Food & Wine Classic in Aspen offers day passes to debauchery

by Laurel Miller on

It’s almost time for the 28th annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, and day passes are back by popular demand. The June 18-20 festival features seminars, cooking demos, grand tastings, and book signings by featured chefs like Thomas Keller, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. All of this goodness in an alpine wonderland doesn’t come cheap, which is why the $295 Grand Tasting pass is such a steal.

The price includes attendance at two Grand Tastings in a single day, on Friday, June 18 or Saturday, June 19. Highlights include tastings from over 200 vineyards, breweries, and distilleries, as well as food samplings of meats, cheeses, olive oils, and chocolate. There’s also a Spanish pavilion dedicated to wines, spirits and foods of Spain.

Full consumer passes are $1,185, which include access to all Grand Tastings, wine seminars, and cooking demonstrations. If you really want to splurge (read: schedule follow-up appointment with your cardiologist), spring for some of the special events, such as the Food & Wine magazine Best New Chefs 2010 Dinner, or Reserve Wine Tastings. New this year is the Grand Cochon finale, featuring ten chefs, ten heritage breed pigs, and ten wines. Sounds like food porn just got really kinky.

The Original Running of the Bulls

by Gadling Staff on

Each week, Gadling is taking a look at our favorite festivals around the world. From music festivals to cultural showcases to the just plain bizarre, we hope to inspire you to do some festival exploring of your own. Come back each Wednesday for our picks or find them all HERE.

Most people outside of Spain got their first glimpse of los encierros (The Running of the Bulls) thanks to the 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Rises. Inspired by Pamplona’s San Fermín festival, his novel in turn has inspired millions to visit, and even participate in, this most unusual and iconic celebration. What few people realize, even in Spain, is that Pamplona is not the only place where los encierros are performed. To experience the most historic of these fiestas with an authentic flair, head inland to Cuéllar.

The small Segovian village of Cuéllar, north of Madrid, has been hosting its own running of the bulls, Los Encierros de Cuéllar, the last week in August every year since 1499 (and possesses historical documentation referencing dates as early as 1215), a celebration which few outsiders have witnessed.

Despite the town’s modest fame, tourism from the surrounding villages can double the town’s small population over the week of the festival, giving a welcome boost to the agricultural economy.

A foreign visitor to Cuéllar, Spain, which is relatively hidden away and known only to those with a family or geographical connection, will find that the town is as interested in them as they are in it and its celebrations, and they will feel welcomed and encouraged to take part.

Want to learn more about this lesser-known Spanish festival? Keep reading below…To kick off the festival, the peñas (groups of friends) convert garages and storage spaces into makeshift dens where they can eat, drink, and gather for the week. The peñas then parade in the town square for the pregón, or opening ceremony, where the guest of honor (usually a minor Spanish celebrity) addresses the crowd and the queen of the fiesta is presented. What ensues is a heady mix of drinking, street parties, tapas (fried pig’s ear is one local specialty, exquisitely prepared by the Las Bolas cafe, Calle de San Pedro, 20), live music, and, of course, the running of the bulls.

It is the locals that make this rural Spanish festival really special and most are more than happy to indulge visitors with stories of the fiesta and the village’s history. One former fiesta queen, Cecilia, now in her late nineties, loves to share stories about strange, inexplicable happenings at the fiesta. In one of her favorites, a local man was cornered and attacked by a bull years ago and left miraculously unharmed, but stark naked.

While Cuéllar may seem like another world, travel there is simple. Daily buses from Madrid’s central station carry passengers from the capitol in 90 minutes, adding accessibility to the charm and wonder of the place known to its residents as “la isla en un mar de pinos,” or “the island in a sea of pine trees.” Want to check out this year’s festivities? Make your way to Spain at the end of August to check out this great Spanish celebration.

La Tomatina – The Lovely Tomato Festival

by Aaron Lenhoff on

Each week, Gadling is taking a look at our favorite festivals around the world. From music festivals to cultural showcases to the just plain bizarre, we hope to inspire you to do some festival exploring of your own. Come back each Wednesday for our picks or find them all HERE.

By the look of its name, “La Tomatina” might make you think of the word tomato, or in Spanish, tomate. That’s because La Tomatina is currently the largest tomato throwing event (as well as the largest food fight) in the world. Each year on the last Wednesday of the month of August, the Spanish city of Bunol erupts with a riot of dancing, drinking, fireworks and plenty of messy tomato-throwing fun. The name Tomatina is the word tomate altered with the ending “–ina” added to it to mean lovely. So La Tomatina is the lovely tomato festival.

