Caroline Crossing: Pintxo Postre


Pumpkin Pie Pintxo Postre, Thanksgiving in Spain 2011.

What in the world is pintxo postre? Hmmm...I'd be asking myself that right now. Well, let me explain you (as Javi would say hehe). Well, I was with my friend Liz and a few others out at pintxos, which if you are not familiar, are Northern Spain's tapas. Tapas, are a phenomenon throughout Spain. They are small portions of food that one eats at several different bars, or at least that's how it works here in the North. In Spain, the idea of an entire meal on one plate is not so common. In the United States, it's normal to have your veggie, your carb, and your meat all on the same plate. Well, not here. One eats each portion separately, and commonly at different bars. There are two streets here in the casco antiguo (old town) of Logroño called La Laurel and San Juan, which are the homes of the pintxo bars.

One leaves for pintxos at around 9pm. They get a drink on the terrace...a white wine in my case...my favorite wine in the world is from Rueda, in Southern Spain. I have yet to go there but when I do, it will be to drink their delicious white wine. La Rioja is famous for its rich red wines, crianzas, reservas, and they are wonderful wines. After a drink, one makes a "bote", or pot, with the group of friends with which they are pintxo-ing, and that way they can all pay together when they go to each pintxo bar. On the weekends these pintxo streets crowd with seas of people and it's near to impossible to pay for 7 pintxos seperately, let alone together. Well, your pintxo pal group goes from bar to bar having a pintxo and a "corto de cerveza" (1/4 of a beer), or a small glass of white or red wine, or a mosto (grape juice). After the money has all been spent, I, being American, and a sweet tooth, tend to crave something sweet. Nothing as big as a whole piece of cake, or an ice cream...but something small to satisfy my sweet craving. Well, after a couple years of pintxo-ing, I was out with my American friend and I thought, wouldn't it be amazing if there were a dessert pintxo bar? And the idea came bubbling to the surface...PINTXO POSTRE! Postre being dessert...and pintxo, well you get the idea.

Check out this video of La Rioja's beautiful agricultural landscapes and its pintxo streets in Logroño, Spain's gastronomical capital of the year!

To quickly explain the picture above let me just say that last year after baking three pumpkin pies (and this was not an easy task with the lack of canned pumpkin here), I set one of them in the front seat of the car as we were loading them up to take to a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. Javi didn't see it and used it as an armrest while reaching for something. The pie came out worse for wear with a Javi-sized hand print in the middle of its pumpkin center. I freaked out and got a little angry, laughed it off and turned it into my first pintxo postre creation. I cut around the hand print and made bite size slivers of pumpkin pie with a toothpick in each one, as you can see above.

I must admit, I am secretly very proud of this little invention of mine, and wish I could turn it into Logroño's first pintxo postre bar, but given the economic climate of Spain at the moment, I'm putting that on hold until a better time. I still do bake at home a lot, and having just come back from a month long visit to California, I have been in baking mode ever since. You see, I have been baking with my mom and my two sisters since I was about three and licked my first brownie bowl. My mother, might possibly be the best pie baker on the planet (I'm not just saying this...it's true!), and she has passed down her love of baking to my sisters and I.

My younger sister, Sophie, is currently working at a bakery in San Anselmo, where my mom lives, and has been taking our home style baking skills to a more professional level. She's been learning some pretty amazing baking techniques and bringing them home, along with snidbits of her delicious creations, French macarons, berry tarts, basque cakes, toffee peanut butter cookies...the list goes on. She is a real baker, and dreams of becoming a pastry chef and opening her own bakery one day. She recently (less recently than me) started a blog called "If I Ever Owned a Bakery" and it's really great. She tries out new recipes and puts them up on her blog, and having been the guinea pig for many of them, I have to say she is quite the little expert.  Check out Soph's Baking Blog!

An apple galette I made last summer for a "Fiesta Ibizenca" (A party Ibiza style).

Indeed, I love to bake, and I love to try new recipes, but I do not like having baked goods lying around the house. It's dangerous. So, I really prefer to bake when I know I have someone to eat my creations, and as such, I bake when I know of a barbeque, or dinner, or any event really that would be appropriate for baked goods. Because of this, I am known as the provider of dessert amongst Javi's group of friends. They have been the consumers of most of my works. I use baking as an outlet to try new things, to relieve stress, and to have fun. I thoroughly enjoy it and will be sharing my baking tales and recipes with you down the line. Hope you like 'em!