Foie, glorious foie

It´s a cloudy Monday, the day of the Immaculate Conception. We go northward to Camprodon, Girona, foie country as I soon learn. After a 2 hour leisurely drive from Barcelona, we arrive at this picturesque village, crowned by a medieval bridge and flanked by a pristine river where mandarin ducks frolic.
We arrive close to lunch time and follow our instincts to Restaurant Casa Marquès, recommended by the Michelin Guide. It´s old and elegant, the ambience a perfect setting for an exquisite meal. Mushroom risotto with foie gras for me, followed by Argentinian beef which the waitress assured was brought up listening to classical music and was therefore refined in more ways than one. Tuna confit for JL and sirloin with, of course, foie gras and berries. With no room for dessert, we end the meal with cortado (espresso with a little milk).
The local delicatessen tempts us with homemade jams -- carrot with orange, pineapple with rum. We head off with four jars and return in a minute to buy foie with mushroom, pepper and other ingredients. It wasn´t foie gras d'oie (de canard): liver of fattened goose (duck), just plain foie of pork, but good enough to experiment with.
A sliver of blue sky appears and we leave for Beget, a pretty little village down in the valley. It´s what Spanish villages should aspire to -- well-worn paths and handsome homes reflecting the pride of its owners.
Well worth returning to, for a weekend trekking to France, then back for hearty country food.

All Saints´ Day

Today is All Saints' Day, a feast celebrated in Western Christianity in honour of all the saints, known and unknown. Tomorrow, All Souls´Day, is when we have JL´s family over for roast lamb and wild rice with red onions and pistachio nuts. Happy fruit, as the Cantonese call them.
JL has been wanting to go to Chenji, a local Chinese restaurant near the Arc de Triumph, for soupy noodles for ages. But I had always resisted because it didn´t have a good ambiance. Just very basic setting for home-style food.
So here we are at Chenji with soupy handmade noodles with pork ribs for him, fried seafood noodles for me and little dragon dumplings with vinegar dip to share. JL was hoping to watch a movie about child superheroes being kicked about by mere mortals... funny in the Chinese mentality, odd in the western mind. Instead, we have a movie about gangsters fighting in a communal bath. Lots of violence, mostly gratuitous.
The weather has been capricious -- dropping 9º Celcius 2 days back, then it´s warm and humid again today with lovely blue skies and waters good enough for amateur surfers.
Groups of old men play dominoes in Barceloneta but they´re not keen on bringing out the grill for sardines and beer as clouds loom close.

Fondue in Andorra

It´s zero degrees Celsius, and it´s only 10 in the morning out in the patio of Hotel Coma-Bella. We´re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the bracing walk in the woods, with a trail leading straight from the back of the hotel up 600 metres toward the best ride in the world.

Well, at least the best cruise ever for me in a non-motorised vehicle -- the Tobotronc, a sort of toboggan, strapped to rails running 5,200 metres in a descent of 400m through breathtaking forest. What a rush of adrenaline, despite the fact that we used the handbrake at sharp turns. A little precaution to avoid flying in an unauthorised vehicle. (Hmm, I´m starting to use formal language here, having just begun my driving theory lessons in Rambla Catalunya.)

Our thighs ache a little with the climb, but it´s all worth it. Worth the views of the mountain range... and the fondue, glorious cheese fondue for two. All four of us dig in anyhow, and it satisfies with entrecot on the side and brandy cake with cortado (espresso with a little milk) to top it off.

Then a siesta out in the sun on deck chairs in front of the restaurant. Mmm, with salchichón (a salami-type sausage) and fruit offered by Alex the mountain man. And the smell of the outdoor grill with fragrance of the woods to boot.

Dinner is ox-tail with rice. I opt for fried mushrooms with eggs for starters while Juan Luis goes for the boiled veggies with smoked bacon. Alex, el médico trabajador and firm friend of Juan Luis, enjoys a tipple after dinner and we all drift off in somnolence.

It´s Anna´s day tomorrow, for shopping. Or at least, window shopping... We drive to Sant Julià de Lòria, a parish in the far south of the country. But we buy little. I think the clothes are a bit garish and feel, like Juan Luis does, that the mountains are a tad claustrophobic. We feel hemmed just on the second day and are glad to greet milder hills in Cadi, down south on the way home to Barcelona.

• The Principality of Andorra is a small landlocked country in western Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. Once isolated, it is currently a prosperous country mainly because of tourism and its status as a tax haven.
  
• El Tobotronc is the longest toboggan ride in Europe at 5.2km, situated almost 2,000 metres in altitud. This attraction, which slides through a curving path among the forest of La Rabassa. Only for those above12. Price * (01/06/2008) 8,5 € for adults and 5,5 € for children. Information: tel. (+376) 75 97 98 – (+376) 75 97 76 – (+376) 32 38 68 * Subject to change.

