vserna

Let's see. There are two blewits - the wood blewit or Lepista nuda and the plain blewit or Lepista personata. The Lepista nuda is blue/violet (colors can vary depending on the habitat) from top to bottom, or cap to stem (stem is 'pie' in Spanish, 'pied' in French, when referring to a toadstool). The Lepista personata is cream/beige-colored on the cap, but has a more markedly violet stem than the nuda. That is why the personata is called 'pie violeta'/'pied violet', and the nuda is called 'pie azul'/'pied bleu'.

Almost two weeks. That's quite a wait in my book...

I've just found (and bought) Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice at Carrefour (the French-owned hypermarkets) in Madrid. This is probably the end of European civilization as we knew it...

I have now visited Dominus, and indeed Antonio del Alamo and Mateo Gelado are hitting all the right buttons. Slightly less ambitious technically than Zaranda, but excellent, fresh and tasty stuff. Warm Castilian goat cheese salad with artichokes, roast red peppers, tomatoes and balsamico; modern-style but smooth vegetable 'menestra' (al dente instead of soft); sensational wild hare risotto, oven-roasted 'pez de San Pedro' (john dory) with a cuttlefish-and-potato stew; beef filet on a porcini cream; almond wafer with a plum foam and Tahiti vanilla ice. The wine list, as could be expected from Mateo, is not too long but balanced and top-notch (including Dominus, of course!) We had a 2004 Val de Sil Godello white from Valdeorras and a 2002 Paixar red from Bierzo.

At very least, it seems to be a great place for one type of wine - traditional-style red Rioja.

Bejes. This is not in Asturias, but across the border in Cantabria. It's one of the two cheese-making villages atop the Liébana valley (the other is Tresviso). The appellation is Picón de Bejes-Tresviso. A late addendum. Sorry to quote myself, but I think my report on the Reinosa summer artisanal food market had some info of interest in this context: * The marvelously unctuous, well-balanced, complex picón de Bejes-Tresviso made by Amalia, of Bejes (no last name needed; in Spanish blue cheese land, as in Brazilian soccer, first names are sufficient). Of course, not the slightest hint of a knitting needle used to accelerate the inoculation with penicillium: this is the real, 100% natural thing. As I believe I mentioned in another thread on cabrales/picón/valdeón, when choosing a Picos de Europa blue cheese the name of the shepherd (or shepherdess, in this case) is paramount – much more so than the name of the village where it comes from. And Amalia is to Spanish blue cheese what Jean-François Coche-Dury is to white Burgundy.

It's not a matter of the number of full-time inspectors in Spain. It's a matter of policy dictated by the firm's headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand: the total number of stars in Spain has to be kept under a loose lid, around 110 or 120, and so it's been for the past 20 years, which is ridiculous considering the culinary explosion in this country, where everything has changed since 1985. The chief inspector in Spain confessed that surporising fact to me, directly, in response to my criticism, and that of the other leading restauranrt critics in this country, about Michelin's inexplicable stinginess here. Not really. These are well-established places. They have both sported three Campsa 'suns' for years.

Stop at the 70 year-old Casa Consuelo, order a pote asturiano (Asturian stew), then a merluza a la sidra, and be happy with the simple things in life...

Here's the local explanation. Carme has been offering great cuisine for a long time - she garnered her second star in 1996. In Michelin's mindset, a decade with two stars shows that she's paid her dues. The inside word at Michelin is that the Roca brothers' ascent into the rarefied air of 'haute cuisine' has been much faster, more recent and more unexpected - so they have to wait a little to prove that they're worthy of the great honor... Oh well...

If they can cover El Ejido, they can certainly cover Madrid or Santander! They do have very few people. The scandalous book on Michelin in France, published last year, revealed they had about five people full time in their home country...

Etxebarri has never been included in the Michelin guide, so at least they're consistent. Many outstanding Spanish restaurants, like Sacha in Madrid, are likewise totally absent from the pages of this guide. The elevation to one-star status of La Costa in southeastern Spain's Almería province is yet more proof of Michelin's total inconsistency. This is a very fine seafood restaurant, which I rated 15/20 for El Mundo, but why one star here and none for El Puerto in Santander or Combarro in Madrid, which are just as good if not better in that same style? Who knows what makes these strange 'inspectors' and their French bosses tick...

To go back to the topic - the queso de Oscos, from cow's milk, made at Grandas de Salime, is one of the scarce cheeses made in western Asturias.

Oh! You don't say!

