El món de la Núria (@alataula.catalanhomecooking on Instagram) revolves, literally, around cooking. Only the passion for (good) food and all the experiences that surround it could make her take a plane and return from New York 16 years later, where she worked as a graphic designer. Spending a day in her kitchen workshop in Barcelona (alataula.com), which is her own house, is a real sensory journey where you connect the palate, in a natural way, to the experiences, to the neck and to the heart. And that is why you will never see her measuring ingredients. Cooking, for her, is more intuition and less calculation: it is culture, family and tradition. We sit at the table, and between courses, she talks about her vocation and recent projects.
Tell us about yourself and your work. Where did your vocation begin? Any early memories?
I feel that I have many vocations that intertwine and support each other, but specifically the vocation of cooking comes from family memories with a deep appreciation for cooking and the act of eating. My mother's cooking filled my mother's pantry, and continues to do so, with all the necessary nutrients, but also her mind, with enthusiasm and the desire to celebrate the pleasure of eating.
The decision to study cooking, after years of working as a graphic designer in New York, came when I started cooking for my partner. When I was cooking for myself I adapted to the results, I survived, but when I had to do it for someone else, I felt a vital need to learn, to return to those memories of family meals.
What do you enjoy most about your job? Is there a job you are particularly proud of?
I love teaching, sharing my knowledge of family cooking, inspiring people to cook more at home, and I love the ingredients we use. I love connecting with people and exchanging experiences in the kitchen or in life in general while we cook together. Each cooking class is different, just as each person, couple or family group that comes to the class is different. For me it is very important that they not only learn how to make certain dishes, techniques, tricks, etc., but also that they experience a very special moment of connection between them, and that they remember this experience as a very special day of their trip to Barcelona.
Em vaig sentir molt prouda quan el 2019 vaig rebre el Tripadvisor Certificate of Excellence. To be happy to all the wonderful people who set aside half a day of their trip to cook with me and learn about Catalan cuisine makes me very, very happy too.
How is your creative process? What are your sources of inspiration? Any special music while you work?
I literally submerge myself in a pile of books; enjoy meals with family or friends and meals in restaurants; shopping at the market and asking lots of questions; constant research on the internet; travelling with curiosity; learning in various courses; hours and hours of cooking for everyday meals tasted by my nine-year-old daughter (we don't always share what we like and I have a few niggles...). All that I mention, and more, is part of my source of inspiration and of my creative process.
When I am creating a recipe, I like to listen to very relaxing music. Music that fills the silence, but doesn't disturb the calm I need to create. I can listen to anything from acoustic music to music with natural sounds that bring me a lot of calm.
Oh, by the way: when I'm cooking and not concentrating on creating and writing a recipe, I love listening to podcasts. I'm currently listening to "Feel Better, Live More" with Dr Rangan Chatterjee. It keeps me company, and inspires me.
Favourite colour, book, film and record. In that order! ;D
Ostres, how difficult to choose... As for the colours, I won't choose because each colour has its own nuance that makes it very special and beautiful.
Wild Swans: Three daughters of Chinaby Jung Chang. A real, personal, human and historical story.
Blue in the Faceby Wayne Wang and Paul Auster. The film that planted the seed of my desire to live in New York. My dream was to live in Brooklyn, but after 16 years I never lived there. C'est la vie!
Pel que fa al disc, suposo que he escoltat mooooltes vegades els Tribalistas...
Does your home reflect who you are? Tell us what it smells like, your favourite spot, your favourite decorative object or piece of furniture... And if you have a pet, introduce it!
The smell of the food I cook, the smell of fried barley predominates. I love being on the terrace, and eating there when it's spring and it's sunny. The decorative objects I like the most are the plants and I treasure the kitchen utensils. Our pet until now has been Aina, my daughter, ha, ha! Noooo, it's a joke... It's Naleta, a beautiful little rabbit with very efficient long ears to clean the dust from the corners of the house. She's very sweet and makes us very happy! 😉
If you could buy anything right now and take it home, what would it be? Anything!
A professional camera to be able to take gastronomic photos and quality portraits.
A "planazo" at home always includes...
Laugh a lot, good food, and laugh a lot again.
Do you have any star plat?
Each dish has its own opportunity to be enjoyed depending on the person who tastes it. Some people have flipped over a dish of mandonguilles with syrup, and others over a dish with romesco sauce and a seasonal vegetable. In fact, I just remembered a family from Chicago, five girls and their mother, who was in her forties. They came for a cooking class and asked me to cook a paella and to accompany it we made, as a tapa, a plate of cigars with Catalan-style spinach. My mother liked it so much that I gave her a glass jar with preserved langoustines. It was wrapped up as if it were her greatest treasure. The girls weren't very happy about it because they're not allowed to bring food to the United States, but I suppose that's one of the good things about being in your nineties: absolute passivity.
Where is your favourite place in your city? And abroad?
Els Jardins de la Universitat de Barcelona, sitting on a bench under the trees, drinking La Valenciana orxata.
I won't mention a place in New York because it's also home to me, but I will mention a place in London. When I lived there for a year, I loved going to a place called Petersham Nurseries. It's an Eden where, by chance, they serve food.
Anything you want to comment on that we haven't asked you? Speak now or forever hold your peace!
Sharing the arrival of a recipe from my aunt and accompanying it with a recipe created by me, sharing knowledge, cooking and eating together is what makes me enjoy cooking classes so much. It creates a special bond with people connected by the experience and by the recipes, which, as living elements, will be interpreted differently, depending on who cooks them, evolving and building new memories in different family nuclei.
I am working on a book that will be a collection of my mother's recipes. While working on this project I am surprised at how many childhood memories are linked to the memories of dishes that my mother used to cook for us....
Thank you and bon profit! 🙂
Spending a day at Núria's cooking workshop in Barcelona is a real sensory journey where you connect the palate, in a natural way, to the experiences, the neck and the heart. That is why you will never see her measuring ingredients. Cooking, for her, is more intuition and less calculation: it is culture, family and tradition.
