Normally, we spend Easter with family - eating, drinking, going to church, eating some more... The last two years have been somewhat different. Last year, I spent Easter with friends in Uruguay, relaxing on a gorgeous farm in a little town called Mercedes, and being bitten to death by mosquitoes. This year, what with my host family not being religious, Easter was a very low key affair that really was nothing more than a lazy weekend - and it was fabulous.
As usual, I spent part of my weekend spinning wool (the pink smorgling - aka my Everest - is almost finished) and part in Querube's company. We visited the Palo Alto market, a veritable cornucopia of food, clothing and crafts, held in the little Palo Alto gardens in Poblenou.
The gardens themselves are really pleasant - small and quaint, an explosion of green in the concrete surroundings. With the arrival of the market came food trucks, stalls, and music, that filled what I assume to usually be a quiet little park.
The shop stalls ranged from shirts and shoes, to artesan soaps and toiletries, to homemade bread baked in a wood oven. There was a vintage hall, a hall for handicrafts and small boutiquey shops, a workshop hall with various organised activities going on, and even a "jazz club".
The soaps generally smelled wonderful. The red wine, orange flower, and lemon soaps smelled divine, and then... The green apple. You'd think it would smell like green apple (no! really??) but alas - it smelled like the cheap toilet roll you find in shopping centre toilets, with a faint whiff of stale farts. Nothing like green apple at all. Nothing like anything you'd associate with a pleasant smell, in fact.
Before we knew it, we stumbled upon the best creation in the whole world. Delicious, sweet, rich, creamy cheesecake from the Postres Masgrau bakery. We got a slice to share, with blueberry coulis on top, and absolutely demolished it within about three minutes (it would have taken about 52 seconds if not for all the mmmmmm-ing we did). Unfortunately, the bakery is located just over an hour from Masnou, and everyday cheesecaking is not an option. I did, however, get a small cheesecake to take home and it was better than any Easter egg.
We tried some empanadas, and some free samples here and there (the anchovies were delicious), and ended up having a late lunch in Caravan Made - Querube had a curried chicken sandwich, and I had the shredded pork with ginger sauce, both on huge brioche buns. Again, lots of mmmmm-img and ohmygod-ing. Definitely a good lunch choice! That said, the food truck game was strong: pancakes and popsicles and fruit and breads and noodles and ceviche and burgers and sushi and sausages... Something for everybody. But ours was the best. Obviously.
In other news, the Easter bunny brought me a little treat: turns out moths had infested my vintage fur coat back in London... I mean, they really feasted on it. I feel like I should be annoyed, but the image of my mother trying to vacuum out the moths, and chunks of fur coat falling off left, right and centre is just too funny. Oh well. Adéu fur coat, it's too hot for you here in Barcelona anyway. 2010-2015, never forget.