I'd rather wait a little. I've heard some mixed reports, Luis. John: No, he hasn't been to El Bulli. That's his saving grace. If you analyze the places where he's trained you'll get the idea of where this guy is coming from: Pic/Waterside Inn/Can Roca/Can Fabes/Don Alfonso 1890 means, basically: "I don't recoil from modern techniques and textures and a few exotic ingredients, but what I really take pride in is in offering you woodcock as it should be done and ten different types of wild mushrooms." And that's OK with me.

Goodness gracious, why this fixation with Michelin? Heck, they gave one to Paladares in Gijón and it sure didn't make the place any better...

But in this case - so does Campsa, which gives it three 'suns'.

The wine list put together by Itziar is rather personal and original, and with a number of Riojas and Ribera del Dueros I'd never heard about! I chose a 2001 Corullón, and it worked well with both my scallops and my (yes!) wild woodcock. Many wines appear without a mention to their vintage in the wine list, and of course that's a total no-no. I haven't been to Dominus yet. How is it?

Don't go looking for it in Michelin, Campsa or elsewhere for now. The just-opened Zaranda (San Bernardino 13, phone 91 541 20 26) is the most ambitious new restaurant opening in Madrid in 2005 - of those that I've been able to try, of course. Chef Fernando Pérez Arellano is only 27 (his wife Itziar is in charge of the tiny, 24-seat dining room) but he's traveled quite a bit: Patrick Guilbaud in Ireland; Gordon Ramsay, Waterside Inn and Le Gavroche in the UK; Pic in France; Don Alfonso 1890 in Italy; Celler de Can Roca, Can Fabes and El Poblet in Spain! He seems to have learned well and is putting together a modern but energetic and flavorful offer (including a spectacular 'all mushroom' menu for autumn, and a '21st century' cocido madrileño on Thursdays).

I think Campsa is far more interesting and important than Michelin these days. What chaos!

Of course Ikea has them in their really nice food department (just last week I bought some cloudberry jam and gravad lax...). But not fresh, of course. Then again - no cranberries!

There will be five three-star restaurants in the 2006 Michelin Guide to Spain and Portugal - Carme Ruscalleda's Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar has been elevated from two-star status and joins El Bulli, Can Fabes, Arzak and Martín Berasategui. (No other details yet on this guide - will report as soon as I hear them.)

Not completely different - they both belong to a large genus, or botanical family: Vaccinium. This includes Vaccinium myrtillus, the European bilberry; Vaccinium macrocarpum, the cranberry, and Vaccinium vitis-idaea var. minus, the lingonberry. According to the ever-useful Wikipedia, of the many types of North American blueberry, the most commonly cultivated one is Vaccinium corymbosum, the Northern Highbush Blueberry.

The cranberry is a native American berry, and it is not produced in Europe AFAIK. In the UK you find them - imported from the US. Small round berries of the cranberry/blueberry family are not wildly popular in southern European countries because they are definitely northerly and, until recently, uncommon in these parts. The closest Spanish cousin you'll find is the arándano, i.e. the bilberry, known in France as myrtille - the smaller European cousin of the blueberry. You'll also find canned cranberry juice...

22-25 euros is highway robbery for milky agarics, proof of the great scarcity (very few of them do grow in November when there is no rain in August and September). (In 2002, our last wetautumn, they were around 8 euros...). At the same price, chanterelles are a much more refined mushroom. OTOH, lots of Lepista nuda, the wonderful blue-footed wood blewit, at similar prices to níscalos in Madrid markets this year; the Sierra de Guadarrama is chock-full of them this year, curiously. Back in my Sierra foray days I created my "New York City mushroom stew", with copious minced onion, sautéed in extra virgin olive oil, to which diced milky agarics and wood blewits were added (50-50). The name, of course, came from the nice color combination: orange and blue!

You're right, John. It's evidently cooked 'sous vide' and finished for seven minutes in the oven. I've found other odd errors in this report - like calling sobrasada a "sauce" or asserting that the ravioli de gambas was "the dish that also brought him [santamaria] recognition". If that ain't oversimplification, then what is? It's like saying the soupe de truffes VGE was the dish that brought Bocuse recognition... As a matter of fact, the ravioli did bring Santamaria some very negative recognition: when Patricia Wells of the International Herald Tribune wrote her then-famous series on the ten best restaurants and ten best informal restaurants in the world over a decade ago, she hated the texture of the uncooked shrimp so much that she downgraded Can Fabes... Strange report, lxt... To someone basically simplistic like me, a hard read. For instance: So, how was that pea velouté? First, I read that it was "contaminated" by the foie gras fat, "suppressing the peas’ delicate sweetness." And then, I read that it "rendered a flavor of ripe sumptuousness, wrapping the mouth with exquisite smoothness, intensity and restraint all at once". You've lost me right there.