One of my least favourite summer-in-the-city rituals is the ITV – that is, the yearly Inspección Técnica de Vehículos. Mine is always due in late July, when Barcelona is at its stickiest and most irritable. Last year, despite having hora (an appointment), I sat for hours (with air-con bust) in a queue that stretched a [...]
Mm, horchata. Thick, creamy, ice-cold. You either love it or loathe it. There are no half measures. Made by crushing the life out of tiger nuts (chufas) and mixing with sugar and water, you’ll find it at any good heladería swimming around in a glass tank next to the lemon granizado (sort of slush-puppy). I [...]
Have you noticed how popular cats are in Catalan?
‘Quatre gats’ is the expression of choice to mean ‘only a few people’. It should be uttered with a dismissive gesture: ‘Bah! Només són quatre gats.’
Of course, Els Quatre Gats is a really famous Modernista coffee house and restaurant in Barcelona where Picasso and other artists used [...]
Browsing Catalan idioms the other day in search of the quirky, the bizarre, the downright weird – well, the bloggable - I came upon a list of food-related ones and – oh, how could I have forgotten: s’ha acabat el bròquil. The broccoli has finished. Which means – said in a voice that brooks no [...]
