Mario Batali’s Blog

415 call time dad on time, meets the crew  we head to the merca madrid 25 yrs old and HUUUUUGE… we do the fish market see everything do some light walkthroughs and plot development with bitty  dd does a cameo asking if I am the Italian guy on tv, proceeding then to ask for bitty’s autograph  funny   dad loves the fish market and seemed to enjoy the behind the scenes look…. I bolt for airport at 715 and catch Swissair home for the holidays   next up contract negotiations and book meetings  back to andalucia in january 

Drive to Madrid and a 3 hr break head to pradp for a quickie then a long walk to la bola   nice conversation with bitty and some plot development and then cocido   nice dish if a little tame  cooked in pots called pulcheros  looked like ceramic espresso mokas  fill with ceci, chorizo, chicken, cured beef and pork pieces, served in two courses first the broth out of the steaming pulchero into a wide bowl with  precooked fideos to be eaten with guindillas.. then 2^nd all of the meat and ceci served with a tomato sauce spiked with a little cumin… good and hearty but nothing to jump up and down about.. split to have dinner with mom and dad  old tapa places under mayor, mushroom place with beer and then an anchovy place with cold white wine then to casa paco  nice evening  salad and steak and a bottle of muga reserva 2003 all in the 140 euros not bad   fun to relive the greatness of the fam move to spain with mom and dad.. to bed early for merca Madrid shoot thurs am

head to covadonga to see the mountain where the battle of Asturias to turn back the advance of the moors occurred a fine granite cathedral from 19^th century, nice statue of pelayo the first king of reconquest spain, a moment in the santa cueva where the apparition of the virgin maria  with as much piousness as bitty and I can muster in a room filled with Gregorian chants and the virgin with a tootsie roll in her arms… head for crew lunch to a welcome 30 minutes with bocadillos of tortilla, or warm chorizo, or atun and ensalada, nasty café de pulchero and off to pili’s house   

 Pili… a delightful 77 yr old woman living in the house her mom was born in, a   delightful babe with small dark beautiful eyes with a great style her kitchen was 6 ft by 5 ft with a 6 foot ceiling presented some camera angle issues but we shot a nice cooking scene where we sat down half the time   … she had a great coal and wood stove/oven and we needed to stoke it up (her line… “we could plug in my new fryer and skip this step in 5 minutes”  hahahaha)  she cooked a massive chicken may 5 kilos, one from “the ones you can hearing singing down the hill” with onions and potatoes and canned red peppers that was simply delicious… she baked some apples (Birmingham variety due to the place they were originally shipped 100 yrs ago) with a little sugar and described how comfortable life had become with a washer and running water and a stove inside  just a joy, next scene in a cabana de Montana  little shack with a fire hearth but no chimney and a bed  traditional pastores place for the summer when they would profit from the high mountain pastures and make cheeses   at this point they are only 7 pastores left making this specific blue (NAME TBD) of the region  we ate it with country bread  and sidra and all was beautiful     the cheese are smoked lightly on the mantle over the fire and then aged in a cave… pretty beautiful tv  head back to Oviedo  for dinner with crew at el cantabrico   sort of an aquarium with not that much fish   delish albarino  great Faustino 82 for 50 euros and some pretty good gambas alla plancha home for a few orujos with the boys and to bed

Drive around Oviedo shoot in a pastry shop built in 1914 and still exactly the same  have a pastry called cabayones named for 600 yr old oak tree that used to be in the middle of town, cut down to widen strrests in the 40’s and mourned ever since… puff pastry base in a tartlet shell with almond custard piped over and then baked, cooled and then dipped in soft ball caramel and dried in slow oven….  Really good, more interesting were the savoury emanadas with tuna, or chorizo, or anchovies… all eaten in car on the way to mountain inn Shoot fabada with pedro moran    beautiful outdoor scene over open fire, pork bicep, chorizo, morcilla  tocino, frozen fresh habas blancas,  a slug of an onion, pimenton and saffron truly deliciousHead back to Oviedo and head out to a dinner at conrado   delicious dp 96 for aperetivo, killer londrade and butron verdejo and a smoking mag of ruada 1988   great plate of ceps alla plancha, chuletillas of the tiniest size and a bottle or two of orujo and back to the hotel with danny and moises.. apparently they got a hangover…hmm?? Oh well 

