Speaker, introducing a Spanish chef:

“He’s been named an honorary member of the Anchovy Association.”

“It’s both a dessert and a main dish,” said Oriol Balaguer.

If I said this to you, you would flee, and you’d be right to do so. But Oriol Balaguer, of Barcelona, is a world-class pastry chef, and I am not. He’s talking about his Concept Cake, which I had the pleasure of eating last night. There are many elements to it, only some of which I actually noted, but the premise, from the bottom up, is:

* crunchy crust
* baked apples
* caramelized sugar crust
* cream cheese
* arugula
* white chocolate shards

This sounds like an especially fiery train wreck, but it was so delicious I went back for a second one. Balaguer also makes some unusual chocolates which I can’t describe yet because I’m bringing some back for Laurie and Iris as a surprise.

One of the coolest thing I’ve eaten so far here at Worlds of Flav was made by chef Dani García of Calima restaurant in Marbella. That’s in Spain. He made an emulsion of olive oil and tomato water and ladled it into a bowl of liquid nitrogen. Before this, he made a guy from the audience come up and put his hand in the liquid nitrogen. I am not volunteering for anything other than ham-tasting.

The tomato-oil mixture freezes immediately, of course, and the chef then pulls it out and breaks it into bite-sized chunks which look exactly like popcorn and taste like, well, olive oil and tomatoes. I highly recommend trying this if you have some liquid nitrogen handy. It’s not just for space-lasers anymore.

Last night we saw a video about calçots, which are a Catalonian delicacy where you take a bundle of leeks (they’re not exactly leeks, but they’re using leeks here as a substitute) and set them over flaming grapevines. The outer layer of the calçot burns, at which point you wrap it in newspaper and let it sit for a while. Then you peel off the outer layer, dip the limp heart in romesco sauce, and eat.

Today we got to eat the calçots. They tasted exactly like burned leeks, plus I kept choking on them. If you are one of my Catalan readers, I’m sure this is the fault of the Californian leeks, and is not intended as anti-calçotism.

I think I’ve invented the successor to the chocolate chip cookie.

Maybe not. But it’s a great variation. Start with a tub of Trader Joe’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups, as featured recently on Candyblog. I liked them more than she did, and I quickly saw the potential of substituting them for chocolate chips.

My plan went awry, however, because I kept opening the tub, saying, “I should really try making these into cookies,” and then eating a handful. Soon I had no peanut butter cups and no cookies. So I got a new tub, and the results were awesome, by which I mean that I made the cookies and still have a bunch of candy left for snacking.

When you bake the cookies, the peanut butter cups ooze a little and, as Laurie put it, look like they’ve been run over by a truck. But the taste is great. It’s the shortest road to a chocolate peanut butter cookie.

Any other candies I should try? Is there some small chocolate mint candy?

As promised, here’s what Iris and I came up with, pumpkin-wise, for 2006. Iris chose the design. I carved it, which was a major undertaking, although most of the work went into the pumpkin gut-removal.

Thanks to the Homestar Runner Halloween Stencils site.

Trogdor by day:

Trogdor…BY NIGHT: