torrija: ni neu

This is beautiful. This is perfection.

This is, as far as I know, perfect bread soaked in perfect eggs and with the perfect amount of sugar. Then baked and caramelized.

This is the torrija.  Yes, you eternal pessimist you, it's French toast. But it's got some subtle differences that make it fairly unsuitable for breakfast. Like a dense, buttery bread base. And an ungodly amount of butter and sugar. This one, eaten in its entirety, is a stomach-acher.

But it's SO loveable. And it's the closest thing San Sebastián has to a food fad. No food trucks here, no pop-up cupcake shops, none of that oh-so-fun foodie drivel. Just old Basque people, sidra, and pintxos. But torrijas? They come para llevar, or to go, at the hip riverside restaurant, Ni Neu. In a custom-designed little box. May not sound like much, but here, that's pretty. dang. modern. It's the dessert por excelencia of Musika Parkean. And I love it. Some denounce. I stuff my face and then my stomach hurts. But I don't care.

the holy trinity

In Louisiana, it's pepper, onion, and celery. In País Vasco, it's walnuts, freshly shelled, sheep's milk cheese, and quince or apple paste.

Nueces, queso Idiazabal, y membrillo. Y ya está.

Best dessert ever?

Why I Love Semana Grande, Part I

It's aste nagusia here in Donosti, known as semana grande in San Sebastián, known as Big Week in San Sebastchun.  Basically, it's a week and a weekend of fireworks, concerts, crowds, activities, tradition, and general revelry. And it's awesome. Why?

Well, for firsts, you can't trust me because I'm a guiri, and the locals will tell you one of two things if you rave to them about semana grande. They will either say, "Meh, it's for guiris (foreigners, especially light-complected ones)". Or the other standard response is, "The one in Bilbao is better." 

Hmph. As you can see above, the whole town turns out for the festivities, as much as they might trash-talk them. And they're incredible! They started last Saturday, and the main climax of each day is the fireworks at 10:45pm. Saturday I had the luck to watch them from a beautiful villa on Ondaretta beach....wonderful. Sunday, from atop Mount Ulia, on the porch of a friend's house. As another friend told me, you have to know how to 'montar la fiesta' for it to be truly grande.

Semana Grande is amazing (and we're only halfway through) because:

1)I'm a guiri. Which means I have a weakness for streetperformers, fireworks and crowds?

2)Basque tradition is out in full force, like at the pelota semifinals we attended on Monday. My first pelota (Basque handball) match, and I LOVED IT! Everytime they smack the ball with their hands it never fails to amaze me, and a really good match leaves you breathless.

3) Things like rows of trunks waiting to be chopped by professional athletes who have trained to do just that is...normal. There's a name for it in Basque, aizkolaritza, which one day I will be able to bring to my lips with ease.

4) There's no better scenery in the world than the Bay of La Concha, which was recently voted a top five beach by Travel & Leisure.

5) El ABORDAJE!!! One of the most wonderful things I've ever seen. Groups of young (and not so young) people build makeshift rafts with whatever they can find, and then the whole city gathers round to watch them make their way from the port to the beach.

Boats sink. Everybody's drunk. Laughs, like real, out loud ones, come out of you without you even expecting. Rafts break apart and the castaways try to climb aboard other rafts, whose inhabitants squirt and splash them with water.

So there's five reasons...five more coming at the end of the week.

If you get fed up with all the fiesta, you can easily escape like I did on Sunday. A friend and I rode through the countryside, through Beasain, Segura, Zerain, on a gorgeous, relaxing and sweaty tour of the Basque wilderness. Awesome.  Then back to the city by train (where of course I ran into some fellow Smurfs) , to another world, for the night's festivities.

la barandilla de la concha

Yesterday we were witness to one of those little things that makes this place so special. Going for our afternoon stroll, we found the rails along the Urumea river had been turned into a barre for hundreds of ballerinas.

We watched as they ran through movements and classic music wafted through the city's air.  An announcer called out the steps in Euskera as the ballerinas executed plies, first position, battement, while grasping the iconic rails of San Sebastián's coast.  The historic old part and the Bizcayan Bay formed a perfect backdrop.

Apparently it's a tradition that is going on 15 years, to celebrate el Mes de la Danza, or the Month of Dance. But for us it was just another beautiful Sunday.

the tigre

I've written before about the classic pintxos of San Sebastián...everyone knows the croqueta (but not where to get the best one...more on that later), and there's the gilda, an anchovy-olive-pepper emblem of the city, and the gavilla, a slightly less famous yet equally obsessed-over pintxo.

Well, I'm here to introduce another all-star bite: the tigre.

Nobody knows where the name came from. It means, obviously enough, tiger, and some believe the name to stem from the spiciness associated with the plate.  I have to say I've never had one that was exactly spicy, but that could just be the opinion of my superhuman American tongue.  They are hugely popular here, and you can find them in nearly any traditional pintxo bar.

What are they? Sautee some red pepper, onion and perhaps garlic or leek in olive oil, which serves as the base for a bechamel.  To the bechamel you add the meat from mussels, steamed and removed from their shells. Some folks like to chop it up into smaller pieces, some leave it on the larger side. Then this mixture is cooled and piped back into the mussel shells, and the whole thing is breaded and fried.

Delicious and classic, they are seafood lover's answer to the croqueta de jamón. Put it on your pintxo bucket list. And if you have one, shoot me an email because we should probably be friends.