Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain - Another feather in Spain's cap.
- See the first article below for some expert's view on how to make the perfect paella.
- In his long satirical poem The True-Born Englishman, Daniel Defoe lists Pride as the besetting sin of the Spanish. Not the first nor the last person to do this. In comparison, here are his words/insults for other nations. Bear in mind he's even harsher on his fellow Englishmen:-
- The Russians: Stupidly ignorant
- The Danes: Furious
- The Swedes: Melancholic
- The Chinese: Children of hell
- The Persians: Too effeminate
- The Portuguese: Rageing
- The Scots: Fraudulent
- The Poles: Revengeful
- The Dutch: Avaricious [Echoed by Canning: In matters of commerce, the fault of the Dutch is offering too little and asking too much]
The UK and Brexit
- Richard North today: There is not a single no-dealer who has the first idea of what we're up against if we "walk away", making any member of this group totally unqualified to lead this nation's government as prime minister.
- A survey last week found that almost half of British adults were unable to say how search engines such as Google make money.
- His visit to the UK starting today: What Trump wants is the adulation. He wants the protocol and the grandeur and to be at the centre of it all. It is how he sees global diplomacy. It’s going from palace to chancellery, meeting leaders and looking the part. For that purpose, the UK visit could not be more perfect. The scenes will eventually be marketed by his business empire and his re-election machine in the same way: the House of Trump and the House of Windsor, the top luxury brands of their respective nations, sitting down to make deals in the most sumptuous settings. In effect, the British royals will be serving as co-stars and extras in stock footage for Trump’s 2020 re-election ads.
- His tariffs obsession: At present the U.S. is involved in a protracted trade war with China that has yielded nothing in concessions from Beijing, cost U.S. companies and consumers billions, obliterated $5 trillion from the stock market, and is threatening to tip the economy into a recession. At the White House, Donald Trump has learned the lessons of this failed strategy and decided to… drag the U.S. into another unwinnable trade war, this time with one of our neighbors and largest trading partner. Yes, Tariff Man announced Thursday night that starting June 10, he will impose a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports, a levy that will “gradually increase” all the way to 25% until undocumented immigrants stop crossing the border. Tariffs, of course, are usually used to counter trade violations as opposed to being a blunt instrument to deal with border security, but reason and logic have no place in this administration. If they did, someone would have likely been able to get it through Trump’s head that this move will badly damage the U.S. interests, a point that has thus far eluded him.
- His hair: "Not to be read before lunch".
- There's a church on the corner of Dos del Mayo square in Madrid which is hardly ever open. But, seeing that it was last night, I popped in to take a look. There were 10 priests on the altar celebrating Mass. I didn't think there were that many left in the whole of Spain. Perhaps they do a lot of travelling.
- A marvellous video I saw by chance last night. Another Judith Durham?
- For those who can bear it, another nice article - by the great Henry Winter - on Liverpool's triumph and the team's welcome home.
Michelin-starred chef Quique Dacosta on how to make the ultimate paella
Spanish chef Quique Dacosta takes rice very seriously indeed. In an outdoor kitchen by the rice fields of the Albufera lagoon near Alicante, the 46-year-old is examining single grains of bomba, one of three local varieties of rice, discarding any that are broken: they will leak starch into his stock, rather than absorb its flavour.
Dacosta, trim and handsome with a saturnine beard and liquorice quiff, has three Michelin stars for his eponymous restaurant in nearby Dénia, and another for El Poblet in the same town. But his current project is to educate the world about the rice culture of his homeland through a new restaurant, Arros (the Valencian spelling for the grain), which opens on June 7 in London’s Fitzrovia.
“It is not a mission,” he growls. “It is a necessity.” The image of Spanish rice abroad has for too long been that of a lurid, yellow mass of paella – actually the name of the pan it’s cooked in rather than the dish itself – studded with tough chicken and prawns, with which the hordes line their stomachs before going out boozing.
But a well-cooked arros in paella, which might use rabbit, chicken, snails or pigeon, and in which seafood and poultry would never be mixed, is a thing of delicate beauty. And it sits in a spectrum of rice dishes ranging from soupy arros caldosa to stew-like arros meloson.
Oh, and no arros in paella would ever include chorizo, as Jamie Oliver recently suggested in a recipe. “Would you put chorizo in fish and chips?” snorts Dacosta.
A self-taught chef who now operates on the gastronomic cutting edge, Dacosta blends an exaggerated respect for tradition with a desire to innovate. Arros in paella was originally a celebratory Sunday dish, so it should take up to two hours to cook, including vegetable preparation and stock made from scratch. It should be cooked on a paellero gas ring, a diffuser or a barbecue to ensure an even distribution of heat to a round pan, either steel or enamelled, costing around €100 (£88).
But in his Dénia research kitchen Dacosta has created tessellating steel trays called chapas that can cook rice in an oven as well as on an open flame and can be arranged in attractive patterns on the table. When he posted a video on social media of him using a pre-made stock, it made the Spanish papers. He has experimented – heresy! – with sprinkling lime and lemon on his dishes to make the flavours pop. “There is no absolute truth, there are many truths,” he smiles. But he remains adamant about the precision that goes into his rice-based creations.
