Movable Feast

New York Minute - ¡Vamos!

I'm in New York now - and I really needed to leave now if I wanted any chance of seeing Ferran Adria and nine of Spain's most influential chefs up close and personal. They're in town for Spain's 10: Cocina de Vanguardia - Madrid Fusion invades New York. They're cutting the ribbon on the French Culinary Institute's new home, the International Culinary Center in minutes.

But first there's a classic Spanish hot chocolate and churros breakfast and Ferran Adria or not, I have got to get me some of that.

By the way, did you send in your El Bulli 2007 reservation request today? It's that time of year again.

Also, if you lust for a Pacojet - and I know you do - check out my new CHOW column today. And have you tried sous-vide at home from last week's column yet?

And did you see the premiere of Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie this week? If it's not running yet on your local PBS station, please email them - and why not slip them them a little donation while you're at it.

I will have a chateau slideshow available soon - with a surprise ending to that story.

Espesso by Ferran Adria

This afternoon my sister Annie and I had an Espesso break.

Not espresso but the edible coffee created by Ferran Adria. We weren't at El Bulli or even in Europe but Chicago. And not at a restaurant a la Alinea or Moto, but a small downtown coffee house.

Lavazza introduced the product it developed in collaboration with Ferran in the US today. The Italian company has only three locations in this country and all are within a few blocks' radius in the city.

Espesso's been available exclusively in Europe since 2002. Interestingly, it's been served warm on The Continent, but now the import's dispensed chilled. I speculate it's because Europeans prefer their coffee concoctions hot but Americans suck them down ice cold. Or maybe the idea of a warm solid coffee might be too much for the mind of the average morning commuter.

The name is a play on words: espresso + spesso - "thick" in Italian. It's sturdy enough to stay put in an overturned cup, but deceptively light and airy, without the resistance of a traditional mousse, and delivers a surprisingly bold coffee flavor.

Lavazza alludes to a secret ingredient that solidifies the coffee. They claim this ingredient limits the servings available each day because it needs to set for 12 hours. It did in fact sell out at one location by late morning. The product's dispensed from the iSi Gourmet Whip that Ferran made famous with his foams.

I don't know for certain what they use in their version but Ferran does have a cold coffee espuma that uses simple gelatine. For the warm preparation I'd guess he used agar-agar.

How to Get a Reservation at El Bulli - Season 2006

Ah, it's that time of year again - wild game, wild mushrooms, and open season on El Bulli reservations. Just in case you forgot to mark your calendar from last year, here's a reminder send in your request - NOW.

Same as before - dates desired, number of people, contact info - by email or fax only - no phone calls.

Email:  bulli@elbulli.com

Fax: 972150717 - Spain's country code is 34.

Albert Adria said this past year they had over 400,000 requests - that's 100,000 more than last year. And yes, still only 8,000 available seats.

Good luck to all!

El Bulli News

This is Albert Adria - co-owner and Pastry Chef of El Bulli - holding a sugar bubble filled with sesame oil. At the restaurant, they're done with a deliciously nutty - and wildly expensive - Austrian pumpkin seed oil.

I wrote a piece for the Chicago Tribune about Albert's recent, rare, hands-on classes where he showed some of the latest dishes to a handful of professional pastry chefs - and a few hardcore home cooks. The article - "Pioneering Pastry Chef Shares a Few Secrets" - was published in yesterday's paper - and thank you to Susan in Hong Kong for first spotting it in the online edition.

Yes, I snuck back to Chicago last month for a quick visit - and sat in on Albert's two intensive three-day classes at the French Pastry School - an eye-popping $825 each. A big shout-out to Chad, Daniel, Tara, Meredith, William, Ryan, Eric, Patty, Nghi, Lauren, Sally, Lisa, and all the other cool kids I met in class.

Albert taught Artistic Plated Desserts - which he also did last November - and El Bulli Petit Fours and Mignardises. The Bullimen include these bite-sized treats in the category they call Morphings. They're the end of the meal equivalent to amuses-bouches - which in Bulli nomenclature are Snacks.

Currently the restaurant serves a total of seven Morphings - but you're not guaranteed to taste all of them. How many you get depends on your server and you. If it looks to your server like you want to eat and run, then you might only get one. If you're kicking back, ordering after-dinner drinks, lighting up cigars, etc. then you'll likely get all seven. So here's the El Bulli Tip of the Day - if you want all seven Morphings, sit back, relax, and tell your server to Bring-It-On.

And as I mention in the article - in bigger-than-Harry-Potter news - the massive book and CD boxed set "El Bulli 1998-2002" will soon be published in the US for the first time. This is in fact Volume 3 - first released in November 2003 in Europe in limited quantities. The opus is scheduled to hit stores August 1st and will sell at a staggering $350. But Amazon's currently offering it for a relative rock-bottom $220.50 - including free shipping - no small change given its considerable weight and size. If you do want to order the book online, please - for the love of foam, agar-agar, and melon caviar - pretty please - with edible air on top - buy through my Amazon link right here.

Each purchase contributes to Movable Feast and is greatly appreciated - because I'm going back to El Bulli at the end of this season - and I'm taking you with me again!

What to Pack for Your Summer Stage

A quick note to Dana - who's going to stage at El Bulli - and Dana - who's going to stage at The Fat Duck - and anyone else not necessarily named Dana who's leaving home to stage at a gastronomic restaurant. Here's a few things to pack along with your standard knife kit.

A small offset spatula. This will be your most important tool at the pass. Mark it well - and even then fiercely guard it at all times. Without it you will be lost. I showed up at El Bulli last season without one and was saved when Chris gave me one. He was running a small shrewd side business - important for survival as a stagiaire - buying them in bulk and selling them at a modest profit to the new spatula-less arrivals. Wilton makes a good cheap one.

A Sharpie - preferably a black Sharpie Professional - especially good for writing on greasy surfaces. You and your comrades will have an insane number of nearly indistinguishable mise en place items - "Is that citric acid or fleur de sel!" is not a question you want to mistakenly answer in the heat of service. I'm infamous for always having a Sharpie clipped to the front of my jacket.

And speaking of jackets, if you need to supply your own bring at least one with your name embroidered on it. If they learn your name fast, then they're more likely to call you to do something - hopefully good. It doesn't need to be an Egyptian cotton, hand-tied French-knot number - but just get at least one embroidered - check out Bragard - great quality, excellent range, reasonable prices.

And speaking of Sharpies, if you're going to El Bulli, you may want a metallic or opaque paint Sharpie - for Ferran and Albert to sign your El Bulli books - which have black endpapers.

