Mackerel, just like when I was a kid in Barley Cove

Sunny hot summer days are finally here..

Somehow my appetite has gone haywire. With all the heat, the thoughts of eating anything hot during the day turns my stomach. These days I've been craving refreshingly cold Niçoise salads; Capreses with juicy, meaty tomatoes, drizzled in sunshine gold olive oil; tart, creamy potato salads with lashings of astringent plump capers.. So it goes without saying that at some stage I'd delve into the comfort foods of when I was child.

Today I started thinking about Mackerel.. A seriously under-rated fish in some countries - I don't think many people in Ireland have even tasted mackerel, let alone see a whole one, head and all. As a child I used to sit on the edge of a rock in Barley Cove while I'd watch my uncle Bobby trying his hand in enticing a shoal to his hook. Some days we'd be bathed in lovely afternoon sunshine, but mostly we'd be sitting there in raincoats until we got too cold and gave up.

He never gave up, rain, hail or shine.. Actually he was quite good at it (yet he could never understand my dad's patience to fish in boat in the middle of the lake), so there was many occasion that we would be faced with mackerel for tea, making the caravan smell for the whole weekend after..

Since then, it's kind of evolved for me, mackerel, learning different ways to cook it but I think deep-down i still prefer it the old way - straight off the pan with lashings of butter and black pepper..

E tends to prefer it Catalan style - escabetx or poached slightly/marinated in vinegar and oil. Wasn't too keen on it as first as vinegar was a big no-no for me, but over the years that I've been here (6 already), it's slowly growing on me.

It's rather simple to prepare: 1 part wine vinegar, 2 parts olive oil and some water to cover, a bay leaf and some black peppercorns. Place the gutted and de-headed mackerel in the liquid and bring to the boil. When it starts to boil, remove from the heat and leave to cool in the liquid. Once cold, transfer to a small casserole dish and cover completely with virgen olive oil. Not only does the oil 'soften' the taste of vinegar and mellow the flavour of the fish. E prefers to leave out the oil -just using vinegar and water, but it makes it too vinegary for my liking.

The great thing is it keeps really well in the fridge (or on the countertop if you don't live in hot Spain -it's currently 29º) for a few days. Mmm.. My mouth already starts to water as if it were a bag of salt and vinegar crisps..

To La Rioja or to not La Rioja, that is the question..

It's official. E and I have been married for a year now.. So to celebrate, the lovely folk at F&G where we held our wedding last year gave us a night in one of their hotels for our first anniversary.

Where to go was the question - the only solution being to Logroño, heart of the La Rioja district so as you can imagine, we forcibly went.. Imagine, a *whole* weekend tasting wine - you'd have to like it a bit for a start, and then somehow manage to find your way to a restaurant to eat something to soak up all that wine.. A difficult task was at hand..

Well, in Logroño they've got that under control, you just stagger

along. The weekend we were there it was the festival of the Laurel district meaning that everyone was out on the street eating pintxos, but unlike Bilbao the bars *ONLY* did one pintxo each.. To be honest, I'm not sure which one out of all the different ones we tried (yes another pub crawl was in order) was the best.. it's a toss up between the Triple-tiered garlic button mushrooms, where the liquidy, pungent juice sank into a day old piece of bread (Garlic mushrooms and garlic bread in one bite!) or maybe the gula or saltcod scramble roll (gulas are a delicacy of Spain - originally the young baby eels before they were nearly fished out of extinction, nowadays made from a fish paste but still in th

e form of tiny slivery, worm-like eels).. Sounds ucky but the scramble was just at that point between cooked and slightly runny that it made it a marvellous bite..

Anyway, getting back to the real motivation for the trip - the wine, and oh so much of it! Everywhere, of every type, and for every pocket (imagine €0.70 for a shot of wine!). I don't think I really *got* wine, until going to New Zealand but now, it seems that E and I are somewhat experts, well if you can compare us to the other visitors to the area who didn't have much of a clue (why go to visit Bodegas if you don't even like wine??¿¿!)

