasta, to be sold tomorrow morning... I am a happy man.

Pazzta 920: (Almost) open for business

2007-06-26T07:16:38Z

With just a few minor details to go, Pazzta 920 is almost open for business. I promise I will keep you posted, but if you are in Barcelona do stop by the market and say hi, maybe we can offer you a bowl of fresh pasta!

A (not so) little thing of beauty

2007-06-08T17:08:43Z

We have an extruder now. It's a little beauty. Well, not exactly little. It's more like a beatiful mammoth.
Yesterday, around 5pm, the delivery company showed up with a 2m x 1.5m x 1.5m box (I kid you not), 600kg, and pretty much left it in front of the stall for us to place it in.
We unpacked it, knowing that we had bought a slightly smaller mammoth. We had to remove one of the stall's front surfaces to make it fit, and with some help in the end the machine was in.

Pazzta920: Getting there...

2007-06-04T22:13:20Z

Yes, after what seems to be an endless wait, we're getting closer to an opening date.
Construction is close to done (this picture is a couple of days old), we now have a website: Pasta Fresca Pazzta920, and if everything goes according to plan we will have our big fat italian extruder / ravioli maker in the next few days.

It's been a long, long time to get here, and I'm quite excited about what comes next.

Hopefully I should be able to announce a date soon, but in the meantime, save this address:

Pasta Fresca Pazzta920
Parada 920-921
Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria
Barcelona - 08012
http://www.pazzta920.com

Pictures at a demolition

2007-05-25T19:06:07Z

No, it's not a variation on Mussorgsky's theme, but rather a few pictures on the construction work going on our market endeavour. These pictures are from a couple of days ago.

It's not that much work really that we have to do, but it requires the synchronized interaction of a number of people.

More info and pics after the jump.

We are changing the current water and electrical installation, closing a door, moving another one, changing the front, getting the back ready for kitchen production. We are also installing kitchen furniture and equipment. I'll try to keep pictures coming as we move forward.

The stall right when we took over:

The stall, yesterday:

A new adventure begins

2007-05-24T01:12:08Z

Long story short: a group of friends/foodies and I bought a stall in the Boqueria market, here in Barcelona. It took us a while to get going, but now we are close to the finish line. The stall used to be a fruits and vegetables shop. However, when we open we will be offering fresh artisanal pasta.
Stay tuned for more info!

A Menu For Hope III - Contribute, Help and win a day tour of Gastro-Barcelona!

2006-12-15T00:50:59Z

I have been too busy to even talk about how busy I've been, and of course once again I've neglected my blog and my readers. However, I'd like to abuse the little confidence you might still have on me and take a moment of your attention to point you towards Pim's great fund raising campaign, A Menu For Hope, now in it's 3rd year. This is a perfect way for bloggers to do a bit of what we do and help others, this time contributing with the UN World Food Programme.

That being said, I am offering whoever bids the highest a full-day gastro tour of Barcelona, starting at the Boqueria Market and with lunch for up to three people in one of my favorite tapas bar included! So if you are planning to visit Barcelona in the near future (offer is good until December 2007, and I’ll make exceptions if you beg), do not hesitate to bid (big bidding people, don't be shy, after all you're traveling to Barcelona, you MUST travel in style!) for this offer, think of all the money and food-illness-related-suffering you will be saving by having me as a guide instead of a local wise-ass taxi driver who only wants your money!

You can GO NOW! and bid here (the prize code is EU35), or check other great prizes either directly on Pim’s blog or on David Lebovitz blog, who is the European host for the campaign.

Keep on reading to get the details, the fine print and also details on how to bid.

HOW TO BID
Here's what you should do...

