Dusun quarterly catalonian homage

dusun quarterly

Autumn 2015

special

e-journal of Asian Arts and Culture

Catalonian Homage 1

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Welcome to Dusun Quarterly

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Autumn 2015

inside....

5 Editorial

Thoughts on the current issue by the Founding Editor

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Catalunya Colours

A visual and textual account of three weeks with the Malaysian artist Honey Khor, sketching three key areas associated

with Salvador Dali, in Catalonia, Spain.

100 Poems for Catalonia

Poems written by Martin Bradley, in and about Catalonia.

116 Art Talk Figueres

A talk about Malaysian Art, in the library, at Figueres,

part of an on going series of Art Talks around the world.

126 Catalonia by the Girona Urban Sketchers

Scintillating Artworks by a group of sketchers who associate themselves with Girona, Catalonia, Spain.

157 Tastets Surrealistes

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A wonderful initiative by the town of Figueres to both honour its most famous son Salvador Dali and raise the bar on gastronomy.

dusun quarterly

Dusun Quarterly Autumn 2015 cover: Honey Khor

Editor: Martin A Bradley

email: martinabradley@gmail.com

Dusun TM Published September 2015

e-journal of Asian Arts and Culture

Recently, Professor Vicent Sanchis has written that.....

“Catalonia is not a region, but an old European nation that gets on the best it can and over the centuries has made the best of living in a state called Spain” At the very beginning of Summer, I took three weeks off to travel with my wife, the Malaysian artist Honey Khor.

We returned to the land of artists Dali, Miro and Picasso, Spain. More especially we returned to Catalonia, the land so beloved of writers George Orwell and Josep Pla. This entire issue of Dusun Quarterly is devoted to that journey and the incredible people who came our way, to make our lives a little more special.

Towards the end of our stay, Honey held her second very successful exhibition in Spain, and I gave an Art Talk about Malaysian Art. This is becoming quite a habit. One day I shall have to start charging someone, or get sponsorship, or both. But then Dusun was founded (originally) as a free e-magazine, to promote Malaysian Art, and my Art Talks continue that commitment.

The current issue continues Dusun’s commitment to be different. To marry Art and Literature across Asia, supporting Artists and Writers in Asia or of Asian descent.

Dusun remains free from influence, allegiance or alliance, free to you.

Now read on

Martin Bradley (Founding Editor).

Dusun remains an entirely free and non-associated publication concerned with bringing Asian arts and culture to everyone

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Catalunya Colours

Salvador Dali had fascinated artist Honey Khor ever since her Art School student days. What had began, three years previously, as a holiday, evolved into a quest to understand the great Surrealist better, by visiting the places he loved best in Catalonia, Spain. Sketching as she went.

CadaquĂŠs

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Malaysian artist Honey Khor on a quest to re-discover Salvador Dali At the end of Spring, 2015, Honey returned to her friends and new family in Fiqueres. With their help and advice, she visited what has become known as the Dali Triangle of Figueres, Pubol and Port Lligat/Cadaques. The physical and emotional journey culminated with another exhibition of Honey’s work in Fiqueres.

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Honey Khor

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Catalunya Colour

by Martin Bradley

Vermell

(Red)

At the very end of Spring, where that season inevitably becomes indistinguishable from the bright hot days of Summer, there was peace, a brief moment of sanctuary before the annual tourist invasion of Catalonia.

It was a time before the massive hordes of tourists had found their way for their yearly invasion of Spain in search of cerveza, sand, sea and.... It was then, in Catalonia’s quiet moments, that Malaysian artist Honey Khor and I began our Salvador Dali quest. That Spanish artist’s work had become a fascination for Honey ever since her Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA) days, and for me since the 1960s and later my studies under Prof. Dawn Ades at the University of Essex. Honey had returned to Catalonia to learn more, and I to chronicle that journey.

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso began his art training at the Barcelona Province Art School (La Lonja) in Catalonia’s great city, Barcelona.

In the late 1800s Picasso painted Barcelona rooftops, (1896) and again in the early 1900s (Barcelona rooftops,1902). He, the architect Antoni Gaudí i Cornet and the city of Barcelona were muses to the young Catalan artist Salvador Dali. Over the last few years, Barcelona has also become a magnet to the up-and-coming Malaysian artist Honey Khor, and to myself as a writer about art.

Barcelona has been captured by many an artist, but there is one painting, by Antonio Gonzalez Velazquez, titled Columbus being received in Barcelona by the Catholic Kings after the Discovery of America (1763), which depicts the grandiosity of that city, and its importance to the Western world at that time. Honey Khor’s re-entry into Catalonia was not quite so grand, there were no cherubs flying, no waiting kings, but in her heart that is how she felt, welcomed and honoured to be back.

In the pre-tourist season Las Ramblas were quiet. The Museo 9

La Bodegueta, Barcelona

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Picasso remained unencumbered. Spain, it's antique buildings, spectacular landscapes and succulent gastronomy, for a brief breath taking moment, belonged to the Spanish. Catalonia in turn belonged to Catalans, not the holidaying British Essex boys and girls. For a three week period, the more northern town of Figueres, and other points on the Dali Triangle, belonged to the watercolour sketch books of Honey Khor.

Despite the trials and minor tribulations of a full day's travel, the inevitable dehydration headache and all the weariness associated with intercontinental travel, Honey and I arrived back in charismatic Catalonia, after a two year absence. Our night of fitful sleep dissolved in Barcelona's sweet late Spring morning.

We emerged refreshed as we stepped onto Rambla de Catalunya, from out of Barna Hostal, and walked the few steps to the perfectly preserved (1940s) La Bodegueta, for me to take chocolate croissants and coffee, for breakfast. Honey is not a breakfast being.

Before our trip I had been reading Chilean-American author Isabel Allende’s excellent novel Zorro, in which she writes about Barcelona and its connection to the chocolate trade. I recalled that Barcelona was the first European city to experience chocolate (in the 1500s) with thanks, possibly, to Hernán Cortés and his idea of making the Mexican chocolate drink (xocoatl) more palatable (though some say it was Bartolomé de las Casas). In our research into Dali, we were aware of a distinctly chocolateness about some of his paintings, Soft Self Portrait with Grilled Bacon (1941) in particular. With those thoughts we had set about enjoying our own chocolate beverages more, recalling the 1968 Lanvin chocolate TV commercial (accessed on YouTube), where Salvador Dali takes a big bite of Lanvin chocolate, then looks to the camera. The taste straightens his moustache. To the camera he says, “Je suis fou du chocolat Lanvin!” (I’m crazy about Lanvin Chocolates) with an emphasis on the words Fou (crazy) and Lanvin.

From La Bodegueta, we ambled the shaded 1.3 kilometre extent of Barcelona's Las Rambla (promenade), frequently mentioned in the British author George Orwell’s book Homage to Catalonia (1938). In antiquity, the five sections of Las Rambla were a river bed: Rambla or “ramlah" in Arabic, means dry ravine. By the 1700s, the riverbed had been covered to form Barcelona’s famous pathway.

