Last Monday evening, my wife and I had the pleasure of traveling to NYC to attend the Beard dinner that Doug Flicker and the staff of Auriga cooked at The James Beard House. What a night!

First, let me tell you that the super trendy Hotel Gansevoort far exceeded my expectations. I was prepared for a cute, modern boutique hotel, with slipshod service and a staff more anxious about the status of their haircut than the happiness of their guests. I was way off base. The rooms are stunning, with oversized bathrooms, stunning views, superb appointments—including some of the comfiest beds and softest sheeting I have encountered in any comparable hotel—and a staff that could not have been any more professional and attentive if Harry Ritz had been taking care of us personally. We spotted the female cast members of Lost while we were there, Sandra Oh from Grey’s Anatomy and Sideways fame, and hordes of gawkers looking for celeb sightings, which are frequent at the Big G since its rooftop bar and pool is the hottest see-and-be-seen spot in Manhattan these days.

After a long day spent shopping (Bobbi Brown’s new line of baby soaps and creams for 'lil Noah, a truckload of Jo Malone for The Rishia, and some Miller Harris tangerine-basil spritz for the Big Guy), we stopped back at the hotel for a nap and then went to the Beard House. Flicker and his team opened up with foie gras–stuffed figs, pancetta-wrapped pickled dwarf peaches, and bouqerones. At the table we started with a breathtaking solitary nettle-stuffed agnotlotti resting in a pool of sweet pea broth crowned with a thin wisp of swordfish bottarga, moved on to a steamed tuna collar torchon sliced thin and topped with artichoke crudo and paired with duck eggs and beet essence, then wolfed down a flawlessly seared fresh herring with morels and garlic scapes before finishing out the savory side with a roasted lamb paired with smoked olive-oil gel, green apples, and tobacco leaf–wrapped truffled pecorino. For dessert, pastry doyenne Khan Tran served a summer berry and wild flower composition over a berry-wine gelee with avocado sorbet that was devoured almost as quickly as her chocolate- and spice-coated almond mignardise.

All I can tell you is that Flicker and his young staff blew everyone’s minds with their sophisticated and stunningly executed meal. Having cooked at the Beard House on three occasions myself, and having attended dozens of dinners there, it is one of the toughest places to cook and serve a meal. The space is teeny, the kitchen is foreign, the servers are new to the chefs—so essentially it’s a seventh-game playoff, winner-take-all, away game. Auriga won.

After the meal the Auriga staff sent out a thank-you card to every guest, something I have never seen in twenty-five years of prowling the food scene, and partner Jim Andrus presented Flicker with a custom-made Japanese knife that had half the room in tears.
Put down your computer mouse, pick up the phone, and make a reservation at Auriga. It is one of the top five eating experiences in the Cities and Flicker is on a roll these days, which means that you can taste the extra love in the food. Trust me on this.

After stuffing myself silly in the kitchens and pantry-ways of El Bulli, we left the culinary laboratory and shot some Travel Channel promos on the veranda overlooking the small bay, from the rocky promontory on which Ferran Adria’s restaurant sits. Adria strolled out a short time later. He told me that in the evening, weather permitting, this is where guests sip aperitifs and are served small bites before being ushered into the dining room for the dinner service. The view is stunning, but more amazing to me was the relaxed and unassuming atmosphere of the three major El Bulli dining rooms. Farmhouse chairs with straw seats in one; large, curvy, whitewashed plaster banquettes piled high with soft pillows in another; and a third in a smaller corner room with a simple Mediterranean aestheti—the effect is relaxing, charming, and perfectly suited to the natural setting viewed through the French doors that expose almost every seat in the building to the stunning seaside vista, the towering cypress and pine, and the unforgettable light streaming through the windows and entryways.

Now, because you will actually spend four hours here at your table, happily noshing your way through twenty or so of the most mind-blowing and palette-expanding courses you can possibly imagine, the dining room’s comfort level takes on even greater significance. Too many restaurants, of all types, especially in this country, seem to forget that one’s happiness at mealtime is directly proportional to one’s physical comfort both at the table and in the restaurant’s ambiance. Seems like a simple rule, but think about it—how many of your last restaurant meals were curiously unthrilling, almost annoyingly tough to get through, despite the quality of the food (assuming it was good) and the relative speed with which you were forced to endure it?

