goat’s butter, toast, charcoal from the grill

Asador Etxebarri | Atxondo, Spain

Asador Etxebarri is as good as Bourdain [and everyone else] claims. You must take the pilgrimage to Atxondo at least once in your life [if not annually] and experience Victor’s masterful hand on the grill. If you don’t already know, the grill is custom-built, Victor is self-taught and self-trained, and the varieties of wood he uses makes this asador unlike any other in the area. Such was the perfect trifecta of the master, the technique, and the unparalleled Basque product.

My top three favorites? The creamy, melt-in-your-mouth-and-in-your-soul young goat’s-milk butter with natural charcoal dust (pictured above).

The palamós prawns. Were they tastier because they were happily spooning? I sure was. Double the slurp! These were the juiciest decapods I have ever consumed, and usually I avoid ordering them because 99.9% of the time they are overcooked, lacking salt and however else ill-prepared.

Fork and knife? Unnecessary. Tasty and tender was at my fingertips.

Oh, and take a page from my book: save the best–the brains–for last.

White tablecloth manners? Also unnecessary.

I channeled my inner [Chinese] zombie and shamelessly sucked on their brains and exoskeletons. All flavor.

palamós prawns

The key to a great decapod is temperature control and generous seasoning with coarse salt. Oh, and a hint of that Etxebarri smoked wood taste.

To finish? A double surprise. A good dessert in Spain? And it’s flan de queso fresco?! In the words of Ralph Wiggum, that’s unpossible!

Sorry Ralph, but I’d choo-choo-choose this over and over again. Slightly sweet with a thin layer of caramel and an incredibly never-before-experienced weightlessness, this was the perfect finale to the crescendo. It boasted the savory taste of cheesecake with the texture of a light, not-too-eggy flan.

Great savory food owes a lot to perfect seasoning, but epic meals for me are eternalized by great desserts. And great desserts are characterized by the precise amount of sugar and a balance of both sweet and savory.

flan de queso fresco

These are certainly dishes I’ll remember for now and for always. Asador Etxebarri. What a feast.

Due to canine circumstances (if you’re wondering, my Phoebe had spinal cord surgery), I can’t be there to personally welcome you with two muxus, a bottle of Txomín txakolí and a garrote fist pump, but do enjoy your new home and family.

If you find yourself hungry and wandering the streets of San Sebastian, I’m here for you.

Best of luck in the coming weeks. Remember: Be curious. Be humble. Be fearless.

And don’t forget to eat your heart out.

pichon

See you soon. Gero arte!

Cheers!

So, what makes an impressive, sweet presentation?

Macro video footage of chocolate making…the tempering, molding, piping and designing of this Queen of Hearts. Yup. It’s edible. It’s chocolate.

More specifically, it is a white chocolate shell with a thin sablée biscuit beneath a raspberry compote. See now?

Technical, aesthetic whimsy. I love it.

I love it just as much as I loved his presentation. First off, thank you Mr. Blumenthal for showing that HD video is possible (eureka!) and should be played on the big screen during Gastronómika. I wonder if anyone else took notice of the significantly clearer HD resolution juxtaposed to the majority of the blurry predecessors.

And thank you for making us all children again. In case you missed it, Heston finished the lecture with a Willy Wonka-esque video (yup, that song we all love…). He led us through a journey of pure imagination, an animation of a sweet and bubbly wonderland.

In addition to the queen of hearts treat, Heston also gave us all a token of the candy shop, a small scented spray. I followed along…sprayed the scent…closed my eyes…and imagined myself in the candy shop.

And? If you know me well, you know I’ve got a sensitive button for a nose so I’m not keen on perfumes, colognes or scented accents.

So to be honest, it wasn’t the coolest thing ever and it wasn’t the best thing ever at SS Gastronómika, but I do applaud Heston for bringing the fourth dimension [of smell] to his presentation. It was thoughtful and though I feel indifferent, I’m sure many enjoyed it.

Thank you for being unlike your peers, for being interactive and creative with your presentation. Your videos were excellently produced and I would have gladly stayed an hour more to hear you speak.

Thankfully I work in the world of food so ‘more work’ for me after our presentation at SS Gastronómika meant tuning into others. “The others” (any Lost fans out there catch my allusion?) were Riojan wine producers like Gabriella‘s friend Benjamin, jamón bellota purveyors like Casalba, and top chefs like Magnus Nilsson.

Let’s focus on the latter nordic lad, mister Magnus.

A long-haired, bird-with-feathers-still-intact-wielding gentleman with gentlemanly prose certainly deserves my undivided attention. What’s more, he built a fire on stage. If the flames didn’t keep the audience awake, the subsequent aromas of that roasting big bird sure did.

Magnus Nilsson. Smart man. If you’re going to travel the distance to give a presentation to the top journalists, photographers, chefs and other food industry people in the world, you must keep it simple yet memorable.

Black and white.

Our amuse: black and orange.

An edible shell with salmon roe.

Fire and bird.

Homemade and home-brought plate-and-napkin-all-in-one. Hurrah–practicalities of Swedish design!

And taste of course is important too. It was all berry delicious.

The crowd rushed the stage afterwards for a taste of the juicy, gamey bird. Even WD-50′s Wylie Dufresne waited eagerly and awkwardly in line to chat with his fellow, long-maned Magnus.

I tried the bird and the berries. Very Lion King of the man with the mane. Very “Circle of Life.”

