New Cookery workshops

We have been running cookery workshops at the hotel for over 5 years, and with the experience we have gained plus the feedback from participants we are now going to be offering three different one day workshops;

• Asturian cuisine
• Farm to fork
• Posada del Valle's Food Specials

All the courses are informal and hands on, and each course will be led by a different chef from the hotel. There are three special chefs at Hotel Posada del Valle, each one with a different interest and experience in cooking

Andrés preparing "tortas"

Asturian cuisine; Chef Andrés Caso. 

Andres is from Cangas de Onis and comes from a family of farmers who also used to make the local blue Gamonedo cheese. He studied cooking in Asturias and has been working in the hotel for 5 years. In this food experience Andrés will take you on a tour of a local food market (or around some local shops if there is no market that day) and explain a little about the Asturian food culture. 

The sunday food market at Cangas de Onis

Then you will be cooking such typical dishes as Fabada Asturiana (bean stew,) tortas (maize pancakes) and a tortilla de patata (Spanish omelet.) You will then have time to sit down and enjoy all you have cooked with a glass of local cider.

Samantha examining some of the farm produce

Farm to fork; Chef Samantha Burch 

Samantha was born in Alicante but has lived in Asturias for the last 18 years. She is an excellent self taught chef specializing in vegetarian food. Her particular interest is in vegetarian and vegan food and the creative use of local and home grown produce. In this work shop you will have a guided visit of the hotel vegetable garden, help pick some of the produce and then subsequently use it in different imaginative ways. 

Participants with their freshly picked produce

Imaginative recipes making the most of the home grown produce

The particular recipes will depend on the time of year and what’s growing on the farm and of course there will be time to sit down and enjoy the food you have prepared with a drink.

Joann in the kitchen talking about food

Posada del Valle's Food Specials; Chef JoAnn Burch 

JoAnn studied cooking and worked as a chef in many different countries before starting the restaurant at the hotel. Due to her experience, talent and work the restaurant has gained the fame it is now renowned for. She has also trained other chefs who have come to work and learn about the local and organic food we produce at the hotel. 

Joann demonstrating how to make a roulade

In this workshop you will learn how to prepare some of the most popular dishes served at Hotel Posada del Valle as well as some different techniques which can be used to create a variety of recipes. At the end of the morning there will be the chance to sample the food you have prepared with a glass of wine.

Fun time learning

Join us on one of these courses and discover "what is behind the scenes" when cooking local, organic and wholesome meals at Hotel Posada del Valle. We have a special marked date for each experience; if you are interested in other dates please contact us. For all courses there will be a minimum of two participants and a maximum of six. 

Beneath is a resume of these three cookery workshops with prices and dates and on our web you will find information about the other courses we are offering.

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Asturian cuisine; Chef Andres Caso. 

Enjoy learning about Asturian local food.

Program of activities

09.30 -11.30 guided visit to local market or shops

11.30 – 14.30 preparing local dishes; fabada, Spanish omelet, maize pancakes

14.30 – 15.30 enjoying the food you’ve prepared.

Price 45,00 Euros / person Fixed date 30th of August; for other dates please consult us

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Farm to fork; Chef Samantha Burch 
Learn about home grown vegetables and how to use them in imaginative cooking

Program of activities

09.30 – 11.00 guided tour of the hotel vegetable garden and harvesting of ingredients for cooking

11.00 – 14.00 preparing a variety of vegetarian dishes from the freshly harvested produce

14.00 – 15.30 enjoying the food you’ve prepared

Price 40,00 Euros / person Fixed date 21st of September; for other dates please consult us

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Posada del Valle's Food Specials; Chef Joann Burch 
Learn how to prepare some of the most popular dishes served at Hotel Posada del Valle

Program of Activities

10.30 – 14.00 Preparing a variety of dishes and learning different cooking techniques 

14.00 – 15.30 enjoying the food you’ve prepared

Price 40,00 Euros / person Fixed date 27th of September; for other dates please consult us

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Guess what fruit tree this flower is from?