Up late at 815, walked down to barrio gotiko to get an eyeful of gaudi  truly impressive stuff, it is amazing how well integrated something so stunning can be in the regular 19^th century architecture and yet retain such a  look by itself  love the casa battlo and casa mila in the am  just wild…..flew to Oviedo in the afternoon w ciona, bitty and cinski  beautiful green pastoral promising valley after valley on the drive in from the airport  check into another great AC hotel at the plaza del ferrovia and walk with the entire crew down into town   real vs mallorca on tv so the streets were momentarily quiet find a place called tierras de Asturias   sidreria with meat and a little retail window ala hard rock with all types of ready to cook fabada and soup kits  kind of beautiful graphically   one thing I am certain of  is the Spanish number one position in the graphic design    everything in the whole damn country is stuning , original and provocative   dinner starts with a plat de carns   chorizo, cecino, jamon, salsichon, morcilla and pepito de lonza along with 5 or 6 mild goat and cow/ sheep mix cheese and a selection of three seafood pates out if can that were more like gourmet cat food to me   great bread   fun waiter and yet the sidra was flat in flavor and not at all remniscent of apples  went to albarino and enjoyed it… home by 11 and to bed

get up at 6 and head to Mercado in town of  Vic   first chilly day, just at freezing and a bit humid.. Claudia freezing … Mercado is cool the traditional blend of great produce and odd clothing and slippers   see 10 kinds of mushrooms, trompetas del muerte, ceps, rovinyols, white chanterelles, yellow foot chanterelles, hen of the woods and oyster mushrooms the most obvious   talk tomatoes, calabaza and see strawberries and asparagus claimed to be from Murcia   they lie here as anywhere about the provenance of the produce  head over to SENDRA    odd jewelry shop looking place with salsichon instead of necklaces    dude is totally passionate and cool, foto of juan carlos, bocuse and actors   very proud of position as the international ambassador of salsichon   available in the 3 sizes all cured with salt and peppercorns, delicious and funny dude   rush ff to play golf with pinsky pal Nolan, lawyer Javier and doctor vicenz   fun day great course called la mutanya very busy shot an 89 putted well, had lunch at gold course at a Michelin guide place   rovinyols with garlic and parsely the turbot w duck fat potatoes and aioli  really delish   head back to barca for a cook/kitchen scene at CAN PINEDAS  considered to be one of the very best catalan restos in barca   a totally hip passionate chef family resto  shoot a 4 course taster half in kitchen half in dining room, sautéed ceps with a raw egg yolk a piece of foie and white truffles, then a rice with mushrooms and lobster, then seated we have pan con tomate  XXX then   and then callos and cap y pote w ceci   REALLY good, then  oxtails with a langostino on top and the finish with milk and dark chocolate wrapped in filo and fried   wow   Then a real business dinner with family style food 1)  jamon and pan con tomate, and anchoas in oil    then 2) rovinyols with ceps alla plancha, then 3) coco with sardines in escabeche with sweet tomato puree and piquillo peps, then  4) rice with sea cucumbers and green garlic and then 5) the tripe and ceci alone and  then 6) a stew of clams and artichokes with white beans in a verdant and muted brothy/stew, then 7) pastry cream in filo fried and pastry test tubes with vanilla frosting   all truly great and served with wine from a porron to dump down our shirts  great conversation with alfonso, Nolan and eddie… finished with best orujo yet  hierbas but very smooth and profound