The origin of La Tomatina was during another Spanish festival, Gigantes y Cabezudos or Giants and Big Heads in October, 1944. In this festival, people dressed up with giant masks over their heads. A group of kids wanted to join in and entered the area with their masks on. One of the kids somehow tripped and fell over and landed near a street grocery. Thinking some of his friends tripped him, he started to throw tomatoes at them. This started a food fight and soon not only the kids who started the fight were throwing food but also people from the festival as well.

Even Bunol city officials were provoked into the fray. The store owner eventually called police and the people were forced to all pay the grocer for the food they had ruined. The next year, the kids and others returned with their own tomatoes and repeated the fight but instead three weeks before the Gigantes y Cabezudos festival. Every year the festival grew until the entire town was celebrating on the last Wednesday of each August each year.

Want to participate in this one-of-a-kind Spanish food fight? Keep reading below to learn more.

Over time, La Tomatina has grown to a fight of over 30,000 participants, but not without plenty of government interference. In 1950, the regime of Francisco Franco deemed the festival without cultural or social value and labeled it a violent display of public vandalism. But people still tried to keep the Tomatina alive. From 1950-1954, La Tomatina was attempted every year but the police always intervened and fights always ended before everyone had thrown all their tomatoes.

In 1955, the supporters of the Tomatina from Bunol flooded the streets of the city for the Burial of the Tomato or “El Entierro del Tomate.” The people protested the ban of their town festival, which in five years had become an established tradition. They marched down the streets with a giant tomato in a miniature coffin towards the plaza of Bunol where the festival had always begun. It was a real funeral for the Tomatina. Funeral rites and songs were performed. In 1957, the government relented, agreeing to allow the festival only if the Bunol city government supervised the planning and execution of the event. The tradition of La Tomatina was in place.

The first event of La Tomatina is removing a tethered ham from a lard greased wooden pole. It takes many attempts and more than one person to reach the ham. After the ham is freed, the start of the annual fight is signaled by firing water cannons. Bottles and other objects that could injure participants are prohibited in the fight. Trucks full of tomatoes then roll down the roads of Bunol. People ride in the back and shower the people on the streets with ripe tomatoes. People on the streets then hurl the tomatoes among themselves. The tomatoes must be squashed with the hand before throwing them. A rule that is official but hardly ever followed is that clothes cannot be ripped off opponents. Tomatoes and tomato pulp are flung around and the whole area near the Bunol plaza is dyed pink. The fight ends an hour after the first water cannons with another blast.

In 2002, La Tomatina of Bunol was classified as an International Tourist Festival. The event is currently organized every year by two participants of the original Tomatina. La Tomatina really is an expression of freedom and a protest against powers that seem out of common people’s control. Both the powers of the individual and the group importance are enumerated by the event. The greased pole is an obstacle that everyone must help each other to overcome so that the festival can begin. The ham represents the powers that be. It is impossible to climb the pole alone. After the ham is down everyone is free to do mostly what they want with the tomatoes. Every tomato represents a choice and the choice of a person influences how the individual progresses.

The whole event is a symbolic representation of how the collective people have more power than any man, whether king or peasant, and that one man can not fundamentally rise over another permanently. It is a festival that shows that even the most oppressive of governments can never have ultimate control over the hearts and souls of its citizens. La Tomatina is an act of defiance to the powerful because within the fray of the fight, every man is equal, and ultimately, only armed with a tomato.

Ten great markets around the world

by Kyle Ellison on

All too often, the first stop on our tourist itineraries is at the local museum, mosque or castle. But an arguably better place to start your visit is at the market. A visit to a local market is the perfect place to pick up some souvenirs, try out the local cuisine and get a taste of authentic culture on your next trip. Here’s ten of our favorite markets from around the world. Take a look.

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, Bangkok, Thailand
Swap the shopping cart for a dugout canoe, and the store aisle for a muddy canal, and suddenly you’ve found yourself bartering for fresh cut pineapple from a floating vendor at Bangkok’s Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. A longtime tourist draw, the market has skyrocketed in popularity, and on busy days the canals can get packed to the point of “canoe gridlock”. Well-prepared shoppers will bring small bills to avoid having to make change, and an adequate form of sun protection to survive the open-air journey.

Istanbul Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, Turkey
The granddaddy of its genre, Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar is the world’s oldest–and one of the world’s largest–covered markets. Slinging everything from traditional pottery to precious gemstones, the market has roughly 4000 different shops, and the restaurants feature some of the most palate-whetting, finger-licking good food on the planet. Savvy travelers to the market bring a pocketful of cash (as few stalls accept credit cards), hardy bargaining skills, and a voracious appetite.