Stopping off on our journey, we diverted into the former 13th 12

La Rambla, Barcelona by Honey Khor

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Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria, Barcelona

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Chocolate and Churros by Honey Khor

century gastronomic temple of Mercat La Rambla's St. Josep La Boqueria (market). That tantalising space scintillated with dazzling fruits. It was Honey’s first venture into that market, my second. It buzzed with Catalan language and life. Colourful inhabitants and their wares sparkled like fine jewels in that crown of Barcelona’s markets, while Honey sat outside the Basque restaurant Sukaldari, sketching the vibrancy of interactions. I sat remembering the Spanish film Ocho Apellidos Vascos (Spanish Affair) I’d recently seen.

We both delighted in the traditional long Spanish sugared donuts (churros), dipping them in the liquid Catalonian chocolate (xurros i xocolata). There is a story which mentions churros to have originated from Song Southern Dynasty China (youtiao), and likely brought to Spain by the Portuguese. Honey thought it was entirely likely, but intimated that she knew more about the Chinese version than the Spanish.

That marvellous market effused a profusion of intriguing scents, fragrant lemons, dried hams, rich, fresh Botifarrada sausages and the trailing perfume of Barcelona's female gentry, long legged and haughty. In the crowded aisles, homemade pastry parcels bulged with cooked pumpkin, spinach, or local cheeses, grilled vegetables.

Cured hams and dried sausages of all sizes, hues and descriptions hung just above Honey's head as a trickle of tourists stood agog, amidst busy Catalonians focussed upon their daily purchasing.

Tuesday

Sunny Barcelona Tuesday arrived. Stepping to one side I let Honey take the six steps down into the cooling air of La Bodegueta.

I quickly followed. We became, once more, surrounded by ageing wooden barrels. On towering shelves behind us, gleamed bottles of sweet liquorice flavoured dulce Anis del Mono, Catalan wines, bottles of olive oil, and olive yellow jars of Formatge d´Oli (Olive Oil Cheese). La Bodegueta had rapidly become our favourite breakfast place, with me insisting on yet another day’s breakfast of chocolate croissant (croissant de xocolata) and Catalonian coffee. “It’s important to start the day right”, I said, winking what I considered 16

Chocolate and Churros at Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria, Barcelona

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to be a conspiratorial wink.

After a somewhat leisurely breakfast, moving back onto La Rambla and following a combination of small, physical, tourist maps, the Google Maps app and the navigation app Waze (on Honey’s iPhone).

We eventually found our way down a complexity of compact roads, past Casa Bofarull (1835), famous for its snail dishes, and narrowly avoided being run over by an orange Bakfiets cargo bike, its white furred canine passenger panting with exhilaration of travel and the growing Barcelona heat.

We had not taken the more direct route to the Picasso Museum.

We had plenty of time before it opened, and I was curious to see Plaça George Orwell, honouring that English writer’s participation in the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939). Eric Arthur Blair, who took on the pen name of George Orwell, had been an important witness to the Spanish Civil War for the year he had spent in Barcelona, writing what he saw, being shot and escaping from Fascist forces.

His recollections and experiences were first published on April 25, 1938. For his first book publication (Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933) Orwell’s publisher (Leonard Moore) had chosen the name George Orwell, out of a list comprising of P. S. Burton, Kenneth Miles, George Orwell and H. Lewis Allways, which Blair had give to him. After the book’s numerous rejections, Orwell had lost faith in Down and Out, and didn’t want it published under his own name. All subsequent publications were under the name George Orwell.

With the Tuesday opening of Musée Picasso (closed Mondays) we were finally able to see the Picasso Museum’s new special exhibition, Picasso/Dali, Dali/Picasso, which had previously been shown in The Dali Museum, 1 Dali Boulevard, St. Petersburg, Florida. The exhibition was organised by The Dali Museum and the Musée Picasso, Barcelona, with the collaboration of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dali. That travelling exhibition was supported by an indemnity from the U.S. Federal Council on the Arts, and the Humanities.

Within, the exhibition displays compared and contrasted Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso, their erratic friendship and the styles each had begun to develop while associated with Barcelona. It had been in 1926, the same year that he was finally expelled from Escuela de Bellas Artes de Madrid (Madrid Art School), that the twenty-two 19

year old Salvador Dali travelled to Paris, to meet with the, by then famous, forty five year old Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. That significant meeting had been engineered by two of Dali’s friends, the soonto-be famous poet Federico García Lorca and the future film maker Luis Buñuel. Once began, it was an unusual on/off relationship, forged on that day, between two of the greatest artists of the Modern era.

I watched as Honey flitted from Picasso’s Woman Reclining on an Armchair (1920) to Dali’s Portrait of Maria Carbona (1925), Picasso’s Mother and child (1921) to Dali’s Neo-Cubist Academy (1926) taking notes, observing detail, performing her own comparisons and noting the differences. As she did so I remembered that Salvador Dali frequently wrote to Picasso from the Hotel Duran cellar in Figueres, trying to keep their associating alive. Some of the displayed envelopes bore the hotel's franking. Hotel Duran owner, Señor Lluis Duran Jnr., later recalled that many of Dali’s correspondences to Picasso had gone unanswered.

I admit to being irked by the museum’s no photography policy. I like to take photos as an aidememoire, and for literary accuracy. Honey took pictorial notes in her small 10cm x 16cm sketching book, capturing the essence of the works before her. Neither of us had never seen Dali and Picasso’s works side by side before, or even in the same room. The juxtapositions revealed much about both artists’ works, creating potential dialogues, suppositions and unique possibilities of understanding the relationships between the works and between the artists.

Upon exiting, we met with one of Honey’s sketcher friends - Joan Ramon, who was near to retirement and living in Barcelona. We walked down the historic Carrer de Montcada, through Pla del Palau and eventually to Passeig Maritim. Honey finally experienced the beach at La Barceloneta, which she had missed on her two previous trips. There, a photographer knelt, focused her telescopic lens, snapped, while Honey sat on a concrete step beside the beach, sketching and gazing at the shimmering Mediterranean. As I sat watching them sketch I recalled Picasso’s paintings Barceloneta beach (1896), and Man sitting on Barceloneta beach (1895-1896), proud to know that Honey was continuing Picasso’s tradition.

Past iniquitous touristy paella and sangria sellers, the Barceloneta beach day broke into tourist hour. Young baseball behatted males demonstrated their virility. They threw Rugby balls across light Catalonian sand while semi-naked women happily exposed their pale skin. A noon haze curtained the horizon as sketchily small sail craft drifted in watercolour slow mo, in and out of the haze. Behind the beach, a flock of cyclists gathered, helmets like Horseshoe Crabs in a Dali surreality.

