Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

This day started fortuitously enough as I burned out our sound machine/alarm clock. You wouldn't think this was a big deal, but none of the hotels we stayed at had clocks in the room. 2 of them had bidets, though, which is an important lesson on priorities. After wandering around for a minute looking for a place to eat breakfast, we ended up at Taller de Tapas in The Born around Santa Maria del Mar which ended up being my favorite area of Barcelona. I ordered what seems to be Barcelona's civic meal, un bocadillo de jamon y queso and JR had a croissant.

Next stop, the Picasso Museum. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, we were let in and started walking through the different rooms representing different eras of Picasso's painting. It was fascinating to see so much work by a single artist, but the museum was somewhat of a failure on an informational level. The descriptions on the walls of the first couple rooms were helpful and pointed out the important paintings in each room. As we moved forward, however, the descriptions became confused, describing paintings not being exhibited, or worse yet, paintings in rooms we had just seen. It was neat to see Picasso's work in other mediums such as printing and ceramics, and the illustrative representation of his playful relationship with his friend and secretary, Sabartes (doodle portraits on pinup posters and a portrait of Sabartes in a ruff!). The real treat of this museum, though was the special exhibit, Forgetting Velazquez. Las Meninas. "Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analyzed works in Western Painting" and the exhibit was a series of artists showing their interpretation of the painting in their own style culminating in Picasso's own multi-month 40-odd study of Las Meninas. The special exhibit made the museum worth it for me, though JR disagrees and suggests the whole thing.

After the museum, we did some more walking and wandering and ended up on the edge of Parc de la Ciutadella at an Argentinian place called El Foro. El Foro was notable for the presentation of its Gazpacho (a bowl of tomato soup and a long plate with chopped onions and 3 different types of peppers) and the salsa which, from what I could tell, was olive oil, oregano, pepper, and bay leaf mixed into deliciousness. Parc Ciutadella is a large park on the outskirts of the old city of Barcelona. There is green space mixed in with trees, ponds and giant sculptures. The zoo is on the grounds of the park, but we didn't visit. One exit of the Parc feeds out to the Arc de Triomf at the end of a long promenade. This is, apparently where the children go to light firecrackers with their grandmothers and the novice rollerbladers timidly hone their craft. One fellow was practicing jumping and turning around in mid air, almost falling every single time, I couldn't look away.

After almost going into the chocolate museum (an almost I wish we had repeated a week later), we walked back to the Cathedral area going into about 5 different chocolate stores. This is my kind of city. Before going into our hotel, we went to Chocolateria Valor and got chocolate drinks. I had a Chocolate Francesa, which was about the best thing I've ever had. Drinking chocolate is big time in Barcelona, but what do you do in the summer? Cold chocolate!!! Wow it was great. Want more. Now.

Our friends Abbie and David picked us up for dinner and we headed to Euskal Etxea for dinner. Euskal Etxea serves Pintxo, which seems like Basque Tapas to me. The main difference being most of the Tapas are laid out on the bar, served on a slice of baguette with a toothpick. The toothpicks are important because at the end, they're counted up and you pay per toothpick. This was great too! I missed the steak looking Pintxo, but I'm pretty sure I had quail eggs with mayo on some sort of ham. I ate more than I should have and it was still one of the cheaper dinners we had in Barcelona. Good times.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

Peeps and chocolate bunnies.

(WARNING: If you can't stand the thought of a chocolate bunny being melted in several different ways, don't watch the chocolate bunny video. Also, if you can't fathom the thought of Peeps as marshmallow overlords, don't click the peep link.)

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Updated to add: Peeps for Passover.

We had our 10 year high school reunion on Friday and had some people over to catch up before going to catch up with the rest of the class.
I figured this was a good opportunity to make some more chocolate covered bacon. My first attempt at combining bacon and chocolate to make bacolate was a success of sorts, if only because the results were edible and appreciated. The result wasn't going to be worth making again, though, so I had to try a different tact. Bacolate Truffles!
I read about 6,000 truffle recipes on Thursday night and then about 2,500 more articles about chocolate tempering before 2 trusted culinary advisers (thanks, Matt and Ben) let me know that I didn't REALLY need to temper the chocolate. This will be a debate for another day, however, after all other aspects of this process are perfected.

Bacolate Truffles:
For the ganache, I used a composite recipe.
3/4 cups of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups of chocolate
5 strips of bacon

Microwave the bacon until crisp (about 5-8 minutes depending on how much bacon) and break up into little pieces. Microwaving the bacon results in a uniform crispness, which is what I was going for. You might like your bacon less crispy, but I'm not sure how that would taste mixed with chocolate.

