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On Y Va to the French Coast!

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Posted by admin | Posted on 23-07-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: cameron rolka, france, free time, gastronomy, marco bahena

The phrase ‘I’m going to France for the weekend” sounds a little…absurd to the American ear. But it’s one of the many perks of Basque Country.  San Sebastián is a mere fifteen minutes from the French border, but once you cross  you are unmistakably in another country. So this week, we popped over with BasqueStages Marco and Cameron to tour the coast of southern France (or northern Basque Country, depending on your point of view).

After a pain au chocolat in Hendaye, we made the mandatory stop in quaint St. Jean de Luz for some sweets loaded with history.  They say some of the best macarons in the world are made at Maison Adam, so we put them to the test. The verdict? Quite possibly.

After cafe and macarons, we piled back into the car to continue up the coast. Next stop? Biarritz.

They don’t call it BiarRITZ for nothing….this is a high-class spot.  Marco and Cameron embraced their inner luxe and lunched on champagne and toasts piled high with foie. Lunch also included incredible pot au feu and world-class pastries in famed tearoom, Miremont. A stroll along the boardwalk and past the Hotel Du Palais was the perfect ending to their weekend jaunt to France.

A bientot, France!

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Welcome, Cameron and Marco!

Posted by admin | Posted on 06-07-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: 2011, BasqueStage, cameron rolka, free time, marco bahena, Sammic Scholarship

Yesterday we ventured to Bilbao to pick up the fresh-off-the-boat II Sammic Scholars for BasqueStage, Marco Bahena and Cameron Rolka.  The excitement of arriving to Basque Country helped the new stages power through their hungry exhaustion. And they were rewarded. Can you imagine if the first view you got of your new home was this?

Few architectural works in Spain are as breathtaking on first sight as the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and the sun was uncharacteristically shining off the river that cuts through the city. A picture perfect arrival for Basque Country’s new American cooks.  Being cooks, and having survived off of airplane food for 24 hours, their minds quickly turned to food. Time for Pintxos 101.

We stopped in a classic pintxo bar and talked about the process of pintxo ordering. It’s a foreign concept: walk in, take what you want, then whenever you feel like it, tell the bartender what you had and pay. After a few times practicing, Cameron and Marco handled it like pros. Then we settled down for a menu del dia, or prix fixe lunch menu. It was classic, or as they say here, bueno y barato: lentils, mackerel, and the typical Basque dairy dessert of cuajada. It was awesome to watch Marco and Cameron enjoy their first typical Basque meal…the cuajada was probably everyone’s favorite.

The stages won’t begin their sojourn in Martín Berasategui until next week, but with the festivals of San Fermín right around the corner, they’ll have plenty opportunity to get to know the local way of life before then. Stay tuned!

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rioja 101

Posted by admin | Posted on 28-04-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: alava, free time, gastronomy, stage, wine

 

If you know anything about Spanish wines, you probably know Rioja.  It’s one of the most famous wine regions of Spain, and part of it (Rioja Alavesa) is in the Basque Country.  So earlier this week, we set off with BasqueStages Athena and Tracy to explore the vineyards of the region. We were led by knowledgeable guides from San Sebastian Food, who make trips to all the bodegas in the area and hand-selected a very interesting trio for Tracy and Athena to sample.

The first stop was Bodegas Roda, a family-owned winery that produces an interesting line of wines. Their signature bottles are Roda and Roda I, with Roda I always tasting of black fruit and Roda exhibiting tastes of red fruit, like cherries. The interesting fact is that the number of bottles produced of each always varies because each year the grapes change according to the climate. Our guide told us about the microclimate of the region, and how she always drives the 15 minutes to work in cold, or clouds, or rain, but ends up in a sunny mild valley of Rioja. In Roda, Tracy and Athena also got to sample olive oils, which were also produced by the family.


The next stop was a markedly different winery, Bodegas Baigorri.  This modern winery appears to be a huge glass box cresting a hill in Rioja Alavesa, but it actually stretches seven floors below ground. According to the wishes of the original owners, the wine is produced using gravity.  This means that the process starts on the second floor (below ground) and between each step the grapes, juice, and other material flows to the next floor down. It’s an exercise in efficiency, and also helps avoid compromising the grapes as much as possible. This is important, because at Baigorri, the entire process is done by hand, not common at all among other wineries.