Precision-tip scissors. At El Bulli, we used them on the fennel blossom fronds - that we picked on the winding oceanfront roadside up to the restaurant - at Les Ambassadeurs, on the lentil sprouts we grow in the kitchen. My sister Annie - who is with the paper world as I am with the food world - gave me a pair of Fiskars No. 5 Non-Stick Scissors - with the optional, limited edition protective sleeve no less.

Chopsticks - depending your adeptness. A Japanese sous-chef that I worked with actually made me a pair from a couple of ordinary disposable wooden skewers that he cut down to length - I cherish them to this day. If you're not good with chopsticks, I suggest Tweezermans.

A Moleskine and a pen. Moleskines are the most durable pocket notebooks I know - everything else has fallen apart after a few weeks. I have a small personal library that have survived heat and sweat, beautifully.

A digital camera. I specifically bought an Olympus Stylus for the kitchen because it's ultra-compact and all-weather - again as with the notebook, two very important criteria - and it did take good pix.

And this one's for the girls - please wear underwear you're not shy about showing in front of the guys. If you want to wear lace thongs every day to work, you go girl, but please don't hog the one staff washroom because you need to change in privacy. And file this under "way too much information" perhaps - and avert your eyes now if you're of a delicate nature - but seeing as a fair number of some of the best cooks in the world have already seen me in my underwear - I can personally - highly personally - recommend Patagonia Women's Capilene Boy Shorts in this department.

I'll add more as I think of it - and get the guys to add their tips too.

Take care, make friends, write home, wear clean underwear, and have fun kids!

How to Get a Stage at El Bulli for Season 2005

Email Albert Raurich - Chef de Cuisine - NOW. His email address is chef@elbulli.com. He'll start reading every single request starting tomorrow - December 1st. Also - if I were you - I'd fill out the CV form on the website too - click here. They're looking to fill 20 to 22 places for the full six month season - maybe another 18 to 20 for one or three months. Last year Albert had 800 requests. This year - by the end of the September - he had 1600 requests. Ferran himself will ultimately approve every single stagiaire. If you make the cut, you will be contacted - by the end of December/beginning of January. If you don't, you won't.

One of the legendary stories at El Bulli is about a Japanese guy - Tomo-san - who sent Albert an email every single week - for three years. He finally got in - just this past season.

Good luck.

Albert Adria and the El Bulli Birthday Surprise

If you plan on celebrating your birthday at El Bulli and you want to be surprised then look away now - and whatever you do don't scroll down to the picture at the end of this post.

OK?

The picture below is of Albert Adria and an El Bulli birthday card - taken Thursday afternoon at the French Pastry School in Chicago. He'd just finished teaching a three-day professional class - Artistic Plated Desserts. It was the longest single class that he's ever taught and he was exhausted. He told me that he started every morning at 5:30 - the class didn't start until 7:00.

The birthday card is part of the birthday presentation that was being done at El Bulli towards the end of last season. For birthdays, everyone at the table was given a birthday timbale. It looked like a shiny, oversized, dark chocolate candle - meant to be taken in one big bite. It's made by spreading a thin layer of dark tempered chocolate on small rectangles of guitar plastic - which are then rolled - with the chocolate on the inside - so the long ends just meet - and taped. This forms the outer shell. One end is sealed with a thinly spread freehand chocolate circle. The cylinder was placed over - and once it set the excess around the edge just broken off. The other end was sealed with a thick coin-sized chocolate brownie - studded with a brunoise of candied lemon zest. That was spread with a pralinee and feuilletine mixture - tastes like peanut butter and feuilletine are the crispy bits that are the by-product of making plain ice cream cones. At the time of service, the cylinder was filled with a lemon cream foam - dispensed out of a siphon - and then overturned onto the brownie round - which fit like a little cork. The top was garnished with a tiny dark chocolate flame - the bottom of which was slightly melted right on an oven door - which would invariably piss off whomever was baking that night - because in our inevitable rush to get the timbales to the pass, we'd never wipe off the melted chocolate right away. The timbales were then plated directly onto one of the black stone tiles at the pass. Finally, the plastic was sliced off - sometimes it was at this moment that the timbale would crush - which would mean frantically starting all over again. The only good thing was that casualties could be consumed. At the table, the waitstaff would present the timbales - and show the birthday card. The front cover is printed with "Happy Birthday" in eight languages - Catalan, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese. It's opened - which reveals the paper pop-up fruit layered cake - photographed on a white doily no less - inside. At the top of the pop-up is a slot for a real candle - which is lit with a real flame.

I have to admit that when I first described this whole deal to my sister that I could not stop laughing. It's so ridiculous! To eat little cakes while staring at a big paper pop-up cake! We could not stop laughing.

Which is precisely the point - to really inject some humour into what could otherwise be so damned serious.

The paper cake was created for El Bulli by Escriba. The house of Escriba is over 100 years old - they are like the Laduree of Spain. Antoni Escriba just passed away this autumn - he was 73 - and had a tragic accident - fell at the Dali museum at Figueres. Ferran attended his funeral. It's legendary that Senor Escriba always wanted to be a sculptor - but had to follow the family footsteps into the pasteleria instead. There he made his mark as a master chocolatier - using chocolate as his sculpting medium instead. And at El Bulli his work lives on in paper. A whimsical, joyful, paper, pop-up, birthday cake.

Running with the Bulls

Wednesday night I was invited to not one but two swank soirees in Chicago. One was the Food & Wine event at the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art). And the other was dinner at moto - on a particularly star-studded night. Normally I would have gnawed off an arm to go to either - but I went to neither - and went to a little joint in Chinatown instead. Why? To catch up with my friend and former Bull - Chris Edwards - better known to our Spanish speaking brethern as "Krrreeesss". He was in town for one night only and asked for casual and quiet - the good food part is implied. So casual, quiet, good food - we did - at Ken Kee in Chinatown Square. It's Hong Kong style food known to locals as good value for the money. So it was there - over spicy jellyfish and dry-fried beef chow fun - we caught up. Right after El Bulli, he finally had a chance to travel around Spain a bit - for some more gastronomic discovery. A couple of the other guys - two of his nine roommates in that notorious apartment - are now working at the Taller in Barcelona - doing "creativity". And he'd heard from everybody that I'd had a LOT of fun at the wedding. Bastards. We're probably not going to see each other again for another year - if that. I'm sure we'll keep in touch - but you know - it's never the same. It's not the same as working shoulder to shoulder - or drinking and smoking and bitching after - side by side. Our fellow Bulls are now off in every far flung corner of the gastronomic world. It's good to catch up when we can.