Adria’s restaurant prepares and presents some of the most food-forward edibles on the planet. He has philosophical treatises and axioms that he insisted I should become familiar with before we spent the day together. He thinks, rethinks, and over-thinks his relationship to food and to his staff and customers to a degree that I have never seen in another human being. Every aspect of his daily food life is recorded and codified by a battery of helpers whose sole jobs are to be sure that every idea, each failed or successful experiment, is meticulously recorded, yet Adria insists he is just a humble cook.
That insistence seemed disingenuous to me until I strolled the property with him, watched him pull weeds in the entryway, listened to him talk about the simple act of how he believes guests should be eating his food, without pretense or fuss. While his food is certainly complex, even the simplest spoon of steamed crab requires an army’s labors to put it on the plate. The act of eating his food, which Adria insists is the purview of the guest, is a simple and relaxing one. In an age where the most popular restaurants in our country seem to cram rules, annoying tableside theatrics, and marketing spin down our throats, Adria’s brilliance lies not only in his skill level as a “simple cook” but in the graceful humility with which he allows his guests to taste his talent

Last week Patricia Quintana came into town to do a series of events and book signings. The week, of course, culminated in a big dinner at Masa that benefited several of her favorite charities. I had the opportunity to have dinner with her the night before the big soiree, and to taste the food she and her staff and the Masa team were preparing for the dinner. Not only is this woman one of the most intense, knowledgeable, and skilled cooks in the world (she is after all the Julia Child of Mexico), she is a charming and engaging dinner companion as well. She and my wife and I traded stories about our son and her grandchildren. She schooled me on the regional cuisines of Mexico, the joys of working with fresh hoja santa, the pleasures of mole, and a riveting discourse on global food flavors that left me breathless. Grab her new books if you can. She was also kind enough to share her recipes for the event with me, so I am sharing one of my faves with you. Use the salsa verde piece of this master recipe with any grilled foods this summer!

Black Rice with Calamari in Salsa Verde

Rice

3/4 c. vegetable oil
1/2 onion, halved
4 cloves garlic, peeled
Salt to taste
2 c. white rice, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes, rinsed until water runs clear
1 to 1-1/2 T. calamari ink
3 c. hot water or chicken stock

In a saucepan, heat oil, add onion and garlic, and sauté until golden. Season with a small amount of salt. Add the rice and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly golden. Strain off the oil and remove the onion and garlic. Add ink and cook uncovered over high heat 4 minutes. Add hot water or stock, correct seasoning, and boil for 3 minutes. Lower heat, cover, and cook 4 minutes more, or until rice is fluffy.

Calamari

3/4 c. olive oil
1-1/2 c. minced onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 kg calamari, clean, sliced in rings
4 Serrano chilies, finely chopped
1 green pepper, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/4 or 1/3 c. calamari or octopus ink, or 10 envelopes ink
Salt to taste

In a skillet, heat the oil and add the minced onion and garlic. Sauté until lightly golden. Add the calamari and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until they are soft. Add the chilies, green pepper, and allspice. Continue cooking, covered, for 10 minutes more. Remove from heat and add the ink, season with a small amount of salt, as the ink is salty.

Salsa Verde

30 medium tomatillos, washed, disinfected, and cut in pieces
5 green jalapeño chilies
10 Serrano chilies, washed and cut in pieces
1-1/4 onion
6 cloves garlic, peeled
60 sprigs cilantro, washed and disinfected
Juice of 10 limes
3/4 to 1-1/2 T. salt, or to taste

In a blender, purée tomatillos, chilies, onion, garlic, and cilantro. Season and add a small amount of water, enough to obtain a slightly thick consistency. Set aside.

Garnish

1 red pepper, cut in slices or rounds
1 green pepper, cut in slices or rounds
1 yellow pepper, cut in slices or rounds

To Serve

Place rice on a platter or on individual serving plates. Arrange calamari on top. Pour salsa verde around rice and garnish with pepper slices.
Or, mold the rice, place calamari in the center, and pour salsa verde around the outside of the molded rice. Serve immediately. Serves 8.

Friday at lunchtime we left Les Cols for Rosas and drove up the coast. The day was perfect. As we approached El Bulli I began to get nervous in a way that I have never experienced before. Ferran Adria is going to be remembered as the greatest chef of his generation, and a man that changed not only the game itself, but also the playing field and the equipment as well. For those that have no idea who he is, Adria is the chef at the hyperexperimental restaurant El Bulli, where a twenty-two-course tasting menu goes for 300 euros a pop and is only open six months a year. Adria spends the rest of the year in Barcelona in his atelier creating the next year's menu; he 'invented' the often-imitated foam-gellee (amongst many other techniques) school of cookery. While he denies it, he is the father of molecular gastronomy and perhaps a brief description of what I found when I walked in the door will give you an idea of this guy's skill level.

