This week, I speak with cheese expert Max McCalman the Annual Fancy Food Show, where he was leading a seminar on Spanish cheeses, particularly the ubiquitous and sublime masterpiece that is Manchego cheese. We speak about Spain, the emergance of Partuguese cheeses, and the proliferation of artisanal cheeses made here in the United States. We also get into some food science and the politics of cheese in America.

ArtisanalCheese.com

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Gilded Fork. www.gildedfork.com

Chef Mark continues his tour of La Boqueria Market with Barcelona expert George Semler, who wrote the Fodor’s guide to Barcelona. Here, George shows Chef Mark the fishmonger Pilarin, and they talk all things jamon!

View Part 1 HERE

A production of the Culinary Media Network.
www.culinarymedianetwork.com

Travel & accommodations provided by INCAVI. Blogger trip organized and administered by www.catavino.net.

ReMARKable Palate #243: A Smörgåsbord of Chefs

This week, it’s a Smorgasbord of chefs, as I speak with Chef Jordi Artal of Cinc Sentits Restaurant in Barcelona about this Catalan food, then Chef Lee Anne Wong of Top Chef fame after a tofu cooking demo she did at the French Culinary Institute. It wouldn’t be a smörgåsbord without a Swedish chef! I also speak with Chef Danyel Couet from F12 Restaurant in Stockholm, who shared some of his dishes with us at Scandinavia House in NYC.

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com

ReMARKable Palate #240: More Spanish Wines from Alimentaria

Today, it’s more from my trip to Barcelona for the Alimentaria Show. First, I speak with Sonia Anglada Verges from Freixenet, the largest producer of Cava in the world. Then, it’s Ricardo Arambarri Perez from Vintae.com, which has wines form all over Spain. Finally, we speak with an American importer, Andrew Booth, from The Spanish Table, who was there to discover new products for the American Market.

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com

Chef Mark gets a great one on one tour of La Boqueria Market in Barcelona from author, expert and travel writer George Semler. George explains the history of the market, takes us through some of his favorite stands, and introduces us to the great food at Pinotxo Bar. We’ll have more in the series soon.

See Part 2 HERE

A production of the Culinary Media Network.
www.culinarymedianetwork.com

Travel & accommodations provided by INCAVI. Blogger trip organized and administered by www.catavino.net.

Ryan Opaz interviews Nico James, a wine importer and distributor in Barcelona. Nico is a British/Caribbean expat living in Spain who imports German, Alsatian and Austrian wines into Spain. Ryan caught up with Nico at the Alimentaria Fair in Barcelona at the end of March. Here, Nico speaks about how he’s using the internet and his video blog to educate consumers, producers, and other importers about his wines and about the wine business in general.

NicoJames.es

We’ll be adding these English-language shows from Vinus and Catavino to our CMN lineup from time to time, and we’re pleased to welcome them as a content provider. They’ll have plenty of coverage of the upcoming European Wine Blogger’s Conference (EWBC) in Vienna, Austria, this coming October 22-24th, 2010.

Travel & accommodations provided by INCAVI. Blogger trip organized and administered by www.catavino.net.

Vinus.tv is a Spanish wine video site run by Eduardo Benito of winescreen.com, which normally produces all it’s content in Spanish. Catavino.net partners with Vinus.tv to produce videos in English at Wine events of interest to an English-Speaking audience. Well, since Chef Mark interviewed Ryan and Gabriella Opaz from Catavino for the ReMARKable Palate Podcast, turnabout is fair play!

We’ll be adding these English-language shows from Vinus and Catavino to our CMN lineup from time to time, and we’re pleased to welcome them as a content provider. They’ll have plenty of coverage of the upcoming European Wine Blogger’s Conference (EWBC) in Vienna, Austria, this coming October 22-24th, 2010.

We’ll be adding several other videos from Vinus to give a slightly different perspective to the coverage Chef Mark is doing about the visit to Catalunya. Bienvenidos!

Travel & accommodations provided by INCAVI. Blogger trip organized and administered by www.catavino.net.

We started out our Catalunya explorations the day before the start of Alimentaria with a visit to one of the largest wine producers anywhere, Freixenet. This is without a doubt the largest winery I’ve ever toured, and as the largest producer of Cava in Catalunya, they have quite a bit of demand to keep up with.

Freixenet is famous around the world for it’s Cordon Negro and Carta Nevada brands, which are mass market affordable cavas. Their yearly New Years ads featuring movie stars and musical acts are well known in Europe, and the familiar black bottle of the Cordon Negro can be found all over the States.

But Freixenet owns many wineries all over Spain and other parts of the world, producing a wide range of still and sparling wines. If you’ve traveled in the Sonoma Carneros region of California, you may be familiar with the Gloria Ferrer Winery, which is owned by Freixenet. The Ferrer family founded Freixenet, and continues to hold a stake to this day.