English.

Over the years we have planted lots of different fruit trees on the farm so as to provide a range of home grown fruits for our restaurant. For the first person who can guess what fruit tree this flower is from and let us know writing their answer on the Hotel Face book page we will give a bottle of organic Ribera Del Duero red wine from our carefully selected wine list.

The winner of the wine can come and collect it from the hotel.

Español

A lo largo de los años hemos plantado mucho arboles distintos en la finca con la intención de ofrecer a nuestros huéspedes la mejor variedad de fruta casera. La primera persona en adivinar de que fruta es esta flor y nos lo hace saber con un comentario en el Face book del hotel le obsequiaremos con una botella de vino de Ribera del Duero ecológico de nuestra cuidad carta de vinos.

El ganador puede venir al hotel a recoger su premio.

A Great Year for Orchids on the Farm.

A rare Man Orchid growing amongst the rocks in our wild flower meadow.

Our wild flower meadows are array with wild orchids this year and there are six different types in flower at the moment. To see so many of these rare and beautiful flowers is very rewarding and gives us encouragament for the management program we implemented in our wild flower meadows many years ago.

A Woodcock Ophry Orchid growing just 5 meters from the hotel

Close up of an Early Purple Orchid 

Early Purple Orchids next to the farm trail

It’s not as though we do anything extra special on these meadows other than follow traditional farming practices. We cut the meadows for hay in late June and then have the sheep grazing the meadows in November. We’ve been following this system for over 10 years and the continuity of our practices along with the weather is really showing the benefits this year; lots of orchids and a great biodiversity in general..

Close up of a  Provence Orchid

Lots of Provence Orchids in the meadow

One of the first Heart Flowered Serapia blooming in the meadow

Tongue Serapias  growing in abundance in the meadows.

One of the major problem we have with maintaining the population of orchids on these meadows is wild boars. These large animals, which run wild here, love to dig up the orchid rhizomes and eat them like they were a delicacy grown especially for them.  As a consequence a lot of the orchids in our meadows are found growing in the rocks where it’s more difficult for the boars to dig them out.

Signs of wild boar rooting in the meadows

Woodcock  Ophry growing in the rocks

So for guests lucky enough to be walking round the farm trail this time of the year there are orchids galore to be seen! There will also be plenty of other wild flowers in our meadows over the next two months and with them an amazing array of butterflies.

An unusual all-yellow Man Orchid in our meadow

Pigs and more; the story of our free range pork.

Free range pigs rooting around in the wild

Ponga is a very little known mountain range directly west of The Picos de Europa. It’s a beautiful rugged area which was declared a Natural Park a few years ago, and is home to the most important beech forest in the Iberian Peninsular. It’s probably one of the areas we most enjoy walking in and have gone there many times with guests and the family

Ponga; an amazing mixture of mountains, woodlands and traditional farming.

Many years ago I had a really lovely experience in this area when I discovered a group of ten large pigs lying in the shade of the beech trees close to a small mountain stream. They were cautious of us, but not frightened and we could see someone had been feeding them old pieces of bread. They got up, checked we had nothing for them to eat and then started rooting around in the ground and slowly trotted away. To see pigs in such a natural environment is a really lovely sight and since then we have spotted groups of pigs on various occasions in this area. I often wondered who looked after them and whose they were.

The first group of pigs we saw in Ponga 

One day back in 2004 when we first started sourcing organic produce for the hotel I found myself in a large supermarket in Oviedo looking at long rows of pork chops in polystyrene packs. There were also a few odd packs of organic pork from Soria which is about 500 kms away. This made me decide to investigate what were the minimum conditions necessary for a pig to be certified organic. Obviously organic pigs have better conditions than their poor factory farmed counterparts but I was still surprised on some of the practices permitted and I didn’t really know what was going on at this farm 500kms away. I suddenly remembered the wonderful site of the pigs roaming freely in the forests and decided I would try and find out who owned them and if he ever sold them.