Before we could even talk to his PR people to set up the shoot we had to clear it by signing waivers. He required a gastronomic interpeter, provided by the Spanish government, to ensure that every word was precisely defined; his restaurant has two people whose sole jobs are to sweep the stones in the driveway; he had forty-four people in his kitchen when we spent the day there, but only does one turn of forty-eight covers a night. He has a full-time staff of four photographers and graphic designers who do nothing but document every move in the kitchen, every day of the week! When we walked in he was creating sugarless sponge cakes for a new item he is toying with, using a brioche batter put through a CO2 dispenser, piped into small microwaveable Dixie cups, and cooked for forty-five seconds. He was ecstatic that he could create the lightest, airiest puffs in under a minute and he was teaming these cakes with seafoods and vegetable extracts in a dessert!

He had a team of chefs doing nothing for three hours but hand-select perfect fronds of a new species of seaweed that the Japanese have discovered, he was tasting hundreds of combinations of raw and blanched seaweeds all cooked at different times to determine the optimum flavors for extracting the essence of the plant.

He insists that he is "just a cook" and cannot stand all the praise and attention he gets, and like many brilliant artists he seems tortured by the fact that he lives his life under such a microscope, but acknowledges that it was his choice. He was insistent that we try his brother's tapas bar (Inopia) in Barcelona, where he spends every Tuesday evening. He spent a lot of time spraying my tongue with flavor atomizers before I tasted a given edible . . .rosemary spritz before baby rabbit escabeche cooked sous vide . . .but the most telling moment came when I asked him about his commitment to local flavors.

He led me to a pine tree that grew outside the kitchen, then to the pastry room where he tasted us on four pine cone elements for a dessert that he was running that night. Pine meringue, pine oil, pine syrup, and pine cream, all of which were made with a distilled essence of the immature cones of this tree. It was phenomenal, woodsy, citrusy, and thrilling as it moved across my tongue.

Calling this man just a cook is like calling Einstein a high-school math geek. More on my chat with Ferran next week.

Enough already—there are too few health inspectors working the food beat in the greater metro area and way too many restaurants. Instead of spending all our time talking about global pandemics, we need to have our state health department wake up and smell the coffee. With millions of meals served by local restaurants, hotels, and other food-service establishments every day, our physical health is being compromised three times daily when we play Russian roulette with our forks. T-Paw, R.T., and Double C need to make it a priority not only to increase the number of health inspectors who check on our food-service operations, but to increase the fines for noncompliance, and change our local scoring system to a publicly posted letter grade or numerical points system that is legally required to be posted on premise in a visible, highly trafficked area, like the front window of the eatery.

Last week’s salmonella outbreak at Barbette, one of my favorite restaurants, will not deter me from eating there as soon as my schedule permits. This stuff happens. I am not forgiving it, but I understand it. What is not understandable is having a restaurant with substandard equipment for heating, cooling, and hot-cold holding, which it seems was one of the issues at work here. Barbette’s owner, Kim Bartmann, admitted as much when she went on record in the local daily, bravely and honestly noting that she was working with the health department to upgrade some of her equipment and procedures. While the restaurant bears some responsibility for that (and she took it! BRAVO!), the health department is so over-stretched and under-staffed that it can not keep up with bi-annual visits to all the restaurants in town, most of which would fail any litmus test you could dream up for safeguarding us against food-borne illness outbreaks. TRUST ME, the truth hurts; restaurants take way too many shortcuts with the public trust when it comes to food safety, and this is a wake-up call. What if this was a school and hundreds (or thousands!) of little kids with undeveloped immune systems got sick? The results would be tragic. This monumentally flawed system needs to be overhauled immediately. We all participate in a public food life every day and if we don’t address this explosively toxic issue right now, we are putting our children, our seniors, and all the rest of us in harm’s way every time we dine out.

Meredith Brokaw, the wife of Tom Brokaw, has a new cookbook out titled Big Sky, a collection of recipes from, and inspired by, her family ranch in Montana. I spoke with her last week on Chowhounds, and she graciously shared this recipe with me. It’s great with ham and eggs in the morning, or with grilled leg of lamb and a tomato salad. Look for Meredith in the Twin Cities on Wednesday as she makes the round on the book promo circuit.

