Apartment Rental Barcelona

It’s calçots season once more in Catalonia, which means a couple delicious months of barbequing green onions in the countryside.

A calçot is a sort of long green onion which is nice and fat in February and March – so right now! The tradition is to go to a masia, or country farmhouse restaurant where they char these onions by the ton on the BBQ, but you can get them sometimes also in restaurants.

The process of eating is a bit messy as Calçot eaters must first peel the onions (the outer layers are black and burned of the fire) and then dip them in red romesco sauce, which is very delicious and made of red pepers, almonds etc.. 

Stay in Barcelona in an apartment during Calcots season.

Sala Apolo

C/ Nou de la Rambla 111

tel.: 934.414.001

Till June 2009, every first Sunday of the month, Arte por derecho organizes flamenco concerts in the well known Sala Apolo. At 19pm you can listen to very good flamenco musiciens accompanied by beautiful dancers.

For more information and tickets: http://www.sala-apolo.com/home.asp

Listen to flamenco music and rent an apartment in Barcelona.

And there is this super charming Catalan tradition of setting up elaborate Nativity scenes, only with a special touch: a little guy, somewhere in the picture, squatting with pants down and depositing a healthy looking turd somewhere in the holy scene. He’s called the “el Cagador”—that’s right, folks, “the shitter.”

You can buy one Cagador (what an original gift to bring home ) in Barcelona, in a shop located in the street going from the Plaza Generalitat along the cathedral… all kind of faces, the Bush ’s cagador, the Sarkozy and Carla Bruni ’s cagador ….Very strange and funny. On the christmas market de Santa Lucia, many shops where to buy el CAJANER ( el cagador en catalan).

The Cagador symbolizes the fertility to the earth.

For your stay in the city center, you can hire an apartment in Barcelona to enjoy more space.

No plans for New Years Eve yet?

Come to Barcelona for an unforgettable New Years Eve and celebrate like the locals…one of the best known tradition and at the same time lots of fun is to eat 12 grapes at midnight…

Each time the clock is chiming you have to put a grape into your mouth…at the last sound you have to have finished all 12 grapes which will bring you good luck for the next year! Its worth a try!

You can buy in supermarkets, cans with the 12 grapes called Uvas de la Suerte, they usually get sold by 3 cans.

  Hire a holiday apartment in Barcelona to feel truly at home!

In winter time you can see small shops on street corners selling charcoal cooked sweet potatoes (spanish name is Boniatos) and chestnuts …

Taste those potatoes … it is very good.

They are used to bake the Panellets cookies for Halloween time ….(see post on this blog)

Enjoy living among the catalan people and hire an apartment in Barcelona.

I got the recipee from my neighbour Carmen .. 

  Ingredients:

• 1 small (4 to 5 ounces) sweet potato (Boniato in Spanish, you can buy it on the street in winter time in Barcelona), peeled and smashed
• 1 pound blanched or slivered almonds
• 1/2 lemon (grated zest only)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinamon

Put all the ingredients together and let it stay one night in the fridge

• 1 large egg white, lightly beaten
• 1 to 1 1/2 cup pine nuts

Roll small balls of the dough with the egg and then with the pine nuts.
You can also add nuts, dried raisins, coconut, powder chocolate …

Cook 5 minutes in the oven.

Delicious recipee and easy to make ….

November 1, All Saints’ Day, that’s celebrated as a holiday. And, since celebrating All Saints’ Day really means spending the day at a graveside, it doesn’t have the same kind of resonance in the imagination. Halloween in Spain , they eat pannelets, chestnuts, drink sweet wine …

On the upside, there are treats. These are known as panellets: tiny cookies of varying shapes and flavours, traditionally accompanied by sweet wine and eaten on November 1, and really, throughout the fall. The basic recipe for panellets requires the preparation of a paste of ground almonds, sugar and mashed potato. The paste is subsequently flavoured with more almond, coconut, chocolate, coffee, pinenuts, orange or whatever else leaps to mind or hand and baked into tiny (usually circular) shapes.

The provenance of panellets is somewhat obscure. Some say that the cookies have origins in Spain’s Moorish past because of the use of almonds. Others relate them to ancient funereal or religious rites celebrated during this time of year. Luckily, no one’s going to test you on the subject before allowing you to eat them.

For your stay you can hire an apartment in the centre of Barcelona.

Palacio del Flamenco
carrer Balmes 139
Barcelona 08008
Ph : 932 187 237
Web Palacio del Flamenco

Beautiful and typical Flamenco show in Barcelona in the Palacio del Flamenco
Show + wine or show + gaudi dinner …

Discount with your voucher booking an apartment with  Cocoonbarcelona

February, March

This is the time of year the Catalans have been waiting for: it’s Calçots season!!

Maybe when I tell you first that a calçot is a vegetable kind of like an onion, only longer, you’ll start thinking: these Catalans have got to be nuts to eat something like that. And you might be right, but the charm of this typical dish is the salsa Romesco which accompanies it and the festive atmosphere in which it takes place.

Calçots constitute a single-dish meal and are cooked on a grill, if possible in the open air and with family or friends. Calçots originated in Tarragona, specifically from the region of Valls. The best calçots are those that you buy at the market and then cook immediately at the barbecue. But if you don’t feel like cooking, you can go to a Masia or a restaurant in the country where they will prepare them for you in traditional style. Outside of Barcelona on the road to San Cugats, you can find some restaurants for calçots.

Eating calçots is a unique experience that we recommend to everyone who has the chance to visit Catalunya during this season.

Discovered by a local farmer called Xat de Benaiges at the end of the 19th century, the cultivation of Calçots is a complicated process that starts at the end of the year when onion seeds are planted. Once the onion has germinated and begun to grow, it is pulled out of the ground and stored for a time before being replanted. It is only buried half way into the earth and as it grows higher, it is necessary to repack earth around the newly grown part of the vegetable. When harvested it has the long leek like appearance that most people living here know and love. The Calçotada became a family feast celebration in the first few decades of the twentieth century. However, it wasn’t until 1983 that Valls undertook the first communal Calçotada to which anyone can go. Other areas in Catalonia produce Calçots but Valls proudly lays claim to its role as founder of the Calçot tradition.

Enjoy your stay in Barcelona, hire an apartment in the centre on the Plaza Catalunya

The 24th of June is the celebration of Sant Juan in Catalunya and in some other places like Valencia. It´s a bank holiday, but more important is the ´magic´night of the 23rd of June when the beginning of the summer is celebrated. People have dinner at home or in a restaurant with afterwards a special desert which is called coca, a cake made of puff pastry covered with pine nuts and/ or fruits. After dinner, at about 10pm, the party starts. You will see, and especially hear, fireworks everywhere.  Apart from the fireworks, bonfires are part of the tradition. Although they are forbidden in most areas people burn old furniture saved during the year. A good place to go are the Barcelona beaches where people dance and drink till sunrise enjoying the start of the summer.

You don´t want to miss this magic night? Rent an apartment in Barcelona for Sant Juan.