Day 6 El Quim: Busy-ness, as usual, and no business tomorrow

So, I shucked 10 Kilos of fava beans today for a very traditional dish that incorporates a special blood sausage, the elbow of a pig, and fresh mint.  I forgot the name of it, but will post it when I remember.  One of my highlights of today was seeing new friends again that Carnet and I met yesterday at lunch.  Mary and family from Chicago came into lunch today before they headed to the Joan Miro museo. They are a model family – nice son, smart mom and dad, and mom is gorgeous! She is 10 years older than me but looks younger than me.  They are very interested in food and we talked a lot about it, as well as their vacation with their son who is studying in Paris at the moment but knows Spanish. I love it when people bond over food and new friendships develop out of that!  

This will be a very short “work” week for me. I took yesterday off, as it was Carnet’s last day in town for possibly 2 months.  Then, tomorrow, apparently there is going to be a nationwide strike. So, Quim is closing in solidarity.  I’m not sure how widespread the strike will be and if it will impact all forms of public transportation, but I’ll be curious to see and hear how it all goes.  Just in case, I bought enough food for tomorrow and right now I’m making chicken soup with lots of fresh ginger, garlic and cilantro root.  I had a hankering for the Chinese/Thai soup that Carnet learned from his grandmother.  Mine won’t even be close to how good hers, and Carnet’s is, as I’m omitting the Thai chilies due to continued stomach yelling. But the smells are already wafting into my bedroom and I’m just as excited.

It was another gorgeous and 65 degrees F day in Barcelona.  If it’s the same tomorrow, I’m going to walk to the beach – maybe 3-4 miles away. The mediterranean water is too cold to jump in at this point, but if I get hot, I know a delicious sorbet place on the way 😉

Tangent: the picture at top is one of the courses we ate at Lolita Monday night.  Remind anyone of Hawaii? Seared ahi tuna, rare inside, topped with a light ponzu and a fresh tomato fondue of sorts.  Delicious!  Our last course was chicken that was rolled in potato chips and then deep fried.  That is a child’s dream right there.