Lala's Cheese Grits

Lala is Laurie Buffett McGuane, a sister of Jimmy Buffett. The whole Buffett family is into food. Jimmy created his Margaritaville restaurants, which are now all over the world. His sister Lulu’s restaurant in Gulf Shores, Alabama, called Lulu’s at Homeport, is famous for its gumbo. Laurie knows all about hearty western food, but tips her southern hand when she entertains, especially when she serves this dish.

1 t. olive oil
8 T. (1 stick) butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
5 c. water
1-1/4 c. regular grits
3 large eggs
8 oz. extra-sharp cheddar, grated
8 oz. pepper-jack cheese, grated
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2- or 3-quart baking dish and set it aside. In a small skillet over medium heat, heat olive oil and 1 T. butter. When butter foams, add garlic. Cook, stirring, until garlic is lightly browned. Set aside. Heat water in a large saucepan over high heat until boiling. Reduce heat and, with a whisk, slowly stir in grits. Continue stirring until mixture has thickened slightly; it should be the consistency of thick tomato sauce. Cube remaining 7 T. butter and add to the grits, a few pieces at a time, whisking to get a velvety texture. In a small bowl, lightly beat eggs. Stir in a few teaspoons of hot grits. Pour eggs back into grits and stir quickly. Stir in cheeses and garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour grits into the prepared baking dish. Bake on middle rack until grits are set and center is solid, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Serves 6 to 8.

You’ll have to wait until next week for my El Bulli travelogue—there are just too many absurdities taking place in our own backyard since I returned home from Morocco, I can’t ignore them another second. As my wife’s buddy Val is fond of saying, “Time for hodgepodge.”

Au revoir . . . .Louis XIII has closed its doors, and the sign posted on its entrance-way earlier in the week read, “Louis XIII as a concept has failed, and we are forced to close our doors . . .” . . .C’mon now, Louis!?!?!? This restaurant failed for more reasons than concept; very few restaurants with bad concepts fail, most bad concepts succeed, actually. IT’S POOR EXECUTION that closes restaurants. And the idea that someone else or something else is ‘forcing’ anything is absurd. I hate to see any eatery close its doors, but we can’t ignore the fact that like so many businesses—food establishments or other types—expansion can be deadly if you have no organization to execute and a committed and loyal following of regular customers. I hate to throw down the Icarus card, but Louis flew too high, too fast, with the wrong equipment. It will be fascinating to see if Fhima can keep his Minneapolis concept alive in the coming months, and if he can get it open it will be a testament to his outstanding skills as a salesman and his exceedingly high charm quotient. But he’ll have to learn about execution if he wants to make a go of it in the new spot.

Have a great weekend, I am off to the City and Regional Magazine Awards in Boston . . . .I will be eating at San Tarpios, Shabu-Zen, Jumbo Seafood, Oleana, The Butcher Shop, B & G Oyster, and stuffing as many of my buddy Mike’s sausage and broccoli rabe heroes down my throat as I can handle. Fuhgeddaboutit!

On Friday, half our crew stayed in Barcelona and I left for the Costa Brava with our producer, Shannon, our fixer-driver-interpeter, Anna, and our photographer, Mike. We drove up the coast, stopping to shoot in Olot, Gerona, a medieval town a few miles inland that boasts some rare attractions, including a thousand-year-old bridge with a working battlement and keep, and a thirteenth-century farmhouse restored into one of the most unique inns and restaurants in the world, Les Cols. Along the way, I grilled Shannon about all the celebrity awards shows she has produced—I am such a celeb geek sometimes. Here is the skinny: Besides producing many of the biggest awards shows, Shannon and Mike have also produced Wild On and Joan Rivers’ red-carpet preludes on E!, so they know from where they speak. So from my lips to God’s ears, Charlize and Cameron are sweethearts, Salma is a nightmare, and Brooke Burke is a hard-working and dedicated professional. Moving on . . . .

