Two new episodes, a town that smells of salt and pine, and three things we can't stop talking about.
There's a particular hour in June — late, gold, the heat finally loosening — when Spain stops performing and just is.
We've spent most of this month chasing that hour: up in the Alicante mountains, down on the Dénia seafront, and, briefly, in a conference hall in London talking shop about the very thing you're reading. Here's where we've been, what we recorded, and a few things we can't stop recommending.
Dénia doesn't shout. It's a working port town halfway between Valencia and Alicante, watched over by the Montgó massif and a hilltop castle — and it happens to be one of only a handful of UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy in the world. The reason is small, pink, and caught a few miles offshore: the gamba roja de Dénia, the red prawn locals will tell you, with total seriousness, is the best in Spain. We went to find out whether the town lives up to its own legend. It does.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
A slight detour from Spain, and a fun one. You say the word every day — but do you know where "podcast" comes from? A journalist named Ben Hammersley coined it in The Guardian in 2004: iPod + broadcast, almost as a throwaway. We pull apart how this strange, intimate medium actually works — the eye-watering numbers, the "podfade" graveyard, what we went looking for at The Podcast Show in London, and the advice author Angelica Robles gave two women building something from nothing. If you've ever thought about starting your own, start here.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
Tostada con aceite, done properly. Good bread, a green-bitter extra-virgin olive oil, a little salt. We've been ruined for anything else. (More on the oil in a future episode — we drove into the mountains for it.)
A glass of cava with English biscuits. An accidental discovery while recording. Don't ask; just try it.
The podcast Uncanny. Danny Robbins investigating listeners' real, unexplained encounters — Team Believer vs Team Sceptic. Laura never skips it.
Go to Dénia in early summer — but not for the beach.
Everyone goes for the sand. Go instead for the gamba roja, eaten simply at a port-side table where the kitchen does nothing to it but respect it. Climb a little into the Montgó natural park at golden hour for the view back over the bay. Wander up to the castle. And if you're feeling untethered, the ferry to Ibiza and the Balearics leaves right from the harbour — Dénia is the quiet back door to the islands most people never think to use.
A small Valencia studio making hand-painted cards, notebooks, mugs and totes, run by designer Nelly Aleyda Castro Ibarra and sold across Europe since 2013. It's the kind of independent, design-led Spanish maker we started this show to put a spotlight on — beautifully made, quietly confident, the opposite of mass-produced. Worth a follow: @nellycastro.official.
That's the dispatch. If a friend would like this — the food, the places, the quiet luxuries, the loud festivals — forward it on, or subscribe to the newsletter so the next one lands in your inbox. Pour yourself something good.
A short letter, once a month. No noise.