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Catalogue of the exhibition Picasso/Dali, Dali/Picasso

Exhibition ticket

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Exhibition Picasso/Dali Dali/Picasso, Honey Khor’s notes

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Barceloneta by Honey Khor

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Lila

(Purple)

Despite the great many distractions of Catalonia’s shining gem, Barcelona; the sites unseen included the restaurant Els Quatre Gats (The Four Cats, 1897), the haunt of Picasso and Gaudi where once shows of Chinese Shadows were held, and not to mention all those Dali connections unvisited.

Time had been pressing. We had only allowed ourselves a couple of days to visit the Catalan capitol. Honey had to concentrate her sketching on Figueres, Pubol and Port Lligat/Cadaques, to have enough time to produce work for her Figueres exhibition.

A new Barcelona day dawned, warming, ready for Summer. With a modicum of haste, poor sense of direction and a willing cabbie, we finally managed to catch the two hour Renfe train from Barcelona’s Sants Estacio (Sants Station), back to Figueres. Honey was headed back to her European family at Hotel Duran, left two years hence.

Evening brought big smiles from four generations of the Duran family; hugs, Cafè amb llet (coffee with milk) and that amazing Catalan dessert Creme Catalonia (which, in Hotel Duran, has the sugar caramelised under a specially made iron).

That return also brought the planning for Honey's exhibition Honey on Dali, to be staged at Dalicatessen, Figueres, near to the Dali Museum. Our constant returns to the town, were as much a by product of the warmth of the Duran family as they were for Honey's Dali quest. It was indeed fortuitous then, that the one ultimately included the other, in comely Catalonia.

Wispy clouds had masked a slight blue sky. Artist Honey Khor was back sitting, cross-legged, on warm Catalan pavement, dapple shaded by a sapling olive tree. I drank coffee nearby, watching over her as she sketched that elder Figueres Municipal Theatre, gutted by fire at the end of the Spanish Civil War, now re-built and housing all things Dali. That museum’s roof was lined with golden (female) Oscar statuettes, their arms raised in ecstatic jubilation. Symbolic, golden, Figueres bread (pa de crostons) formed a pattern on the crimson shaded wall.

Salvador Dali once wrote (New York: The Bignou Gallery, 1945) 28

Hotel Duran, Figueres, Dining Hall by Honey Khor

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Figueres bread (pa de crostons)

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“Bread, has always been one of the oldest fetishistic and obsessive subjects in my work, the one to which I have remained the most faithful.” Dali was also reputed to say “the bread that I often wear on my head is a hat that I showed up wearing at home when I was six. I emptied out a pan de crostons, a kind of three-pointed Catalan bread, and I put it on my head to amaze my parents.” I idly wondered if that was perhaps because Dali was a staunch Catalan, or because he had the memory of the bread he used when he was six, or because of a repeated sexual metaphor that Salvador Dali used the unique threecornered Catalan bread as a symbol on the walls of his Spanish museum. It was but one of Dali’s many (Freudian) symbols.

Another recurring Dalian symbol was the symbolic Christian egg.

Atop the wall of Dali’s Surrealistic monument stood giant golden eggs. My mind flitted from notions of Sikh Gurdwaras to Roc eggs in tales of Arabian nights, and finally to Easter and the Christian symbolism of the egg as an empty tomb/resurrection/new life.

Slowly I was to understand just why it was that Dali had wanted to be buried in that museum, rather than with his wife Gala, in her Púbol castle.

Unencumbered by her fraying orange straw hat, Honey's eyes flitted from watercolour paper to subject, and back again, in a seemingly endless dance as she guided her fine pointed fibre pen into representations of Figueres. Colour came later. She had gone to Spain to work, to interpret the land of Dali's birth, through her unique rendering of line. It was her way of drinking in the essence of Dali's former home and, perhaps, becoming a little closer to understanding that artist's work.

On a new day, our first full day back to Figueres, a warming morning light graced the square by Carrer de Sant Pere. It was a promise of the summer to come; of the hot dry Catalonian days and balmy nights. With the sun came an excitement, an awakening. Traders were rehearsing for the tumultuous trade the sun brought with it.

Already a trickle of coaches could be seen. Teen school children herded towards the Dali Museum. Soon there would be more. The queue would reach around the block for Dali’s final masterpiece.

Infants with ice creams, parents pink, blotchy, impatient, hot.

Serenaded by St Pere's rapturous church bells, Honey was sat opposite her favourite cafe, the Dalicatessen, partially shaded by a purple leaf plum tree and one of the umbrellas laid out for paying 31

customers. She completed one sketch, intermittently sipping Lemon cerveza (beer) as she shaded a tree with light eggshell blue, to bring out its shape. The work came to life, as a slight breeze caressed the artist, fingering her hair and kissing her skin. It was the perfect season. Summer's heat had not yet browned the green. The sun still smiled a welcome and the temperature, in those long temperate days, remained, then, inviting.

The temperate evening found Honey cross-legged, once more, this time on a paving stone on La Rambla, Figueres. She was sat, sketching Casa Polideseia (1864), it's resplendent antiquity, its facade and balconies. The sun and my camera lens conspired to cast rays upon Honey’s head, her hair coiled into a bun. In Fuzhou, ancient Southern China, married women, or yisao, styled their hair in a bun, tied in the top of the head, Chinese style. This seemed to come as natural to Honey as breathing.

Those early sketches were but a prelude to others around Figueres’ La Rambla, capturing the town's architectural history and lasting splendour. On the roof of Cafe Hotel Paris, no longer a hotel, stood a black and white cow A sculpture, A contemporary surreality in a world blasÊ of surrealism, and one of a herd in different hues, scattered throughout Figueres town. The comfortable evening boasted neither heat nor chill, but wrapped the artist in a clement womb.

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Honey Khor sketching Casa Polideseia, Figueres

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Teatro-Museo Dali (Dali Museum) by Honey Khor

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Back to Dali

Before our arrival back to Figueres, Hotel Duran owner, Señor Lluis Duran Simon, had generously arranged with the Gala Salvador Dali Foundation for Honey to sketch within the TeatroMuseo Dalí (Dali Museum). On what was then a clear day, Honey Khor gathered her Art equipment together, thrust it into her red holdall and stepped out of Hotel Duran. In what remained of the old Municipal Theatre, severely damaged at the end of the Spanish Civil War, Dali had engineered a permanent memorial to his talents.

It is purported to be the world’s largest Surrealist object.

Honey was early, ahead of the queue. She had situated herself in what remained of the old theatre. Charred ends of wooden beams stood out from the stone walls. She dropped her red holdall onto darker red tiles and had began sketching before a potential deluge of child visitors, or rain. More Oscar statuettes, these placed in alcoves, peered down at Honey from between creeping ivy. The ivy latticed the walls of that ruined theatre, bringing a romantic air to those marred walls. The sky was swiftly changing to overcast, as Honey sketched on.

