If you thought the pimientos you ordered in New York or Madrid this winter were good, belly up for another round pronto. What you get, especially if you happen to be in Galicia, in the northwest corner of Spain, will put those wimpy winter peppers to shame. Midsummer is the season for the intensely flavorful, rarely spicy Pimiento de Padrón. (more…)
Those formerly Galician, formerly mid-summer-only, thumb-size pimientos de padrón have become, in a slightly skinnier incarnation, a year-round item at every tapas bar in Barcelona. Now they’re everywhere in New York, too. Even though they weren’t quite in season yet, I couldn’t help ordering them on my first trip to Boquería where Suba chef Seamus Mullen turns out these and other tapas that taste real enough to soothe a longing for Spain. (more…)
Murray’s Cheese on Bleecker Street in New York City has found a new Manchego source and wants us stinky cheese lovers to give this cheese another chance. (more…)
It’s hard to keep up with the slew of Spanish restaurants in New York City, all vying to replace those tired “paella and sangría” menus with clever tapas and high-end ingredients like jamón ibérico. But the new formula doesn’t guarantee a good dinner. If you’ve been wondering what the fuss is about, Islero isn’t the place to find out (or at least not yet). (more…)
Two ways to sample Spain’s most venerated pig, jamón ibérico de bellota (a native breed of black-footed pig, reared in acorn-laden oak forests, and carefully salted and cured where the air is just so) here in the USA were plugged in today’s New York Times Dining pages. This is the cured meat people in the know here were buying futures in a couple of years ago.
In case you missed that whole story, The Wall Street Journal’s early account is still up on the Tienda website — tienda’s owners devised the “futures” scheme as they worked with suppliers to get a version of the ham approved for sale in the U.S. (more…)