Jamie Brown> We have all of our bags ready to go on our trip to Spain.

It's a little bit of mayhem.

There are narrow streets, restaurants galore.

[Lots of love into it.

Yes.]

We are looking for inspiration of all kinds.

[You've been waiting for this moment for weeks.]

Different flavors.

Different dishes.

[I don't know if I should tell you until after we Eat it.

So much good wine for holy moly.

And you do all that by hand?

Of course.]

[laughs] It's just a beautiful place to visit.

♪ Major funding for "Fork and Hammer" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, with the generosity of individuals, corporations, and foundations.

The ETV Endowment of South Carolina is committed to sharing entertaining and uplifting stories and series like "Fork and Hammer."

This series is made possible by Trust 20.

Trust 20 is a nationally accredited food safety training provider offering online training, certifications and resources for all areas of the food service industry.

Learn more at trust20.co Charlotte, from the refined to the unexpected, every bite, a memory in the making.

There's much more at charlottesgotalot.com "Fork and Hammer" is brought to you by Biltmore Estate Winery.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> Jamie and I are going to Spain, and one of the spots we're hitting is the Basque region.

So the Basque region is kind of northern Spain and very southern tip of France, like right along the border there.

And one of the places we're going is La Viña, which is where Basque cheesecake became famous.

We looked that up because we're going there, and I was like, let's make a copycat, and if this is the original, let's try to make that.

And it needs to be just slightly burned on the outside, right.

And gooey in the middle.

Savannah Foltz> So this is the original <La Viña> La Viña, yes.

So that's that one, and then this is the one that I've been working on with a whole lot of reading and research.

This recipe actually, you work with room temperature eggs, room temperature, everything.

You put it all in the oven and bake it, and you're expecting this super custardy filling, but it's all, your baking from warm to warm.

So I've started making my batter and then refrigerating it overnight.

Jeff Tonidandel> Nobody ever thinks of that, like, that initial temperature thing, <Right> right?

Yeah.

Savannah Foltz> So now I have cold batter going into hot oven, which is giving me that like under baked in the center but crispy on top.

Of course this one's crispier, <Yeah> but, we're getting there.

Jeff Tonidandel> All right.

I'm going to start with the traditional one.

Now, if I got that cheesecake somewhere, I'd be super happy, but I can tell it does not have the goo <The goo> [laughs] that I'm looking for.

That this one, that's great.

[silence] [mm-hmm] That's a million times better.

Jamie Brown> So, do you like, is the burning enough?

I know it's less than this, but is that enough, do you feel like?

Savannah Foltz> I think I can probably put this in for maybe, maybe five to six more minutes.

Jeff Tonidandel> I don't know if it needs that much longer.

Maybe another minute or two longer.

That's awesome.

♪ Jamie Brown> We have all of our bags packed up, ready to go on our trip to Spain.

It's a little bit of mayhem getting out the door.

We've got Jeff and I, our three kids and then also my mom.

Six carry on bags, six bags to check.

♪ We're meeting my twin sister at the Charlotte airport, and the nine of us are flying over to Madrid.

Every trip we take, we learn something new to apply to our restaurants.

For food inspiration, Spain is at the top of the world.

We have just landed in Madrid and we are so excited because we are heading up north.

We're going to go through the Rioja region, and we're going to go meet up with my younger sister, Tracy and her husband Oisin, and then on up through Basque Country up to San Sebastian.

Jeff Tonidandel> San Sebastian is really a special place for restaurants.

It is right on the coast, providing them with all these great ingredients.

[Vale, las gambas van solas] Jamie Brown> We are looking for inspiration of all kinds.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> So much good wine, the seafood here, the meat.

I can't wait.

♪ ♪ ♪ Jeff Tonidandel> Logroño is such a cool small town.

Where are we now?

This street is awesome.

Oisin O'Keefe> This is a Calle Del Laurel.

It's a street that's dedicated to pintxos, and people come here with their friends and their families.

They hop from bar to bar.

It's got about 30, 40 different spots, each with their own specialty.

Jeff Tonidandel> So we have to hit 30 or 40 spots today.

Ideally.

I mean, if you do, I think they give you a medal for that.