Now, I know that a farmhouse deep in the countryside is an unlikely location for a top-notch restaurant, but the Green Acres setting did not stop Fina Puigdevall from opening her restaurant outside Olot, in a thirteenth-century building that she inherited from her parents (her mom still lives on the second floor). As her reputation as a chef spread, Puigdevall wanted a place for her guests to stay overnight and she commissioned RCR Architects of Olot to preserve the ancient structure of the family house, build an extension to usher guests from farmyard to dining hall, remake the refectory, and craft a twenty-second-century dining room and interior that could lie in stark contrast to the rural surroundings. A thirty-meter-long steel table stretches the length of the space, with private dining alcoves set off of the main thruway, but everything is clad in gold sheet metal. The walls of the oblong room have bands of gold-lacquered steel extending from floor to ceiling; each band twists to form a loose spiral. Strips of light follow the angles where floor meets wall and wall meets ceiling. The effect is dazzling. And the food is outrageous, from the artisanal cheeses made by local fromagerias to the truffle risotto with rooster crests, Les Cols is one of the most exquisite restaurants in the world.

A rooster crest really is the zig-zag crown that sits on top of a rooster's head. They are braised, peeled, and then some of the crests are chopped and stirred into the risotto, while several others are napped with a chicken glace and perched atop the finished dish. If you love chicken feet, imagine all the gelatinous delight of those morsels multiplied by a factor of 100. And with only one crest worth eating out of every ten roosters, well, you can imagine the appeal in eating a treat in Nina’s kitchen that very few diners ever get to hear about, let alone eat.

After lunch we piled into the van and headed off to Rosas, a seaside village about ninety minutes away, to meet Ferran Adria at El Bulli.

Looking for something a little different for the barbecue this week? These tasty little stuffed grape leaves are sold all over southeast Asia from little hawker stalls that are often no more than a small clay pot grill with an umbrella hanging over it. I got addicted to these snacks over the years, many times making my first stop ‘in country’ at a small market where I knew they would be sold, sometimes even before heading to the hotel! Nicole Routhier, a Vietnamese chef friend, once gave me a complex and tedious recipe years ago, which I subsequently adapted into this foolproof version of the classic dish. Pair it with other dishes for a light supper or serve it as the perfect party treat, since it can be rolled hours ahead of grilling, takes five minutes to cook, and makes for great finger food.

Grilled Vietnamese Stuffed Grape Leaves

1/2 lb. peeled and deveined shrimp
2 T. fresh lemongrass, chopped
2 T. chopped Thai basil
2 T. chopped cilantro leaves
1 T. brown sugar
1 t. minced garlic
2 t. minced ginger
1 lb. ground pork
2 T. oyster sauce
2 T. ketchup
1 T. cornstarch
36 grape leaves (this is a brined product available in jars in most supermarkets)
2 T. crushed toasted peanuts
Mint sprigs
2 heads butter lettuce (Boston or bibb)

Combine the shrimp, lemongrass, basil, cilantro, sugar, garlic and ginger in a food processor and pulse to combine and grind the shrimp. In a large work bowl, combine shrimp mixture, pork, oyster sauce, ketchup, and cornstarch.

Working one at a time, roll a large tablespoon of filling into each grape leaf, working up from the stem end to the point, proceeding in a ‘burrito style’ by folding in the ends. Grill for 4-5 minutes over medium direct heat until firm and just cooked through. Serve with the sauce, garnish with some crushed toasted peanuts, mint sprigs, and butter lettuce leaves for wrapping.

Nuoc Cham

3 T. fish sauce
1-1/2 T. sugar (or more, to taste)
1 T. lime juice
2 T. soy sauce
1 fresh Thai chili, minced
1 t. grated ginger
2 t. grated carrot
1 t. minced scallion

Combine and serve.

A quick flight from Madrid to Barcelona put us in this idyllic city on the northeast coast of Spain in time for me and the crew to check in to our hotel and grab some dinner in the lobby restaurant. Barcelona is the cultural capital of Catalonia, the most forward-thinking architectural town in Europe (Gaudi has more buildings and sculptures here in Barcelona than anywhere else in the world), the home of the 2006 Premier League soccer champs, and the stomping grounds of dozens the most innovative chefs in the west, most of whom have worshiped at the culinary teat of high-powered gastro-preneurs like Juan Maria Arzak and Ferran Adria.