Saint Rafa's Fish

This was my St. Pierre had at Rafa's. It was so simple - nothing to it. No sides - no garnish - I think Rafa even came over and took away my bread basket before he brought over my fish. Grilled a la plancha - nothing more than olive oil and sea salt. He gets his fish from fisherman friends fresh each day - and uses them only fresh that day. What he can't sell he cooks up for family dinner. What they themselves don't eat that night - basura - trash. But more often than not he'll run out of fish that night - a tight operation. His fish are ugly - evil-faced sea monters - gaping mouths, murderous eyes. Nothing like the St. Pierres we get in Paris. Those you could watch in a pretty fishtank. These are so ugly that you know they've got to taste good - really good. When Rafa himself slipped that plate in front of me, I sat back in awe. The first thing you notice is a good fresh, fried aroma that you want to eat out of the air - try that for a positive memory-inducing scent. Then you start by working your way carefully around the tail and the spines along the back - sucking each internal-organ-endangering spike completely clean of delicate meat and traces of gelatin - a prelude of what's to come. Then the top filet - an easy, meaty reward. And then the head. I swear Rafa told me at least three times - before he even made a move to give me a fish - that I had to eat the head - that it's the best part. He looked deep in my eyes - not wanting to give up a precious St. Pierre to a non-believer - otherwise I think he would have suggested some nice safe slices of tuna tail instead. And the head - stop your snickering - it was the best part. Buried treasures - discovered and savoured - though I must admit I'm not an eyeball fan. And then still reeling - the bottom filet - bare handed - silverware and so-called civilised eating long forgotten. A few notes on Rafa's cooking - he cleans his hot plancha with vinegar - any cheap vinegar will do he says; and he cooks with olive oil that he's just brought up to a boil - and keeps warm on the stove in a pot - he says that way your fish will taste like fish - not olive oil; and salt - he likes Spanish sea salt - any good one but nothing special. I think the story of how the fish got its name - and black spots on its body - is that St. Pierre once grabbed one but released it when it protested - and forever marked this fish with his saintly thumbprints. To Senor Rafa - I'm a believer.

Oriol Balaguer

These are the individual wedding cakes that Oriol Balaguer did for Oriol Castro's wedding. Biscuit layered with white chocolate mousse, covered in white chocolate mousse, spraygunned with dark chocolate, garnished with a dark chocolate spoon, topped with a quenelle of dark chocolate mousse, and plated with apricot puree that was applied in the shape of a spoon. For those of you who are not pastry nerds, Oriol Balaguer is one of the top pastry chefs in the world. Thanks to Ted for the heads-up on his new website - mentioned on eGullet. My only complaint about the new site is that it doesn't do him justice - OB is a major hottie. He's based in Barcelona and just opened a shop in Tokyo - the first by a Spanish pastry chef in Japan - a big deal since that's long been the domain of Zee French. OB also did a big wedding presentation piece that I mentioned here before - a meter-high and meter-wide chocolate sculpture that looked like the weathered beams that fence the front of El Bulli - holding one large version of the little cakes. But by the time I got to that - much later in the inebriated evening - it had already been decimated. But earlier in the afternoon, we plated these beauties up - in the basement of the castle where the wedding was held in Taragonna, Spain. And we tried to keep them beautiful - because delicate and delicious as they were, they were sons-of-bitches to plate up. Every single slightest touch showed up - with the dark over the light cream. We finally figured out that the best way was to take two small spatulas, carefully lift, then position, then plate. But with so little surface space - every inch was taken up by plates - sometimes we had to carry a little cake almost across the room. It was like some kind of nerve-wracking carnival game. And of course, just as I was in the middle of this precarious operation, who should come down and check out the scene? Oriol Balaguer himself. All I could think was "Please don't fall you fucking little cake!" And then he comes closer to watch me over my shoulder as I plate it. And then all I could think was "Please don't fall you fucking little cake!" Original thoughts were lost on me at that moment. But victory was had and all was well. OB adjusted the apricot puree - which we then had to madly dash and correct on all 240 plates. There were a few cake casualties - mostly from transport in the boxes - they were done at his place and brought down finished - cracked spoons, fallen quenelles, etc. And in the basement of the castle, we descended on those like starving savages - chocolate-mousse-quenelle-eating savages.

El Bulli Tasting Menu - Family Style

This was our last family meal - on our last night of service at El Bulli this season. Penne bolognese - with three kinds of cheese - we were clearing out the walk-in - parmesan, emmental, and a very blue bleu; with rosemary roasted chicken and potatoes; and as a special treat - pinwheel plates of paper-thin jamon. At the very top of the picture, you can barely make out the bar that holds up the bull's head - the infamous carved wood bull's head in the kitchen - I think you can see the bull's chin. My family dinner table was the pass - we covered it in black fabric to protect the wood. I could almost never finish my serving of family dinner food - very generous helpings which we pre-plated if we were on dinner duty. But some of the guys would go back for thirds - sometimes fourths. The two most popular family meals were probably tied at hamburgers and egg rolls - served with sweet and sour sauce. The least favourite - cabrito - kid/baby goat. Amazing quality - trimmings from the menu's sous-vide cooked kid that seared to finish with a crispy skin. Ours was usually served up as a simple, saucy stew. Very tasty but we had it maybe twice a week. We discussed how ironic it was that most people would never even taste meat of that quality once in their lives.

The Secret of Life of Little Grey Rabbit

Do you know what this is? Where it's found? Its importance? Go ahead - guess.

Baggage

Why my bags are so damned heavy:

Five assorted El Bulli books.

Knives - my Wusthof Culinars - a 20 cm chef's, a Santoku, the diamond steel, a paring, and my favourite - don't tell the others - my boning knife.

Other essential kitchen tools - OXO stainless steel peeler, Microplane, kitchen shears, big Zippo lighter, and the absolutely vital little, offset spatula.

Rocks - beach rocks from Cala Montjoi - black, flat, with chalky white stripes - when you see them you see inspiration for the book cases.

Three kilos of Gallo brand fideo - for fideua - the pasta paella served with aioli that's my new obsession. Reportedly Rafa makes the best in the region - but he only makes it when he can get some specific little fishies that he likes for the fumet/fish stock - that are only legal to fish under certain conditions. And what kills me is that he only charges like 9 euros for it - that kills me - really just kills me.

Tins and jars of sardines and anchovies - triple Ziploc-ed because it would really suck if those leak.

Six sets of chef's uniforms - jackets and blue houndstooth checked pants.

And then there's my ultra-fragile carry-on tote bag - not at all heavy but a heart-attack when coupled with maneuvering my monstrous checked bags. That holds the giant El Bulli birthday card for my sister - she's a paper designer so she'll get a kick out of it - hopefully; three bags of jamon-flavoured potato chips - potato chips are my dad's one snacking vice; not-yet-released Bonne Maman apple tartelettes for my mom; and my highly coveted sample of the new Valrhona Porcelana del Pedregal - a shockingly rare Venezulean single-estate chocolate - 10 years in the making - deep, dark, stunningly smooth.