E had done some thorough research beforehand, checking out the best wineries to go, which I goes to figure since he couldn't let the Spanish side down after all that fabulous tasting in NZ.. And he didn't let the side down.

The first stop-off was in CVNE's Viña Real, half way between Logroño and Laguardia, heart of the Rioja district. What can I say, we arrived at a great time - winery to ourselves, just one group of girls with us as we toured around the facilities (state of the art and the flagship of CVNE now) and proceeded to taste the standard samples and then some.. We stumbled across the real reason why Corona beer isn't called Corona in Spain (it's Coronita) as CVNE makes an incredible sweet wine called Corona - definitely a must-try.

I could go on and on about that winery and their other one in Haro (La Rioja Alta) .. but then, the best way to know what I mean is to go there as they're so well set up that visitors can even look around during harvesting, which is totally unheard of here in Catalunya (our viniculture friend Ramon disappears off the space of the earth during September and October).

Other great finds were Bodegas Bilaínas and La Rioja Alta, each so completely different, with totally different philosophies but the same basic processes. And yes, the car did come back a few cases heavier... You can't go and not bring souvenirs for everyone! :-)

What do the Aussies put in their fish?

One of our major "must do" things while we were in Australia is to check out their fish market.

Ever since my Mum visited my aunt and uncle in Sydney, I'll never forget her talking about the fish market - how they'd buy some fish and eat it there in the same place. Will it really live up to our high expectations given that we're used to see great markets like La Boqueria?

The answer was sort of..

The variety was amazing, a lot of varieties of fish that we know back home but different - like New Zealand green-lipped mussels (mmm, go figure that I'd be interested in them!), Sydney bay oysters and a number of different catfish and snapper. However, what shocked us more than anything was the price - how can monkfish be selling at $27 a kilo, that's just €13.50! Our prices start around 27€, so there must be a catch.

We couldn't help but wondering why, if the fish is so cheap, don't the Aussies spend all there time at the fish market (it was empty apart from the usual Japanese tourists)? The place had a run-down feeling and my uncle told us that they weren't quite sure what to do with it, as

it was outdated now, they had problems keeping the fish during their summer with its high temperatures, and it seemed that no one (apart from the Japanese who would go wild over the tuna - every fish stand served ready-to-eat sushi) went there to buy.

There doesn't seem to be much clue about how to cook fish (especially in our Aussies' house - fish is "ew, yuck, it smells so fishy" word). E couldn't understand why anyone would want to serve mussels in coconut cream.

So the challenge for us was to present it so that even my picky cousins would try it. Tough challenge, given the variety of fish, but we reckoned that we had to narrow it down to the more meaty fish - Monkfish, cuttlefish, fresh red tuna, and some of the Sydney bay oysters just for us, as it was unlikely that any one else would try. My uncle was delighted at the thought that someone else would encourage the rest of the family to try new things.

As usual, E donned his chef's hat and started preparing the perfectly cleaned fish (no heads or bones here!) - the plan was simple: grilled tuna with a dash of salt and pepper, deep fried monkfish, beer-battered cuttlefish and oysters au naturel.

I think the fact of seeing someone *cooking* in the kitchen made my cousin take on an adventurous spirit and he even tried an oyster although wasn't too enamoured although the comment was "it's not bad..". First, challenge past with success.

How about the rest of the family? Well, I won't bore you with the details but I think it went down well, even with my extremely picky aunt (it's not surprising that the rest of the family as turned out suspicious of new food!). There's nothing that gives me more satisfaction than when we convince someone to try something new that they've never ventured to try before and find that they actually like it!

Getting back to the fish - we found out why it was so cheap. It's not that it's bad fish, just rather insipid when you compare it to Mediterranean fish (which has a higher salt content). So no wonder everyone dares to spice it up with chilli (chilli squid, chilli fish, chilli mussels - everything gets a health dose of chilli)!