I instantly fell in love with the Catalan spirit and hospitality, all of which was a welcome reprieve from the more politically scolding and slightly snooty Madrillenos, and let's face it, a seaside city always seems more romantic to me than a landlocked one. I'm a sucker for the ocean. Catalonia borders the Mediterranean, and cruising the city of Barcelona, driving up the Costa Brava, strolling the Rambla with its famous flower marts and street peddlers, the historic gothic city center, the stunning shops and modern high rises of the business district, the Guell Parc, the funiculars on the hills to the east of the town (Barcelona is really a grouping of small cities, in a way) . . .I could have stayed for weeks. The best shopping areas in the city are on the Passeig de Gracia and the streets to its south and west, including the Bulevard Rosa arcade, Barri Gotic, and streets such as Carrer de la Portaferrissa, Carrer de la Boqueria, Carrer del Call, Carrer de la Llibreteria, and Carrer de Ferran. I spent a half hour looking for purses for my wife at Loewe, a store that is what you would get if you mated Gucci with Cartier. I couldn't even afford to use their bathroom, but it was a fun way to spend a lunch break.

But I digress.

Exhausted from our trip to the city, we went downstairs to dinner and encountered an indecipherable menu, with dishes named for emotions, like Bliss . . .which turned out to be a plate of fruit foams and jellies infused with herbs like verbena that have holistic healing powers. Dinner consisted of lots of foam, dusts, and savory gelatos—you could feel Ferran Adria's presence in restaurants all over Catalonia, much like Luke and Obi-Wan could always feel Darth Vader's vibe in the Star Wars series. Every chef in Europe is trying to incorporate Adria's iconography of techniques (dusts, gels, foams, essences, infusions) and philosophies into their work. Many have been very successful, but most merely imitate the appearances of Adria's style with none of the reality. The food still has to taste good and the flavors still need to work together. Just because you can make a smoked salmon ice cream doesn't mean it's a good idea.

La Bouqeria Market

The next morning we shot for hours in the Bouqeria, the oldest and best market in the city and one of the great food halls in all of Europe. We ate at La Gardunya, the famous restaurant located in the hall itself, renowned for its fresh horchata (an almond and betel nut milk concoction) that was as disgusting to drink as it sounds, but they had some delicious pan-fried calves' brains with olive oil and lemon. These huge food markets in Europe should be replicated all over our country. Essentially, they are composed of hundreds of stalls selling every food product imaginable, but every few yards there is a stall selling foods made from the goodies being sold all around them. So in the fruit area of the market there are a dozen little stands selling fresh fruit cups and juices; in the seafood hall there are several small raw bars and seafood grill stands . . .you get the idea. The product quality is second to none and the foods are simple and devoid of the sort of artifice that many restaurants utilize to unknowingly ruin great food ingredients. Sometimes, it's okay if being a chef means being a great shopper, and there should be no shame in that. The market was bustling and we got some killer footage, but nothing beat the small plate of razor clams a la plancha that I ate before we scooted up the hill to shoot at Antonio Ramon's La Venta restaurant.

On the way we bumped into Tyra Banks, who was shooting her Top Model show on the streets of the city. This girl has more handlers than I could count and as everyone in our van got their cameras ready, and I had a handle on the door, ready to jump out and offer up a ride and good meal, the traffic surged, our driver slipped into a distant lane, and I missed my chance. Our screams out the door, "Whats up, girl!!" fell on deaf ears and we headed on up to the east side of town. Crushing.

But we licked our wounds at La Venta, one of the best places to view the city, with terraces that are tranquil and serene, but a night spent on the rooftop café is as rocking a place as you can find in Barcelona. What's more, the food is great. Ramon whipped up some fresh sea urchins in a classic gratinee, and a wedge of bacalao (salt cod) that had been poached in lemon and herbs sous vide, perched on a purée of caramelized onions and potatoes, with roasted tomatoes and crushed olive paste dancing around the plate. Sensational—all the flavors of the sun-drenched Costa Brava brought together on a plate. We trucked back to our hotel and shot some promos on the docks of the city. I have gotten really good at saying, "I'm Andrew Zimmern and you're watching the Travel Channel," all while I'm negotiating with a sidewalk vendor over the price of a grilled frog . . .and saying "Bizarre Foods" in any language we can accurately translate. Tomorrow we drive up to Les Cols and El Bulli, a day that I have been looking forward to my whole professional life.

