Gelati: 0, Wine: 5 glasses, Tapas: 0
Ended up spending most of the day at my cooking class. There were 6 of us at the start for the optional market tour. A trio of women from Seattle (daughter, mother, grandmother) and a Romanian couple and me. Our guide was a Spanish man with the improbable name of Kim. The market was absolutely fascinating. A lot of thought had been put into the displays of every item. You felt almost reluctant to buy anything as it would mess up the symmetry. The stands were also highly specialised. You didn't have a fruit and veg stand. Instead, one place just sold fruit while another just sold veg. There was one that sold nothing but varieties of chillies. On the carnivorous side of things, there were poultry and games stands, meats stands (which only sold beef and lamb) and, of course, pork stands which sold fresh meat and all manner of jamon and salamis. There was also a stall that sold nothing but offal. There were fresh fish stalls and also bacala stalls which sold nothing but salted cod. These also sold pre-soaked bacala so you did have to do that tedious bit yourself. We bought cuttlefish (the stallholder cleaned it for us thankfully), prawns, clams, mussels, 2 types of jamon, some pre-soaked bacala, fresh peas and some fresh strawberries and then it was back to the school to cook.
On the menu was romesco sauce which is a red pesto-like sauce made with dried (then reconstituted) sweet red peppers with hazelnuts and almonds and lots of garlic. We ate it as a dipping sauce with calcots - which is a special type of Catalan leek/spring onion thing which we steamed and then fried.
Next was a roasted red capsicum and garlic soup with confit bacala. To confit the bacala we brought oil to the boil and then added herbs and garlic. The heat was turned off and the bacala added and left to absorb the flavours (since it has none of its own). We had first taken the skin off, cut it into tiny slices which were then put in the oven to crisp. These were used as a garnish (way too fiddly).
Main was seafood paella with the fresh peas. This was cooked in an enormous pan that had its own special gas line as paella needs a broad, strong heat sauce to cook properly.
Dessert was crema catalan with the fresh strawberries. This is basically a boiled custard flavoured with lemon and cinnamon. It wasn't enough use a paring knife to get the lemon peel. We then had to use the knife to scrape every last scrap of pith off the inside of the peel. Kim is a professional chef and likes this to be done properly.
Kim was a good instructor. Friendly and easy-going but clearly very knowledgable. We had been joined by another woman from Seattle and mother-daughter pair from Connecticut for the actual cooking class part so we were 9 in the end. Kim explained what and how we were to cook each dish and did some demonstrating but most of the time each dish was cooked by 2 or 3 volunteers from the class. I did the soup with bacala dish.
One thing I've noticed about American tourists is that when you ask the where they are from they tell you the state not the country. Another thing I noticed today is that they don't know how to cook. The mother from the trio was half of the pair that made the dessert. When she was given a balloon whisk to beat the eggs and sugar together it was clear she had never held one in her life. She had to be shown how to use it. All the Americans on the course were amazed at the sight of a stick blender. Again, never having seen such a thing. They were clearly not that used to using knives either. When one of them was given the task of chopping capsicum for the paella into pieces she carefully and painstakingly cut it into slices and then just as carefully and painstakingly cut each slice (individually!) into pieces. Both halves of the Romanian couple could cook. All three of us have clearly chopped up food before at least. While we can't do it as quickly, let alone as evenly, as a professional like Kim we could do it efficiently. We ended up sitting down to lunch at 3pm instead of 2pm because of how long it took to make everything.
The food was actually quite good. The ingredients were fresh and high quality and Kim had made sure we hadn't done anything too badly. We each got to caramelise the sugar on top of our crema catalan with a giant blow torch which was a lot of fun. Much wine was drunk except by those that preferred Diet Coke (shudder).
After finishing up at the cooking school I went out to see Vanessa at her place. It is tiny. I joked that my hotel room was bigger but it turns out I wasn't exaggerating. Her entire flat is about 4 metres square. One tiny corner has been partitioned off and turned into a bathroom (loo, shower, handbasin) and she has a tiny cooking area with a 2 burner cooktop and a single sink with a narrow fridge next to it. Good thing she doesn't like to cook. The rest of the space is taken up with a double bed and a small table with two chairs. However, she loves it. It gets direct light instead of looking out onto a central courtyard/light well as so many of the cheaper places do. Also, it is the first place she has had all to herself.
Well herself and her cat Park. He is fat and lazy and complacent. Even more so than my pampered 2 which is saying something. He has a good life and he knows it.
Vanessa and I then went up to Park Guell which is near her place. This was supposed to be an upmarket housing development in the early 20th century that Gaudi was to be the architect for. Only 2 homes were built. Neither sold and Gaudi ended up buying and living in one. The development failed and no more homes were built. However, the vast majority of the estate was supposed to be gardens and this is what it is now, plus many statues and arcades and the like that Gaudi designed. It is at the top of a steep climb but well worth a visit.
After this we went back down the hill and caught up with Generoso and Rachele. We attempted to go to dinner at an authentic paella place in the district but because it was so authentic it kept Spanish time and didn't open for dinner until 9pm. We decided to try another place in the centre that caters to tourists also and therefore keeps wider hours. Vanessa said it would take about 20 minutes to walk into the centre so we set off. We should have realised these were 20 Vanessa-minutes as it took us 1 hour to reach the other restaurant. Poor Rachele looked about ready to collapse. We finally got our paella - a seafood one and another with chicken and rabbit. According to Kim this version (chicken and rabbit) is the original. We finished with crema catalan, which was not as good as the one we'd cooked under Kim's instructions.
Once we were done Vanessa rushed off to work (as she was late) and left the 3 of us to find our various way's home. This was harder than it needed to be because the waiter mis-identified the place where the restaurant was but I eventually managed to find a metro stop for the others and the street where my hotel was for me.
Tomorrow we are off to the chocolate museum (for the obvious) and then the Sagrada Familia (for culture).
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