In the fourth version of Dali’s infamous Cadillac-Rainy Taxi, Gala’s former black Cadillac is replete with a monumental statue of a nakedly robust (Persian) Queen Esther (by Ernst Fuchs). She has snail shells in her hair, and is forever chained to a depiction of Trajan’s Column made of black tyres. The original Trajan's Column pillar stands in Trajan's Forum, in Rome, replete with Emperor Trajan’s ashes. The Figueres sculpture is tribute to Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, the first Roman Emperor not to be born in Italy, but Spain, and who held a fascination for Salvador Dali.

Explaining their incarnation of the Dali Rainy Taxi, the GalaSalvador Dali Foundation mentions… "... the famous Cadillac, of which six exist, that Dalí gave Gala as a present. One of them had belonged to President Roosevelt, another to Clark Gable, etc. This is the fourth reproduction of the famous Rainy Taxi, all destroyed by now.

The first was exhibited, with great success, at the surrealist exhibition in Paris, the second at the World Exhibition in New York, and the 36

Cadillac-Rainy Taxi installation

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Courtyard with Cadillac-Rainy Taxi installation by Honey Khor

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third at the surrealist retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The fourth is this one, on permanent exhibition at the Dalí Theatre Museum.”

The taxi, statue and column were topped off by a boat formally belonging to Dali’s Gala, it dripped black drips. Atop the boat’s mast was a black umbrella.

Honey, unperturbed by the stream of school and college children, began her first interior sketches. In the amphitheatre there were more female Oscars, manikins. They stood beseeching, imploring the artist as she stoically sketched. Their Cyclops faces dourly paraded their gilt nakedness before uncomprehending visitors, as the rainy taxi became itself a wash out. It rained. More rain fell on the taxi, scattering the coach parties, than in the taxi, emphasising the genius of Dali’s vision.

It was theatre. All theatre. Dali had orchestrated that his visitors became his audience and actors. It was theatre revealing grotesqueries performing the fighting of bulls and the gigantic backdrop signed Gala Salvador Dali 1947, near the atomic portrait of Abraham Lincoln (viewable for 20 cents, not dollars). Despite the trampling of nearby feet, the endless groups with, perhaps, erudite explanations, Honey drew on, using her Unipin Fine Line pen.

Teatro-Museo Dali (Dali Museum) by Honey Khor

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Cadillac-Rainy Taxi interior

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Dali Mannikins by Honey Khor

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Inside the Theatre by Honey Khor

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Honey Khor sketching at the Dali Museum

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Inside with ‘Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko)’

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Groc

(Yellow)

There’s no train running directly to the small Catalonian village of Púbol. The persistent Dali adventurer, clued up with various maps (and a freshly acquired Spanish SIM card with internet access), is encouraged to ride the Renfe train from Figueres to Flaca.

The journey took roughly sixteen minutes and bypassed fields dotted with rolled hay bales and small stone homesteads. In between there were linear apple orchards soon to be laden with apples, awaiting to be made into Sidra (Spanish cider). Once at Flaca station, we travelled via a gracious Ford-driving Spanish taxi driver, towards the Castell de Púbol or Castell Gala Dalí at Púbol. Salvador Dali's final studio. In the castle garage was Gala’s blue Cadillac, used to take Dali to hospital after the fire which nearly finished him. In the ticket office and courtyard, Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde was playing. Such was Dali’s liking for that fable of the Middle Ages romance that, in 1944, he created the 9 metre -by-15 metre backdrop painting for the ballet production Le Tristan fou (Mad Tristan), inspired by the classic tale Tristan und Isolde. In 1969 Dali created a series of 21 ‘drypoint’ etchings of Tristan und Isolde.

That reconstructed castle, which had stood in one form or another since the 11th century, is now also a tomb for Gala. The building is adjacent to a church, as was the custom for Catalan nobility in the past. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domènech (Salvador Dali) had married Elena Ivanovna Diakonova (Gala) in a civil marriage, in Paris, 1934. After a special dispensation from the Roman Catholic Pope, due to Gal’s previous marriage to the poet Paul Éluard, Dali and Gala had their religious marriage ceremony at la Capella de la Mare de Deu dels Angels, in Sant Martí Vell, near Púbol, in 1958. Ten years later Dali bought the Gothic–Renaissance house at Púbol as a separate place for Gala. Later, Dali was to become Marquis of Dalí and Púbol.

Dali had written his thoughts on the Púbol castle in Comme On Devient Dalí” (1973, aka Unspeakable Confessions Salvador Dali)…..

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PĂşbol corn field

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Image of Gala and writing by Paul Eluard, wall display Castle Gala Dali, PĂşbol

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Dali's Bust de Dona Retrospectiu (Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933/1976-1977)

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“That is why I gave her the twelfth-century castle in which she reigns, and which I shall not speak of, for I have meant her to be its absolute sovereign – to the point that I go there only when invited in her own hand. It was enough that I decorated the ceilings so that whenever she looks up she finds me in her heaven.”

Inside that large reconstructed house, radiators were doors and doors were stone alcoves. Gala had been, without doubt, Queen if not Empress in her castle. Even her husband, the notorious Salvador Dali, would have to seek written permission to visit with her. Honey, in her simple, yet elegant, blue cotton dress, sat in a crimson room with black and white chequered floor, sketching Dali's Bust de Dona Retrospectiu (Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933/1976-1977).

Outside, in the gardens, fig leaves and their memories of Figueres battled with pale blue lavender for attention, energetic ivy strangled rock walls and a cool Catalan breeze took the heat out of the day.

As Honey sketched, I discovered one place, down a slim footpath, past sculptures of Dali's leggy elephants, in which a fountain bubbled and shone in the sun. Busts not of Handel, but Dali and Gala's favourite composer, Richard Wagner, graced the fountain's surroundings, reflected in the small pool. Intrigued, I watched as shade dappled the small reservoir. Listening to multiple bird song and a mellow pigeon cooingly grateful not to be on Dali's Catalan table. There were Martins or Swallows swooping from castle eaves, and the constant chatter of finches and sparrows. For a moment, away from the town and city, that rural garden was an idyll, a unique haven before the tourist onslaught.

Nearby, in Púbol, with visas of ripe, golden corn, the Restaurant de Púbol Can Bosch served up a surprisingly subtle soup, a potent cheese pork dish and an extremely likeable lemon sorbet along with coffee and Font Vella mineral water. Honey’s sketching of Púbol Castle barely ceased over her meal. Her sleek fibre pen glided across her high white Monologue Sketch pad, revealing the intricacies of her line and the castle's form. The following day, Sunday, Honey spent colouring sketches and I, writing. Catalan rains proved the perfect excuse to catch up on work, in the spacious room provided

by Hotel Duran.

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Honey Khor’s sketch of Dali's Retrospective Bust of a Woman

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Dali’s Elephant sculpture in the castle grounds

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Dali’s Richard Wagner fountain

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Blau

(Blue)

Dali’s dear friend, the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, in his Ode to Salvador Dali (1926) has written Cadaqués, at the fulcrum of water and hill, lifts flights of stairs and hides seashells.