MADRID—Today it was off to the swank side of town, in the posh Serrano shopping district. We shot all morning in the trendy food stalls of the Mercado de la Paz, a 200-stall market with butchers, seafood stalls, fromagerias, and so on. We ate criadillas (bulls' balls) and tripe stew with the truckers and stevedores in the small café inside the market whose bar was four deep at ten in the morning. The salt cod, cured-pressed, and dried tuna roe and the incredible array of fish and shellfish in the stalls were staggering. We saw plenty of percebes, the small goose-neck barnacles that everyone loves, and hundreds of species of langosto, crab, and small rockfish. For a landlocked burg, Madrid has an insatiable appetite for seafood, one that harkens back to the days of the first two Phillips, who were both fish fanatics. Madrillenos still tell stories about the Royal Coaches perambulating from the palace to the seashores and back, their carts overflowing with fresh catch for the Royal Kitchens. And this was hundreds of years ago!

Seafood at the Mercado and La Trainera

Today, the chic ladies who lunch, wealthy businessmen, the rich and famous, celebrities of all types, or just curious gastronomes fall into lunch at La Trainera, the forty-year-old grandmama of Madrid's great seafood restaurants, and the one that Francis Bacon so famously touted back in the day. We had the opportunity to roll in there about three hours before the lunch crowds packed the place and shoot in the kitchens of this remarkable eatery that is right around the corner from the Mercado (La Trainera is on Lagasca 60, Madrid Spain 28001, 91-576-8035).

Seafood at the Mercado and La Trainera

The small, humble, blue and white storefront with the cute shutters is a pretty impressive statement about the restaurant all on its own. No bells, no whistles—just great food and a reputation for perfection. But the stream of famous faces and the jacketed doorman out front let you know you are in for a speical experience. All the fish and shellfish is gathered from small fishing co-ops sprinkled all over Spain, many from Galicia, the famous coastal city in the Northwest corner of the country. When you walk into the restaurant, you see the awesome iced seafood display, and many customers find that without a reservation you are only able to avail yourself of a meal at the bar, but that's not a bad thing since you can just keep pointing at what looks good in the case. Be careful: Almost all the goodies, from the oysters to the red prawns to the cigalas (langostos), buey crab, lobsters, percebes, and the like are all sold by the gram, and an over-eager diner can quickly pile up quite a bill. I had the opportunity to sit in the kitchen with the chef, where he keeps many pots of court bouillons simmering for his percebes, oysters, and crabs, and a few massive griddles for the giant prawns seared 'a la plancha' served pil-pil style, drizzled with the herb-oil-chili-garlic sauce that the Basques are renowned for. Be sure to try the rodaballo, a Spanish turbot that is griddled and served with a sherry vinegar pan sauce—it's the house specialty. The percebes (gooseneck barnacles), also known locally as dragons' feet becasue of their odd lizard-skin look, are sold in 200-gram increments and can wholesale for more than $50 a pound, so I tried my best to be respectful, but standing in the kitchen with the chef and the restaurant's septuagenarian owner (who kept hitting on our twenty-something Spanish production fixer), I joyfully tucked into a mammoth platter of the little buggers, which taste like a lobster-kissed, butter tender clam. You split the skin at the base of the barnacle where it attaches to the rocks, then using the foot like a handle, you slide the edible cylinder of flesh out from the sheathing and suck it down, then you can split apart the feathery foot and eat the small kernel of meat inside the top of the percebe . . .heaven. We went upstairs and ate Mediterranean clams on the half shell, langostos, three types of lobsters, cigalas, giant red prawns, rodaballo, buey crab, and a a flurry of desserts and cheeses. Put La Trainera on your list of places not to miss next time you are in Madrid. But bring a large wallet; had we been paying the full freight, my little snack there, albeit enough for two or three people, would have cost almost 500 euros.

We raced into our van after shooting the lunch, still reeking of shellfish, sped to Madrid's Barajas airport (the new Terminal 4 is an AMAZING piece of architecture), checked in as quickly as we could with our piles of bags of video equipment, and took off for Barcelona, one of the most exciting cities in the world. More on that city, and my visit to El Bulli, later in the week.

Morocco has a vibrant seafood culture and this simple chermoulais the perfect breezy summertime recipe for anyone looking to add a North African twist to their summertime BBQ fare. I love this recipe with fatty, oily fish such as sardines and mackerel. Check out Coastal Seafoods because they carry lots of whole fish, especially those species in season.