The final bodega was a departure from either of the first. Bodegas Carlos San Pedro is a small family winery located in Laguardia. The town’s ancient function as a military stronghold means there are caves hidden under the city, and Carlos San Pedro utilizes a cave for wine tanks and bottle storage. Grapes, as is typical in Rioja, are grown outside of the town and then carried in for crushing and processing. Carlos San Pedro Jr explained the process that a smaller winery uses for production, and even allowed Tracy and Athena to climb the old wooden ladders and peek into the fermentation tank before trying the product from the bottle and straight from the tanks. Que guay!

Tracy and Athena walked away a lot more knowledgeable about their Spanish wines, and convinced that some of the world’s best come from right here in Basque Country.

 

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stages’ week in review

Posted by admin | Posted on 07-04-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: 2011, athena, free time, Martín Berasategui, Pedro Subijana, tracy


While we were busy talking up the next round of BasqueStage (applications close one week from now!), Tracy and Athena had a full week on their plate.

During their short hospitality industry weekend they managed to squeeze in more activity  than we believed possible. Tracy kicked it chef style with Martín Berasategui at the annual culinary conference in Vitoria. The conference united more than 23 Michelin stars under one roof, including Rene Redzepi, the chef at the world’s number one restaurant, NOMA. Tracy shadowed Martín, snapping photos and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Pedro Subijana, Joan Roca, and Denis Martin. Talk about the perks of being a Sammic BasqueStage….

Athena, meanwhile, took a few days off to travel around Spain and France with her family. We suspect, however, that she was just doing some serious food and wine research…dinner at Arzak, a trip to Segovia to eat some roasted suckling pig, you get the picture. Be on the lookout for a great post on her blog about the tempranillo wines of Ribera del Duero, a region that only recently began to grab the attention it deserves as a spot for great wines.

A busy, long, and action-packed weekend for our stages, followed by a long but fulfilling week in the kitchen. You know, this could be you in July…get the details here.

 

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Txakoli: a visit by the Stages

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Posted by admin | Posted on 16-03-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: 2011, basque, free time, gastronomy

 

Yesterday the BasqueStage crew headed into the hills outside of Zarautz and Getaria to learn more about the special Basque wine, txakoli.  If you’ve never tried it, it’s a lightly sparkling white wine that is served across the pintxo bars in San Sebastián, always poured into a glass with flourish from an altitude that ranges from slight to frightening.  We visited the Bodegas Rezabal, run by Mireia Osinalde and Ander Rezabal.  From atop a hill striped with vines, the couple runs the bodega and produces txakoli they sell in Basque Country (with a smaller percentage going to other parts of Spain and tiny bit exported to Japan and the USA).

They showed around Athena and Tracy and a few friends from Martin Berasategui, explaining everything from the production process to the history. And quite a history it is….

….txakoli almost died out in the last century due to industrialization in the Basque Country and a grape sickness.  The granting of Denominación de Origen in the 1990′s, however, promoted a resurgence.  Now it is made in both Gipuzkoa province and Vizkaya. It is made with two grape varietals: Hondarribi Zuria and Hondarribi Beltza.

Rezabal’s owners showed everyone around the bodega, including an explanation of the flavors particular to the Rezabal txakoli.  The stages were even invited into the fermentation room and allowed a taste of the most recent pressing. Ah, the perks of being a stage in Basque Country.

Bodegas Rezabal: Itsas Begi 628, Asti Auzoa, Zarautz. Telephone: 943580899

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stages’ week in review

Posted by admin | Posted on 15-03-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: BasqueStage, free time, kitchen, Martín Berasategui, Sammic, Sammic Scholarship, TV

The madness of Carnaval marked the beginning of this week for the stages.  They decided to lay low, ducking out (of the center) of town to enjoy some fine dining and beautiful scenery.

In the kitchen at Martin Berasategui, Athena continues on the meat station, focusing this week on plating and sauteeing.  Read more (and check out the photos) on Athena’s blog. Tracy moved from the fish station, where she has spent the first part of her stage, to pastry, and as she recounts on her blog: “I must admit it is quite nice to start the day ‘tranquilo’, tempering chocolate in the serene, downstairs kitchen versus breaking down dozens of monkfish with a cleaver.”

The excitement in the kitchen only increased as the week went on.  There were some very special visitors from the East, including the chefs de cuisine from the Shanghai Berasategui outpost.  Then, the stages spent Friday morning prepping for another filming session. This time, the Sammic video featured this  machine:

The immersion circulator (and, by extension, the vacuum sealer). These two machines together are often used by chefs in recent years to do sous vide cooking, which involves applying indirect heat at low temperatures over extended periods of time to perform the majority of the cooking process.  First, Tracy and Athena prepared the classic Basque dish kokotxas al pil pil in the way Martin instructed them.