For my brother, I got a t-shirt - an El Bulli t-shirt - which of course I think is really cool - plus my brother likes interesting t-shirts. But in my punchier moments at the restaurant - every night - I thought it should read "My sister staged at El Bulli and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" - cracked me up almost every time.

How to Get a Reservation at El Bulli for Season 2005

First off - stop emailing me.

Now - fax or email the restaurant - I mean NOW - NO phone calls.

Keep it short and sweet - dates, covers, your contact info, etc.

The fax number 972150717 - Spain's country code is 34.

The email address is bulli@elbulli.com.

Luis Garcia - the maitre d'hotel - and the one man solely responsible for The Book - officially starts the reservations tomorrow - October 15th. But I know for a fact that he's already started looking at the requests - he and I road-tripped down to Oriol's wedding way early Sunday morning. We had a good long and very interesting talk. More later.

He had over 300 thousand requests last year - for 8 thousand places.

Good luck.

If It's Wednesday It Must be Paris

Where the fuck am I? Sunday was the wedding. The day after, yesterday and this morning were Barcelona. And I've just arrived in Paris tonight. The wedding was an alcohol and Cuban cigar and Oriol Balaguer chocolate induced blur. I vaguely remember at one point serving up a gin fizz espuma cocktail to Ferran - and then later in the night doing some dirty Spanish dancing with him. Not only is he one of the greatest chefs of our time but the man has got some serious moves. And this morning I had tapas at the infamous Bar Pinotxo at La Boqueria market just off La Rambla in Barcelona - and I just had a late dinner at L'As du Falafel in the Marais in Paris. Sometimes I'm jealous of myself. Will post more after I decompress - a bientot.

Mise En Place

Yesterday was the last LAST day at El Bulli. We did the mise en place for Oriol´s wedding on Sunday. Oriol Castro is one of the two sous chefs - and a crazy man - and we love him for that. So it was the other sous chef, the chefs des parties, me, and Tomo. Tomo is a Japanese stagiaire who´s been trying to get into El Bulli for three years. He emailed Albert Raurich - the chef de cuisine - every week for three years - until Albert finally relented. Tomo-san is doing the sushi for the wedding - fatty tuna and salmon and I think one other fish. The big part of my day was spent shelling 120 Brittany blue lobster tails - with my bare hands - almost bare - wearing the surgical gloves that are essential in the kitchen. The lobsters were cooked in ocean water only - drawn from the beach below El Bulli - then let to cool just long enough so it was not so much like picking up a boiling hot rock - just an almost boiling hot rock. Then you pop off the claws at the base, then snap off the head from the tail. The tail you take and gently crack either between your hands, or lean on to it on a sturdy table - you don´t want to damage the meat - though it is firm. Brittany bleu lobsters are supposed to have the highest ratio of meat to shell. The claws are cracked separately - and the legs picked through. But what hurts my Chinese heart is that most of the heads are just thrown away. Some are saved for stock - but not all. Yesterday, Mauro - the dark and handsome half of El Bulli´s Italian chef de partie couple - his girlfriend Loretta the beautiful blonde in pastry - Mauro mercifully made risotto - with a fond from a fair amount of the heads. Amazing. And after my fish fest at Rafa´s the night before I could not have beared having another piece of seafood - but for this Chinese girl, Mauro´s lobster risotto soothed my body and soul.

El Bulli After Party

The Big Dinner Out, yesterday morning, and last night all blurred together. It was a historic night of heroic eating and drinking - the likes of which even many of the international heroic drinkers present have never seen. It started with a great dinner - a little resto-hostal joint here down in Roses - will walk by tonight and grab a card for the name. Anchovies on toasted tomato bread, little clams in garlic and oil - something else which I´ve forgotten because of the many bottles of white, red, and cava but I should have pictures. And my main course is my favourite new thing in the world to eat right now - fideua. Basically a paella but with pasta - little short, maybe inch and a half/3 cm length pieces of spaghetti-ish pasta. Mine was with way overcooked little langoustines - but the pasta had some nice little pockets of golden, crusty bits. And it´s served with a side of aioli. The party moved over to Ona´s - with one small scooter accident. Oliver and/or Ferran - the Terrible Twosome of El Bulli pastry - wiped out - after going like 3 feet/a meter. No injuries reported. Ona´s received us well - with forewarning of course. Every unofficial El Bulli party gets that courtesy. And per usual they pulled down the front gates at 03:00 sharp. And as per usual, the illegal after-party commenced within - or with-out in this case - on their back deck. And here´s where things start getting very Impressionist and Surreal. I remember some of the guys were jumped - good-naturedly of course - ha ha - and there was an ocean dunking - of the sous chefs and a couple of other guys. I had some serious slurred discussions with the sommelier. And Chris chivalrously - though alarmingly waveringly - escorted me home around 7 or 8. More on the last day later. I´m finally having dinner at Rafa´s in about 15 mintues.

Family Dinner Party

You probably don´t know that in our state-of-the-art, stone and stainless, masculine masterpiece of an El Bulli kitchen that the ceiling is painted pale pink. Probably because you´ve never been up on a rickety ladder washing down walls - from that pale pink ceiling down - to the dark stone floors. Second to last day of cleaning today. Now have to run to get ready for our Family Dinner Party - out - at a little local joint. But the good news is that I get to stay in my apartment after all. I don´t have to move over to the Big Brother apartment - the one with the cool water showers. I´m hoping to head down to the Taller this week for a peek - because I´m staying a little longer - to work the wedding of an El Bulli chef. Venga.

Finale - El Bulli 2004

Last night was the final service at El Bulli - Season 2004. As much as I read - as much as I expected before I came here - there was still something so surreal about standing in the kitchen right before service started with Ferran Adria himself thanking us - telling us that we were now family - and that the door was always open for each and every one of us to return at any time. And then we had a mad rush of picture taking with Ferran and Albert in front of the bull - the big carved wood bull´s head on the pass in front of the big kitchen. We were silly - we were elated - we ate everything in sight. Though family meal was nicely supplemented with heaping plates of beautifully sliced jamon. More later. We started The Cleaning this morning - insanely detailed - I´m talking toothbrushes and toothpicks and cotton swabs detail. And more of it in the morning. Too early in the morning.

