Mar Calpena

Yeah, I haven't done my bit either. I'm just back from holidays in Senegal, and I'm moving out to a new flat (with a ridiculously small ovenless kitchen). I still hope to catch up once I'm settled.

Last night I had my first dining experience at Cinc Sentits. I could rave about anything in the menu, everything was just amazing (we had the big menu). But I agree, the amuse was so good it's almost a pity they serve it first of all because no matter how good everything else is, it's such a high standard to match... While we were waiting for the bill, the next table had their shots in waiting at a nearby service table and we were seriously tempted to steal them!!!

Tocinillo is, I think, a custard dessert, fairly similar to a flan. And just like flan, there's a thousand variations. Not sure if there's any particular characteristic to it, but hopefully other people in the forum (pedro? victor?) will be able to tell us more. ← I believe Tocino is fat back or uncured bacon. I assume Tocinillo, the custard dessert, more often described as tocinillo de cielo, gets it's name from its heavenly richness. I can't recall how it differs from other custards such as flan. ← Tocinillo is made solely out of egg yolks and sugar. It's veeeeeeeeeeery rich but oh so good!

My mum is a devout catholic, so in the spirit of restraint that's supposed to imperate during Lent, she wouldn't cook meat on Fridays... until we heard from a nun friend of my aunt's that in a Bishop's meeting during the same period they were served lobster caneloni (lobster being remarkably expensive in Spain and not what you would consider exactly modest food)! Ever since, I don't think my mother's ever bothered about the subject again, as that really made her angry.

Funnily enough, Ferran Adria has stated in interviews (you can check this one written by... er... me! in El Bulli's webapge) he'd like to set up a traditional cuisine restaurant because he says it's impossible to eat dishes like a fricandó the way they were cooked one century ago.

I'm running late because I work for a comic book publisher and the International Barcelona Comic Book fair is this weekend... I hope I'll be doing this on the week of the 20th. Anyway, I'm jealous of your food!!!!

As I said, I'm running late with these project, but I'm in, even if I fail my own deadline. THe only good point is I'll be able to do a bit more planning beforehand... and now I've got my wages, I've got myself a new camera and I'll be able to take pics of everything.

It's been delayed, but I'm still in...

By the way, as far as ham is concerned, Teruel is currently becoming the hottest D.O. -and it's as good as the best-, and, best of all, it's still not as expensive as some others (but will definitely become so...)

Wow!!!!! Impressive!!! You have set the bar very high!!!! I almost can smell the food, and I'm dribbling, SD. Just one non cooking related question: How would you translate "sweetbread" and "morel" to Spanish? Congratulations! Everything looks tempting! Mar

If there are no changes, it's Friday afternoon shopping for my sister and me on to a Sunday dinner!!! I'm really looking forward to all this ( she wasn't available any sooner ). I might split my answer in two posts... We're going to improvise, in terms of recipes. Mar

works for me. so, each of us has to produce the following: 1. pictures of produce 2. detailed expenses 3. menu (did we agree on at least 4 courses?) 4. recipes? 5. pics of the meal. agreed? sd ← Yes. If you copy recipes verbatim from a cookbook you may incur in copyright infringment, so just let's just give an overview of them if there's risk of this happening. It's great to have two more people joining! I'm feeling very curious as to what everyone's going to make... Mar

Yeah, no problem. How about choosing a deadline? Would Sunday, June 19 be ok with everyone?

← Sorry if this is a long post, but I'm a journalist by trade, so I tend get off hand when I have a keyboard nearby. These are some guidelines I would follow (but this OUR project! so please don't really listen to me) If we need to, we could divide our posts in three parts: - Begin by telling us about your buying experience: Tell us why you made the choices you made. Were you buying with a menu or a technique in mind or did something just catch your eye? Did you pick a theme? Did anything interesting happen while you were shopping? When did you buy the ingredients? -you know Saturday afternoon may be cheaper, but there are lots of closed stalls!!!. List how much you spent at everything and where you got it. You can use things you already had at home, provided it's reasonable to assume they will be in any given pantry (I mean stuff like oil, milk, etc... this is an experiment in cooking, not in home economics!). What did you enjoy most? Did you ask the vendors for tips? - Cooking: Own recipe or putting someone else's to practice? Where did you cook things? How did you organize your time? What was the most difficult thing (cleaning afterwards, maybe?)? List the recipes. What were you trying to achieve in terms of textures and colors? How long did it take you from start to finish? Did you get inspiration from a famous cook? - Eating. How did you plate and present things? Who were you eating it with? Did anything disappoint you or exceed your expectations? What changes would you make to your menu? If you bought wine, which one was it and how did it match the food? Did you have lunch or dinner? Did you learn anything? What struck you the most? And ABOVE ALL, did you enjoy yourself? And don't forget that photographs about the whole process are always welcome! Anyway, just my two (long) cents. Mar

Ok, roll call Silly Disciple Saborosa Pepe Bash Mar Next: When, and exactly how? I need to buy a digital camera (I dropped mine on New Year's eve). We can give everyone one month's deadline, so that everyone proceeds at his/her own rythm. Mar

I've enlisted my sister, cook extraordinaire, to help. As she is also a mother of two -and therefore, used to making the most of her pennies, she says 30 € is indeed a lot and suggests adding wine to the challenge, but I told her we are still discussing about the whole thing. If I'm not mistaken, there's three of us interested in taking part in this. We can either choose a date, begin, and see if more people decide to join later or we can move this topic to the Cooking forum or the Adventures in eating one and open it to buying in any market worldwide (but then we ought to choose a theme so that we can compare our results), which might atract others' attention. Mar

I don't know, I was maybe thinking about a menu for two people. We should definitely list which is stall we got our ingredients from so that anyone trying to replicate it knows where to get their groceries. I mentioned Boqueria because, much as I love that market, I hardly ever go there and I know I'm missing out on a lot of good stuff, but we could indeed include other markets or shops. Other fun things we could try: - Using a stricter budget (like 10 €) - Developing a theme (seafood, or vegetarian, or traditional, or...) - Trying to include wine in the challenge. I don't know, let's see if can get other people interested and we can decide together. Mar

HI! I've thought about a fun idea those from us who live in Barcelona could undertake... How about taking 30 € to La Boqueria market each and seeing what do we cook out of it? I don't know, I think this might stretch out culinary muscle. Then we can write the menu each one of us cooked so that everyone else at the forum can have a look. Would anyone be interested in this? How do we go about it --- are everyday, back of the pantry groceries like flour and oil included? What do you reckon? Just think aloud. Mar

Just to add my two cents: Way back in 2000, when Estrella de Plata was an up-and-coming restaurant I had to write an article about "Noveau tapas" for an important Spanish hospitality magazine. After exchanging quite a lot of e-mails and phone calls with the managers I arranged an interview with them one morning. The time was pretty inconvenient to me as I was a staff writer for another magazine and I had to use one of my holiday days to make it. So I went to Estrella de Plata and waited at the door for a couple of hours. Nobody turned up, and neither did I get a call or an e-mail of apologies (and I revised my notes and I was there at the correct time). Therefore, I'm not surprised AT ALL about finding out their service is not that good. Mar