Welcome welcome welcome! This week's feature product is, once again, wild mushroom. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Cantharellus Cibarius, better known around these parts as Xaxihori. Xaxi is a small golden fungi fond of pine forests and sandy soil, and has a super smoky flavour that borders on the erotic.
In fact, saute off a bag of these little suckers, throw in some strips of jamon and drown it all in a first press virgen olive oil of the Picual variety and.........s'like having a porno filmed in your mouth; s'all hot n greasy n spicy n salty n ohhhhhhh yeah......
You may feel like you should take a shower afterwards, or give money to a charity or something. Moving on.......




This weeks chef profile goes to......... Gonzalo Busto!

Gonzalo is 2IC in my section, and actually he is my new best friend. Saturday was Gonzalo's big day - the restaurant was fully booked and his immediate boss, the chef de partie, was away at a wedding - all eyes on Busto to see if he could 'drive the bus' (what I call being in charge)
Well what a great day it was, all the prep got demolished in record time, the team worked really well together - a first - and much to my delight, and I mean absolute delight, Busto got me to throw around a few pans for him. Ahhhhhhhh pans, I love pans!

It may not look like it, but I am thoroughly stoked right at this moment. Cooking stuff is what I do, even if it is just banging out three-Michellin-star fish fingers (that's what i'm cooking), or sweating off some onions I don't care, as long as it goes hissssssssssss...... 
Saturday was also my big day for another reason - Cumpleanos de Jahan! Er, my birthday that is - the big three-oh!

Kicked off the day with sum early morning waves - also punched out this awkward staged photo. Ugh. Anyway, was more than a little upset at having to leave this incredible morning at the beach to go to work, on my birthday! F%$k that! Turned out to be a good move - largely due to the great kindness of the people I work with. The pastry chef banged out a cake for me, and I had 'happy birthday' sung to me in Vasco (how many people can say that) Apart from the cake, some jamon and chocolate got smuggled to me for breakfast, Gonzalo cooked me off a serve of Bogovante for lunch (yum!) and for dinner a big platter of Congrejo (crab) found it's way to me. I hadn't eaten this yet because it is really expensive and handled in highly measured portions. But I tell ya, I tell ya - this was soooooooooo gooooooooooood! 
Apart from the food, I got lots of kisses from the girls, i'm not sure if you can actually slip the tongue when your kissing on the cheek, but i'm pretty sure a few of the randy older ladies tried - these Basque girls are pretty full on! At some point a gentle tug at my sleeve heralded a very sincere happy birthday from Juan Mari, "congratulations" to be precise, "thanks" I quipped "I've been working at it for some time....." - didn't get it.
After service the Sommelier tracked me down - apparently there were some bottles of champagne that needed drinking - Gonzalo was at hand to help with the tedious work of guzzling the juicy bubbles.....

After all the champagne was finished, Gonzalo bailed out and I squirelled down to the dry store where I knew the chefs from 1st section were dipping into the beer stocks..........

It was also Johnys's farewell, cos he is back in Mexico for a month. Quite dangerous hanging out down here - that big black handle in the foreground operates a tap that releases more beer. Yeah.
After the boys signed out I headed into town to meet my neighbour Max - the German guy who I mentioned in an earlier post - the one who is accused with the offence of 'Impersonating an Australian'. I mentioned previously that I intended to get him trollied as punishment, well this was the realisation of that intention, or that was the plan anyway. I got into the city, down in Parte Viaje, and I gave him a call, but someone must have tipped him off - here is a transcript of the call......
"Max, Jahan, how are ya?"
"Oh, good"
"Sick, where are ya?"
"I'm at a pub"
"Sweet, where abouts?"
"I'm not sure"
"What street is it in?"
"I don't know, i'm not in Parte Viaje"
"Cool, are you coming down here?"
"I'm not sure"
"Ok, ahhhhhhh, are you in San Sebastian?"
"Yeah"
"Well, if you make it down give me a call ok?"
"Ok"


Crafty bugger! Not to be put off (i'll get him later) I headed down to  Bar Txurrut, where the music is bad and the drinks dangerous. Funnily enough I ran into Aihnoa, the chef de partie who had the day off. She was tanked up and swaying around with the wedding party; a bored looking bride, a squad of tuxedos, and a drunk Mexican who was grinding anything that moved. We had a few drinks, and she gave me a few pointers on rolling my double 'rr's - it's all about positioning apparently. She also is a big fan of the Haka - the Maori war dance - as you can see from the photo below.
Abrazos!