1. Go to the donation page.
2. Make a donation! Each $10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. Do tell us how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code-for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UW01 and 3 for UW02. My prize number is EU35. If your company matches your charity donation, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
3. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.
4. Check back on Chez Pim on January 15 when we announce the result of the raffle. The drawing will be done electronically. Our friend the code wizard Derrick at Obsession with Food is responsible for the application that will do the job.

the small print:
Given enough time in advance I am pretty much available any day, but markets (and many restaurants) close on Sundays and Mondays, so Tuesday through Saturday are better options. Also please check with me as I tend to travel often, and would like to make it easier for both of us to plan ahead.
I will treat you and two friends for lunch in one of my favorite tapas bar, but should you choose to do something more upscale I will give suggestions and help with reservations, but won't include the cost of the meal (of course I will pay my own should you want my company). Offer is good until Dec of 2007, but I'm flexible if need be. The itinerary can be changed with enough time in advance if requested. Also, as a second option I can arrange for a different tour in the surroundings of Barcelona if you prefer it , in which case I'll pay for the car rental instead of lunch. I think this might be a better option for someone who has already visited the city and would like to see other stuff outside of it.

Home Food, Sunday-dinner-after-a-long-trip edition

2006-10-16T00:54:22Z

You come home Sunday evening after a long trip (ok maybe not so long, but I was tired). You need to make dinner. It has to be quick, since the kid is up early for school tomorrow morning. What to do, you ask? In most cases, you grab something from the freezer, microblast it and voila, dinner's ready.
Well, for starters, I don't own a microwave. And I don't usually keep precooked meals in the freezer (unless I've cooked them myself that is).

Instead, what I do keep in the fridge is the lovely farm raised chicken I bought at the market yesterday. So here's the recipe for my quick-Sunday-dinner-after-a-long-trip chicken:

- Take one farm raised chicken you bought yesterday at the market, two carrots, two onions, three potatoes (approximate quantities).
- Put the carrots and potatoes through a nice razor sharp mandoline (I personally recommend the benriner one), roughly chop the onions, or cut them into quarters, or use the mandoline while you're at it.
- Throw everything together onto an oven tray, season liberally with salt, pepper, olive oil and maybe some oregano if you have it. Garlic is good too.
- Take the chicken as is, put it on top of the veggies, more salt, more pepper, more olive oil, and into the oven it goes. I know this is not the way they teach you in cooking school but hey, as I've said, it's Sunday and I'm tired. It will still be yummy, trust me.
Total preparation time, 5 minutes. If it takes you more than five minutes to slice 4 vegetables with a mandoline and put a chicken on top of it, go ahead, go for the precooked dinner and the microwave, I don't care.

- Now go, throw the kid into the tub (ok, don't THROW him in, but you get the point), check email, discuss football over the phone with a friend or whatever set of actions you do on a Sunday evening, just make sure they collectively take about half hour, no more, no less.
- Go back into the kitchen, open the oven. The chicken should look like the one in the picture (fine, mine IS a bit burnt, so sue me. History and crispy chicken skin will prove me right).
- Eat dinner (a glass of young Fitou wine you bought during the aforementioned trip will help you sleep), put the kid to bed, discuss more football with friend, watch movie with wife, yada-yada-yada, see you tomorrow.

Fitou, because I need some rest

2006-10-14T02:36:37Z

I must admit this has been quite a though week. A project which we've been working on for a while, and which looked almost closed, is proving to be much more elusive than we thought. Luckily, I can take this weekend off, and tomorrow after my morning visit to the market I'm taking the family and running off to Fitou, a cozy little town in Languedoc-Roussillon, just past Perpginan and altogether about 250 km. from Barcelona, center to the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée with the same name.

So what's there, you might ask? Well, wine, as I've said. And food, quite a lot of it actually. Mostly local oysters which are not that bad considering the price. Local fish is good if you know where and when to buy. Same goes for wine. We also get really good bread from a bakery in Perpignan (Why oh why can't we have bread like this in Barcelona?), and cheese and charcuterie from a few places in the area. But most of all, good friends who live there and will always welcome us with a smile.

Tags: Fitou, Languedoc-Roussillon, weekend getaways

Heston Blumenthal on how to cook asparagus

2006-10-14T01:23:20Z

I recently ran into this short video by Chef Heston Blumenthal, of The Fat Duck fame, which I think is part of the BBC show he used to have.
With all the hype surrounding molecular gastronomy, I think this is a good example of what this concept really means. It is just about having proper scientific knowledge about how and why the ingredients we used are modified by the techniques we apply to them while cooking. Making it about foam, air, gels and all the other stuff is, I think, smoke and mirrors.