This involved listening to the oil pil pil (the sound it makes when cooking the kokotxas), watching the garlic dance, and checking for the appropriate “boing” in the kokotxa cheeks. Then, they used the circulator and vacuum sealer to invent their own riff: kokotxas sous vide. In the modern BasqueStage version, creamy cod jowls sit atop a chive gelee, with lightly steamed cockles and a pearl of txacoli gelee.  Finished with a swipe of cayenne oil, it was quite a way to wind up another week at Martin Berasategui.

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stages’ week in review

Posted by admin | Posted on 08-03-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: free time, Martín Berasategui, TV

Sammic Basque Stages Athena and Tracy had another action-packed week in the kitchen of Martín Berasategui.

They spent the first part of the week (their weekend) in Astigarraga, home to many of the area’s sagardotegiak, or Basque cider houses.  They stopped in at the Museum of Cider first, to learn the process of turning apples into the unique cider typical of the region.

 

Later, they enjoyed the traditional cider house meal in Sagardotegi Zapiain, one of the only cider houses whose txotxera (the man who dispenses cider from the giant barrels for diners) is an enologist. The traditional menu is hearty: tortilla de bacalao, bacalao with peppers and onions, and steak, followed by Idiazabal and walnuts. Then it was back to work on Wednesday, which the girls spent prepping for a special event. Leer más

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stages’ week in review

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Posted by admin | Posted on 22-02-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: BasqueStage, David de Jorge, free time, Martín Berasategui

It was a busy week for Tracy and Athena, both in the kitchen and out. Kicking off their ‘weekend’, which for much of the hospitality industry here consists of Monday and Tuesday, they watched San Sebastián’s Real Sociedad play Pamplona’s Osasuna in soccer.  Even though the games are always on in the kitchen at Restaurant Martín Berasategui, seeing the game from the Sammic season ticket seats was quite a different experience…

…then it was back to the kitchen on Wednesday, for what is typically the busiest day of prep of the whole week.  As of late, Tracy has been allowed to show what she’s made of, on the line! No small feat after just a month in the kitchen. “The greatest challenge is mind control. It’s the greatest asset I can have here. Whether I’m prepping, plating or conversing with fellow stages or chefs, I can’t help but think of how ‘zen’ I should be,” says Tracy. Check out more of her account as the heat gets turned up in the Berasategui kitchen.

Then, Thursday, it was lights, camera, action. A film crew invaded the kitchen and the studio of David de Jorge to get some footage of Tracy and Athena cooking a regional specialty, patatas con chorizo ( or a la riojana).

The videos will soon be edited and ready for viewing, and you can cook along with Tracy and Athena as they learn their way around typical local ingredients, like chorizo, jamón and the almighty potato.  It’s all in the little hints, such as the one Chef Martín gave the girls when making the Patatas A La Riojana–varying sizes of potato dice are okay, because the smaller pieces will fall apart, binding the sauce, while the larger pieces continue to cook to doneness. Stay tuned as Tracy and Athena continue working and unearthing pearls of wisdom!

 

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a trip to espelette

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Posted by admin | Posted on 08-02-2011

Category : BasqueStage

Tags: basque, BasqueStage, france, free time, gastronomy

wandering the streets of espelette

This weekend, the scholars headed north for a little hands-on research. Destination? Espelette, France, in the basque region of Lapurdi.   Reason? The Espelette pepper, of course.  This pepper is an A.O.C. (appellation d’origine controlée) designated product, so it is protected and regulated by the government for its special properties.  The pepper is grown around the town of Espelette, and every fall there is a festival to celebrate the pepper’s harvest and drying. You can see it hanging to dry on the houses around the town:

peppers etxea

After they hang to dry, they are further dehydrated over more intense heat, then crushed into the powder form that is commonly sold in markets in the south of France, Spain, and even in the US.  Piment d’Espelette appears on menus across the country in places like Per Se and other fine Mediterranean-inspired kitchens. The flavor is unique: spicy, but not too spicy, and with a hint of Spanish paprika’s smokiness.

paparrazi of espelette

Walking around the quiet village, the scholars were able to stop into several shops and check out some of the delicious Espelette products: pepper confit, foie preserved in pepper sauce, pepper jelly, cocoa with peppers, and cheese with peppers.  The AOC growing region is limited to the several surrounding districts, so after sampling a few more delicacies,  and the stages set off to glimpse the rolling hills and farmland of Lapurdi.  They stopped in nearby Ainhoa for an al fresco lunch of ham, peppers, omelettes, frites and wine–and to enjoy the 65-degree weather!

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