Joe Ray

Saturday, December 05, 2009

The Consecrated Onion - The Great Rioja Tapas Crawl Part III

LOGRONO, Spain

“At El Soldado de Tudelilla, get the tomato salad and the little sardine sandwich with sport peppers,*” says Artadi.

We do.

The notes for the little sandwich (a pincho) say “Why don’t we eat more sardines in the U.S.A.?”

The question floats into space as I take a bite and flag the stout-bellied barman for a tomato salad which turns out to be the star of the show.

Said barman makes the salad on the bar beneath our noses by plucking a tomato from of the cooler with the wine and the onions and cuts it into bite-sized chunks with a pocket knife. He does the same with the onion.

“This is not just any onion,” he says, “This is the white onion of Fuentes de Ebro,” which, we’ll learn, is more mild than a Vidalia.

“It is a town consecrated to the onion,” he says.

He adds a can of still faintly-pink tuna to the plate and drops a few olives over the top before giving the whole thing a shot of vinegar, a 15-count drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of gros sel.

It’s a little mountain on a plate that disappears in a heartbeat.

“We’re going to be late,” I say.

“I don’t care,” comes the response.

Perfect.

Count on about 10 euros for salad, sardines and a glass of wine or two

El Soldado de Tudelilla MAP
C/ San Agustín 33
Logroño, Spain
+34 941 209 624

*Truth be told, he said “guindilla.”

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Friday, October 03, 2008

‘Eating out’

Le Palais – Belle Ile, FRANCE - Maybe it’s all the clean air, but I’m getting into this ‘lunch on the seawall’ idea. Perhaps it’s because everyone in Le Palais, Belle-Ile’s biggest town, shrugs when I ask for a good place to eat (there are a few), but I’m learning that while the towns are picturesque, people don’t leave “Le Continent” for the island’s social scene or a destination restaurant. It’s more about taking a long walk or watching the waves crash.

I realize this while leaning against one of the two mini-lighthouses (the red one) that mark the entrance to Le Palais’ tiny port. I’ve brought a baguette, a half-dozen plates (flat oysters) from Quiberon, a tomato from a little farm one side of the island and a pepper-coated dome of fresh goat cheese from a cheese maker the other.

Here, this may be the version of ‘eating out’ I like the most.

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Saturday, May 31, 2008

A mouthful of memory

Yesterday, I interviewed a farmer in his Ferrari for a story about the Sicilian melon market. Taking notes in a car with a suspension-adjusting switch marked “RACE” is not unlike trying to do the same in a 4x4 bumping through an olive grove.

Meeting a couple of melon farmers yesterday, Mr. F430 included, I kept getting distracted by their tomatoes. Odd bedfellows, melons and tomatoes love the soil and hot climate around the southern Sicilian town of Pachino and have become the town’s financial backbone and its claim to fame.

Standing in a giant tomato greenhouse filled with the wonderful green smell of the vines themselves, Bruno Cicciarella (who drives a more modest ride pulls a fat thumb-shaped tomato he calls a ‘pixel’ from a cluster and hands it to me.

The taste isn’t perfect, but compared to what we’ve grown accustomed to from the grocery store, it’s mind blowing. It’s plenty enough to put me out on the back deck with my family, eating salted chunks of dad’s tomatoes straight from the garden.

I also try some tomatoes sold by Sebastiano Fortunato (a.k.a. Mr. Ferrari) and understand why he’s got such a fancy pair of wheels. His cherry tomatoes are so sweet, it’s easy to understand again why tomatoes are fruit.

Later, Francesco and I have a great glass or two of Sicily’s signature Nero d’Avola wine in my kitchen. It’s good reminder of why he and I spent a lot of time with our noses in glasses and turning our tongues purple a year ago trying to learn the flavor characteristics that make it such a good pour.

“Why do we have to be so technical when we try to describe a wine?” he wonders to no one in particular. It’s a fun question and a debate for which he knows and appreciates the arguments of both sides. “Why can’t we say this wine tastes like…The Police?” he asks, clearly thinking back to a good moment where he had the British trio on in the background.

In the end, what better compliment could you give than associating good food with a good memory?

I end the night with one of Cicciarella’s tiny melons. It’s a mouthful of summertime, past and present.

This is Joe Ray reporting from the Motherland.

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