Monastiraki Flea Market, Athens, Greece
On Sunday mornings in Athens, the Monastiraki Flea Market is simply the place to be. Rural merchants and urban store owners alike all crowd the streets with their wares, as street performers and local musicians provide background ambiance to the entire scene. While many of the goods found in the market can be classified as typical tourist junk, the intuitive shopper can easily be rewarded by hunting out the quirky local characters and some of the tucked away stores. One such store features a sign out front that simply states, “No tourists allowed. Travelers welcome”, attesting to the shopper it hopes to attract.
Night Market, Luang Prabang, Laos
Seeing as the entire city of Luang Prabang is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it comes as no surprise that it also features one of the most colorful, exquisite markets in all of Asia. Each evening, ethnic Hmong villagers descend from nearby hill communities to ply their handicrafts at the Night Market, with the most popular being the handsewn silk scarves. If all the shopping works up an appetite, an incredibly narrow alleyway features a cornucopia of fresh meat, vegetables, and fish, where you can tackle an “all-you can fit” style plate to the tune of a whopping $3.

Jalan Gaya Street Fair, Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia
There aren’t all that many markets in the world where you can purchase a fresh handful of Rambutan fruit, handpainted blowdarts, and top it all off with a live snake for lunch. This is exactly the case, however, at the Jalan Gaya Street Fair held each Sunday in this bustling Borneo metropolis. For a curious array of fresh seafood, check down the street at the seafood market along the waterfront. Highly eclectic and culturally diverse, the entire scene takes place under the watchful eye of 13,435 ft. Mt. Kinabalu, looming stoically in the distance.

Chiconcuac Tianguis, Mexico City, Mexico
With the third-largest metropolitan area on the planet and a culturally diverse native population, Mexico City is bound to offer up some colorful street shopping experiences, for those who know where to look. Traditional tianguis (Aztec for market) are located all over the city, the largest being the Chiconcuac Market on the outskirts of the city, where up to 3,000 merchants swap handwoven clothing, pottery, and various forms of produce.

The Medina, Tangiers, Morocco
With its shoulder width alleyways and constant cloud of wafting spices, navigating the Tangiers Medina is a shopping experience entirely unto itself. While many of the Medina (old towns, usually featuring tightly knit houses and narrow alleys) in other Moroccan cities have become somewhat of tourist-traps, the Tangiers Medina is an authentic cultural experience. Spend enough time in the Medina, and there’s a good chance you’ll wind up drinking tea on a rooftop with a local carpet merchant, haggling over color schemes and which neighbor cooks the best lunch.

Chinatown Night Market, Singapore
Under a string of red lanterns in the moist equatorial air, the experience of the Chinatown Market comes alive once the sun goes down. A juxtaposition of tradition and modernity, you can haggle for knockoff watches and purses while eating a plate of fried manta ray wings, or examine the markings on a handpainted mask while enjoying a cold Tiger beer. While the market is always a hotbed of energy, the streets explode with activity during the Chinese New Year.

Portobello Market, London, England
Set in West London’s Notting HIll district (yes, the same one as the film), the Portobello Market held each Saturday turns two miles of Portobello Rd. into a teeming street scene of market stalls and browsing pedestrians. In proper British fashion, the market is subdivided into categories so that merchandise of the same genre can all be found clustered together in the same vicinity.

El Rastro, Madrid, Spain
An essential stop on any Madrid itinerary, El Rastro is a Sunday morning flurry of street commerce that takes up multiple streets in the Spanish capital. While the usual market items are available for purchase, the top-prize at El Rastro is to come away with a good price on a handcrafted sword from the nearby town of Toledo, home of all the weaponry found in the movie series Lord of the Rings.

Related:
* 20 best destinations for shopping
* 16 great farmers’ markets

Fake pilots try to smuggle cocaine through airport

by Sean McLachlan on

Spanish police have arrested two men who tried to smuggle cocaine through Madrid’s Barajas airport while dressed as pilots.

The two men boarded a flight from Bolivia and then changed into pilot uniforms. So far, so good, but once they landed in Madrid they joined the queue with the rest of the passengers. This struck the airport police as a wee bit suspicious. When asked for ID, they produced IDs from a different airline than the one they arrived on. Strike two. The cops then questioned the real crew of the plane and found out these folks were, in fact, passengers. Strike three. The daring duo then had their bags searched and were found to be in possession of 55 kilos (121 lbs) of Bolivian marching powder.

This video (in Spanish) shows just how good their disguises were. It is unclear at this point whether the uniforms are brilliant fakes or real ones they acquired somehow. Too bad for them they hadn’t thought out the rest of their plan as carefully. Perhaps they read how Gadling caught the cops at Barajas “allegedly” playing solitaire and figured it was an easy target.