For lunch we tasted 6 different wines from their lineup, including a Rosé Cava made from Pinot Noir, an Albariño made in Rias Baixas, a Rosé from neighboring Montsant, A new wine, Oroya, made especially for sushi by a Japanese winemaker in Spain (composed of Airen, Macabeo and Moscatel grapes), and a 100% Malvasia Cava. The Malvasia is a dessert Cava with fruity notes, and a hint of maple and buttery pastry.

After lunch, we had a tour of their facility, with sections of the winery dating from 1914, and 4 subterranean levels where we got to see the ENORMOUS capacity of the facility, which produces 200 million bottles a year. The facility is so large, they take you around in a little “Cava Train” like at Hershey or a ride at Disneyland! Our guide was very knowledgable and quite charming. Here’s the video of the afternoon visit:

A production of the Culinary Media Network.
www.culinarymedianetwork.com

Travel & accommodations provided by INCAVI. Blogger trip organized and administered by www.catavino.net.

While in Barcelona for Alimentaria last week, I met with Gemma Urgell, a journalist, writer and PR rep for Catalan wines and food products. In addition to representing some really cool folks who are working on a project to produce black truffles commercially in Catalunya (which will generate truffles as well as protect the natural eco-system), Gemma is co-founder of NuestraCausa, a citizen movement that aims to increase citizen’s voice in policy decisions in Catalunya. She interviewed me on camera for her #talkingabout project, which features people talking about their passions, jobs, dreams, and projects to change the world. It looks like I was just spouting off for 5 minutes, but in reality Gemma edited this down from a 20 minute conversation we had in both English and Spanish. She just kept the parts of me talking in English about the use of Social Media to discuss food and wine, and how wineries can better use the web.

#talkingabout – Chef Mark Tafoya from redall on Vimeo.

I’ll have much more content from this trip, not only the discussion of social media, but our regular food and wine focused content about my discoveries in Catalunya & Barcelona’s La Boqueria market. For now, you can find great roundups of the week from Catavino.net, which has a great feed gathering all the content created by the participating bloggers during the course of the week and ongoingly:

Alimentaria “Live” feed from Catavino

Audio Podcast: ReMARKable Palate #238: Barcelona & Social Media with Catavino.net

Disclosure: Travel and accommodations provided by INCAVI. Blogger trip organized and administered by Catavino.net

ReMARKable Palate #238: Barcelona & Social Media with Catavino.net

I’ve just returned from Barcelona, Spain, where I was a guest of Ryan And Gabriella Opaz from Catavino.net, as we explored the Alimentaria fair, the Empordas wine region, and the food sights of Barcelona. Here we discuss the week, and how they are changing the Spanish wine world by using Social Media. www.catavino.net

Travel and accommodations provided by INCAVI.

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com

Chef Mark is running amok in Spain this week with our friends Ryan and Gabriella Opaz from Catavino, and though internet connections are always challenging while we’re on the road, this time I can help from the domestic side!

Focused in Calatonia (or Catalunya), the northeastern corner of Spain, the group has been touring various wineries including Freixenet, the largest cava producer in the world. They are also attending the Alimentaria festival in Barcelona, and from what I can see, having some marvelous meals. (Last night’s Twitter stream featured plenty of sex on a plate.)

Chef Mark has posted some Facebook albums, so take a peek for yourself:

Tour of Freixenet

Dinner at 5 Centits (5 Senses — oh my yes)

Tapas and Tasting

I’ll continue to post updates as Chef Mark sends them, but in the interim you can follow him on Twitter.

During my trip to Rias Baixas, Spain, our gaggle of journalists spent an evening in the dining room of Chef José González-Solla, owner of Casa Solla in Pontevedra. We were in for a delightful interpretation of Galician cuisine, many of which came with a variety of textures, flavors and colors. After dinner I sat down with the chef to talk about his food philosophy and the way he plays with his food. You can see the photos of our various courses below.

www.restaurantesolla.com

Two exciting announcements this week: Our new Knife Skills 101 course is live in our new CMN Academy, so learn the correct techniques (along with some tips) from Chef Mark. We’ve also added Brian Franklin’s DoubleShot Coffee Company coffees to our Gilded Fork Boutique, so oh my, yes, get to sipping.

And in the world of rants, I share my thoughts on the latest piece of inane legislature to be introduced: A ban on salt. You read that correctly.