My Own Devices

Last night I cooked for myself - the second time in about two years. And I ate a bowl of ganache. It was a small bowl but more on that later. Ironic - since I started this culinary adventure I hardly ever really cook at all. I mean I´m a three-star parrot but I don´t cook my own food. The last time was in Paris. I had a lot of Hong Kong style noodles left over from a cooking lesson for my friend Mort Rosenblum - and went on a pan fried noodle binge - Cantonese pan fried noodles with scallops and wood ear mushrooms with raw and caramelised green onions. I swear someday when I have my own restaurant that I will only have Fish, Meat, Dessert, etc. on the menu - no long descriptions. So last night Rafa´s was closed. No fresh fish. I´ll try again this week. We clean tomorrow and Tuesday - but start early and finish early - 9 to 5ish - almost like normal people. So last night - 2 eggs, 2 stale El Bulli rolls, a tomato, some manchego, an unidentified can of seafood - it turned out to be tuna in oil. Beat the eggs - with a little milk - really needed one more egg - salt, pepper. Broke up the bread - hard as rocks - tossed it in to the egg mixture, threw it in the fridge to soak. Sliced the tomato into 4 fat slices - poured off some of the tuna oil into the pan - seared the tomato until a little burned around edges and nice and soft inside - just the way I like them - and plated them off. Flaked the tuna into the pan with the rest of the oil - sauteed until there were some crispy bits - of which I ate almost all. Tomatoes back in, poured the egg and bread mixture over - let it just set around and then took it off the heat - damned electric burner. Crumbled some manchego over. Back on the heat for a few seconds - quick flip - plate - and ate. With a mini bottle of cava for one. For dessert took a few squares of Chocovic chocolate - got some bars from one of the chef de parties coming back from the demo - chopped that up - poured some hot milk over - no cream in the house - and made a ganache. Crushed some cornflakes into a bowl, topped that with a slice of membrillo, some ganache over, and a few spoonfuls of a local ewe´s milk yogurt - sold in a little terra cotta pot to finish. Stared at that leftover ganache for about three seconds - poured in some more cornflakes - and ate the rest of it.

Adios Yuba

Today´s my last day off from El Bulli. I thought long and hard about whether or not I should take it. In the end - for my sanity - and the survival of those around me - I did. The work is so detailed and delicate sometimes that it can really drive you crazy. Like the ¨porex¨ - which is like an edible Styrofoam - made with just whipped water and gelatin - and served with coconut cream and a ginger and coconut powder. After the foam is chilled I cut it with a circle cutter to make these thick little cookies - of air. They´re somewhat stable - but can melt pretty easily. A bit nerve-wracking.

So I took the day off but this morning I went in for the last session of the dreaded yuba. Yuba is the milk skin that´s based on the Japanese soy milk skin product. The way we do it seems pretty simple - just heat big, wide pots of milk - just below boiling - wait until the skin forms - pluck it off.

Try it sometime. It´s torture. The skin can´t be too thin - or it will break. And that milk is hot - damned hot. And then try making 70 or 80 of them. In 2 hours.

They´re then brushed with heavy cream and sandwiched in plastic to rehydrate in the fridge overnight. They´re served filled with a yogurt cream - out of a siphon with a double charge because the yogurt´s rather heavy - formed into an omlette shape - carefully - sprinkled with sugar, hit with the torch to caramelize, then the plate barely touched with lavendar buds and lavendar powder.

So at around 15:00 today we said adios to the last yuba of 2004.

Tomorrow is the last service at El Bulli for 2004.

Tonight I´m going to try to go to Rafa´s for dinner. I walked by a couple of hours ago but no one was there. Wish me luck.

The Importance of Chocolate Ice Cream

Yesterday at the end of Family Meal we put out some chocolate ice cream. You know how it is - it´s just past its prime for service but damn good for family. There was just a big ¨tooper¨ of it - as in Tupper as in Tupperware. It´s one of those funny things where I wonder if the Tupperware people know about their significance in the El Bulli lexicon. We use Tupperware-ish containers for everything - and there of course are never enough of them for service so we stash them. At Ducasse we used ¨plaques japonais¨ or ¨bacs japonais¨ - sturdy little stainless steel trays or rectangular containers. Anyway so there was maybe like a liter of chocolate ice cream on the bar - there´s a little bar in the kitchen which is very occasionally used by clients for a drink - but mostly it´s where we swarm for our post family meal espresso. And family meal itself yesterday - good per usual but like a bunch of college boys planning your meal - which is basically what it is. Yesterday we had tortellini in a tomato meat sauce with shredded emmental - with a side plate of sausages - salchichas which are like long skinny breakfast sausages - which was also piled high with potato chips - and a ripe tomato half in a nod to the food pyramid. After nearly everybody rushed out for The Smoke - the chocolate ice cream was put out. I stopped mid tortellini forkful and got mine. Right in front of Ferran. Who was coming in fast right after me. You just got to love that guy.

Chem Class

Was there another restaurant in the world yesterday where mise en place was preceded by a food chemistry lecture?

I missed posting yesterday because I had to get up to work early because the chemists who´ve been working in the kitchen were doing a lecture - talking about the different compounds we use, etc.

Two hours in the El Bulli dining room - talking about gelatins and pectins and agar agar and alginato. OK. Another pinch myself moment.

Then that´s followed by the 14:00 bocadillo - usually some variation of a baguette sandwich - with paper thin slices of jamon - right off a whole leg of course. Yesterday it was just drizzled with olive oil - sometimes there are ripe tomato slices, other times manchego.

Then 10 minutes to stare at the sea and process the morning. My head´s still spinning.

Got to get ready for work.

An American in Roses

Chris is the only American who´s been here for the whole season. Right before he came here - right after he left his real job and started waiting for papers - he worked at an Outback Steakhouse to pick up some extra cash. Now - poetically - he´s working the meat station at El Bulli.

Quick stats - he was last the sous chef at a fine dining resto in South Carolina, went to Johnson and Wales, grew up in Virginia - which means he´s seriously craving collard greens - cooked down tender with ham hocks of course.

He lives in the most notorious of the stagiaire apartments - the one with nine guys - and no hot water. Note to future temp residents of Roses - cool water showers are not uncommon. He calls it the Big Brother apartment - but they have no option to vote anyone out.

But he takes it all in stride. Chris is the kind of guy you´d hope to run into at your favourite fishing spot - and pass the day with cold beers and long stories - which is what he sometimes does on his days off. He asked him mom to ship his fishing gear. The last time he went out he gave his local drinking - er - fishing buddies an eel he caught.

I´ve got to get him to give me one of those eels sometime.

The Importance of Staff Drinking

Family Meal feeds you but Family Drinking bonds you.

Last night was Fecundo´s farewell party at Coffeeshop. Fecundo´s a 21 year old practical kitchen chef at at the school from which he graduated recently. He´s an amazingly nice guy, universally well liked, and a remarkable teacher - especially for someone so young - and especially for someone like me who´s a little more skeptical than I should be sometimes - especially here.