Heat cream and butter on medium, stirring continuously until melted. Put chocolate (chips or cut up into small pieces) in a bowl. When cream begins to boil, pour over chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth and pour into a brownie pan that has been prepared with plastic wrap on the bottom and sides. Put plastic wrap over the top of the mixture as well to prevent a film from forming. Let cool for 10 minutes and put into the refrigerator to chill out until it's firm (probably about 60-90 minutes).

I dipped these truffles in chocolate after forming them into little balls, which is where the tempering was going to come in, but by melting the chocolate slowly and carefully in a double boiler, it wasn't necessary. After the ganache was firm, I rolled them into balls, adding some small pieces of bacon to the middle, and dipped them in chocolate and put them onto a cookie sheet to chill out some more before serving. The forming and dipping process was a nightmare, and will need to be improved upon for next time. I'll keep you updated as the process evolves. Like all truffles, these could be coated with cocoa powder, confectionery sugar, roasted nuts, more bacon, etc.

Mint Truffles:
Same recipe as above (minus the bacon). When boiling the cream and butter, add a few mint leaves and strain before pouring over the chocolate. This ganache will need a lot longer to chill in the fridge though, as it was impossible to form into a ball before melting in my hands.

Oreo Truffles:
1 pound package of Oreo Cookies (I cheekily used Double Stuffs, look out)
1 8 oz package of cream cheese
Chocolate for dipping

Mash Oreo Cookies in a bowl. Use a mixer to combine Oreos and cream cheese until well mixed. Form into little balls and put onto a cookie sheet to chill out in the refrigerator. After balls are firm, dip in chocolate. Personally, I always hate the idea of cream cheese as a dessert ingredient, but these really came out great. Delicious.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls:
Carrots
Cucumbers
Red Pepper
Lettuce
Cilantro
Mint
Rice Vermicelli
Spring Roll Skin

Not a dessert, but Matt's always putting up fancy food posts, and I made these, too, so I wanted to tell you about'em. The ingredients are a little ambiguous because you can really put whatever you want in these things. I learned how to make them from my vegan sister-in-law, though, so there isn't any shrimp, or say, bacon, in these rolls.

Cut veggies into this pieces about the width of a McDonald french fry and about as long as your index finger. Cook vermicelli, strain, and rinse with cold water. Fill a large bowl with hot water. Dip spring roll skin into hot water for about 3 seconds and put on a plate or cutting board. Fill with ingredients and wrap. Some people dry the skin off before wrapping, but that creates an extra step and makes it much easier to mess up the skin. I've made these 4 times now and just got the ingredient proportions down correctly so that my rolls don't like giant vegan mistakes. It's going to take some practice, but the best piece of advice I can offer would be to fill the roll and then take a quarter of the filling out.
Roll and serve with Hoisin sauce.

A couple weeks ago, Matt reviewed Vosges Haute Chocolat Mo's Bacon Bar. I had seen these bars a couple days earlier, and Matt's generally favorable review pushed me over the edge. I had to try it. I felt differently about the bar starting with the cost and ending with the amount of bacon. A $7 candy bar should taste like a Josh Beckett playoff performance in your mouth. It should taste like angels' harp music. It should taste like falling in love with kittens. The bar was good, but there were no kittens playing harps in my mouth, that's for sure. Also, a bacon candy bar should have bacon in it, not diva ass baco bits. I was disappointed, but also strangely invigorated. The idea of bacon and chocolate is a great one, it just wasn't executed correctly. I'm not the type of person who generally thinks I can do everything better than everyone (well, I guess I am), but I definitely knew I could make a better chocolate covered bacon treat.

After a few weeks of pondering, I came up with a plan. Today, I cooked a pound of bacon a little longer than normal so it would be especially crispy. I then crumbled it into a brownie pan and put it in the fridge. Then I melted about a pound and a half of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I then poured the melted chocolate over the crumbled bacon and spread it evenly with a spatula. I threw the brownie pan into the fridge for about an hour until the chocolate had completely hardened.

It was then ready to serve and it was delicious. I've discovered Jesus' candy. Chocolate covered bacon. Bacolate. Believe.

Chocolate's delicious. Bacon's delicious. What could possibly go wrong?

My latest Whole Foods impulse buy was two "exotic candy bars" by Vosges. Both are fairly delicious, although they are definitely for nibbling, not full-on eating. Or maybe it's just that I wasn't all that hungry when I tasted them.



The "Red Fire Bar" isn't really all that unusual: chocolate and chile is a pretty classic combination. The package advertises "Mexican ancho y chipotle chiles, Ceylon cinnamon," and 55% cacao chocolate. Come to think of it, I'm pretty impressed if it's real cinnamon, rather than cassia. Huh.



It tastes good. Spicy chocolate is a good deal, but I think I might have enjoyed it more without the cinnamon. Cinnamon-spicy and chile-spicy are two different flavors, and I thought the "Big Red"-ness overwhelmed the capsicum heat. Still, danged tasty.