susi and I celebrate 13^th anniversary on separate continents  I send 14 dozen peonies from panama   I think they must be impressive and benno and leo both comment on them  susi likes them!!!   Whole crew minus bitty who has not had a day off in 2 weeks….off to Vic ( the lyon of catalunya) to visit  casa riera  ordeix salsichon  production since 1852  nice guys 7^th generation in the plaza martires, place looks like an apt building from the façade, inside a full on usda cleaning and chooping place with 200 lb mixer,stirrer and a stuffer on top of which is a 5 story curing room with vertiginous slatted  floors and a temp of about 40 F  nice scene of walkthrough with 30 something current proprietor, finish tasting in well aged cantina and walk out   lunch at a mindless cafeteria with sassy waitress and pork cheeks on the face bone, quite tasty… half of the crew off and we go to sant ulian to shoot 1* Michelin place called jubany  run by cool chef/entrepreneur nando jubany   Charlie hates resto look and we head to hotel  also owned by chef   beautiful renovation of 15^th century farmhouse, I love it immediately….. chef moves all of the food from the 1* place and  creates a meal in the place that is stunning …. starts with a langostino tartare with tomato paint and boiled golden potatoes topped with sturgeon caviar from Mediterranean and chives WOWOW  here we are in the middle of an empty quiet dining room alone and the food is filling the place up  next course is a coca of foie gras with glazed figs and confit tomatoes  foie is sliced thin with a peeler and leaves the texture really light   next a dish of sautéed ceps with butifarra and  roasting juices   killer mushrooms with resilient texture and just the right amount of blood sausage on the bottom to keep the fungi honest   truly great.next a rice with saffron and sea cukes in a broth of langostinos  presented tableside nearly burnt in short paella pan   wow!!  The place has become the center of the modern interpretations, this is seriously delicious and provocative food…. Next poached egg yolk on a bed of warm bacalao with fried leeks and then a whole chicken braised in stock for 12 hrs at 62 C stuffed with butifarra and pancetta, then carved using skin and pieces of pope nose to create chicharones then sauted w cauliflower and brocolli mini florets and finished with chopped stuffing stuff, sauce made with carcass, cooking broth and emulsified with foie  this is the best chicken I have ever eaten  at this point we can only eat half a thigh each but man     desserts citrus variation and choc theme good… shoot driving scenes then chill in hotel till real dinner at 10  jamon, pan con tomate, sautéed ceps and rovinyols, beef carpaccio,  another coco w foie, killer northern cheese   you can tell by the cheese how much more sophisticated it is as we are closer to barca   sleep early 

Arrive 10:30 Great flight to zurich and then down to Barcelona   Christian picks me up and of course Charlie wants me to skip shower and head straight to parc guell with out a shower  parc guell is fascinating the undulating banquette in the plaza mayor is worth the trip itself and very comfy despite its all hard surface texture, rt history dude Daniel very interesting and kind of fun, bitty and bassols in form, funny and light taping quite cool   head to a salad/ hipster joint for lunch called somoa with whole crew and reconnect with pinsky and rhee    walk back to ritz/ palace hotel,  shower and then out to la pedrera/casa mila   apt house designed by gaudi in 1906 for wealthy mila fam   spectacular house with magnificent atrium lined with crazy windows and drooping structures and then we get to the roof, unbelievable use of the surrounding skyline  either mountain or mare  both mimic’ed in line of façade top  4 stair tops each forming a helix to a maltese cross in polished and non polished tiles to extend the corkscrew shape of the protuberance, phallic groups of chimneys form odd extensions and the whole thing looks like a great place for a summer supper with a concert   which in fact they do in summertime…. Wild and cool visit  group off to rias de Galicia   me and bitty off to inopia for second visit  FUCKING A   place is gently packed  we start w  ensalada russa with hake and breadsticks and pa am tomaquet and then  jamon cocido with pimenton and oil, then matrimonio of boquerones and anchoas with a sauce of garam, then fried eggplant with molasses, then raf tomatoes with scallions then fried  fresh anchovies with nothing on them and perfect sweet gambas a la plancha with salt only and then pinchos moruno of lamb and pork (pork is better) and then a kind of shepherds pie fritter with  ketchup and to finish  the poetic croquetas de jamon a fried liquid soup of béchamel and jamon   then home to dream tapeando……

Home on Swissair … delta what???

Gp out at 9 me and stipe and bassols head to boqueria, huge traffic scene and rockstar moments upon arrival.fotos, autographs etc. we walk the market with 200 fans hit pinoxto for chipirones, café con leche, croissants alla plancha, chick peas with morcilla!!!!!!!!! Rovellones mushrooms, really really good, then candy store, fish shop jamon guy and jms leaves.bassols and I to lunch at la clara shoot great eating scenes listen to owner speak catalan eat classics, jamon pa amb tomaquet, bunuelos of bacala, rovellones with little parsley and garlic, goat brain fritters, higado with cebolla, oxtails in rioja and the braza de crema all truly clean and delish with 3 local wines great fun w bassols, really connect and enjoy each others company.shop for kids and susi back to hotel for chill out shoot some driving scenes lit a bit like repo man trunk and then everyone watches our buzz real and feels very good about whole project and then to dinner with eric for our 2nd visit to rias de Galicia and eat eels, gambas berberechos and a perfect turbot steak and home to beddid i mention the chickpeas w morcilla for breaky whoa silver…….