Field Notes: April 25, 2023

It was touch and go. Would my Covid be gone by the time my flight boarded to Spain? Lucky me. It was a flash trip, a luxurious decision to book my ticket for a short 4 days in Catalunya for a party. But, but I’ll tell you about that.

We had booked into a postage stamp of an Airbnb at Sant Feliu de Guixól. That’s about an hour north of Barcelona. The point was to be near our Saturday lunch destination, a “modest” little place called Can Roca, just in case we wanted to pop our head into Villa Más the night before. This was a restaurant that I had long heard of—with then-owner Carlos Orta Simas and ex-disc jockey hosting club-like parties packed with winemakers slugging and chugging til dawn. In 2019 he had sold the place but stayed on, in charge of the extensive wine list and head gardener.

As we walked into the restaurant, we saw him. He apologized for rushing off, explaining that he needed to plunk his tomato crop into the ground early in the morning.