The main event, of course, was the "Mo's Bacon Bar." Who wouldn't enjoy applewood smoked bacon, Alder wood smoked salt, and deep milk chocolate? Well, let's find out! I'll admit I bit into this one gingerly.



It's definitely a multi-sensory experience. The aroma is distinctly bacon-y (and I mean that in a good way). The texture is a little odd: the bacon crumbly bits take some getting used to, and some of the pieces have a pronounced chewiness (more fat than lean?). The flavor, however, is delicious. Apart from the smooth chocolate flavors, the salt notes break through clearly, and salty chocolate is an established winner. There's just a background bacon flavor rounding out the whole experience. Definitely less gross than it sounds. I'd eat another square.

Please go here and then here and tell the FDA that vegetable oil + whey protein + flavorings ≠ chocolate.

You can take a catastrophically mismanaged war, tie a ribbon around it and call it a victory for democracy, but it’s still a disaster and a defeat. And a box of partially hydrogenated, artificially flavored candy can never be a box of chocolates.

Word.

One of the most delicious chocolate bars I have ever tasted is Dagoba's Xocolatl. 74% cacao with chiles and nibs.

Chiles and nibs! Freakin' delicious.

We don't really "do" Valentine's Day. Last year I guess we went out to dinner, but that was sort of an aberration. R—'s birthday is only five days later, and it's close enough to Chrismukkah that we don't feel the need to exchange gifts. Usually we get each other a card (or to be precise, usually she gets me a card and I forget and apologize) and that's about it.

Mind you, just because we don't exchange gifts doesn't mean we don't get chocolates. We've started a tradition in the past several years of buying a box of chocolates just after Valentine's Day, when they're on sale, which means cheap deliciousness. The problem, of course, with sharing a box of chocolates is that there's always competition for the best ones. R— and I have hit on the perfect solution.



We each get a highlighter and we take turns marking the chocolates that we want. There's a fair amount of strategy involved: do you go for your favorites first? Or do you trust that she'll never pick the cherry cordials so you can leave them until later, and hit the more contentious vermont fudge or chocolate whips first? This year looked to be the standard draw until R— made a rookie mistake: not paying careful enough attention, she accidentally highlighted the peanuts instead of the caramel. Peanuts! She knew right away she was screwed -- you always take the nuts last! -- and sure enough, I swooped in and grabbed an almond nougat. I might trade her, though, if she really wants one. It is Valentine's Day.

It's hard to believe we've been married for two years, not because it means we've been together a long time, but because I can't believe 2004 was two whole years ago. Damn.

Still, every anniversary is a milestone. Marrying Rachel two years ago was (if I may wax earnest for a maximum of one paragraph) the best thing I've ever done, and marking it is fit and proper. Two years is, of course, just a drop in the bucket compared both to how long we've actually been a couple (nine years!) and how long we plan to be married.

Last year we decided that we'd establish a tradition of not giving each other gifts for each anniversary. We get each other enough presents throughout the year. Instead we thought we'd go in together on a treat: a trip, something new for the house, something like that. For our first anniversary (paper!) we got a hotel in Boston and tickets to two Red Sox games. This year was cotton.

Cotton sucks as a gift theme. I was not buying my wife a Happy Anniversary t-shirt in preshrunk cotton. We decided to ditch our tradition (of one year) and just go out for a very nice dinner. And then, we thought, wouldn't it be more frugal and (perhaps) more fun to make a very nice dinner? Yes, yes it would.

The plan was a meal in three courses: a salad as an antipasti, a primi, and a main course. I conceived of all three independently, so I'm not sure how well they held together as a cohesive unit, but I think it was pretty successful.

First, the salad!

"Deconstructed" salad of tomato gelée, red onion, and cucumber with lemon vinaigrette

The salad was "deconstructed" in the sense that I didn't mix all the bits together. I guess you could also call it "untossed" or, possibly, "lazy." We eat cucumber and tomato salads all summer long; I got the idea for the tomato gelée from our favorite restaurant, Gracie's. At the end of last summer, I took all of the tomatoes we had lying around, chopped them and suspended them in a coffee filter in a strainer over a bowl and let it sit overnight. The resulting tomato water ended up in a container in the back of the freezer until now. I heated it to a simmer, stirred in a packet of gelatine, et voila! Tomato jello. Deliciously tomato-y, and texturally surprising.



Once I'd thought of the gelée, the idea of doing everything in cubes just seemed to make sense.

The vinaigrette was equal parts lemon juice and rice wine vinegar, and then olive oil and dried tarragon. A chiffonade of basil and a pinch of lemon zest finished it off. Light, unconventional, and yummy. Next!