And then a bus ride home.

[laughs] I love that.

♪ Oisin O'Keefe> This one is a smoked sardine with a spicy pepper called a Guindilla.

And then this guy, it's a squid.

And then inside, I don't know if I should tell you until after we eat it, [laughs] but it's stuffed with, the glands of a lamb.

Jamie Brown> What is it called?

<Wow> Oisin O'Keefe> Lecheria.

It's just got a juicy texture on the inside.

And then on the outside here, it's in a tempura batter with a squid ink sauce on the top.

Jamie Brown> Oh, boy!

Oh!

The most comparable thing to lecherias, when they're by themselves is kind of like a popcorn chicken.

Jeff Tonidandel> The texture, though, of the squid on the outside so smooth, and then you get into the filling, and that texture of that's great, too.

It's awesome.

♪ ♪ Oisin O'Keefe> So pork is almost like a national food here.

This particular pork we're going to have is called a Torrezno.

They slice it finely so you get all that crispiness from the outside.

It's still juicy on the inside.

And they serve it on a romesco sauce, which is a cauliflower based sauce.

Jamie Brown> Oh, my gosh, we each got our own.

[laughs] Is this a pork belly?

Oisin O'Keefe> It's the same cut as a pork belly.

Prepared differently.

Jeff Tonidandel> So crunchy.

And the romesco cuts through the fat and just enhances everything.

Now not smoked <No> like our bacon, <No> but the richness, the fattiness, the saltiness, is it cured at all?

<No, it's not> No.

So they're just salting it when they cook it.

♪ ♪ This place is the mushroom spot?

<Yes> What do we drink with the mushrooms?

Oisin O'Keefe> So, I think it's a good opportunity for us to do some whites.

What we're going to have is, champiñones.

It's very typical of here.

So it's three mushrooms on top of each other.

Each one has their sauce inside of it.

It's a sauce made out of oil, parsley and garlic.

This place does only mushrooms.

This guy will buy, I don't know if it's 2 or 3000 mushrooms, but when he's done, he's done <For the day> for the day.

[Mmm] It's just spectacular.

Jeff Tonidandel> That garlic, the shrimp.

It's all great.

Oisin O'Keefe> When you make one thing, you got to get it right every time.

♪ Jamie Brown> We don't have a location right now.

Right now, we are on no road.

[laughs] Jeff and I love to travel off the beaten path and find new places and little discoveries.

♪ We have found this little town called Samaniego, and we're going to be dining at a little restaurant called Tierra y Vino with my twin sister, Kerry and her husband, Chris.

The restaurant is located in a former palace.

Jeff Tonidandel> When we're traveling, I am just taking it all in, seeing what experiences I can absorb, and then trying to figure out a way to apply it to what we do.

Miren Ormazabal> This is the tartare of tuna with tomato, slices of almonds.

You have in the middle, the foam of tomato.

It's really fresh and very... summertime.

Jeff Tonidandel> All the flavors mash up really well, but the textures and temperatures of things.

Jamie Brown> It was so surprising.

Miren Ormazabal> We have the braised zucchini with, slices of quail and also the kefir ice cream.

Jamie Brown> Warm flavors with cool flavors.

Oh my gosh, that's delicious.

Having those two together, so unique.

Jeff Tonidandel> Something to talk about at the table.

♪ ♪ Jamie Brown> I would love to learn what kind of grapes we have here.

This is Tempranillo grapes.

Okay.

This is very famous in Rioja.

The work of the land is clean the stems because we need to concentrate everything into the grapes.

Jamie Brown> You don't want it going here.

You want it going into the grapes.

Is that what you mean?

Lara Olarte> Exactly.

We need to clean this.

Take off, take off, take off.

Jamie Brown> And you do all that by hand?

Lara Olarte> Of course.

[laughs] Jamie Brown> Seeing where those products are actually coming from, it just makes it so much more special.

Lara Olarte> Let's start with the white.

To make the white wine, we use a Viura grapes.

Salud.

Jamie Brown> It's a beautiful day and their team brings out these porrons.

Lara Olarte> What about this?

Jeff Tonidandel> I love that.

Jamie Brown> These vessels that allow you to pour the wine straight into your mouth.