Australia, the land of hope, opportunities and Vegemite

We're about to head off to Australia and New Zealand in a few weeks for my brother's wedding in Queen Charlotte Inlet, Marlborough Sounds, so have been checking out what's typical to eat in both places..

In Australia, since we'll be staying with my aunt and uncle, we're sure to try their barbie at some stage or another (from what my mum tells me, they're not motivated cooks!) but hoping to try some meat pies (good recommendation from Glynn), kangaroo meat (E's choice since we've already tried croc and ostrich) and their shrimp since I've already tried Vegemite and wasn't too fond of it! And of course, some macadamias will be coming back to Spain!

As for New Zealand, their lamb is infamous all over the world and there's apparently a variety of mussels that sound really good! Let's see what comes up.. :-)

Patxi, ay va la hostia!*

Last week, E was sent to Bilbao again on business, so given I was in a quiet time workwise and E had accumulated Spanair points, I decided to join him and that way visit our friends Izaskun and Josefa in Bilbao..

What can I say other than the Basque Country deserves its name as culinary hotspot. What's more, the city is more than just the Guggenheim.. Wandering around the markets while E was working was just amazing. There were people at all the fish stalls, clamouring to get to the front and an amazing variety too. The scallops looked particularly good.

However it has to be said, that the main focus in Bilba

o (and San Sebastian, which is the next city on the "to do" list) is on their pintxos.

Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas, but generally just a mouthful, stuffed on top of a piece of bread. Essentially it arose from when wine was served in the olden days, a piece of dry bread was placed over the top of the goblet to stop any flies or other nasties from falling in. From there it has evolved into a cultural tradition, with all the bars in the Basque country filled with people at lunchtime and in the evening. There's no tables or chairs as everyone stands around, even

outside in the street with a zurito (a small shotglass of beer) or a glass of wine (more common). Depending on the area, the variety changes although most bars tend to have a speciality.. so as

you can imagine, it leads to a bar-crawl! I especially loved the ones with Txangurro (crab meat mixed with mayonnaise) and the amazing mushrooms in Cafe Bilbao in Plaza Nueva.

The weekend we were there was the patron saint of Bilbao so Saturday everyone was out on the street to celebrate. Surprisingly after the rain that we had the days before (constant Ireland-like drizzle) Saturday was a bright, warm winter day. Izaskun and Josefa decided it was about that Alain started to look like a real Basque so he was dressed for the occasion. The atmosphere was amazing, people everywhere with bottles of cider

(not like ours back home) more like wine but made with apples. Izaskun insisted that we try the local Xistorra and Talo - a pancake made from co

rnflour which was rather nice but filling!

All in all, culinary wise, it is definitely a capital city!

*Typical Spanish expression apparently characteristic of the Basques

Book, done and dusted..

It goes without saying, the longer you have to do a translation, the longer you will take.

Boy, I was glad to finally hand in the final version of the infamous chef's recipe book. I'd got a little tired of having my mouth constantly watering, to only find that my fridge was bare of ingredients (when I'm on a project, the housework/shopping gets left for later).

It will be interesting to see how it actually translates, not in the literal sense - that work is already done, but whether it achieves good sales, although the print run is going to be limited. It's not going on sale here, so I just hope the editorial might give me a copy.

Will keep Amazoning over the next few months to see if anything comes up..

Manzanas, massanas, pomes, apples.. Call them what you like

After several failed attempts, I've finally mastered how to make a good apple crumble. It just requires good juicey apples, a dash of brandy (if available) and proper butter in the crumble. E liked my sis-in-law's version with pistachios that I think I'll have to try it out.

A simple dessert, done in no time that doesn't require a properly functioning oven! (Mine has taken a liking to either burning or doing nothing, it doesn't do things by half measures so I discovered at my one and only attempt to make a Christmas cake last year)

If I win the Gordo this year, I definitely be buy this