Coffeeshop is the drinking establishment of choice for a number of the El Bulli staff. They have a few things going for them - cheap beer which is number one of course - and number two is free internet access. Just one flat screen monitor in the corner, but if you need to check your email at 2 o´clock in the morning - by the time we get down from the mountains - it´s the only game in Roses. A third strong draw is the owner/barman extraordinaire - whom half the guys think is named Lionel and subsequently call Lionel Ritchie.

L´Hort was another choice for libations - and food. Typical tapas - pan con tomate - toasted bread rubbed with ripe juicy tomatoes - and a fine selection of cheeses - and actually just quite a nice place overall with an stone walled enclosed outdoor patio comfortably furnished with stylish stainless cafe tables and chairs. That was a favourite spot of the sous chefs and chef de parties - and so not always so with the stagiaires - but now they´re closed for the season.

The third is Ona´s - another surprisingly hip spot with a minimalist 70´s retro decor - and with a terrasse right on the beach - with a view of the harbour and the rest of the Med beyond.

Roses is shutting down for the season. This is our last week of service. Sunday night will be our last night of Season 2004.

My head´s still a little fuzzy - funny how a few glasses of vino tinto and a Mojito can linger - so tomorrow I´ll tell you more about Chris - the only other American here - blond haired, blue eyed, Southern drawl and all from Virginia.

Chocolate Earth

Last night towards the end of service I was sealing up some little bags of ingredients for Albert Adria for a Chocovic demo he's doing. I was doing these little bags of liquid - which are always a son of a bitch to do because they invariably want to tip over or get too much air sucked out and then leak - when Albert comes rushing up to me.

"Have you seen the chocolate earth!"

"What?!" My mind races. Did I even work with chocolate today? The closest I think I came to chocolate was spreading a peanut butter and feulletine mixture on the little chocolate cake bases for the El Bulli birthday timbales.

"Have you seen the chocolate earth!" again he shouts at me.

"No!" I'm sure I haven't. Was I supposed to?!

"Come!" he orders - and races away.

I chase after him - still clutching my litte bags of unsealed liquid. Fuck, fuck, fuck - I'm thinking - I've fucked up the chocolate earth or misplaced it or something and I have no idea what the fuck it is.

He's at the pass - and then I understand.

He's plating the Chocolate Earth. A shallow bowl, spoonfuls of ice cold chocolate powders - a happy accident discovered with the Pacojet - and finished with chocolate truffles buried just beneath the surface.

Albert does that - he catches you in his stream of consciousness thinking - and then you try to catch up.

Earlier yesterday he comes up to me while I'm straining the carrot puree - which I then spread very thin into perfect rectangles, bake with sugar, and then carefully curl into ribbons.

"Where did you buy these!" he shouts.

"What?!" What is he talking about?!

And only then does he pull out one of the tiny vials of Momints that I brought for him from the Candy Expo.

So while working two steaming hot and noisy Thermomixes and a big, slightly messy bowl of bright orange puree with a giant rubber spatula, I try to catch up to his churning train of thought and explain the All Candy Expo and 7-11s.

During service last night he's doing something with cream out of a siphon and nitro - and he turns to me who's watching alone and enthralled - and asks if I know cherimoya.

Cherimoya?! Uh, I know what it is but what does some odd, lumpy fruit have to do with the witch's cauldron in front of us?

He explains that it's a cherimoya cream in the siphon, which he dispenses like a big fat Hershey's kiss, onto a metal plate, super cooled from the bowl of nitro beneath it. He takes a small spatula - one of our essential tools - and flips it - and slightly flattens it.

He pulls it off and breaks it up - like an ephemeral ice cream sandwich.

"This is already something for next year. It's based on teppanyaki - but cold."

Fucking wow.

I want to tell him about all the rumours I've read about El Bulli's plans to re-do dishes from this year next year - but instead just ask him if the menu's going to completely change again next year.

His eyes widen, "Well of course."

In fact, no diner at El Bulli will ever have the same dish twice.

So much more to tell but the Internet cafe is about to close and I've got to catch the last round of vino tinto and tapas in town. Today was my day off.

More in the morning.

Middle East Eats

Yesterday our family meal was a strange concoction they said was couscous but was actually bulgur wheat. It was tasty enough - mixed with roasted eggplant and peppers - and served with our standard salad - when we have salad - romaine, tomatoes, cucumber - and a vinaigrette on the side.

But the best part was Omer´s kadaif. We currently do a kadaif based snack - with three 2.5 gram mounds of kadaif baked golden and crispy, then garnished with a knifepoint of ginger gelee, and finished with a tuft of garbanzo sprouts. Omer did some kadaif petit fours - one classic with just pistachios and the other his version with peaches cooked in a syrup with honey, rose water, and orange flower water and also with a softly mounted orange flower water whipped cream. He said that it was best with some strong dark coffee - so I had my too small taste with my nightly espresso - and of course he was right.

Today was supposed to be my day off but they asked me to work today - it´s nice to be wanted - to actually feel at this point an essential member of the team. With the last week coming up a few of the guys are leaving early - visa limits - so we´ve had to shuffle our single days off. I might not take any day off this week. The only killer is that I reserved for dinner at Rafa´s - hopefully I can catch him on another good night. But my consolation is that Heston Blumenthal is coming for dinner tonight.

How to be an International Gastronomic Stagiaire

I´m stupidly lucky. When I wanted to do my stage out of Cordon Bleu at Ducasse they told me no. Long story - you can read about it more on eGullet. Basically I stalker-called the Chef de Cuisine - Jean-Francois Piege - like 50 times in one week - until he finally said come on in. When I got there he was kind of like - who are you and what do you want? But I was in.

No idea how lucky I was.

Same here at El Bulli.

Cordon Bleu sent me to the big pastry show in Vegas last summer. I met Albert Adria and we talked - and clicked. He mentioned staging - but it was more for a friend of mine also from CB. I didn´t think much more about it until last fall, then sent Albert an email, waited - and was in.

Again, stupidly lucky.

And apparently I have no idea how really lucky I am until I get somewhere because here at El Bulli for example everyone asks each other how we got here - it´s usually connections through your chef. And even here, they ask me how I got my contract at the Crillon - M. Piege is now the chef there.

One of the ways to be an international gastronomic stagiaire is how I mentioned before - leave your family and friends for a few years, work for little or no money, live the life of your dreams, to the envy of everyone you meet.

