El Bulli going on un sabbatical

This is what happens when you get a sinus infection: You feel miserable all the time because you can't breathe and the stuff clogging up your nose is too terrifying to even dwell upon, and you finally go to the doctor because your cold is getting worse by the hour. You start taking antibiotics that are the size of horse tranquilizers, which almost immediately clear up the horrors in your sinuses but which wreak havoc on your stomach and kill your taste buds, so that the only things that appeal to you in terms of food are soup, pasta, crackers, and cereal. Also, you can't drink for 10 days. And during that time, you don't put anything on your food blog because cooking consists of preparing a bowl of cereal and pouring ginger ale into a glass.

And now, friends, now I am finally off the antibiotics and getting back into the swing of enjoying, among other things, breathing through my nose and eating from all four major food groups. So here I am! Do excuse my absence; it's inexcusable, on one level, but on another, I feel like I owed myself a break while I was sick.

I am finally going to share the recipe for braised endive and ham that Jeremy and I tried and enjoyed so much, and I'll also include a recipe for a really tasty endive salad, but I don't have them in front of me at the moment so they will come later this week. Right now I wanted to share the news that El Bulli, Ferran Adrià's restaurant (possibly the most renonwned restaurant in the world right now), is closing, at least for two years for a "period of reflection."

Never mind that the restaurant is only currently open 6 months out of the year. Never mind that it is nearly impossible to get reservations to dine there because they only accept them during ONE DAY of the year. Now it will be even twice as impossible to get to eat there. I understand and appreciate that the restaurant is more than just an eatery, it's a place of food experimentation and learning, and this is why I want to go there so badly. Many great chefs have worked under Adrià's tutelage and have gone on to do amazing and creative things with food. But it just saddens me to think that in my lifetime, my chances of actually getting to eat there are extremely slim (while I am extremely not), and are probably going to be even slimmer thanks to this temporary closing. Because honestly, who knows if two years might not just slip into three, and then four, and then more?

We'll see. A girl can dream. Is it so lofty a goal to want to eat at the best restaurant in the world? Is it bad that I feel slightly more entitled to eat there because I happen to be Spanish? Sigh.