Flashback Thursdays: Weddings and Pintxos Bars in St. Sebastián.

   Back in early June, we headed off for a mini-break in the Basque country with our next-door neighbours and good friends, Bea and David. Saying au revoir to Léran in the morning, we drove north to the péage, sped across the narrowest part of France and arrived in St. Sebastián on the Atlantic coast of Spain late afternoon. Our pénsion was in the old quarter and, even early on a Friday night, the joint was jumping, bars open--and opening for what would be a long night.
    We were in Spain and 7 p.m. was ridiculously early to eat. Instead, we ambled around the narrow streets, emerging on to the seafront.

     Serious surfing goes on here. Wandering back to the large plaza outside the town hall, we were met by an odd mix of surfers in shiny black wetsuits and fashionably-dressed couples. Friday night is obviously wedding night in St. Sebastián. Family, friends and traditional dancers welcomed the just-weds as they exited the town hall. New sets of brides and bridesmaids sat in cars, waiting for their turn. Vivid colours, bare brown shoulders, the women guests were gorgeously dressed on this warm summer night, though how some managed to negotiate the cobblestones in their sky-high heels is beyond me. I also don't know why I didn't take photos...

    Here's the town hall the morning after. Not quite the same. Try to imagine this area buzzing with happy people.

   We hung around long enough to watch the sun go down, then drifted back into the town for a pintxos crawl. Pronounced "pinch-oss", these are the Basque version of tapas. 

   Open doors revealed bars heaped with platters and plates of different kinds. You simply pick up a plate and help yourself. One cookery book I saw listed over 500 variations.

 

 Shavings of salty ham on a slice of pungent goat cheese with a little salad and sweet red pepper underneath.

 Smoked salmon topped with very finely chopped onion. I imagine that graphic swizzle is reduced balsamic. It usually is.

 Fresh anchovies with lemon and tomato. And remember these are just three from a vast selection and from one of many, many pintxos bars.
  We hit four in total, with a big glass of gutsy Rioja wine at each and, then, close to midnight, went and had dinner. Or so they tell me.

Oh well, at least I can read about them on-line...

   Reading Restaurant magazine's just-released list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants  at www.theworlds50best.com /, I'm happy to see that three of the top ten are considerably less than a day's drive away.

   At Number Two: El Celler de Can Roca is under three hours down the road in Girona.  Swiped from their web site, this shot is part of the visual history of the cuisine. Xai amb pa amb tomaquet translates as "lamb with tomato bread,"  a variation on a rustic Catalan dish of toasted bread, tomatoes, garlic, salt and olive oil. It's eaten at breakfast and as a snack but I've never ever seen it look this elegant. www.cellercanroca.com
   Number Three on the "best" list, Mugaritz http://www.mugaritz.com/ is near San Sebastien. Very modern Basque cuisine with lots of reviews on-line. Also near San Sebastien is Arzak which holds the Number Eight position. http://www.arzak.info 
   Even less than a day after the news came out, I probably don't have a hope of making a reservation at any one of them any time in the next six months.

Well, hello Dali!!

   For the past few days I'd been researching a story in the Pyrenees. Now it was time to come home via the town of Bisbal where we hoped to find tiles for the kitchen counters. 

   I won't get into details except to say that we had a really pleasant stay in Palomas on the coast and an unsuccessful tile-hunt the following morning. We trudged from store to store, and made our way into a factory where a pleasant lady showed us around a semi-dark interior piled high with cartons. Even in the semi-dark, we could see that we didn't like any of the contents.

   So we climbed in the car, stopped at a mercato for bread, cheese and grapes, and picniced by the side of the autoroute. Not far north is the town of Figueros, famous for its Dali museum. We missed the turnoff. (It gave me great pleasure later, in the gift shop, when a survey-taker asked my my impressions to say "inadequate signage".)

   This is Salvador Dali's museum and burial place so, of course, the whole place is gloriously over the top from the exterior covered with sculpted bread rolls and crowned with enormous eggs to the interior.