Sing your heart out

Black is beautiful.
For sure it´s beautiful when you´re in esteemed company of the Harlem Gospel Choir. (At least, that´s what I imagined this night to be, having been told the marvelous experience of Trine, my Norwegian friend.)
We were actually mere fledglings in the Institut de Gospel Barcelona, 19 of us this Monday night. Giving it a go at breathing properly, from the diagphram, ooh-ing and mmm-ing to the rhythm of a primal beat. Yes, we´re just learning how to breathe and hum, building a good foundation from which to launch our voices in unison.
Before all that jazz, we begin building rapport, facing one another, and sharing our most tender memories of childhood, adolescence and more, very often with total strangers. Liberating? Yes.
Then there´s mime or sketches to draw us together, often in laughter and competitive seriousness.
We´re all a good mix, ranging from teenagers, 20-somethings and beyond who have taken to each other in endearing ways.

La visión de Gustav Klimt

En una pintura de mitología y alegoría, que es en un estilo decorativo y simbólico, aparece La Muerte por la izquierda, totalmente alargada y siniestra. Está cubierta en matices de azules fríos y está agarrando un garrote en sus manos, mirando sus víctimas potenciales con alegría. En otro lado tiene una aglomeración de humanos – que viven, respiran y aman la vida en pleno sentido.

Ellas son mujeres inocentes, todas abrazan la vida, el calor y el vigor de un hombre fuerte y musculoso en el centro. Él parece totalmente inconsciente de la inminente amenaza.

Surge una pregunta. ¿Por qué el hombre, que estaba en el centro de la masa de las inocentes, era curiosamente vulnerable en su ignorancia del peligro de la muerte?

Arriba del hombre aparece la vida en toda su gloria, representada por un bebé varón, abrazado a su propia madre, hermana y, quizás, su abuela que muestra un rostro de sabiduría y melancolía.

Las figuras están semi-desnudas en su vulnerabilidad. El resto de sus cuerpos están cubiertos en alegres, coloridas telas con estampados geométricos que muestran sencillez, algo ordenado y de buen sentido.

La Muerte, al contrario, está cubierta en las señales de las cruces (cruz) y refleja una actitud de gran rebelión. Su visión del futuro es cruel y sombrío, su cuerpo, sinuoso y fluido, como su pensamiento y deseos. ¨El contemporáneo de Freud ... quisiera recorrer esos nuevos territorios que son el sueño y el inconsciente.¨ También, ¨sus visiones de una mujer... están hechas de carne y de quimera.¨

Alphonse´s Seduction

He moved the world in hypnotic ways, treating his art with love and sensual affection.Sharing his vision of women, full-blooded and captivating, in myriad ways.
Alphonse Mucha was as much a pioneer of modernism as he was of graphic design, inspiring countless imitators of his realistically ephemeral world.
He worked on diverse projects such as the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, and later on commercial projects in the United States and elsewhere in Europe including the then new state of Czechoslovakia (founded in 1918), designing posters, bank notes and stamps.
From 19 September 2008 till 4 January 2009, CaixaForum Barcelona holds an exhibition of Alphonse´s works under themes of Theatre, Beauty, Mystery and Modernity.
http://obrasocial.lacaixa.es/centros/infoserveiscfbcn_es.html
´´Mucha executed many advertisements, his works were used on packaging for sweets and perfumes (anticipating contemporary product presentation),and a Mucha soap was even produced, prefiguring modern merchandising. Luxury, hedonism, eroticism and fantasy are the basic elements of an advertising discourse that seeks to persuade viewers based on the splendour of its forms, an elaborate style and inventive typography.´´

Thanksgiving II (Acción de gracias II)

There´s no room for pity, but plenty for compassion. Don´t these children put adults to shame with their eagerness to learn? Amid the odds, amid the unforgiving cold.

And why are they standing? Simply because they have no classroom to call their own. So teacher and students in threadbare clothes and worn out shoes stand or huddle in a corner of a compound to absorb the lesson of the day, no doubt more substantial than what they would have eaten, or dreamt to have eaten for breakfast.

No hay lugar para la lástima, pero sí para la compasión. ¿No provocan vergüenza estos niños en los adultos con su entusiasmo por el aprendizaje? En medio de las probabilidades, en medio del implacable frío.

¿Por qué están de pie? Simplemente porque ellos no tienen su propia aula. Así que la profesora y los estudiantes en ropas raídas y zapatos gastados se quedan de pie en un rincón de un recinto para absorber la lección del día, sin duda más substanciosa que algo que hayan comido, o hubieran soñado comer para desayunar.