Sant Andreu Tapas A Succulent Remedy

Sometimes not only vaccines are the remedy that can save you from the havoc in your head wreaked by a year of seclusion, dying like a sparrow in a cage. Sometimes the cure, the mental relief, comes with the satisfaction of the animal in us, our primeval instincts. No, I do not mean sex. Don't be so basic! It's the food that kindles your soul, like a sun ray breaking through your prison cell.

And so, being a refined animal with a taste and on a spring parole in the way of lockdown break, I set sail for promising quarters in the city of Barcelona where nourishment abounds, the oasis of tapas known as the Sant Andreu neighborhood. Behold above its renown narrow streets dressed in bitter orange groves more typical of the sacred gardens of paradise than from a working class enclave. Nothing like some peace and quiet to go and sin for a while.

As you can see my mind is obscured after so much confinement and is hard to hit the bar that explains the tasty tapa of morcilla de Burgos and the cheek pads hamburger (mollete de carrilleras) on the menu at Bar Torrente of Carrer de Parellada, 28, 08030 Barcelona.

I never said it was easy to share the secret troves of a Barcelonian but believe me, everything has been so lonely lately that the city misses the usual buzz (not the noise!) and bar owners well deserve to get their lives back so the more we are the merrier. 

Thanks to Bar Torrente for the marvelous sinful day! 

 

Sant Pau Hospital: A History of Fervent Passion and Anonymous Endeavor

 

Amidst the weird silence imposed by this pandemic disgrace, these stone marvels strike us as significant reminders of past religious devotion, of saints like Santa Eulalia (hanging up there on this side of the Modernist compound of Sant Pau Hospital - Cartagena street façade), of the fervent passion and disinterested endeavor of women and men who invested their lives in that of others not only to seek salvation but out of pure love for their peers.

 

 

Thanks to the skillful hands of Catalan artists who set out to venerate these acts of faith against the wrath of merciless plagues, against the paradox of so much suffering cast upon the human race, we can remember them and resume this endless fight on the very places where we once perished.  

 

From here we, your descendants. shall honor your lives and rise on our knees to overcome this Covid mess, just like you banished your misfortune one day, in unison and anonymously for the sake of our fellow men.  

Alice of Penelles - Foxx and Zeso, LLeida

About 130 kms away from Barcelona, in the neighboring western province of Lleida in Catalonia, there is this little oasis of street art where almost every house is a public mural joyously adorned with graffiti. This town is called Penelles. I took pictures there a long time ago but never took the time to share it with you, not that I remember (I must be going nuts with these pandemic times). Not only do you find local ideas over there but also the work of international artists like the New Yorker or better said Long Islander BKFOXX and the French @zesoner who in unison delighted us with this wonderful and realistic Alice about to lead us through the rabbit burrow in the very corner of these two walls.