Life’s little necessities: a source of good, cheap Cava for parties.

Posted on January 19, 2010 by helenbcn

Those who know me will avow my love of all things sparkly, and that includes wines. One of the – many – joys of living in Barcelona is having the Penedès wine region just down the road, so my penchant for good sparkling wine can be satisfied in the knowledge  that I am contributing to the local economy and using minimal ‘food miles’.

Now, a good wine is a marvellous thing, yet I also like to have a stash of cheap-n-cheerful fizzy tucked away for those times when I have people over for dinner and – inevitably – we run out of wine at some point in the early hours of the morning.

In the past I’ve kept this stocked up simply by adding several bottles to my list of ‘heavy things to buy from a supermarket on-line delivery service so I don’t have to carry them upstairs myself’ each month.  However, since my pledge to avoid buying from supermarkets I had resigned myself to having to pay a bit more and perhaps be a little less generous. Then – doh! – I remembered that I live less than five minutes walk from probably the most famous purveyor of inexpensive Cava in Barcelona.

Most people know Can Paixano as ‘the Cava bar’ or ‘the Champaneriya’. It’s the narrow, always packed, hole-in-the-wall place in the galerias del puerto that doesn’t need to have a sign above it’s huge wooden doors because it’s such a Barcelona legend. What plenty people don’t realise is that tucked away at the back of the long narrow room is a small delicatessen selling embutidos, good quality preserved seafood, and of course their house brand Cava.

As it turns out I can just squeeze six bottles – a bargain at about 18 euros – and a chorizo into my usual shopping bag. Problem solved.

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Pig Stuff

Posted on January 15, 2010 by helenbcn

I’m not very good with meat products (oo-er), partly due to having been vegetarian for a large part of my life, and partly through general squeamishness. However after sampling the lentil & chorizo estofada made by my ex-flatmate The Lovely Natasha I thought I would have a go at reproducing it.

Although there are any number of charcuterie/cansaladeria stalls in my local market, there is a place on my street whose window displays (see photo) have always drawn my attention, so I thought I’d try there instead this morning.

Yes, that is a shrink-wrapped mannequin with jamon shoulder pads. Kindly note the Cinderella-style shoe fashioned from greaseproof paper in the bottom right-hand corner. These people are my kind of mad.

Inside, the shop was frantically busy with greaseproof-wrapped packages of goodies flying over the counter to customers who were calling out their orders, and ‘next customer’ numbers being yelled out in Catalan by the team behind the counter. I got 19 from the ticket dispenser which was a bit of a worry as I can only count to ten in Catalan so I spent my waiting time peering over the shoulders of the other customers to see who had ’18’ – I’d be after them, presumably.

Interestingly they make a lot of their products on the premises, specifically the ‘oven ready’ croquettes, canellonis etc. I made the mistake of peering into the kitchen and saw a two of the staff wrestling with something decidedly intestine-like. Yes – they also make their own sausages.

When my turn came I bluffed my way through my order by pointing and saying ‘300 grams d’aquesta’. Considering the laundry-list orders most of the other customers were hollering, my 3 euros worth of chorizo seemed rather paltry so I made up for it by doing my ‘una d’aquesta’ / point routine to a couple of the slightly home-made looking pots of terrine/pate at a couple of euros each – perfect for tomorrow’s picnic and with some fresh bread to accompany the homemade carrot and ginger soup  that Dr Doingtheshopping and I will be having for dinner later.

Packaging is greaseproof paper so recycleable. With a small order they will offer you a carrier bag. If you have bought enough then you get a paper bag with a decent handle (that you can take home and use to store your paper recycling, of course).

La Botifarreria de Santa Maria: http://www.labotifarreria.com: Embutidos, cheese, preserved meats.

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Doing the shopping in Barcelona

Posted on January 14, 2010 by helenbcn

This year I have resolved to be more thoughtful about what I buy.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

  • I have too much stuff already
  • I hate to waste things, including buying food that doesn’t get eaten – this means planning meals better and buying small amounts, not in bulk.
  • I want to support local businesses instead of buying from chains and corporations.
  • I don’t want my groceries and other goods to travel half way around the world, using resources and causing pollution as they go.
  • By choice, I would prefer to buy organically grown food, to support the producers who are moving away from farming methods that require chemical fertilizers and pesticides whose use and production is damaging to the environment.
  • Where possible I would like to buy fairly traded goods so I know that the producers are more likely to be getting a fair price for their produce.

Also, it seemed to me that I might simply have more interesting experiences by trying to follow these guidelines rather than ordering my groceries on line or going to the local supermarket a couple of times a week.

So far, this seems to be the case, so this blog will be a record of my shopping adventures as well as a guide for anyone who wants to use interesting local and/or family-owned businesses in Barcelona.

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