Happy summer, friends! This month has been an explosion of color. Between my new garden bursting with roses, dressing to the nines for wedding season (“garden cocktail” may be my new favorite wedding attire), and the most colorful and delicious trip to Barcelona, I just cant stop flipping through photos of June!
So, BARCELONA HAPPENED! Huge shoutout to our friends over at Mediavine (the crew who manages all the ads you see here on the site), who offered to send a group of us food bloggers over for a small retreat.
Food blogging can be a bit isolating sometimes, so it’s always nice to be able to hangout with other people in real life who do the same job! Joining the fun was Modern Honey, The Recipe Rebel, Flavor The Moments, Maebells, and Love In My Oven!
We rented this adorable little Airbnb and have all decided that we must move there one day (Gimme Some Oven really did it right).
We talked business and shared ideas and obviously…ATE SO MUCH FOOD. I’ll give you the highlights:
A Tapas Tour on day one to get us familiar with the menus (Devour Tours).
Eating patatas bravas at every restaurant who served it. It translates to “spicy potatoes” though they’re really pretty tame! Fried chunks of potato covered in alioli and bravas sauce, a smoky tomato-based sauce.
Ordering Catalan Tomato Bread (pan con tomate) wherever we could (and every time, trying to dissect exactly what is in it). It’s basically just crusty toast, rubbed with garlic and tomato then drizzled with olive oil and finished with salt. So simple and delicious!
Mercado de La Boqueria for a foodie’s dream day.
Baluard Barcelona, where we waited for the freshly baked almond croissants to come out and it was the single best decision we made on the trip.
Aperol Spritz by the sea, complete with the most colorful plate of grilled veggies (which I mostly just ordered so I could try their romesco sauce).
All the treats, to include daily gelatos, churros with chocolate sauce, and my very first cronut.
Affogato with a side of tomato…nachos? The barista didn’t know what an affogato was, but fortunately the troop of food bloggers helped him out.
Shakshuka at Brunch & Cake, which was possibly the most asthetic breakfast place I’ve ever been to (and yes, we absolutely were those people taking photos of every plate before touching them).
To make up for all the eating, we basically covered all of Barcelona by foot, hitting all the major sites like Sagrada Família, Park Güell, and a day trip up the coast to Costa Brava.
We packed so many meals and laughs and memories into 5 days and it has me inspired to get back into the test kitchen!
I made a quick stop back to The Netherlands on the way home to visit old friends, where we explored Arnhem and I cooked my roasted chickpea gyros and ate so much hagelslaag.
From afar, I could see on our security cameras that my garden had exploded with flowers since I’d been gone…
I asked Texas Boy to send me photos, and this is what I received (please excuse me as I spiral into my inner grandmother, it’s just been so fun seeing all the plants popping up that the previous owner had worked so hard on!)
I enjoyed that gorgeous garden for just a few days before the hail storm came that destroyed it all.
Colorado weather can be something else! Looks like I’ll be buying my zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumber this summer (because the vegetable garden certainly isn’t making a comeback).
And in lieu of *working out* much lately, I’ve mostly just been moving rocks. We’ve got a ton of rocks in the backyard that will need to be moved when the garage is built, so I’ve been building out paths around the yard where it needed them! It’s amazing what 2 hours of moving rocks will do for your mental health! 😅
Inside the house, things are chaos as the bathroom/walk in closet renovation continues to slowly chug along. I’m hoping I’ll have some major progress to share in next month’s gab (but I’ve been sharing daily updates over on Instagram stories if you want to follow along!)
While there hasn’t been much time for recipe shoots this month, we did go camping to work on a camping series that I am so excited to share with you soon! I wore my sleeping bag suit and tested three killer recipes that can be made over the fire. Stay tuned!
I hope you have a wonderful July packed with berries and ice cream and sunny days. I’m so happy you’re here!
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