Wooden flutes pacify the air.

An ancient woodland god gives the children fruit.

Her fishermen sleep dreamless on the sand.

On the high sea a rose is their compass.

The horizon, virgin of wounded handkerchiefs, links the great crystals of fish and moon.

A hard diadem of white brigantines encircles bitter foreheads and hair of sand.

The sirens convince, but they don't beguile, and they come if we show a glass of fresh water.

After a tasty Middle Eastern lamb cous cous at Pintxo’s Bar, near the Figueres bus station, we boarded the Sarbus to Cadaqués.

Cadaqués is part of the northern Spanish headland known as El Cap de Creus (a national park), and was a former up-market resort once rivalling the French Cannes. Cadaqués had also been the haunt of Pablo Picasso (1910), Andre Derain (1913) Salvador Dali and a whole host of Spanish writers and painters, but some years on was slowly loosing its allure. The hour long bus journey wound through rural roads, leading through Roses and over the Pyrenees, skirting mountains and presenting budding olive grove vistas for those brave enough to look. While I was both fascinated and repelled by the height, Honey undertook the entire mountain 58

Cadaqués

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From the Balcony of Hostal Cristina, CadaquĂŠs

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Dali standing statue, beach front, CadaquĂŠs

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journey with eyes closed, growing paler with each wind in the road.

The circuitous route eventually gave glimpses of white and blue draped Cadaqués, as it embraced the hallowed waters of the Mediterranean. That town’s blessed blue sky, known locally as the Blauet de Cadaqués, reflects a blue seen nowhere else. After obligatory photos and stunningly swift bread-stealing seagulls, we were able to amble the alleyways down towards Cadaqués bay.

There we took our brief rest in Hostal Cristina, opposite the two Salvador Dali statues.

The rest was necessarily brief. Honey rose to the challenge of sketching Cadaqués iridescent waters and bountiful bougainvillaea.

She began walking sketches of alleyways using A5, Daler Rowney, Aguafine, Watercolour paper as we ambled cobbled streets, Honey interpreting the town's beauty as she went. The charm had not left Cadaqués. It is no wonder that Catalan writer Joseph Pla i Casadevall (Joseph Pla) wrote numerous books dedicated to that town.

A bright new day brought chill 6 am breezes from off the sea and the chuckles of yet more seagulls. The infamous Tramuntana wind, known to have driven one Figueres shoemaker mad, would not arrive until winter. Cadaqués's humanity was barely awake but bird life darted and soared in the frequent Summer gusts. After a short while, as light was barely breaking, joggers jogged and an assortment of brave individuals had begun promenading along the brightening seafront. Honey awoke to begin another day sketching.

Taking her red carry-all bag, sunglasses and assorted sketch pads, we breakfasted at Cafe Bar Casino before walking the four and a half kilometres to Port Lligat and the former home of Salvador Dali.

After some time walking, a chilled lemon beer helped take the sting out of travelling the wrong road (following the tourist map in Spanish). Nonchalantly, Honey had eased herself into a tubular chair, corrected our direction with Google Maps and had begun sketching small craft in the picaresque bay. Plastic buoys dotted the rippling water like bright red cherry tomatoes and overly large yellow olives. Honey, as it turned out, was hungry. Freshly caught seafood aromas drifted from the small bar restaurant - Xiringuito de la Mei (Mei’s Bar), along Carrer de Ses Oliveres, making the idea of an 11am lunch a little sinful, but warmly welcome. We knew Señor Dali was not to be at home to open the door, therefore our tardiness was to go unnoticed, and Mei's cooking was to be most welcome.

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From the Balcony of Hostal Cristina, CadaquĂŠs by Honey Khor

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We trekked out into the Catalonian sunshine and welcome sea breezes as we finally headed towards Port Lligat. We stopped, briefly, at the 18th century Saint Baldiri Church, to catch our breath, savouring the church’s peace, calm and most of all its shade. From there, past dauntingly large aloe vera succulents, small wild dill plants and orchards of almond trees, it was all largely downhill, literally, until we reached Dali's home. From the road we could see the orchards of olives, planted by Dali, at the back of his former home. It has since become a museum, near Port Lligat. In his youth, Salvador Dali had shown his fondness for olives when he painted Cadaqués (1923) olive trees and the fishing town of Cadaqués in the background, while two years earlier (1921) Dali had painted Olive Tress Landscape of Cadaques, in the same year (1921) that Lorca’s Ode recalled Dali’s voice as “olive-coloured”

By Dali’s house/museum, amidst the inescapable heady scent of salted prawns cooking, sea breezes and all the romanticism of all things maritime, Honey diligently raised felt-tip to paper. She began sketching the seemingly endless blue vistas of the Mediterranean Sea, smiling at prior visits to Dali's house, the kindness of friends from Figueres, and her first taste of blackberries.

Honey confidentiality captured small sea craft and the olive straddled hills so beloved of Salvador Dali. Between sketches, drawing, Honey sat gazing at the sea’s multiple blues. Port Lligat's sky was ever changing and highlighted the impressively majestic rock formations which had held a lasting inspiration for Dali.

As the day wore on, we once again gathered our things; Honey her red bag, sketch pads and pens, me my writing tablet then, full of thought and walked back to the white-walled sea-side town of Cadaqués.

Honey's exhibition launch was drawing near. It was a breathtaking, not to say nausea inducing, bus ride back through winding mountain roads at breakneck speed, on the 7 am Sarbus from Cadaqués to Roses, and then on to Figueres. On our return to Figueres, we visited the Dalicatessen to begin arranging Honey’s watercolour sketches for the coming exhibition. Dalicatessen owner Martí Dacosta had been kind enough to, once again, house Honey's exhibition and lend support for her enterprise. The rest of the day was spent finishing artworks, framing, and beginning hanging the framed pieces in readiness for the Friday opening. The evening 66

CadaquĂŠs colourful back alley by Honey Khor

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Towards CadaquĂŠs bay by Honey Khor

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Antique porr贸n at Hotel Duran

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brought good cheer, new friends and Honey learning to drink Port in the Catalan way - from a porrón.

The English writer George Orwell was not a fan of the porrón. In Homage to Catalonia Orwell wrote " A porrón is a sort of glass bottle with a pointed spout from which a thin jet of wine spurts out whenever you tip it up; you can thus drink from a distance, without touching it with your lips, and it can be passed from hand to hand. I went on strike and demanded a drinking-cup as soon as I saw a porrón in use. To my eye the things were altogether too like bed-bottles, especially when they were filled with white wine."