If you are interested in Molecular Gastronomy, or knowing more about what happens to food when we cook it, I suggest you check the excellent book On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.

Standby for relaunch

2006-09-28T01:03:02Z

After a long hiatus, I'm back with quite a few stories to tell you, pictures to show you and food to share with you (at least pretend I'm sharing it with you). It will take a while to get things back in motion, but I have a great project to tell you about, if all goes well, very very soon.
In the meantime, if you're planning a trip to Barcelona, you can play with this new toy I just finished building.

Euro Blogging By Post 2

2005-10-24T13:56:43Z

After an awful long delay, which included a misplaced note from the postman, a hectic work week, two trips to France and one to the UK, I can finally sit down and blog about my recent Euro Blogging by Post participation. I’ve always had a strange, bittersweet relationship with Secret Santa. On one side, I enjoy putting things together and giving them to friends. On the other, I hate surprises, or rather the long, anxious wait until I get my hands on the package and see what’s inside.

That’s why the misplaced note from the postman didn’t help at all. Apparently he put it in the wrong slot, and only after a week a kind neighbor put two and two together and left the note back in my slot. I hurriedly went to the post office to fetch it, and oh what a delight when I got home and opened it.

Jenni from pertelote.org had sent me a nice roundup of London treats. First, the almond cakes, which were still moist and delicious! With both my wife and the little one around in the house, they didn’t last for long. The cardamom and earl grey tea chocolate bars promptly followed, voraciously attacked by the little one. As for the cupboard ingredient, I got a little wattle seed jar, which I think will come very hand in my coming sous-vide cooking experiments. So no recipe for now, but a big thank you to Jenni for this great present!

And so I graduate

2005-10-06T19:52:00Z

So I finished my one year “professional cook” course. I had the final exam last week, where we had to come up with a dish of our own making, using ingredients from a given list and with the objective of keeping the cost to less than 7 euros.
It was a great experience, coming up with the working plan, doing the prepping, and actually cooking it from scratch.

My dish was a “Mar i Muntanya”, a traditional concept where sea and land ingredients come together. It was my tribute to Xavi Sagristà from Restaurant Mas Pau, since I spent the summer staging in his kitchen, a very worthy experience. If I took something with me from it, it is the value of not overdoing a dish with too many elements and bringing forward the quality of the main ingredients. In the end, it is all about keeping it simple.

We got our diplomas yesterday, along with a few comments on each one of our dishes from the jury composed by school instructors.
It was a great year altogether. I’ll surely miss it.

La Paradeta - when the market stall became a restaurant

2005-10-05T10:46:04Z

A few weeks ago the Catalonia-based members of food website El Cuerpo De Cristo decided to get together for the first time. After short-listing a few spots, we decided on La Paradeta, a “self-service Marisqueria” behind the old Born market.
The charm of this place is twofold. On one side, the freshness of the product (they have frozen crayfish and shrimp though) keeps on bringing people back. But more importantly, the place works like a market stall (“la paradeta” means “the little stall” in catalan). You go in, there’s a huge stall-like display with all the fresh fish and seafood, you tell the waitress what you want, and how you want it cooked.

She then weighs the food, gives you a number and you pay and sit at your table. Once the food is ready, they call your table number and you have to go pick the stuff up from the kitchen pass.
There were three of us; Joaquim, Oriol, who writes the great blog Bueno Para Comer, and me, and we ordered quite a bit of food.
First were the oysters, then the fried seafood and then the grilled stuff. I won’t bore you with details, but rather give you these pictures!

La Paradeta (map)
Comercial 7, Born, Barcelona
(34)93.268.19.39
Open Tues-Thurs 8-11:30pm; Fri 8pm-midnight; Sat 1-4pm and 8pm-midnight; Sun 1-4pm