[Exactly.

Mirala que bien.]

Jamie Brown>I've never seen anything like that.

You got to go with more force, oh.

Jeff is getting good at the porrons.

Jeff Tonidandel> Gravity is a thing.

[laughs] ♪ Jamie Brown> David Moreno Wines is really great at wine tourism, so they really welcome people in to be able to see the land and taste the wines and see their cellars.

♪ David Moreno> Es una cueva.

La temperatura de la bodega es natural.

No hay aire acondicionado.

Las paredes están hechas de piedra Y es un ambiente completamente natural Nosotros ahora estamos en un túnel de barricas Que hay 220 barricas.

La mitad son de Roble americano Y la mitad son de roble francés.

El Frances es un poco mas torrefacto como el cafe.

Pero el Americano es mas vainilla.

Jamie Brown> How many bottles actually come from one a barrel?

David Moreno> Aproximadamente 300 bottles for barrel.

♪ Jamie Brown> It tastes to me like very rich fruits.

Like not bright, just very, very rich.

Jeff Tonidandel> But not overly jammy.

It's just, there's a touch of fruit and then it softens and mellows.

♪ Jamie Brown> We got as warm of a sendoff as we got as a welcome.

David Moreno> ♪ Mas que A nadie en este mundo oh ♪ Jeff Tonidandel> He just starts singing and just lights up the whole cave.

♪ Querer ♪ Hey he's not a big guy.

Like his voice.

Jamie Brown> He belted through that.

[laughs] It went everywhere.

It was awesome.

Jamie Brown> It was beautiful.

♪ David Moreno sings ♪ [applause] ♪ Isabella> Hello Jamie Brown> Hi Isa.

We are going to try to find you guys.

Can you turn left here?

<Maybe we'll go> We're having a hard time getting to your actual location.

Isabella> Hey, could you just turn left?

No.

So here she is.

What street are they on?

Looking.

Go up to the traveling circle.

Turn around.

Be careful.

Bike, bike.

♪ Tell them to go to our hotel.

Walk to hotel.

♪ So this is us.

♪ Jamie Brown> As our sendoff, as we leave Rioja We are doing a very special evening.

It's a Sarmiento cook out.

When you do a Sarmiento cookout, it's very common to visit a conserva or a little market and pick up jarred or canned mushrooms and asparagus and onions and peppers and all of this that is all grown locally.

And you bring that to the meal.

Hola, Tracy.

Hola, Javi Que tal estas?

Muy bien, muy bien.

Esta es mi hermana, Jamie Hola Jamie, nice to meet you.

Encantado De Estados Unidos.

Jamie Brown> We have this Sarmiento cook out this evening and we want to bring some conservas, and my hope is to make it super authentic and really do real hand cuisine typical foods.

Francisco Javier Sanz> Pues bueno, Yo creo que habéis venido al mejor sitio.

Eh?

<Muy bien> Yo empezaría con unos pimientos de aquí de la zona.

Con unos buenos espárragos de aquí.

Jamie Brown> That sounds delicious.

It's such a different experience for us here in America, because I think we think about canned goods and jarred goods as being, like, cheap.

Not something that you would bring to a dinner table.

But this is so different.

They're leeks.

They're leeks.

I love leeks.

That sounds delicious.

This olive oil is from here.

Francisco Javier Sanz> It's from here from La Rioja, Jamie Brown> Artichoke, artichoke.

Oh, I love that.

I feel like we have a great selection of items for dinner, and we'll get to enjoy them very soon.

♪ Oisin O'Keefe> These are Sarmientos.

So the cuttings of the vine at the end of the harvest season, when the leaves are all fallen off, they trim back the vine.

They let the sticks fall to the floor and they just dry out in the sun for a while.

<Yeah> This is called a parrilla.

It's a grill specifically for this type of barbecuing.

First meat to put on <Yeah> is the lamb.

So you fit one inside the other.

Get them nice and flat.

We're good to go here.

[sound of flames crackling] So you see how it's sort of flickering, sort of like a city lights from a distance, that's ready for the meat to go on.

Jeff Tonidandel> Just right here?> <Right there> Yeah.