Music: Beau Hall (www.beaurocks.com), Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com)

Food Philosophy is a production of the Culinary Media Network
(www.culinarymedianetwork.com)

Photos from our dinner:

“Gin & Tonic” and Olive chips with anchovy paste

Tomato confit with parmesan foam

Potato foam over a roasted onion

Navaja (razorneck clam) with lemon cream

Croqueta cream with shrimp

Caballa (mackerel) in sea salt

Mero en escabeche (grouper in escabeche)

Squab (pigeon) on cornbread crumble with spinach

“Queso de País” cow’s milk cheese

Accompaniments for the cheese course

Almonds four ways (cake, ice cream, cream, toasted/crushed)

Chocolate & strawberries

During my trip to Rias Baixas, I snuck into the kitchen with Chef José González-Solla, owner of Casa Solla in Pontevedra, to watch him prepare our main course. This chef likes to play with his food, and he treated us to an inspirational twist on traditional Galician flavors.

You can also listen to my interview with Chef Gonzalez-Solla on the next Food Philosophy audio podcast. He is a delightfully sweet human being, and we had such fun as we talked about playing with our food!

www.restaurantesolla.com

A production of the Culinary Media Network.
www.culinarymedianetwork.com

Travel & accommodations provided by Wines from Spain and the Rias Baixas wine region.

ReMARKable Palate #236: The Wines of Manchuela

This week, we speak about the wines of the Manchuela region of Spain, a relatively new DO in an area that’s nonetheless been making wines for centuries. I was at a luncheon unveiling these wines for the first time to the American Wine press, and got to taste a number of their whites, rosadas, and especially their reds made from the Bobal grape.

Last week, we offered a copy of The Flexitarian Diet to a lucky commenter. Our winner is Nadine Lefkowitz from www.topanien.com! Congratulations. Contact me with your address and we’ll get a copy sent out to you, Nadine!

I’m so excited to announce that we’ve FINALLY published the long awaited Knife Skills 101 Video Course in the Cooking With Chef Mark school of our CMN Academy! It’s an 8 lesson series of videos, totaling more than 45 minutes, where I teach you the fundamentals of choosing a knife, sharpening your knives, knife safety, and how to slice, dice, and chop a number of vegetables, from onions, carrots, peppers, mushrooms, garlic and herbs. You can check it out at: http://academy.culinarymedianetwork.com.

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com

ReMARKable Palate #233: The Wines of Navarra

This week, we talk about the wines of Navarra, the northern Spanish region from which I derive my heritage, which produces some great wines and some very special foods. Sometime in the shadow of its more famous neighbor Rioja, Navarra has it’s own rich wine heritage that goes beyond the rose it’s most famous for. We’ll taste a few and talk about the foods that pair with them.

www.navarragastronomy.com
www.romeromiller.com
www.zrswines.com
www.bodegasochoa.com

The winner of last week’s cookbook contest giveaway for Rod Rotondi’s Raw Food For Real People is…Robin! Thanks so much for your comment. Please send me your full name and address so I can have the publisher send your book! Keep listening for more giveaways.

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com

On our visit to the Condado do Tea region of Rias Baixas, we spent the afternoon with renowned winemaker Cristina Mantilla (right), who showed us around the beautiful Pazo San Mauro vineyard before taking us inside for a tasting.

Pazo San Mauro Winery:
http://www.marquesdevargas.com/
Wines from Spain:
http://www.winesfromspain.com

We also got a wonderful lesson in wine, color and flavor from wine expert Marnie Old, whom Jennifer would like to bring with her on every wine tour from now on. She explains wine in a way that is so completely accessible and intelligent, it was like having a personal tutor along with for the trip.

You can find all of her content, including book and how-tos, at http://www.marnieold.com/.

Disclosure: This wine tour was sponsored by Wines from Spain and the Rias Baixas wine region.

My tasting tour of Rias Baixas led to a wonderful discovery: The female winemakers in this region have made an indelible impression upon the quality of the wines and the respect Albariño grapes have earned internationally.

I spent an afternoon at Pazo de Señoráns with Marisol Bueno, one of the founders of the Albariño D.O., along with her daughter Vicky and their team to learn the history behind the creation of the appellation. Like many of the smaller wine regions around the world, Marisol wanted to showcase the grapes inherent to Rias Baixas, taking advantage of the terroir of Galicia and its unique qualities to craft what has become one of my favorite wines.

Winemakers often become philosophical about the “struggle of the grapes” and how it lends character to their flavor profile. In Galicia the grapes do indeed face difficult conditions, as the climate is consistently moist, presenting the ever-present danger of mildew. Albariño grapes must be coaxed to grow in a manner that enables sunlight to penetrate the vines and keep them dry, which winery manager Javier Izurieta Romero explains in detail in the following video.

Note: This wine tour was sponsored by Wines from Spain and the Rias Baixas wine region.

This summer I was invited by Wines from Spain and the Rias Baixas wine region to explore their viniferous offerings. I came away from the trip with a lot of new thoughts on white wines, as they hadn’t held much excitement for me — until I discovered why. A big part of enjoying wine comes from finding out what you like, the reasons you like it, and building from the flavor notes that attract your senses, so much was revealed to me in the span of this tour. With 3 winery visits a day for the better part of a week, I really got to know the nuances of Albarino grapes and Rias Baixas winemaking, so I now feel more empowered and knowledgeable in my search for the flavors that awaken my palate. I hope my findings will help you to discover the sparks that awaken your own.