Señor Duran, whose Hotel it was, assisted Honey. I, like Orwell, deferred. A waiter pointed to an ageing photograph of Dali using a porrón, at Hotel Duran. "See", he said, "Señor Dali had his finger over the opening." Honey smiled her biggest smile. I laughed. There is another photo, of Dali, on a beach with Luis Buñuel, in 1929, where a seemingly reluctant Dali is being forced to drink from a porrón, perhaps Dali too had Orwell’s reluctance.

Honey Khor and the porrón

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Dali pretending to drink from the porr贸n at Hotel Duran

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" A porr贸n pointed sp spurts out thus drink it with you hand to ha a drinking use. To my e like bed-bo filled with

n is a sort of glass bottle with a pout from which a thin jet of wine t whenever you tip it up; you can k from a distance, without touching ur lips, and it can be passed from and. I went on strike and demanded g-cup as soon as I saw a porr贸n in eye the things were altogether too ottles, especially when they were h white wine."

George Orwell

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Verd

(Green)

At the insistence of Señor Duran, his cheeky smile and twinkling eyes, we were persuaded to escape the Dali triangle. In Señor Duran’s ageing Audi, all three of us adventured to what was once a grand Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes.

There we marvelled at antiquity Honey was unable to experience in Malaysia. The Monastery’s origins went as far back as the 6th century, but over time had changed, developed, through the 9th century onwards. The once ecclesiastical buildings had become preserved for visitors, and for posterity. We were able to sample the cool of the Monastery's stone interior, climbing towers and witnessing breathtaking sites across to El Cap de Creus and the Mediterranean Sea. Honey encountered herbs she only seen in delicatessens in Malaysia. Sage bushes, which occasionally appeared in small supermarket pots in Publika, grew in that Monastery’s grounds.

Rosemary, one of Honey’s favourite herbs when served on roasted vegetables and/or chicken, grew there too. She brushed her hand against the bush, savouring the smell of Rosemary oil on her fingers. Dill, the fish herb was grew and many varieties of Mint too. Along the mountain road grew Sloe trees, from which the English are sometimes known to make Gin as well as Elderberry bushes from which wine cab be made. Brambles, then in flower, would eventually become Honey’s favourite Blackberries in a later month. Budding Olive trees sheltered us from the dry fierceness of the Catalonian sun, as Honey gazed, fascinated, down the steep mountain of Verdera. It was a wholly other, welcoming, world.

Honey Khor, from humid South East Asia and lands of Rainforest, rarely ventured too far in heat and yet, the Catalonian evening encouraged adventurousness amidst the swooping of swallows and the magical business of bees collecting honey.

From that partially restored Monastery we were driven, in Señor Duran's old white Audi, down a narrow pathway on the west side of the mountain, round and round, and down to see the hermitage of Sant Onofre, known locally as La Capella de Sant Onofre. That 74

Blackberry flowers, Catalonia

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Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes

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The Cloisters at Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes

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Honey Khor at Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes

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La Capella de Sant Onofre

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freshly white painted building proudly toted a Catalan flag. It was a sanctuary located some 400 meters above sea level, doubling as both place of hermitage, and small church. Inside the hermitage was evidence of recent use, but out of respect it was free from rubbish and the usual human discards. The hermitage was a place of quiet.

Meditative. Replete with a sculptured Dali baguette cloud floating in the serenely blue Mediterranean sky. From the seaward side of the building it was a sheer drop down the mountain. The other side, now accessible only by a car's width makeshift road, there had once been a pathway, located amidst thick forests of oaks, cypress and ancient pine trees, populated by bears, wolves and wild boar.

La Capella de Sant Onofre by Honey Khor

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Blanc

(White)

The big day had arrived at the Figueres Dalicatessen. All of Honey's sketches were either framed, or displayed in neat plastic covers.

Dignitaries from Figueres, local and international artists, sketchers and well-wishers flocked to attend Honey's opening. Some had been friends of Se単or Dali when he was alive, others were friends of friends of Dali. All admired Honey's line and watercolour work, to the extent that many watercolours were sold on the spot. It was gratifying to see those weeks of hard work pay off. The Catalonian sun had shined, once more, on her blessed adopted daughter and all was right in Honey's world.

As the tourist season drew ever nearer and the Night of Sant Juan came and went, we became busy, readying ourselves for the long flight home to Malaysian family and friends. It had been a wildly exciting trip, full of love and new friendships, but time had caught us up and we, tearfully, bade farewells to all those we had grown to love.

People had appeared, as if from the eternally blue sky, to walk into our lives and along our path, instantaneously connecting with us. People who were strangers became like old friends, such was the strength of feelings Catalonia had brought us. Through her painting and sketching Honey Khor had grown to know Figueres and Catalonia a little more. Through my questing and writing I too learned. Part of Catalonia would forever stay in our hearts as we begin settle, once more, into our humid South East Asian environment.

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Honey Khor readying for her exhibition at the Dalicatessen

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Editor Martin Bradley

Honey Khor with Mr Lluis Duran

An opening with digitaries from Figueres, Girona, and international artist friends

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Azucena Moya

José Gerson

Engie Engelart

Martí Dacosta

Honey Khor with Joaquima Juanola and Mr Lluis Duran

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with thanks to.....

Dalicatessen CafĂŠ Bar Carrer Sant Pere, 19, 17600 Figueres, Girona, Spain 96

Duran Hotel & Restaurant Carrer Lasauca, 5, 17600 Figueres, Girona, Spain 97

Spanish newspapers and Television

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poems for

by Martin Bradley

Gaudi's Breath

She walks in Gaudi’s breath Miro strides Dali time sangria tartness of Spanish red wine A wild gypsy free taking her fill strolling with Picasso drinking life deep.

She’s Aphrodite, Venus, Eurydice sauntering boulevards a mandala child paint bright charcoal acuarela angel of paper/canvas.

In my tropical dreams our equatorial hills, I wish her Free, gliding soaring one day to return home to me

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catalonia until you return

And I have no thing when you are no longer here the children are silent the dog muffled even the sun seems somehow listless hesitant the moon hides her face too ashamed to peek between the clouds birds cease their singing the breeze is muted.

You are journeying distant lands seeing new sights while my sight becomes ever dimmer the more I look into the space where you are not it is as if my soul too has departed slipped inside your red suitcase to keep you safe while I remain empty until you return

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Alone

‘Twas on a summer afternoon my love left amidst the calling of sky so Brilliant sun so radiant breezes so seductive.

I know not where she went somewhere amidst olive trees hazel fig Perhaps she drank in scents of Anise rosemary bay and downed sangria or fine Catalonian wines She slipped out unseen when shadows moved church bells chimed she eased out into antiquity earnestness solidity Alone I shelter from imagined storms under

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plentiful trees dreams of Sunflowers musing of sweet blackberry kisses.

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Placa De La Palmera

Boy in bright blue trainers kicks equally bright blue cigarette packet across placa evening couples saunter beneath towering pale blotched trees. evening breezes ripple fountain angry Spanish voices sound tree leaves quiver a nervous dance to the coming darkness.