Like Sole and Matias - the newlywed couple at El Bulli. He is from Mexico, she from Chile - and they are both two of the favourite people to work with for everyone in the kitchen. More another time about the personalities of people under pressure during service. He´s in cuisine, she´s in pastry. They met at school in Chile, worked almost two years at Daniel, then a year at Arzak. Then went back to Chile this January to get married - then came here in March - spending their honeymoon at El Bulli.

That´s one way.

Or you can do it Omer´s way. Omer is a pastry chef from Israel who is spending his annual, two-week vacation staging at El Bulli. Last year, it was Guy Savoy, the year before it was Daniel - where he met Sole and Matias. Today´s his last day - flys back tomorrow, back at work on Sunday.

I do have a lot of pix and I promise to post them as soon as possible. But that may not be until Paris. And from there I´ll finally be able to share with you my favourites - near and dear to my heart.

Induction

My friend and fellow Cordon Bleu Sandra emailed from London - asking if it was true that we used induction plates at El Bulli. Yep - in fact we use only induction and electric - there are no open fires. It´s very weird - having grown up in Chinese restaurant kitchens, where it´s normal to occasionally have a roaring column of fire shoot up from under your wok, almost up into the hood, right in front of your face. Even at Ducasse we had the Molteni with fire burners. At El Bulli we use Thirode throughout. I love using induction plates - but it still does take me a second sometimes to remember - I still instinctively go for the heat. Yesterday I made the chocolate soup. It´s the filling for these chocolate bonbons that look like tall cylinders - but small - meant to be taken in one mouthful. Basically the soup is a ganache with water and sugar added. We use a 70% Valrohna but I have not seen which one yet. To heat the cream I went over to the big kitchen and started for the heat - then remembered the induction plate. In about a minute I was at temperature. Beautiful. But the first thing I want to do when I get back to the States? Fire up the Weber and have a huge BBQ.

Tastes

The other night after service I gave Albert a sack of candy that I´d gathered especially for El Bulli at the big Candy Expo in Chicago over the summer. He noticed the Jelly Belly Bertie Bott´s Every Flavour Beans first - the sack with the Vomit flavour. I can´t wait for Ferran to try the super sour blue raspberry foam candy. The very idea just cracks me up.

I also gave them a bag of my precious roasted seaweed that Grace - my best friend, former Paris roommate, and fellow Cordon Bleu - brought for me herself from Seoul.

At El Bulli we´re doing a snack where we take small sheets of the seaweed, pipe on four thin lines of rice puree, sprinkle on roasted white sesame seeds, let that sit out to dry overnight, then just drop them one by one into hot oil, where they curl into crunchy little snacks. I could eat a whole bag of these. This is for sure one of the items I will make at home.

So the seaweed - I just had to give up one of my treasured bags - so they might know the best kind - if Grace says they´re the best, they are the best.

So yesterday, right before family meal, Albert opened the bag and tasted it. And he liked it. And he said it was really good. And he had the photographer take a picture of it. And my little bag of seaweed - that´s part of my Essential Travel Food Bag - sat up on the pass during family meal for everyone to inspect.

Funny.

The Books

I´ve seen an unbound proof of Book 1 and it will blow your mind.

Not so much for the technical wizardy that you see in Book 3 or even Book 2 but because it´s the genesis. It´s like discovering the origins of sentient life.

You see photos of young Ferran and teenage Albert in the kitchen - rapturous while tasting - of the early plates, and even architectural floorplans of the original El Bulli kitchen. Like an archeological dig.

The proof - with handscribbled notes - was a birthday present from Ferran himself to Soledad. More background tomorrow on Sole - and her husband Matias - who are spending their honeymoon as stagiaires at El Bulli - he in cuisine, she in pastry.

I just got Book 3 in English - will get Book 2 in Spanish - and told Albert I want Book 1 in Catalan. There´s actually a Catalonian cultural center in the Marais in Paris where I´m going to take lessons. I want to read in the original voice.

The photographer´s in the kitchen now shooting the current dishes for Book 4.

I did in fact start pastry yesterday and I just need to tell you that I´m still giddy. Not only do we have the Pacojet of course, but also liquid nitrogen, custom made resin molds - with which we´re making hollow ice spheres, and - my favourite new thing in the kitchen - a fucking centrifuge.

Cooking School

Last night during service I was thinking about how much I miss cooking - again. It´s not just me - it´s a common lament amongst cooks. Not just here at El Bulli, but at Ducasse too and a lot of other restaurants. We really miss cooking our own food. It´s been over two years now I think since I´ve really, regularly thought about and cooked my own food.

And then today I got an email from a law school grad doing Basic Cuisine at Cordon Bleu in Paris this November.

My advice - savour it. Forget about the yelling chefs, forget about the pressure - but do always remember your sense of urgency in the kitchen - forget about the bitching from your classmates. Savour the ingredients - God I miss French leeks. Savour the prep - smell the fish and feel its skin, really enjoy parting a chicken and searching out the joints to make clean cuts.

And when you cook, envision your final dish - how you are going to get that huge mess of chicken wings and mirepoix and fat and wine into your precious spoonfuls of beautiful, deep rich, complex sauce? How you´re going to get that piece of beef seared and marked on the outside but keep it pink and tender within.

If you don´t know - listen, ask - and fuck them if they yell at you for asking. Let them yell - and then listen. And then cook. And then taste. And then just savour it.

Fiesta

Never in my life have I so looked forward to a day off. On my first day off I asked if I could just come in - that if they really did not want me to work that I could just stay out of the way and watch. They looked at me like I was crazy - and said no. That my day off was my day off and that I should not think about work - and just relax. While I was staying up at Cala Montjoi - the City of Vacations - my day off was pretty much just sleeping in, waking up for breakfast - usually just croissants and cafe con leche as I could not do the bread rubbed with tomato and chorizo so early - napping, then lunch. I must tell you soon about one of my favourite new things in the world to eat, fideua - basically paella made with short lengths of spaghetti. Then collecting beach rocks - like the ones you see all over the El Bulli grounds. Then dinner - with unlimited vino tinto.

But I was alone and a little lonely.

Now that I´m down the mountain in Roses my fiesta is one whirlwind day - that of course will involve some laundry - our lives are anchored by our laundry - but also the markets - there are like five carnisserias across the street or around the corner from my apartment. They even sell the big jamon holders - and the little colourful kitchen towels to cover them overnight - in the big neighborhood hardware store.

The night ended up at Bar Toro - one of the best places in town for simple tapas. Tapas and sangria - que de bonheur. I mean really - that first sip of sangria out of that little clay jug - with a wooden spoon stuck in to fish out the fruit - and then simple green olives - and then plainly marinated anchovies - bit of onion, bit of green herbs - on thick slices of toasted bread rubbed with tomatoes and garlic then sprinkled olive oil and coarse sea salt - the smile on my face must have been just stupid. But who cares?