That's not hot.

Oisin O'Keefe> They're thin cut, so we don't want to leave it on too long.

We do, you know, a minute or two, flip it over.

Jeff Tonidandel> The wood's burning really clean, though.

<Yeah> It's not.

Oh, yeah.

That looks perfect.

Just a little char on the edges.

The fat.

<Yeah> And of crisping up there.

Oisin O'Keefe> Drippings off the lamb are going into those embers.

Those embers are contributing back the smoke.

They're going to taste different than when you do them on like a grill.

Every family has the the guy that does this.

Yeah.

You're that guy?

I'm that guy.

♪ There we go.

♪ ♪ Jamie Brown> Great job ♪ ♪ Jamie Brown> We're off to San Sebastian.

It is a beautiful city.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> It is right on the coast, has all this amazing seafood.

But then you have France and Spain at your doorstep, providing them with all these great ingredients and it is incredible.

♪ ♪ La Viña.

One of the best cheesecake places in the world.

We're so excited to be here.

Tell us about your cheesecake.

Mikel Castellanos> It's different than other cheesecakes.

Creamy in the middle and toasted.

Jeff Tonidandel> It's hard to get this.

<Yes> And this right here.

Right.

Very, very hard.

Jamie Brown> It looks so delicate.

I feel like you should give this a taste.

[people talking in the background] You've been waiting for this moment for weeks.

Jeff Tonidandel> Everything's melting.

It's airy.

It's so light.

Like whipped cream, but cream cheese flavored and and gooey all at the same time.

I need another bite to check, but it's, t's an awesome.

Perfect.

So good.

We got to get to work.

Now we know what to strive for.

Thank you.

Thank you chef.

Thank you.

♪ Savannah Foltz> So Jeff is in Spain and he just tried the Basque cheesecake there.

And we're going to recreate it and see how he likes it.

I read, I don't know, probably 100 different recipes.

Jeff found the recipe that the original like founder of the Basque cheesecake released.

Everybody from Paula Deen to Martha Stewart has a Basque cheesecake recipe out there.

Home cooks have them all like there's just tons of them on the internet.

So I kind of went through a whole bunch and kind of cherry picked what I liked from each one.

I like our Basque cheesecake because it doesn't contain flour.

We're using cornstarch instead.

The cornstarch is keeping it gummy and it's also keeping it gluten free, so it's applying two benefits there.

And add an egg yolk adds richness and custardyness to it.

[spinning motor sound] The next step is to add this heavy cream, and we're going to fold that in by hand.

I actually coat the inside of our pan with sugar, which kind of crystallizes as it bakes and almost makes it like you have a crust there, but really it's just kind of like caramelly on the outside.

It's kind of nice.

I really like it.

All right.

Cool.

You guys want some cheesecake?

[laughs] ♪ Jamie Brown> What do you guys think over there?

♪ ♪ ♪ This is absolutely crazy?

Oh, my God, this line over here is just getting, it's like, half a block long, and it's people just waiting to get a tortilla.

It's not what we typically think of here in Spain.

It's an egg dish with layers of potato, and they're only doing two a day.

So there's a morning one and then there's an evening one, and they sell out.

♪ ♪ Jeff Tonidandel> Look how moist this is and lovely.

It is so well salted all the way through.

The flavors are just popping and the moisture is just, it's perfect, it's juicy.

If we can do some of these things on our frittata back home... Jamie Brown> I was expecting it to be a lot more like a frittata, but this is very potato, very much potato.

Jeff Tonidandel> It's the salt though coming through.

They salt everything, and then they put it all together.

Jamie Brown> I guess there's a reason there's a line down the street.

[laughs] ♪ ♪ ♪ Jeff Tonidandel> Those are huge.

♪ ♪ I remember being down in the kitchen.

And just the energy down there.

Upstairs is completely full.

She's got four or five tickets on the board at all times.

She's trying to expo.

She's trying to coach her staff in the middle of service.

Simona Ranescu> Vamos a echar El aceite perfumado.

Jeff Tonidandel> Olive oil.

Lots of Olive oil.

So we have kokotxas which is some salt cod, and it's the neck of the fish and has lots of collagen.