Men, young baseball caps inverted, carry Dali bread perhaps unaware of artistic statements.

Pre-dusk sparrows glide to waiting trees chorussing imminent close of day a half cheroot rests extinguished in crack of stone half covered with bird lime.

Sunglasses redundant

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raised to balding heads walkers purposeful in their strides breeze billows costumes of Arabic women fountain sprays watering indolent flora ravenous but silent

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Blackberry Dances

Blackberry dances anise florets towering olive green vine of grape eggshell sky cloud swan down tan of Honey Breeze gelato Lemon Madeline swish skirt pup petite cobble mirth young Lluis short jeans bounces for breakfast

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Touching

we touch I am your fingers you are my clay becoming one touching me touching you you are my creation I am yours blossoming together this day with the sound of sweet birds bursting into sunlight and the memories of night.

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Ode to Pilipit

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Memory is taste taste is memory I still sense the sweetness of you on my tongue soft brittle like a Sunday morning saucing my mouth with your flavour robust yet gentle like a Saturday night my taste is my memory my memory is my taste

Colours of Figueres

Figueres colour dances doused agua fuelling bright flame cadmium tomato scarlet lake strawberry ice skies azure verdant olive Burnt Sienna Hazels Gamboge Lake Extra flowers of the sun and Honey

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Cadaques

Your scent of sea Cerveza bathers of porcine propotions transposed with tourists in the season before blackberry olive in a time of sun queues paella.

Sol bleeds red to shoulders necks too thickened to comprehend the kernel of beauty found in silence. evening cloud creams previously blue sky Muslim moon pale silvery peeps and disappears as in antiquity.

Costa slips toward grey of twilight sea indistinguishable from sky.

The artist draws her bow of squirrel brush and shoots the writer through his Art.

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Beware the backpacker My son

Beware the backpacker my son with their half eaten bread empty plastic water bottles and scarves that dangle.

Beware the new age traveller the unmade faces hair akimbo legs unshaven.

Beware the new age traveller and their smiling ways that beguile and mislead.

Beware the freedom seeker their dangerous youth original ideas.

Beware the freedom seeker and the artisan, the artist and the poet for ideas are dangerous my son and spread like maggots in meat.

Beware the tinker and the thinker leading down foreign alleys beware them and curse them as you would The freedom striving backpacker Beware the backpacker My son.

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ripples

Slight breeze tugs leaves shaddow dappled ripples lake of grass sprites attempt exit from trees causing trunks to bulge like mime artist You carry the lie of the birdpark on your tongue I carry the truth of the birdpark in my heart I smile as sun shaddow dapples you cry Is it because of roasted thrushes decapitated larks naked rabbits and green parrots angry at placid pigeons sweet and sour black and green olives August evening Antique stone buildings feed entranced Eyes

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contemporary water Babies bathe in agua meditation.

A toast to Cervantes?

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room 101

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I want to be the mustachioed man in room 101 spin gold into elephants pearls as teeth sofas as lips paint with octopus the sweet pink of Gala's nipple set giraffes afire and muse at the fluidity of time.

I want to dance the dance of near insanity create tablecloths of drawings feed 200 with taste of bull I want to be illusion delusion spectre and jackanape draw with Disney and cock a snoop at Breton I want to grow trees in boats salute with Cava eat thrushes, larks fill taxis full of rain yet if I cannot be so real if I cannot be at Port Lligat I must write the poem about the man who was the mustachioed man in room 101.

slow cups

You drink slow cups chocolate coffee eat slow ice creams that melt and drip like so many Dali watches over your pendulous bouncing breasts made red

by Costa sun you breathe your tanin smoke sip lemon beer and think perhaps all painters are mad the sane painter paints behind the window you dare not look in for her sanity reveals your madness.

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art talk Figueres

WITH MARTIN BRADLEY

Original photograph by MartĂ­ Dacosta

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Figueres Public Library

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Martin Bradley with Honey Khor, Nati Vilanova and Azucena Moya

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Biblioteca Fages de Climent Plaรงa del Sol, 11, 17600 Figueres, Girona, Spain

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with thanks to Nati Vilanova of Biblioteca Fages de Climent, Figueres and MartĂ­ da Costa of Dalicatessen

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Catalonia by the Girona Urban Sketchers

Les Carboneres, Llançà by Teresa Giménez

Urban Sketchers is a group of artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and the places they travel. Visit our main blog at urbansketchers. org.

Contact Girona Urban Sketchers at this address: girona.urbansketchers@gmail.com 127

Badia de Roses by Teresa GimĂŠnez

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Institut del Teatre Barcelona by Montse Fando

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Platja del canadell.Calella by Toni Xifre

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Sant Felix Girona by David Pradas

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I walk up to Sant Sebastià. A beautiful afternoon.

The sinuous ribbon of road draws the loveliest afternoon light. I hear someone chopping wood in the distance. A donkey brays in a remote spot.

A black-and-white magpie jumps over the green alfalfa. When I walk past Ros, I think, as I always do: I wish I owned Ros, the vineyard and the pinewood. By the hermitage, total solitude.

Opposite Calella, boats—bobbing like walnuts— fish for squid. Two brigs appear on the Italian horizon, driven by a northeasterly wind. The sea is purple-edged beneath the hermitage terrace.

Far out at sea, opposite Tamariu, another sailing ship is returning. A crabbing boat sails slowly by Cape Begur. An empty steamer passes arrogantly by, very close to land, spitting large mouthfuls of water overboard in fits and starts—like a dog barking. The water on the horizon turns deep violet; the water by the strip of land darkens. We circle the hermitage, marvelling, awestruck. The afternoon seems in limbo, abstracted from time—a creation of the mind. If I could imagine or create another world, it would be a world like this.

From Josep Pla’s The Gray Notebook translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush.

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Casa del drac olot by David Pradas

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Girona catedral by Toni Xifre

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Girona by Toni Xifre

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Girona by Ton Casas

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Begur vista panorĂ mica by Lluis Bruguera

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PĂşbol by Montse Mallorqui

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Bascara by Robert Pla

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L Estartit by Robert Pla

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Girona Urban Sketchers visiting Honey Khor’s exhibition at the Dalicatessen, Figueres

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Zhe Xuan Fine Art Gallery D-60-2 Jalan C180/1 Dataran C180 43200 Cheras Selangor Malaysia contact May Lai 016 605 5592 email maylai69@outlook.com

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Millefeuilles of vegetables with creamy yogurt source and moustache of glazed flatbread

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Surreal Tastes

by Martin Bradley

In the Summer of 2015, I made my way back to George Orwell and Ernest Hemmingway's Catalonia. It had been two years since I was last in northern Spain and I was excited to renew old friendships in the town of Figueres. It was in Hotel Duran that I was made aware of an exciting gastronomic initiative, Tastets Surrealistes.