Our neighbour Victor 

I spoke about these pigs to our neighbour Old man Victor, who at that time was 73 years old and had been a farmer all his life. He knew there were farmers who still let the pigs run wild and fatten up on the beach nuts and chestnuts in the Ponga Mountains. It had been quite some years since he had been in that area and decided he would like to come with me to try and find the pig’s owner. We set of early one misty morning, he threw his small cigar away before he got in my car knowing I didn’t like cigarette smoke. We drove up the Beyos gorge and after talking to 3 or 4 local farmers in the area realised there were 2 farmers who raised these free range pigs. After a few more coffees in some rather pokey local bars we discovered who was one of these pig farmers and where he lived. Amador Crespo from San Jaun de Beleño.

Beech nuts on the forest floor in Ponga

We met him at his house at lunch time, he had just come down from the high mountain pastures where he had his cows grazing, he was quite a small person and very open. He told us he had up to 30 pigs grazing in the forests from late spring to autumn. Most of them were already pre-ordered by local people, being fattened up ready for “San Martin” the sacred dates when sausages would be made. He had a few extra pigs and so I said I would be interested in 2 of them and arranged to speak with him 3 months latter in October to arrange the best time to get them.

Autumn colours of the beech trees in Ponga

October came and the pigs were ready. Amador’s son has a lorry and so transported them to the slaughter house in Mieres where we went to supervise the jointing of them. No money was paid to Amador till after we had the pigs delivered from the slaughter house to the hotel and we knew their weight. We told Amador the weight of the pigs and then paid the agreed price per kilo for the whole pig. It all worked on trust.

Cows enjoying the magical mountain pastures in Ponga

Over the years I visited Amador various times and got to know how he operated. He often talked to me about some of the farming problems; wolves being the major problem with his animals which were running free in the mountains. I learnt that if the snow line came down in the autumn the pigs would come down from the mountain forests to the town where they would run around in the streets or shelter in some of his old stone stables. When they couldn’t graze and feed in the wild (because of the snow) he would feed them on a mixture of cereals, mostly barley and maize. He didn’t use organic cereal and certainly wouldn’t be bothered with all the bureaucracy that would be necessary to certify his pork organic, but for me he worked so well with nature he certainly had my vote of confidence.

 Abandoned village in Ponga

Very sadly he died in the spring of 2008 and at first no one in his family wanted to carry on his work. It seemed like it would be the loss of another traditional hill farmer. Then his son Marcos decided to give up his factory job and return to the family home to carry on farming like his father had always done. Each year we still get a couple of pigs from Marcos and although they are not certified organic we are more than happy with the way they are produced. We consider ourselves very lucky being able to spend the time needed to discover and get to know our suppliers. This first hand knowledge about our suppliers is very importante to us. Obviously you can’t visit all the suppliers of the products you consume so that’s when we rely on other forms of guarantee or certification normally an organic certification.

Beech forest in spring

Sausage the lesson for the global trade.

Buying whole pigs direct from the farmer has made us realise other things. There was a time when the hotel first opened (17 years ago) when we always served pork tenderloins in the restaurant normally with a prune and Malaga wine sauce. However when we started buying the pigs direct from the farmer out of the 200kgs of pork meat from the 2 pigs we brought there were only 4 x 1 kg tenderloins! So what about the rest of the meat.

Our pork sausages made from the free range pork

One of the most popular dishes Joe developed was sausages based on a Danish recipe for “frikadelas” By mincing some of the poorer cuts she produces this lovely dish served with a mild mustard sauce. Cooking for a slower life also means learning how to use all the different cuts of meat of an animal, so as to reduce the global movement of specific meat cuts, from one country to another.

Hawks Hill

Walking along Hawks Hill

A rocky limestone ridge starts right behind the hotel, it’s about four kilometres long and the section closest to the hotel is known as “Cerro Los Gavilanes” or Hawks Hill. 