You see, the birds eat the berries. Then we roast the bird and serve it with accompanying berries. This we eat. No meat glue, no sous-vide.

Bird carefully roasted over controlled fire (perhaps one set ablaze with berry branches).

Simple. Local. Quality.

Thank you, Magnus Nilsson.

and for good reason.

SS Gastronomika is the time of year for great minds to come together and share their passion for food, whether they are wine producers from La Rioja, food journalists from Croatia, or renowned chefs from Peru. I have so much to share about the amazing three days I spent chasing Martín and Gabriella, listening to the world’s most influential chefs speak and tasting wines and jamón from Spain’s top purveyors. I can’t possibly fit all the details and stories in one post. So here is the first of many stories.

I’m often asked what it’s like to work alongside a three-star Michelin chef, especially the famed Martín Berasategui. “Isn’t he demanding? I hear he is difficult to please.” Yes and no. Yes, he demands the best of his employees and what Martín wants in the moment, he gets because you deliver. If he wants to eat callos now, you and five others better be scrambling to make him callos now. Extreme? Sometimes…but I’ve learned to roll with the punches and enjoy the scrambling or better yet, the scrambling of others.

Hehe, I say, because I have learned something that has taken most others years to figure out: Certain times call for necessary scrambling, but more often than not, we should all learn to relax. Keyword here. Heston Blummenthal, Grant Achatz and Gastón Acurio might chuckle at this comment, but because only because they too fall under the umbrella of ‘demanding’ chefs. I’m sure they also have trusted individuals with whom they work closely on a daily basis.

My thoughts? Martín hired me for my brain, [not just for my cat-like reflexes] so I have taken it upon myself  to learn to appease him in moments of stress or tension. As he always says, “No hay que preocuparse, hay que ocuparse” (Don’t worry yourself. Learn to deal). I ‘deal’ by creating solutions. All the time spent on those “critical thinking” math problems or SAT questions are coming in handy now. This type of thinking allows me to deliver results.

Back to Gastronomika. Example: We (Martín and I) were backstage preparing for him to go before an audience of hundreds and perhaps thousands once televised. With the world waiting and watching your every move, what you need most is to relax. Everything we had done this year to prepare for Gastronomika was evident in the videos and the next thirty minute presentation Martín was about to deliver. So I assured him, “Do what you always do: have faith in our work and our equipo (team). Share our work in the way that you do best, as if you were speaking with them one-on-one in the comforts of your home. This is San Sebastián Gastronomika. We’re at home here.”

And just as they say in País Vasco, beem-buhm-boom, en un splish-splash, the thirty minutes concluded with applause, hugs and more importantly, txakolí to rejoice backstage. No one knows but  even tears were shed afterwards. He may be demanding, and as I refer to him, an adamant jabalí (wild boar), but my Martín is human and little do you know, very capable capable of expressing emotion.

Gastronomika is THE event for chefs to showcase the culmination of this year’s hard work. So finding myself backstage high-fiving Basque chef Juan Mari Arzak and Gabriela after their presentation and later embracing my own mentor, Martín, felt the right way to celebrate my adventures of 2011 in San Sebastián, my home away from home.

There’s no better time of  year to get to know the right [international] people (chefs, photographers, and journalists alike) and to listen to some of the most influential people today in food and wine. What a beautiful opportunity to gain perspective into what other masterminds are doing around the world.

Stay [very] tuned.

I was very fortunate to travel with Martín and our select team from the restaurant to the annual food and hospitality festival in Alicante, Spain. Here we presented six dishes from our Lasarte menu to an audience of…gosh, I don’t even know…hundreds? Picture a crowded seating area and entry way and enthusiastic guests clapping and standing after he presented each dish. It was almost…annoying how obsessed they were.

In this way the event made me realize the extent of Martín’s empire. He is a chef with breadth. I was by his side for two whole days and we couldn’t walk two feet without someone coming up to ask for a photograph. It never got old. He never got old. The most endearing part was that Martín firmly grabbed every hand and happily posed for photographs with strangers. He did so for avid fans at 9am and with equal enthusiasm for those at 9pm. Increíble.

Perhaps that is why his presentation was packed full and he received standing ovations in between dishes.

It was inspiring to watch chefs like pastry genio Paco Torreblanca, the Robert Deniro of chefs, Joan Roca, the always chic Quique Dacosta and Mr. Basque Eneko Atxa present dishes and share videos from their restaurants. Events like these are great opportunities to see what other chefs are crafting in their kitchens and more importantly, how they are presenting their work in these conferences.

I absolutely loved the presentation by Joan Roca. It told a story, it demonstrated culinary techniques, it had emotion, and it was professionally executed. Most importantly, it made me want to dine there. One day soon I will make it to El Celler de Can Roca…

It was also incredible to spend post-event hours with Eneko Atxa and his team to just shoot the breeze about anything and everything. Eneko reminds me of why I love Spanish chefs so much–because they’re human! At first glance they may appear shy or standoffish, but they are actually very approachable. They are gregarious, incredibly humble, and passionate about what they do. You just have to chat them up sin miedo, animo! Don’t be intimidated by their fame or fortune.

These are the chefs I admire.

November is the month of ferías (festivals) for us restaurant folk in Spain. Stay tuned for an update on Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía, one of the largest, annual restaurant and hotel ferías in Alicante, Spain, featuring outstanding chefs like Joan Roca, Paco Torreblanca, Quique Dacosta, Eneko Atxa and Martín Berasategui.

Stay tuned for more highlights!