GALLEYGOW ROWING
This is gonna be a short one…I’m working too much to have time to post much of a story here. I can say with great confidence that I _didn’t_ make it to Redd Kross. We worked until about 11.15 and grabbed a metro to the Sala Apollo, and found the show was already over. We came in for a bit to say hello, and then the band went to the hotel and we went for a nightcap at the absinthe bar Marsella. Now, Marsella has really cleaned up its act in the last year or two, it’s kind of…well, a normal bar now. In fact all of the Ramblas area looks cleaned up and touristy to me now. It’s not the place that I want to hang out. Gracia is touristy too, but, somehow it wears it well. There’s plenty of local action going on.
Me I’ve been working hard on the Cosmopolitants’ album, and that really has consumed all my waking time. Dominique came to visit this weekend, and we managed to have some great moments—having tapas after the studio time, and we took lunch at an old standby in Barcelona, the restaurant Botafumeiro in Gracia. Dom and I had a fantastic lunch there; the place is really old school, kind of an 80’s nautical theme inside. I introduced Dom to percebes, which are gooseneck barnacles (once you figure out the method for eating them, it gets really efficient and tasty, but at first…), and we also had perfectly cooked seiche and I wrangled a huge crab, the kind which is called a “torteau” in French and in Spanish is called a “Buey de la Mar”, an ox of the sea. We shared a bottle of white wine, a high-class Albariño called “San Amaro”, which was outstanding, it really came to life after about 20 minutes into the meal.
Hmmm. Other news? None! Dom and I were giggling about the two drunk Scottish blokes at the tapas place last night, they were well on their way, and in fact we had seen so many UK tourists in Barcelona—thank you, EasyJet. Well, it paid off—I found a £1 coin on the ground today on the way to the studio.
Have I mentioned the café L’Aroma already? It’s a fantastic gourmet coffee shop between Placa del Sol and Placa de Reus y Taulets in Gracia. They make an incredible soy cortado…and they have croissants and pains chocolats (which are called Napolitanas here) which are much more indulgent than their French counterparts—the croissants are even more saturated with butter, but also are clearly salted as well in the recipe; the pains chocolats are practically bursting with chocolate, which forms more a less a layer of heavenly goo in the thing—in the French version the chocolate is a hard stick in the center (I am not complaining). Also—the staff are incredibly friendly and sassy.
OK, I am going to enjoy Dom’s company for her last night in town.
Last thoughts—check out www.unpopart.org for some double-take worthy manipulations of iconic items displaying juxtaposed thematic elements—the Dutch ceramic hand grenades are pretty memorable, and the “Chef Boyadolf” can…well…check it out. They take popular commercial imagery and twist it with controversial subject matter.
And, R.I.P. to Momofuko Ando, who in the 1950s invented the ramen noodle packet—by his company’s own estimation, they feed 100,000,000 people a day at an average cost of $0.20. That’s a massive, for-the-people product of brilliant simplicity. Mr. Ando was 96.
Love
KS
Barcelona SPAIN