The start of the Hawks Hill Ridge can be seen just to the right of the hotel

Here you can see the ridge towering up behind the hotel

The term Hawks Hill is a little misleading as rather than a hill it’s a ridge which is quite challenging to walk along. Some sections are covered in gorse, there is a lot of sharp Karst rock and a small but definite scramble is needed to traverse the middle section. However for the experienced adventurous walker it does provide some spectacular views of the surrounding countryside and its right by the hotel.

Hawks Hill and it´s jagged summit

View from the summit of Hawks Hill

The start of the walk (climbing up to the ridge from the hotel) has always been the most awkward part of the walk but last week I discovered a new way of accessing the ridge.  Although this new “path” is slightly overgrown it is still easier to use to climb to the ridge rather than the way we used to go.

Sam and Andres climbing up to the ridge from the hotel on the "new path"

The full length of  Hawks Hill Ridge as seen from the Mirador del Fito

The summit of Hawks hill is 552 meters high and althought it is a low peak there are spectacular views of the Picos de Europa, the coast and the Sueve Mountains. It takes about two hours to reach the summit from the hotel and when you are on the summit you are only about one third of the way along the ridge. If you carry on the ridge towards the coast you come to “Los Escalarines” or small steps where some scrambling is needed and then shortly afterwards the ridge gets even narrower and more exposed!

Climbing down the very steep "Escalarines" or small steps

The ridge getting narrower and more exposed after the Hawks Hill summit.

However there are various points where it is possible to climb down from the ridge to join the road and walk back to the hotel or you can return the way you came to avoid the more difficult sections.

Farming scenery as you descend down the ridge towards the road.

As for birds you can normally see various raptors on the ridge including hawks, griffon vultures and there is even a nest of Egyptian Vultures.

Views towards the coast from the summit of Hawks Hill

Preparing for a new season

The hotel in winter with snow on the Sueve mountains.

Although we shut the hotel to guests for five months during the winter there is always plenty to do preparing for the coming season.

One of the biggest jobs we have contracted this winter is the painting of the outside of the hotel including all the woodwork.  Over the years we have painted some sections of the hotel ourselves, those areas which have been easy to reach but there are other areas which haven’t seen a coat of paint in 18 years due to their difficult access! So this year we decided to hire a couple of local painters who our builder recommended to paint and treat all the wood on the outside of the hotel. They started painting in December and hopefully will be finished by early March.

Treating the woodwork on the outside of the hotel

Inside the hotel we (well mostly Joe) has been painting some of the walls as well as recovering the chairs in the dining room. Each year we send some of the sofas and bedroom chairs to be recovered by an upholsterer and this year is no exception. We also have had some of the wooden floors in the bedrooms filed and polished.

Revising walking notes; at the Mirador de Ordiales in the Picos

But the winter work isn’t only about decorating and maintenance within the hotel. It’s also a time when we can reflect on what we are doing.  We can check and revise our walking notes and we can also visit some of our suppliers and check if there are any new products we should be incorporating in our menu. This year we have found an excellent Pale Ale made here in Asturias so that will be on offer alongside the organic beer we have always stocked.

Asturian Pale Ale!!!!!

There is also a lot of work on the farm in the winter; cutting down old trees, mending fences and removing any prickly growth such as brambles which might be starting to grow in the meadows. And the animals always need checking and feeding.

Beetroot seedlings  for  fresh beetroot for late April onwards

Then of course there is the vegetable garden and all the jobs which are necessary so we can have a great supply of fresh produce for the restaurant during the months we are open. Last season’s crops have to be cleared, beds weeded, mulching and sowing seeds, just to name a few of the jobs

Mulching broad beans

Another big job this winter has been the preparation of the new hotel web. We wanted a web which is more visual and better adapted to small screens like mobiles or tablets. We have included a German and French version of the web as well as incorporated an on line booking system. The web will not be static and with time we will be incorporating even more information. Sebastian has been of great help with the web as this has been a major project.

Our sheep and the hotel with the Picos in the distance.

 Yes there is a lot to do over the winter but we do also get time to have some holidays ourselves and relax a bit and what a lovely envornment to relax in!