For a dish using delicate red mullet he rapidly cooks the fish first, then boils 240g of rice in 1.1 litres of warm fish stock for precisely 18 minutes, adding a pinch of saffron at the end (saffron and rice have a long affinity in Spain, as both were easily traded in the days of barter).
A second dish arrives from the oven, the rice an astonishing deep green from a rich vegetable stock, studded with octopus, chard and garlic shoots. A third includes gamy pigeon and morel. All are delicious, with a depth of flavour and texture streets ahead of any rice I’ve eaten in Spain before.
Finally, Dacosta’s deputy chef Juan Fran makes a perfect arros socarrat – effectively a pancake of rice and caramelised stock, one grain deep, which you peel from the pan and eat with your hands, savouring the crunchiness.
This is far away from the cheap paellas of beachside bars, yet not quite as avant garde or frankly expensive as the 18-course tasting menu – “The Evolution and the Origin” – that I get to sample at his flagship, Restaurant Quique Dacosta. This includes escabeche of monkfish with particular attention paid to the creature’s liver, “rice liquor quinine and emulsion of yuzu” and a sweet course of soup made of white petals. It costs €210 with a further €99 if you go for the paired wines and is remarkable and worth it.
A rice dish at Arros in London, meanwhile, will start at around £16, rising to around £50 for larger servings that serve two (though a lobster dish for two peaks at £120). There will be a well-chosen list of Spanish wines and probably a few other local specialities: on my first meeting with him, Dacosta plies me with dried tuna loin and mullet roe.
“The more people know about something, the more you are able to introduce them to new things,” he says. “We want customers who are demanding. It is not about teaching people, it is about explaining. The first restaurant we open outside Spain has to speak about our gastronomy in the correct way.”
His partner in the venture is Marcos Fernandez Pardo, the Spanish-born, English-educated director of the UK-wide Ibérica group of Spanish restaurants. He foresees a diverse clientele for Arros, where the average spend for dinner will be £60-£80. “You will have people who go there because there is a three Michelin-starred chef behind it,” he says. “People who are interested in the concept of arros in paella, people who like Spanish food, people who want to feel like they are in Ibiza…”
On the last day of a whistle-stop visit, Fernandez Pardo takes me to Casa Elias in Monovar, in the hills above Alicante, where the rabbit and snail arros in paella is cooked over a blazing conflagration of dried vines, rising instantly to a rolling boil “like a souffle”. It is served with green beans, rabbit ribs and unleavened peasant bread with aioli.
Along with Dacosta’s Michelin menu and his experimental rice dishes, it ranks among the best meals I have had. I will never eat beach paella again.
2. The Liverpool love affair that never ends: Henry Winter
There are places they will remember all their lives: Rome, London, Paris, Rome again, Istanbul and now Madrid. Liverpool fans will remember spellbinding nights in magical cities, loving the legends gracing their famous shirt and giving everything to overcome opponents of immense stature.
There are places they will remember for the shared celebration of a glorious obsession with the European Cup that runs through Liverpool Football Club decade after decade, city after city across the continent, binding generation to generation with the strongest of red silk ribbons. Those cheap jibes thrown Liverpool’s way, barbs about living in the past, naively overlook how history shapes the present, how powerfully it drives Liverpool, players standing up to be counted: one, two, three, four, five, now six European Cups.
In advance of a testing evening in the heat of Estadio Metropolitano against a talented Tottenham Hotspur side on Saturday, Jordan Henderson spoke to his team-mates about drawing inspiration from former finals, especially last year and the pain of losing to Real Madrid in Kiev. “I felt it was important,” the Liverpool captain reflected. “A few of us said a few things.” The past fuelled their passion.
Individual motivation stirs within each player, of course: Henderson is powered by a quiet but deep hurt at some of the personal criticism that he endures; Mohamed Salah by rejection at Chelsea and being wrestled out of Kiev by Sergio Ramos; Andrew Robertson heartbroken but defiant after release by Celtic at 15; and Jürgen Klopp himself, constantly questioned after losing six finals. Liverpool’s success emanates from men on a mission but also a club with a cause. Europe is in Liverpool’s DNA, etched in their hearts, woven into their flags.
It can never be forgotten that dark moments sully these excursions in Europe, and Heysel in 1985 remains forever a stain on the reputation of Liverpool and their followers. Nothing will fully wash that shame away but it was moving to see Juventus, a club of real class and their opponents that night, quick to transmit their congratulations.
Weekends such as this in Madrid do show Liverpool and their legion of supporters in a far more appealing light. They came, they saw the glory, they partied, they reminded everyone that Liverpool and the European Cup is a love affair without end, a glint of silverware and the pulse quickens. Add 2019 to the hot dates of 77, 78, 81, 84 and 2005.
Many fans of other clubs must look at the laughing, inspiring Klopp, and the likeable, humble role models in his squad such as Henderson, James Milner, Virgil van Dijk, Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, see their ardour for the greatest club prize of all, and feel respect, if not envy.
