Well Sunday (22 May) started out with lots of rain. It was a good thing that we had planned to visit the Guggenheim museum, which I am sure sure most of you know was designed by Frank Gehry. I really enjoyed the Louise Bourgeois exhibition and the Paris School 1900 – 1945 with paintings by Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Chagall, Modigliani and many others.
In the Basque country there are lots of gastronomic clubs called “txokos”, where the members, who are all male, meet to socialise and of course cook. Up until recently women were only allowed to enter them on 6 January, the day of Epiphany. Now this has been relaxed, but only men are allowed to cook. We were invited by some friends of mine to their “txoko” in Bilbao where we went armed with 3 bottles of wine that we had picked up on our winery visits. We had a superb lunch which included wild mushrooms with scrambled eggs, clams, cod cheeks with piquillo peppers and a wonderful lamb stew with hard-boiled eggs, asparagus, artichokes, etc. It was a great experience for my clients/friends and is something that is a rare treat for visitors.