The idea here is to emulsify the olive oil, they say using the collagen of the fish.

And you're going to just get all of that out into the oil.

Some, little clams.

Simona Ranescu> Almejas, vale Le echamos un poquito de perejil.

A Fuego lentito.

And just a little bit of heat?

Si?

Abre la almeja.

Supuestamente hay que retirarlo.

Dejarlo reposar.

Necesita su tiempo para soltar la gelatina So it's like making a hollandaise or a bearnaise.

So she's cooking it now and getting all the collagen out, but then she's got to let it cool off to the side and very delicately keep it moving.

And she's going to emulsify it into the sauce called Pil pil, which is the traditional Basque sauce for tons of seafood dishes.

Simona Ranescu> Tiene, tine un proceso So the mucho carino lo que importante es Mucho amor.

Lots of love into it for sure.

Eso, mucho amor.

Yes.

Ahi ya se estan abriendo las almejas.

almejas.

Ya esta.

Ah so now we.

Necesita, necesita 4 o 5 minutos de reposo.

Okay, just one pan.

Easy.

El plato tipico del País Basco del País Basco.

Salt cod from right here in the Atlantic?

What a wonderful, wonderful dish you did a great job.

It looks great.

Muchas gracias.

♪ Yeah.

♪ ♪ Hola.

How are you?

I'm Jamie, I'm Lourdes.

Jeff, this is so beautiful.

I love how bright and open is.

I love the wallpaper.

You've got gorgeous table touches.

A dining room always needs light.

What a special spot on a hilltop in San Sebastian.

It's so gorgeous.

Here.

Si.

But we hear you have a legendary wine cellar.

Lourdes Rekondo> Yeah, thanks to my father.

He loved wine.

We have one of the best sellers in the world.

So if you want, you follow me and we will say it.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

♪ This is just stunning.

So cool.

Is divided into three rooms.

Now we are in the first one.

Where we have the white wines.

And then in this second room we had the very, very old wines since 1880 till 1916.

So it really this is a treasure.

Is my father's treasure.

At the end we have the main room for the red ones.

We have 80,000 bottles.

Jamie Brown> Can you imagine us keeping up with 80,000 bottles of wine?

Jeff Tonidandel> No.

[laughs] Our goal when we buy a bottle of wine is to sell it as soon as we possibly can.

And their goal is really to collect, to collect and keep history going for this region.

Lourdes Rekondo> This is the Vega Cecilia, one of the most famous wine in Spain.

Jeff Tonidandel> It takes years and years of devotion, dedication just to put that together is absolutely incredible.

You didn't want to leave?

No, I wanted to just start drinking.

[laughs] Holy moly.

♪ Jamie Brown> Travel is a huge part of inspiration for us as we bring back dishes and ingredients to our hometown of Charlotte.

Do you think I can put that in the suitcase?

We saw so many Michelin star restaurants, it's just as interesting home.

A lot of the ins and outs of these places.

How big are your stay at one kilo?

That's 2.2 pounds.

Every place we visit is an opportunity to improve upon what we do.

♪ Thank you.

Salud.

it pushes us to learn and to innovate new ideas around what we love.

The art of dining out.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> A day or two after we get back, Isabella has high school tennis tryouts.

There you go.

Isabella> How's my preparation on my backhand?

Jeff Tonidandel> Your tip up is good and you're... The learning curve for tennis is just incredible and you have to keep your skill up.

If you don't play for two or three days, you are falling back.

So it's really important to just keep practicing.

Good ball, Izz.

any free moment we get, we try to hit some tennis balls.

Major funding for "Fork and Hammer" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, with the generosity of individuals, corporations and foundations, The ETV Endowment of South Carolina is committed to sharing entertaining and uplifting stories and series like "Fork and Hammer."

Thank you for watching "Fork and Hammer."

This series was brought to you by Trust 20, a nationally accredited food safety training provider offering accessible digital training at any time and on all devices.

Learn more at trust20.co Charlotte, a city shaped by storytellers, dreamers, and makers becomes a living canvas.

There's much more at charlottesgotalot.com "Fork and Hammer" is brought to you by Biltmore Estate Winery.

♪ ♪