originals: Spanish fondue carbonara or whatever

When I was a kid, because that's how I now see myself when I was in my early 20s - as a kid, the connection between my mood and cooking was much simpler. When I was happy and satisfied, I made tons of crepes, when I was sad and frustrated I baked bread everyday. I'd spend hours in silence, crying and kneading, before I was finally diagnosed with severe depression. In the meantime cooking became more of a source of joy than just a way to cope with stress. I started cooking for others. I started cooking for men, finding yet another way to pleasure them. In the last years I understood to full extent what it means to put love into what you cook. I grew, I bloomed, as a person and as a chef.

Now I hit a wall. With no-one to cook for and no strength to get up from bed I lost 20 lbs, because I simply can't be bothered. There's this expression in Polish, loosely translated to "to eat through one's reason," or something - that's what I do now. I explain to myself that I need to eat. Cooking is mostly out of the question. That makes days like today special.

I'm still browsing through recipes, a lot, and bookmarking, a lot. Mark Bittman's Cacio e Pepe spent some time among my saved links and today it seemed like a good thing to try. Simple enough, comfort-foody enough. I forced myself to go shopping in the cold (-14 degrees), dragged myself back to the apartment and, I don't know, something just happened. That small, barely noticeable magic, when you look at the ingredients around you and just allow yourself to be silly and have fun.

In my fridge, there was an open bottle of my favourite white, vino turbio (cloudy wine), that I just brought back from Spain. Why use water, when you can use fresh, tangy, slightly yeasty wine? The cheese and the wine mixed together immediately reminded me of fondue, and I simply can't have fondue without a ton of nutmeg. So there it went. Freshly ground pepper, freshly grated nutmeg, a touch of cayenne for that extra kick, not that it needed one. Bittman wrote to use good olive oil, and there it was, on the table, a 5l bottle of the most amazing Spanish olive oil so delicious, I could drink it just like that, from a glass. I couldn't wait for the pasta to finish cooking, I checked it every five seconds. I started thinking of something more to add to the sauce to stop doing that. Egg-yolk, why, yes, please. As far as I'm concerned egg-yolks should go into everything.

Believe me, the result was stunning.

"We're completely different in the way that we cook. She's always looking for new recipes and trying them out, I just go through the fridge and the pantry, see what we have and try to figure out what to make from it." That's what he often said about us. Now he's gone. So I guess I have to do both.

Barcelona - pure joy

Walking through the streets of Barcelona we stumbled upon something very close to heaven - an Enrique Tomas shop - a store with ham and wine. And they had the most amazing thing - ham cones.

A ham cone (a.k.a. chuches de jamon belota) has to be one of THE greatest inventions ever - finally a way to enjoy ham as a snack on-the-go! There are two versions of the ham cone - one with ham cubes and one with shredded, thinly sliced ham. I guess the second one is a better way to go, as the flavour is really intensive and can be overwhelming. Also, this form is better if you want to enjoy how the ham melts in your mouth...

This was one of the best, most inspiring things we saw in Barcelona, one of those things that, like vino turbio, brought us nothing but pure joy.

One cone costs 4,50 EUR, but it's a fair price for such quality and quantity - we took one for the two of us and were completely satisfied.

Barcelona - Can Maño

We went to Barcelona for the Primavera Sound Festival and were lucky enough to team up with people who went there many times before and knew exactly what to do when it came to dining. They took us to the most amazing place at Barceloneta, visited mostly by the locals. To get in there, you have to get in a queue at least half an hour before the opening.

The first amazing thing we got to know there (which stuck with us until the end of the trip and well beyond) was Turbio. This amazing white wine is unlike any wine I've tried before - it's enriched with yeast. Surprising, refreshing and truly delicious, sold in beautifully simple bottles with a thumb-sized label, available from 1,19 EUR in some supermarkets. We brought 10 bottles back to Poland.

Then came the food. I may have already mentioned I'm not really a fan of seafood which is, of course, a specialty of Barcelona, so I was really happy to see that the orgy started with deep fried vegetables - eggplants, sweet peppers and home-made french fries (as seen in the middle of the table). All of it amazing, but nothing comparing to the seafood part.

My mother always explained to me, that seafood tastes completely different when it's really fresh and served just a few hundred meters from where it was caught. As much as I hate to admit it - she was right.

We ordered some sick amount of food, including calamari, sardines and prawns, but my top 2 were chipirones (baby squid, top of the plate) and llangueta - the tiniest fish (just compare their size to the fork), both deep fried.

Everything was amazingly fresh and you had to eat it as soon as it hit the table - while it was still sizzling, crispy and hot. As soon as I got stuffed beyond my limits and had to wait a while to eat more, my satisfaction fell down a few levels - it all wasn't so great as it cooled down. So the way to go there is to take some friends and order really small amounts of everything, but frequently. They don't mind - everything is done extremely fast, like within two minutes from the time you'd placed your order.

If you ever go to Barcelona don't miss this place. It would be a sin.