During my trip I toured the 4 sub-regions of Rias Baixas exploring both large and small winemakers, including Pazo de Señoráns, the winery of the D.O.’s founder, Marisol Bueno. The region is known for the fortitude of its female winemakers, which I have to admit, made me smile.

I’ll be releasing a series of videos and stories about the region, but for now here’s a little taste of my arrival in Santiago de Compostela, a site of pilgrimage for many Catholics. You might hear a sound that is quite unexpected coming from Spain. (Please pardon the video quality — been working out bugs with the conversions.)

A production of the Culinary Media Network (www.culinarymedianetwork.com).

Full disclosure: Travel and accommodations for this trip were provided by Wines from Spain. Any opinions expressed, however, are my own.

I am off on another exciting food and wine adventure, this time for my first visit to Spain! Interestingly, I’m visiting what some might consider to be the most atypical region of the country, Galicia, to explore the wines of Rias Baixas.

When one thinks of Spain, one immediately thinks of red wine and paella; however, Rias Baixas is most well-known for its signature grape, Albariño (al-ba-REEN-yo). A protected varietal, Albariño is the only DO (Denomination of Origin) white wine in Spain, and wines labeled as such must be made with 100% Albariño grapes. Known for flavor profiles of honeysuckle, citrus, pear, melon, and even bright green apple, these wines have grown on me over the years, and I now find them to be a refreshing summer favorite.

Galicia is situated on the Atlantic coast of Spain, just above Portugal. The region was settled by Celts in the 11th Century BC, so it is not unusual to hear bagpipes in a ceremony or two, as one can see a very strong Irish influence in the local culture. (Last year at NYC’s Rias Baixas celebration, the wines were, in fact, piped into the room.) The cathedral at Santiago del Compostela in Galicia’s capital is well-known to Catholics, as it is the final destination of a pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago, which begins in Germany and winds its way through Italy and France, ending in Compostela. I do hope said pilgrims take the time to savor a glass or two at the end of such a long journey.

Given the region’s coastal location, Albariño wines are perfectly paired with seafood, so I’m looking forward to exploring the freshest of the ocean’s offerings, particularly given the time of year. We’ll be visiting a number of sub-zones, including Val do Salnés, O Rosal and Condado do Tea, with visits to the vineyards and fish markets, so this trip should provide much fodder for summer cooking creativity. Best of all, we’ll be staying in paradors, which are castles and other ancient buildings that have been converted to hotels. The first, Parador Hostal Reyes Católicos, is considered to be the world’s oldest hotel, and the second, Parador de Pontevedra – Casa del Baron, is the former residence of the Counts of Maceda. (This is my kind of traveling, ladies and gentlemen.)

Along with our hosts from Wines from Spain and Wines of Rias Baixas, two of my travel mates for this journey include wine expert (and sassy gent) Anthony Giglio and Amy Zavatto, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Bartending. Based on brief meetings I’ve had with both in the past couple of weeks, I’m counting on them to keep me entertained throughout the trip. Otherwise I can refrain from spitting and keep myself entertained. What inspires me is that Anthony is known for being one of the funniest, most approachable wine experts out there, so all hail those who see wine as a fun source of exploration.

I will do my best to send updates from the road, including photos, tweets and quick videos when possible, but I never know how good internet access will be when I’m abroad. If I can manage to conjure up access, you can find updates here on CMN, where I’ve also added a Twitter widget to the sidebar, as well as on my Facebook page.

Wines of Rias Baixas: http://www.riasbaixaswines.com
Wines from Spain: http://www.winesfromspain.com

Chef Mark and I recently attended a luncheon in NY to preview some of the Albarino wines, so here’s a quick little video including an informative conversation I had with Paul Grieco, co-owner of Hearth Restaurant:

ReMARKable Palate #197: Revisiting Rioja

I attend the Rioja Grand Tasting at City Winery in SoHo, and run into some old friends! At this first ever tasting in New York exclusively of Rioja wines, I speak with Maria Jose Lopez de Heredia, a winemaker whose great-grandfather founded the house steeped in tradition which she runs today. I get another taste of her fine aged white wines. I also speak with Adrian Murcia, who led my tour to Rioja nearly 3 years ago, and who writes about the region on his blog, www.blameitonrioja.com.

Lopez de Heredia: www.lopezdeheredia.com

Theme Song: “Go Fish”, by Big Money Grip, from the Podsafe Music Network.

ReMARKable Palate is a production of The Culinary Media Network. www.culinarymedianetwork.com