Homemade basil pesto and goat cheese ravioli in roasted pepper and tomato sauce

Making pasta just looks fun, doesn't it? And since Rachel has pretty much an unlimited capacity to eat pasta, it seemed like it would be foolish not to serve some.

Making the pasta dough took, I confess, two tries, and even on the second batch it was a bit too sticky to the extent that I couldn't roll it as thin as I'd have liked. The resulting ravioli was a bit chewy, but still delicious.



The filling was just pesto (basil, pine nuts, parmigiano, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil) mixed with goat cheese. The whole ravioli assembly process was fraught with peril, but I was glad to have done it, and I plan to try again at the next opportunity. They apparently freeze really well.



The sauce was a straight food processor job: roasted red peppers, roasted tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper. I just simmered it to warm it before spooning it onto plates and piling on the ravioli. Shaved parmigiano seemed the thing to do, and I, uh, had some basil and lemon zest left over.

Pan-seared duck breast with red wine and fig reduction, gingered carrots, and kale

Well, obviously the duck is the main event here. The carrots are basically Alton Brown's recipe for carrots poached in ginger beer, but I was making that before I ever saw the carrots episode of Good Eats, so nyeah.

Duck has long been my nemesis. I love it in restaurants but it always ends up over- or under-done when I make it. I once, to my enduring shame, served dramatically overcooked (as in gray) duck breasts to Rachel's ex-boss, a man of exceeding taste. This time, I'm pleased to say, it worked.

Flavor-wise, nothing too fancy, just a couple hours marinating in red wine, salt, and pepper. The cooking was a revelation for me. I patted the skin very dry, slashed it, laid it skin side down in a non-stick skillet, and cooked it over very low heat until most of the fat rendered out. (The fat was poured out to cook the kale in.) Then it was just a matter of peeking every minute or so to see if the skin looked brown enough, one flip to give it a minute or two on the other side, and done. I gave it a minute under the broiler just before serving to crisp the skin. Perfection.



The sauce was really simple, too. Chopped dried black mission figs in a cup of red wine, simmered for a good long while. Not long enough, since the sauce was a bit runnier than I planned, but it was damned tasty.



Oh, dessert! Rachel made the flourless chocolate cake from the Williams-Sonoma dessert cookbook. It was chocolate-covered chocolate, and it was delicious.



Anyway. The meal was delicious, the wine was spectacular, and Rachel is the best person in the whole world, and I'm the one married to her, so—again—nyeah.

Why? Simply for the challenge.

You can buy marshmallows at the store. You can even buy pretty good marshmallows at the store. But there are some things a man has to do, and sometimes a man has to make homemade marshmallows. Michael Chu provided the recipe, and I have nothing much to add to it except the following notes.

First, this will give your standing mixer a workout. It took me way less than 8 minutes to fluff the marshmallows, and I stopped once could hear the mixer straining. It's possible that our marshmallows didn't fluff as much as possible, or that I somehow screwed something else up.

The marshmallow fluff, before it sets in the pan, is crazy delicious.


The thing you should know about the marshmallow fluff is that it is the stickiest substance in the known universe. Getting it out of the bowl and into the pan was a Herculean labor. By the end, our faces and hands were generously coated in a the sticky yet delicious goo. Rachel, actually, was wearing a pretty nice sweater and I could see the marshmallow's insidious tentacles starting to creep towards it, so I sounded the alarm: "Quick, take off your sweater!" I expected nothing more than that she'd go change into a different shirt, but she was focused, laser-like, on subduing the marshmallow beast, so she simply whipped that thing off and dove right back into the bowl. That, my dear friends, is dedication. Now, if I were to share with you the uncensored picture that resulted, I have a feeling she'd drown me in a vat of marshmallow fluff, so I'll simply link over to the tastefully obscured picture at her place.

We let the marshmallows chill out overnight in their pan, and then dropped the onto a cutting board that was liberally dusted with powdered sugar. I cut them into, more or less, squares with a pizza cutter, and then we dredged each piece in more powdered sugar. The kitchen looked like [insert name of celebrity rumored to be a coke head] had been through there.


How did they taste? Like marshmallows. They really tasted no different than marshmallows you might buy at the store, so I don't know if that means that I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, or that I wasted a weekend and a lot of sugar. Upon repeated tastings, however, I determined that the taste was a little sweeter and less artificial than, say, your generic Fluffy Puff marshmallows, and the texture was vastly superior. Can I refer to the texture of a marshmallow as silky? Who's going to stop me?

Never ones to leave well enough alone, and scoffing at the idea that less is more, we dipped half of them in chocolate. Some got a full dousing, others got an artistic striping, and some got an additional squirt of white chocolate. Admit it, you wish you had this plate of marshmallows right now.