1 small minced onion
1/2 c. raisins
1/2 t. saffron mixed into 2 T. water
1/2 c. toasted almonds
3 c. fresh cilantro leaves
1 large handful of mint leaves
3 plump garlic cloves
A pinch or two of red pepper flakes
1-1/4 c. olive oil
Lime juice to taste
12 fresh sardines, cleaned, heads on (if sardines are not available, try small red mullet, mackerel or trout)

Place onion, raisins, saffron, and half the almonds into a large bowl and set aside. Cut 3 slashes into both sides of the fish, and purée remaining ingredients. Take 1/3 of the puréed mixture and rub into the fish slashes. Take the remaining purée and combine with the onion mixture. Grill the fish for several minutes on each side and serve with the chermoula.

DATELINE: MADRID

Tuesday morning, up and at 'em and on to Casa Botin, the oldest restaurant in the world. It's ecstatically scenic, on a small cobblestone street a block off the Plaza Mayor, the site of most of the heretical trials and subsequent burnings during the Spanish Inquisition. Botin's well used and justifiably famous wood-burning oven pumps out forty baby pigs and a dozen or so lambs each day, and has done so without interruption since 1730. There are several small dining rooms in an ancient building with tilted stairs and window casements, servers that seem pulled straight out of central casting, and happy customers slurping down big bowls of squid braised in its own ink, stewed partridge . . .the classics. I spent my day in the granite-floored kitchens, piling logs into the stove, cooking with the all-male Botin staff (none are younger than sixty) and scarfing down as much pig as I could handle. Apparently, they were quite happy with the gusto with which I pried open the skull of the pig and made quick work of the ears, snout, cheeks, and brain, saving the tongue for last. Aggressive eaters like myself are thought of quite fondly in Spain.

The 300-year-old pig oven at Botin.

Then on to La Bola, a 170-year-old tavern on a quiet little street. Madrid used to be a town of taverns; there were 800 of them a hundred years ago, now they number under 100. Sad, really. La Bola is a stunning tavern with some gorgeous and colorful woodwork, and an all-female kitchen with the median age I would have to peg at about seventy. Everyone heads there for one reason only: the cocido Madrilleno, a clay pot/pitcher filled with meats, poultry, and sausages, vegetables, and chickpeas, topped off with broth. The pitcher sits upright, percolating really, on a wood-burning stove, simmering for hours, then the pitcher comes to your table, the broth is poured from the pitcher into a bowl filled with noodles to make a lovely soup, and then the boiled dinner is tumbled out onto a plate for the second course, served with sea salt, pickled hot peppers, and a purée of smoked and fresh peppers. They serve hundreds of these a day. On to the callos, a tripe stew that is cooked with chunks of blood sausage (morcilla) and other smoked meats. Quite good.

Paco and I at the Taberna Antonio Sanchez with one of his bulls.

That night a tapas crawl saw us wandering around Madrid with a few locals, checking out some unusual taparias. One of our stops was at the crumbling and ancient Taberna Antonio Sanchez. Two hundred years ago, Antonio's dad was a bullfighter who opened the place after suffering a career-ending goring (his first kill is mounted in the bar) and he named the place after his son. Subsequently, over the last two centuries, the place has been owned by a succesion of bullfighters, winding up today in the hands of my new best buddy, Paco. Paco led me about the tavern, showed me the tables of all the famous writers who came there to eat and drink and write in the heat of the day and late into the evening. The décor is all original—tables, chairs, even the wine glasses are ancient. Paco showed me his bulls on the wall, and a few of his scars, and then fed me a bowl of the best callos I had eaten all day, and trust me, I have become a tripe stew expert by now. I am still coming down from the high of sitting in Paco's tavern, the roads silent all around us (the streets are too small for cars). This ancient working-class neighborhood is changing quickly. Immigrant waves settle into the cheaper flats, developers take over the more charming buildings, modernity inexorably creeps in, and Paco sits, waiting for the customers, whose ranks are thinning rapidly. Madrid's young people are less interested in tavern life than in the nightclubs on the other side of town, and the new generation of bullfighters are more concerned with being rockstars than they are in becoming future tavern owners, and so Paco soldiers on, making the best callos in all of town, giving anyone who will listen to him a history lesson from a man who truly lived and loved in a way that does not exist in today's pop culture disposable world. So he sits, smiling as we leave, and my friend Andres and I stumble on to the next taparia, and I ask him who will take over when Paco dies, who's the next bullfighter-turned–bar owner, and he says there is no one, and that when Paco goes, the tavern goes. The tavern is Paco, he insists. His stories, his stew, his stewardship, and in a few years there will be no tavern left, making Paco the last bottle of Coca-Cola in the desert.