our first real garden

At the risk of completely living up to the stereotype, L and I have just finished setting up our new organic garden. This weekend was perfect for this project... beautifully sunny skies interrupted by a few periods of good, solid rain. We started with a visit to Seattle Tilth's annual edible plant sale, made a quick stop by Home Depot for some extra supplies, and a few hours of work later, we had 56 square feet of healthy soil boosted by additional organic soil and compost, arranged into four rows of raised beds and surrounded by chicken wire to (hopefully) keep the wild rabbits from eating everything before we do.

L picked some terrific plants and seeds to create a balanced garden. Our great hope is for five varieties of delicious tomatoes and some sweet corn by mid-summer, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for our four little seedlings of romanesco cauliflower.

My back is a bit sore and my legs are tired, but it's a good feeling after a productive weekend. Now, we just need the sun to cooperate and do a little work for us...

Hisop, and my favorite server

I promised a friend I would get back to some of the unfinished posts about Spain. Originally, I was going to tackle the Etxebarri post... but that one is going to need some more time. Instead, today's post is about Hisop, a fantastic restaurant located in the upper Diagonal, part of the growing collection of uber-chic, modern Barcelona food scene. Two chefs partnering to follow a dream... a very cool story, a very good restaurant.

We came to Hisop in hopes of finding a balanced combination of modern gastronomic techniques with classical Catalan flavors. Hisop achieved that balance with grace and sophistication, expressed with a firm viewpoint toward pushing the traditional forward into the future.

This was also the meal where we encountered my favorite server of the vacation... skillful, knowledgeable and proficient, looking like Sinead O'Connor's butt-kicking culinary cousin. Something about her said that she didn't take BS from anyone, but even with her take-no-prisoners aura, she was simultaneously hospitable and welcoming. A contradicting combination of characteristics that all worked perfectly for this venue and this meal.

We started with two amuse bouches. The first, an interpretation of a traditional Catalan soup of codfish, olive, potato, onion and white bean--richly flavored, but pure and focused--nicely accented by caramelized and pickled onion. The second, lightly seared tuna with basil concentration, balsamic vinegar gelee cubes and roasted peanut. The peanut flavor was much lighter and nuanced than I expected, and the balsamic gelee tied each of the component flavors and textures together very successfully (buttery soft tuna, nutty peanut).

Our first courses were comprised of two insanely decadent dishes. First, a salad of seared foie gras medallions... are you kidding me??? Sweet, salty, rich, unctuous... the genious of this dish was in the allspice and nutmeg-spiked croutons and the lightly candied orange rind. There was nothing subtle about this dish; just a blow-out bistro salad with an air of luxury. The second dish, lentils with blood sausage and grilled squid. An amazingly caramelized exterior to the squid--tender but crispy, fresh, pristine, almost sweet... accompanied by an earthy mushroom foam. All so rich and so very good.

Corvina with a sauce of rendered tete de veau and leg roast. Perfectly--and I mean PERFECTLY--cooked... lovely crispy skin, intensely moist flesh, and following a prevalent theme of the meal, insanely rich (magnificent body from the beef collagen) without heaviness, focused and precise flavor of the juices of the fish mingled with the beef essence.

Roast chicken with dried apricots, plums and cinnamon foam. De-boned and pressed while grilled, garnished with huge crystals of fleur de sel. A bit springy in texture, but otherwise cooked quite well. Almost Persian in flavor combinations...

Before dessert, a refreshing apertif of peppermint. For me, an array of cheeses (cow, goat, manchengo, bleu, and fermented cow's milk cheese with olive oil--surprisingly acidic), served with a quince compote. For Lav, a rice pudding with pineapple ice cream and a citrus almond cookie. A well-executed combination of flavors.

At 25 Euros, this lunch was an absolute steal for the quality of the ingredients, the amount of food, and the sophistication of both the setting and the service.

Before leaving, we asked our server for tips on other restaurants to visit in Barcelona. Without equivocation, she recommended Saüc, which in her words was making her favorite food in the city. Oh, if we only had more time (and meals) in Barcelona...

Hisop
Passatge Marimón 9, Barcelona
93-141-32-33
www.hisop.com

United Way's Hunger Action Week: April 20-24

A quick time out from all this blogging about extravagant eating in Spain and Portugal...

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email invitation from the United Way of King County, inviting me to participate in their Hunger Action Week, which starts today and runs through Friday, April 24th.

The idea behind the action week is to raise awareness for hunger issues in our local community, and the challenge is to see if you can feed yourself for only $7 a day, the maximum food stamp benefit for an individual in Washington.

I really like how they explain it on their website:

"This challenge is really an exercise of empathy—to live in someone else's shoes for one week and learn how you can help fight hunger in our community."

Here are the rules for the Hunger Challenge:

• Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $7 per day.
• Salt and pepper don't count but all other seasonings, cooking oils, condiments, snacks, drinks, and everything else do.
• Don't use food you already own.
• Don't accept food from family, friends, coworkers and others. Not even the free samples from Costco!
• Try to include fresh produce and healthy protein each day.
• Keep track of expenses, food choices, etc. and share your experiences (which you can do on United Way of King County's blog).

So please join up yourself, if you can, and consider the following:

• Can you feed yourself for only $7 a day?
• If you had to make a choice between buying groceries and paying your rent, how would you choose?
• What compromises will you need to make?
• Will you be able to provide much variety or will you need to eat the same thing all week?
• If you don't know how to cook, does this make the challenge more difficult?

After returning from an extravagant vacation abroad for the past two weeks, this challenge comes at a perfect time to regain some perspective. I'll be blogging about our meals each day at our other blog, fishes+loaves, and returning to blog about the rest of our journey through Spain after the challenge ends.

More information can be found at the Hunger Action Week Blog.