Beneath an impossibly blue Spanish sky, breezes which swept the heat from the Summer solstice and shadows that seemed to comprehend just where to fall, the Figueres Sunday demonstrated what Sunday's were always meant to be about; ease.

Set back, inland, from the more infamous beaches of the Costa Brava, Figueres is all those tourist traps are not - elegant, stately, somewhat gentile and, ultimately, a place to sit, rest and write. There is a creative ambience in Figueres. An unmistakable air which nurtured Salvador Dali, perhaps its most famous son, and attracted numerous artists and writers over the years, including Catalonia's most renown writer Joseph Pla (Joseph Pla i Casadevall), who has a park named after him (Plaça Joseph Pla).

In its third year, Tastets Surrealistes (Figueres), was a month long culinary initiative in which twenty six local restaurants participated to demonstrate an on-going gastronomic connection to Salvador Dali, and the Surrealist movement. During the first outing, the initiative had featured only fifteen restaurants, of varying quality. Times have changed, and more people have come round to the sheer brilliance of the idea of mock Surrealist food.

In a bid to out do the success of Tapas in Barcelona, the more northern town of Figueres has developed a unique gastronomic alternative.

Overseen by Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (the Dali Foundation), authentic connections to Salvador Dali and Surrealism have been ensured in the construction of a range of dishes for Tastets Surrealistes. Over three years, the success of those events had brought more interest from both customers and restaurants, so much so that in 2015 the event excelled beyond all expectation.

Dali linked Hotel Duran continued to participate in Tastets Surrealistes.

The hotel began entertaining Catalans as a restaurant from 1910, while the original building dates back to a coach house in 1855. The present owner, Lluis Duran Jnr, met Salvador Dali when he was very young, as his father, Lluis Duran Snr. was a close friend and school mate of the Surrealist. Dali had dined in Hotel Duran since his school days, brought by his father, 157

Chef at Hotel Duran with their offering for Tastets surrealistes

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Crunchy young garlic, tail of shrimp, romesco sauce

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and had met Lluis Duran Snr. there. Some years later, while living in Port Lligat as a young artist, Dali would visit Figueres on Thursdays, market day. Hotel Duran became the meeting place for Dali and his friends, to save them the exhaustingly winding road mountain trip, to Port Lligat.

In 2015 Hotel Duran was offering six intriguing tastes in the Tastets Surrealistes series, to tease and tantalise the gastronome's palate. It began with La metamorfosi de la cirera i les seves microesferes (The metamorphosis of the cherry and its microspheres) which was constructed of iced Kir Royal with cherry pearls, followed by La sardina que va ser testimoni de l'Odissea d'Ulisses (Sardines who witnessed the Odyssey of Ulysses) which is Tartare of tomato, marinated sardine, basil oil; L'all tendre que enrampa una gamba (The garlic shrimp than a cramp), Crunchy young garlic, tail of shrimp, Romesco sauce; El cistell de pa que no és de pa (The basket of bread is not bread), Crunchy wafer of parmesan, quail egg and potato foam; Construcció tova de vedella amb ceba dolça i vi espès (Soft Construction of beef with sweet onion and thick wine), Succulent beef, onion jam, wine toffee; La morfologia del bigoti i l'espectre de les verdures en capes (The morphology of the moustache and the spectrum of layered vegetables); Millefeuilles of vegetables with creamy yogurt source and moustache of glazed flatbread, with Cervesa Inedit / Inedit beer. Hotel Duran's current manager, Ramon Duran (great grandson of the founder), recommended a light white wine with the six tastes, perhaps followed by a dessert such as their Creme Brûlée ice cream which, indeed, has to be eaten to be believed. I ate, I believed.

One of the other twenty six outstanding restaurants, curiously on Avenue Salvador Dali, which had featured Tastets Surrealistes, was Txot's Sidreria, their speciality - Catalonian cider. Txot's Sidreria’s sequence of Tastets Surrealistes began with Cava a L'andalusa (The Andalusian Cava) a clear, champagne like gazpacho soup in a fluted glass. It was made from ripe tomato, cucumber, garlic, onion, pepper, bread, water and salt, and had that fizz of the Spanish Champagne known as Cava. It was my first venture into Tastets Surrealistes. I was apprehensive, not knowing just what I was being offered. Tentatively I smelled the glass. Tomatoes. It was the Catalan cold soup, gazpacho, but so light and fizzing and barely recognisable as such. It was a most impressive start to the sequence. Next came the black slate platter with Mirada ibérica (Look Ibérica), with two very surreal eyeballs constructed of melon, Iberian ham, onion, bread, sugar and lemon. At first it was a little daunting, reminding me of Dali 161

Txot’s Sidreria offering for Tastets surrealistes

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Melon, Iberian ham, onion, bread, sugar, lemon

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and Brunuel's film Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1929) but a lot of fun to eat. Cornetto de false maduixa (Cornetto of false strawberry) was made from salt-cod brandade, piquillo peppers and wafer, with the strawberry looking like blood; Els Crustacea Posen ous? 0 bombes?

(The Crustacea lays eggs? 0 bombs?) featuring an anarchist type bomb skewered by a stick containing a prawn, king prawns, potato, flour and olive oil. Txot's burguesa amb foiermigues (translated as Txot's bourgeois with foiermigues), was a mini beef hamburger with foie and false ants (black sesame seeds), and, as a dessert Músic d'esponja amb garnatxa de l'Empordà (Musician sponge Grenache Empordà), featuring a foam of Grenache wine, cream and egg and soft bread made from flour and dried fruits. It was a tantalising end to a small, yet fascinating degustation menu. Seeing and tasting those small surrealistic bites could not have been more apt than in the setting of Dali's Figueres, the town where he was born, and died. I look forward to seeing what the restaurants can come up with next year.

The local event literature mentions that a total of 26 establishments were inspired by the surreality of Salvador Dali, and that they presented their ingenious food interpretations along with a local beer, suggesting that "Figueres is working hard to recover its gastronomic expression and it is doing so for the third year running by means of an up-to-date proposal: tapas or tastets." The event took place from the 11th of June to the 11th of July, 2015, and was partially sponsored by Inèdit beer. Menus of the six tastes ranged from €12.00 to €18.00.

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King prawns, potato, flour, olive oil

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Beef hamburger with foie and false ants

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Books by ..........Martin

Bradley

Remembering Whiteness and other Poems poetry collection

Buffalo & Breadfruit

Uniquely Toro

Cambodia Chill

artist retrospective

book length illustrated poem

Malim Nawar Morning book length illustrated poem

Cambodia Diary

The Journey and Beyond community phramacy in Malaysia

Honey Khor Scintillating Images poetry and illustration

poetry and prose

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travelogue

A Story of Colors of Cambodia travelogue

dusun nurture yourself with

asian arts and culture emagazine

Dusun publications 169

CAMBODIA CHINA

WITH MARTIN BRADLEY

MALAYSIA PHILIPPINES SPAIN 170