Stopped in at Rafa´s after to reserve for dinner next fiesta. It turned out that it was the man himself alone there in the dining room - it was late. His big eyes bugged out even more - saying no, no it´s not possible - me thinking that he´s booked. He said come back Friday night - that he won´t know until then if he´ll have enough fresh fish. If he doesn´t he´ll be closed on Saturday.

Rafa´s will keep his restaurant closed on a Saturday night if he does not have fresh fish.

How fucking cool is that?

It was no marketing gimmick. He was totally sincere - and kind of shocked that anyone would do it any other way.

He had three fish left in his case - which he said were now garbage. That you only eat fresh fish. Not day old fish.

I sure as hell hope he gets fish for my next fiesta.

Prep

At Ducasse and now at El Bulli I often think that our prep work could be best accomplished if we were all meth addicts. It´s crazy, intense, precise, repetitive work. We really should work with those big magnifying lab mirrors. Or jewelers´ loops. But in some some sick way I really like it. At Ducasse they called me La Reine du Cerfeuil - The Chervil Queen. I had a touch they liked in finding just the right sized leaves - and then either frying them almost tempura style - on a plastic filmed plate, wiped lightly with olive oil, in the microwave, for 5 second blasts - which was just one of like the 20 garnishes on the cold foie gras dish. Or sometimes placing them on the almost golfball sized domes of oscetra for the caviar and scallop dish. At El Bulli I´m strangely attracted to the shiso. I always secretly try to get shiso duty over any of the other dozen herbs we pull daily. We get these tiny purple shiso plants and I pluck little double leaves - that look like tiny feathery butterfly wings - both together no bigger than your thumbnail - for the razor clam nigiri dish. We cut the razor clam into a microscopic dice called a brunoise, which I like doing - but not nearly as satisfying as pulling out the quarter-sized rabbit sweetbreads. Weird, I know.

Service got a little hairy last night. At one point it started sounding a little out of control and Ferran, scribbling something at the kitchen table- yelled at us. He sounds nothing the way I thought he would. He has a deep, gravelly, and booming voice. Trust me on that last bit.

Family meal was meatballs with peas and potatoes, with - strangely - guacamole and Doritos. Tasty nonetheless.

Today is my fiesta - day off - and I know I said that I would upload more posts and pics. Sorry, but ran out of time today. Seaside morning cafe con leche, grocery store shopping - the jamon section alone took an hour. And this glamourous life requires a little laundry to be done - sans dryer - thank God for the Costa Brava sun. May go for sardines a la plancha tonight and save Rafa´s for next week´s fiesta.

I start pastry tomorrow. Cannot wait.

Venga.

Solo at El Bulli

Last night right before service, the Chef de Cuisine, Albert Raurich, called everybody out of the kitchen to go out back. Except me. So there were about a good - long - five minutes last night - the night of 16 September 2004 - that I was the only cook covering the kitchen at the world-infamous Restaurante El Bulli. It was very weird and very funny and a bit unnerving. One of the sous chefs, Oriol Castro, the wildly gesticulating, mad scientist - with Albert Adria - at El Taller, started laughing maniacally from the other side of the pass - hysterical with the idea that I´d do the service alone. That I´d be the chef of all stations. Hardy har har.

Tomorrow´s my day off.

And then it´s dinner at Rafa´s.

Cooks´ Tours

Back home, our families and friends are pretty supportive - even envious sometimes - but they all just kind of wonder what the hell is wrong with us - and want to know when we´re going to settle down.

Take my roommate Charles, French-Canadian, former Chef de Cuisine at Toque in Montreal. He´s on the tail end of two year world tour. He left Montreal for El Bulli last season, then went on to Australia, where he worked at Tetsuya briefly and then - I kid you not - hunted for kangaroo. Then it was off to Japan - where when not discovering the best little back-alley knife shops - he fished for tuna. That last bit of experience with those sea monsters has come in quite handy in helping us best extract the tuna spine marrow for a current dish. Post El Bulli season 2004 he´s off to work with a couple of other Spanish and French chef friends - before heading back to start the work of opening his own restaurant in Montreal next summer. Watch for it.

I will fill you in a bit more soon on the rest of the tribe.

Service

Dinner service behind the pass at a Michelin three star restaurant is not for the faint of heart. There were times at Ducasse that I had to remind myself to breathe. I was sure that someone could easily go into cardiac arrest from the stress.

My first night at El Bulli was like my worst fucking nightmare. Like going out on stage and not knowing the lines. And the play´s in Catalan. First you jump in - and it is like catching a wave - or playing on the freeway. You look for your window. With over 30 dishes - sometimes over 40 for VIP/family like Juan-Mari - I had to watch mis compadres and plate at the same time. And there are elements at El Bulli that are so unidentifiable that you must wait that millisecond before you apply otherwise you´ve screwed the plate - that stuff that looks like salt may not be salt. Take the potato gnocchi for example. It´s made with the same principles as Ferran´s caviar - the alginate/calcium chloride reaction - with simply a puree of potatoes, siphoned out into sausages, snipped into gnocchis, heated in a roasted potato skin broth. Then they get carefully spooned out with small slotted tablespoons, blotted, plated 7 to small shallow bowl. Then 2 butter and seawater raviolis plated one at 12 o´clock, another at 6 - the one at 12 salted with the fleur de sel - not the pink Himalyan salt, not the grey gros sel de mer, and madre mia not the regular table salt. Light pepper over, but the grind not to coarse, not too fine. Then all transported to the pass. Wipe the rims with a paper napkin and alcohol solution, then place on the trays for the runners.

And that´s one of the easy dishes.

Now repeat for over 40 dishes. And of course every one has to be perfect. And rapido.

Family Meal

Ferran sits down for family meal with us every night. Last night Juan-Mari Arzak joined us. We each had half a roasted rabbit with potato chips on the side and ravioli with carbonara sauce as a starter. The big kitchen - the one you see in all the pictures, the one with the carved wood bull´s head in front and glass wall in back is our mess hall. Plastic stacking chairs are pulled down from our stockroom out back - and wildly distributed to transform every work surface into a dinner table. The menu changes every day but we always have baguettes, bottled water, and freshly pulled shots of espresso with steamed milk on the side to finish. And then we have maybe five minutes to run outside - most of the others smoke. Sometimes I join them. Yesterday I scrambled down cliffside - a little hairy in cooking clogs - to sit and be quiet and just look out over the sea. Ingrid - a chemist working in the kitchen right now - came out too. We sat in silence - before the madness that´s the nightly service at El Bulli started again.