Summer and vineyards: yes
The foodie is a peculiar specimen. I mean, until now we were (more or less) well served by races and tribes of different coats: we had the _ geeks _ (without vacations, obviously), the cosmo girls (Paris, of course), **the hipsters (Berlin or New York, if there is firewood) **, inhabitants of Barrio Salamanca (Mustique, los Fjords or whatever we say in Traveler that is fashionable). There were also fans of good food, but they were notaries or (worse) bank directors waiting for the relative to give the go-ahead for the trip from the rock. I don't know, to Pedroñeras. The mother party
But today everything has changed. Today everyone is foodies . But everyone, from the thirtysomething cinephile to the creator of the Barcelona design studio. And it is that wherever you look you find gourmet clubs, gastronomic blogs, lifestyle magazines, recipes, malenis and restaurants with courses to make sushi or prepare a gin and tonic, of course.
Y a foodie is always a foodie, but especially on vacation . This is your instruction manual:
1)August or nothing. Smarties say that vacations are best in September or June. That everything is cheaper, that it's not so hot... DON'T TELL ME! YOU ARE A GENIUS, MAN. The holidays are in August and that's it . A week in May is not a vacation, it's God giving you a massage with the hands of Melanie Laurent and a bottle of Jacques Selosse.
2) Thermomix and gadgetolandia. Where Avon and Círculo de Lectores fell, the Thermomix triumphed there. And the fact is that the cheetah keeping quiet and thanks to her silent army of commercials with straight hair, there is no gastropath's house without that devil's pot. Alimón, a question, do you really put four ingredients and a lasagna comes out?
3) Bad tourism. Tourism is not cool. So far, everyone agrees. Especially in August (fanny packs, flip-flops, sweat and queues at museums), which is the month of cruises and boyfriends paying in installments for a week at full throttle (drinking lambrusco without restraint, concept of "full throttle") in, I don't know, Rome or Egypt. A crazy thing.
4) From wineries, vineyards and oenopathy. Impossible to imagine a vacation without visiting a couple of wineries and making a Bordeaux, a Tuscany or a Champagne as God intended . Along with Entre Copas or Un Buen Año , in summer they fancy vineyards. Unfortunately, August is not a good time to visit wineries since it is the worst month for our winegrower friends. That because? Because they are his only vacation before the hell that is the grape harvest. Solution? Grab a picnic, pass the cellar and drink a couple of bottles in the vineyard. After all, everything you need to know about wine is there.
5) Michelin, 50 Best and the 101 Restaurants to visit before you die. Vineyards no, but gastronomic restaurants yes. Great restaurants, those with menus with thirty dishes and a symphony to always remember (I forgot the operas and concerts, but big meals? Impossible) and August, I insist, is the perfect month to scratch kilometers on the map and attack the Celler de Can Roca, Mugaritz or Le Calandre. Highway and blanket, friends.
6) Enough of deconstructions . The foodie is tired of experiments. He knows that the treasure is the product and that what is truly miraculous is not to make a deconstructed stew, but to make the usual stew. We are fed up with gastrobars, techno-cuisine and neo-brasseries. And it is that many bars have mutated into a spectacle of playfoods and meaningless bullshit, but at lunchtime we want to eat.
7)"Life is a foreign country" . The phrase is from Kerouac and yes, it's true, he has nothing to do with the paragraph, but it's not cool. To the mess: the fan of good food does not set foot in an airport unless it is not absolutely necessary. That is, he gets on a plane to visit Tokyo, Peru or Copenhagen. But to Tuscany, Beaune or Champagne you travel by car (or by train) and if the trip is too long you hold on and do kilometers and improvise and get lost and you sleep in that town whose name you don't remember . The one halfway to your destination and nothing. That night that was worth the whole trip.
8) Techno-social-foodies. Our beloved foodie is a careful technocrat. And it is that how to live without Evernote, without the iPad or without Twitter to show off that table with views in Akelarre. Impossible, that is not living. And it is that today we also have reasons to be (a little) happier: Apple has surrendered to our charms and has reserved a whole channel for us in the Apple Store: Food & Drink.
And the last commandment, the most important:
9) Be a joy. And it is that foodie sounds a bit like a snobbish girl. Gastronome is fatal (so gray) and the term "kitchenettes" already imagine what I think. No way. You have to be enjoying yourself. Without distances, poses (the fair and necessary ones) or impostures . Enjoy each dish, each city and each breakfast. As an enjoyment.