Liverpool players’ connection with their club is personal, not simply professional. When Henderson gathered his team in the tunnel at half-time, he said a few words of encouragement, exuding determin-ation as ever, and then marched out. Following behind, Van Dijk touched the Liverpool crest emblazoned on the wall, running his fingers over the words “You’ll Never Walk Alone” before heading out, knowing he can walk through any storm that comes his way.
Nights of European delight define Liverpool. It was there in the sight of Sir Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush striding along the hard shoulder to reach the Metropolitano, abandoning their chauffeured cars, such was the traffic chaos.
It was there in the flag held up by fans from Bootle, suggesting, “Let’s talk about six”. Henderson and his players were well aware of the 50,000 supporters in town, turning Felipe II Square into El Kop, a sea of red. “We get sent these videos,” Henderson said with a smile. They loved social media footage of Jamie Webster ripping through a wild rendition of the Van Dijk song, John Barnes at his rhythmic best, and fans’ signalling their craving for another European Cup, as well as “un Estrella mas, por favor”, which was the soundtrack of a weekend when Kirkby took over Castille, along with a plaintive “any spares?”
Children sat on fathers’ shoulders, or flocked towards the stage in the fans park, many far too young to have even been born when the miracle of Istanbul occurred in 2005. Now they were taken to a European Cup final venue because it is what Liverpool families do, it is their birthright, acquiring an infatuation with a trophy for all their lives.
“The fans have travelled everywhere with us, in Europe, it costs them a lot of money and this makes it all worth it,” Henderson said. “They give everything, and I’m happy we can give them something back.”
Liverpool’s collective zeal for Old Big Ears was seen in Jamie Carragher leaping over the seats in front to celebrate Salah’s early penalty after Moussa Sissoko moved his arm towards Sadio Mané’s dinked cross. Chasing the game in 30C heat, faced with a 4-5-1 block, Tottenham tried gamely to rally after the break but Liverpool’s hunger for more European glory was total. Harry Kane was clearly not fit enough to escape Van Dijk, and this was a rare mistake by Mauricio Pochettino in starting him.
When Spurs found a way through, Alisson saved from Son Heung-min, Lucas Moura and Christian Eriksen. Alisson and Milner, streetwise and battle hardened in Europe, started running down the clock.
Alisson deliberated over goal kicks, Milner over his corner kicks, placing the ball just outside the quadrant, accepting the reprimand from the assistant and happily using up 15 seconds to re-spot it. Anything to inch Liverpool closer to No 6. “In finals, you get moments when you have to try and take the sting out of it,” Milner said. He did. Divock Origi’s low shot from left to right past Hugo Lloris then really got the singing about No 6 going.
Amid all the Spurs grief, they can take consolation that they played the better football, with Harry Winks a class apart, and ran into Alisson and Van Dijk at their best. Tottenham can take pride in the respect between the sides, on and off the field, the shared drinks, jokes and stories between fans on an epic, extended Friday night out. Rivals swapped compliments rather than insults, and yesterday supporters’ groups were sending each other good luck messages for next season. Spurs knew they just ran into the force of history, a Liverpool side running on the adrenaline of Rome, Wembley, Paris and Istanbul.
The fixation with Europe was inescapable at the final whistle in the way John Aldridge held up six fingers, in Carragher simply tweeting six trophy emojis. Downstairs, Klopp hit the high notes by singing, “Let’s talk about six, baby” in an interview with a delighted Jan Aage Fjortoft of Viasport, Norwegian TV. Outside, Milner advanced smiling towards the fans behind the goal.
“It will be nice going to Melwood seeing No 6 there,” Milner said. The “European Cup/Uefa Champions League” section requires updating on the “champions wall” in the training ground reception. In the Melwood gym, one of the pillars wrapped in a No 5 motif needs a tweak.
No 6 is coming home. A look of supreme satisfaction spread across Henderson’s face as he sat on the plane, team-mates all around on their phones. He looked ahead and smiled, his feet resting on the European Cup with its red ribbons. He had delivered.
Club regulars noted Henderson standing taller when he spoke afterwards. He now rubbed shoulders with the legends from Liverpool history, the four men to have lifted the European Cup: Emlyn Hughes twice, Phil Thompson, Graeme Souness and Steven Gerrard. Liverpool sent Henderson a message that they will be embellishing their mural of the fab four, adding him.
Typically, Henderson thought more of others. At the final whistle, he ran to his father, Brian, who is recovering from throat cancer, and wrapped him in the most emotional of embraces. “My dad has been through a lot over the past few years,” Henderson said. “I’m just glad I can put a smile on his face.”
In 2003, Henderson was taken by his father to the Old Trafford final between AC Milan and Juventus. “When they came out to the Champions League music, he said to us, ‘Dad, I’m going to play there one day,’ ” Brian told Kelly Somers of Optus Sport. Henderson himself said: “My dream as a kid was to win trophies, and my best friend sent us a picture of me kissing a trophy when I was about ten, so that gave me even more motivation. The trophy was gold and it was quite big.”
Nothing quite as big as Old Big Ears. Nothing rivals Liverpool’s grand obsession with the trophy in places that the children of Beatleville will remember, all their lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment