Made in Fofán – Fofán, Galicia 2017

Date of visit: Saturday, April 29, 2017

“Galicia is Different.” That phrase is seen a lot in social media and it’s quite true. Galicia is full of unique places, people and things to do. One unique place to visit is the aldea (village) of Fofán. We first visited Monica and Juan’s charming stone house in the hills of the O Salnés region in 2015 (read all about that visit here). Since then, the industrious couple have made many noteworthy changes to their quirky little agrochic haven:

1.  The 2016 fall harvest was fruitful with the arrival of this sweet little bundle to Fofán – baby Carmen! This captivating little beauty loves everyone who visits.

Juan, baby Carmen, and Monica welcome visitors to their home in Fofán.

2. Two guest rooms have been welcoming visitors in the main house for some time now via AirBnB. Both done in clean, crisp white, guests will feel quite at home in either of these rooms on the house’s main floor. I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to sleep here and wake up to that delicious, fresh-baked bread smell wafting in from the kitchen just down the hall!

3. Monica now hosts bread making classes in the kitchen at Fofán. The home’s kitchen isn’t for show – it’s a true working kitchen. Monica continues to make her legendary pan de calabaza (pumpkin bread), and now offers various bread making classes by appointment. We participated in an “international” bread making class. Other classes are geared towards artisan bread, pastry, Galician empanadas, and even classes for kids to come and try their hand at crafting homemade bread.

Here I am getting my hands dirty making Chinese ‘bao‘ buns, stuffed with a delicious mix of ground chicken, ginger, garlic, and scallion. The bao were then placed in a bamboo steamer for about 20 minutes until ready. The best part of the class? Sampling the delicious product!

The Chinese bao and Italian foccaccia that we made during the class are on the left. Monica’s signature bread, the pan de calabaza is on the right.

Delicious homemade Focaccia in three easy steps:
Make the dough.
Spread it out by hand with good olive oil and fresh herbs (rosemary here).
Bake to perfection in the oven with a bit of steam.

Monica and MyLifeOnVacation pose with the freshly griddled Tunisian black olive flatbread.

4. Monica and Juan are frequent international travelers so inspiration from exotic locales feels right at home in the aldea. As pictured above, we made Tunisian flatbread, Italian focaccia, and Chinese bao during the international bread making class. We then learned about some of that international luxury was also coming to the lower level of the house in the form of a Turkish bath / hammam. The basement was extended to be the home of the new sauna. Since this photo was taken, in April 2017, the construction has been completed: windows and doors of the cellar (pictured below) were installed and the Turkish bath / hammam is operational at the time of publication of this post.

The basement at Fofán, now home to a relaxing Turkish bath.

5. A bonus of the basement expansion is this gorgeous new terrace above, situated right off of the kitchen. With a quaint white picket fence, ample seating, gorgeous Portuguese tiles, and fantastic hillside views, this is a completely inviting place to relax and soak in the peace and tranquility of the aldea below.

Visitors will enjoy this beautiful large patio overlooking the entire village. One can actually see the ocean from the house! Looks like the perfect spot to enjoy a bottle of wine.

How about a closer look at that Portuguese tile on the new terrace? Gorgeous! And our Eferro zocos (wooden clogs – in this case sandals and boots) look great too! I’m wearing newly acquired sandals and Monica is sporting her custom-made wedding boots.

6. The wide variety of trees and plants impressed us during our first visit back in 2015 – more than 30 different varieties. Since then there are even more plants, trees and crops being planted. In addition to the existing greenhouse, two new structures are now on the property in Fofán: a bunny hutch and chicken coop!

Cute bunnies in the hutch and productive heritage chickens in the coop.

You never know what’s going to be growing in the village: During our visit, fresh herbs, artichokes and strawberries were in season. We enjoyed sampling the sweet fresh picked strawberries immensely.

7. There are hórreos all over Galicia, but very few have been transformed into a comfortable guest room that one can stay in.  Talk about a unique opportunity at Fofán!

8. But the most notable change since our 2015 visit has got to be the acquisition of Galicia’s “largest bottle of Albariño”!  It was originally a boat (constructed in 1999 to promote the Camino de Santiago) and is now affixed to the land here in Fofán. A local artist from Coruña was brought in to paint the “label” of the wine bottle. Since these photos were taken in April 2017, all of the construction work has been completed and the bottle is ready for guests to stay in this utterly unique lodging.

The local newspaper published this great article titled “Sleeping inside a bottle” in June 2016, which shows the final look of the bottle inside and out. In addition to offering the entire bottle for guests to rent overnight, they plan to also use the sitting area to host wine tastings, or other events, in the garden. Let me guess …. tastings of Albariño wine??

Photo courtesy of MadeinFofán.

As mentioned above, one can actually see the ocean from Made in Fofán.  As the map above illustrates, they are conveniently located to a variety of interesting towns in the O Salnés region:

 

 

 

• Meaño (13 minute drive) The closest destination wineries are in Meaño, a mere 13 minutes away from Fofán.
• Cambados (15 minute drive) The noble old town of Cambados is known as the “Capital of Albariño” and was named a “Cidade Europea de Vino 2017” (2017 European Wine City). Their annual Albariño wine festival, the first weekend in August, is one of the most highly anticipated events of the year in the region.
• Portonovo (18 minute drive) Just on the other side of Sanxenxo is the beautiful Baltar Beach in the town of Portonovo. Calm waters welcome visitors of all ages.
• Sanxenxo (20 minute drive) In the mood for a party atmosphere? Look no further than Sanxenxo, the “Marbella of Galicia”. Expensive yachts populate the marina and Silgar Beach fills with local and international tourists all summer long. From here one can even catch a boat to explore the island of Ons.
• Combarro (21 minute drive) Try Combarro for a quiet and quaint atmospheric fishing village with a beautiful port and winding alleyways.
• O Grove (30 minute drive) O Grove is known as the “paraiso de marisco” shellfish paradise and worth a visit explore and enjoy their many beaches (especially the longest, Lanzada Beach) and many (many!) seafood restaurants.

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Made in Fofán
Lugar de Fofán 8, Armenteria
Meis, Galicia, Spain
+34 622 098 721

Website: www.madeinfofan.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/madeinfofan
Twitter: www.twitter.com/madeinfofan
Email: madeinfofan@gmail.com

See links to AirBnB listings here: SleepInFofán

English spoken: Yes

For more information on the O Salnés region, please visit: www.osalnes.com/en

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Made In Fofán

Monday, October 12th, 2015

“Aldea” is a Gallego word that means “hamlet”, a small village.  It seems that everyone in Galicia is either from an aldea or has family in an aldea (grandparents, perhaps) that they like to get away to and visit occasionally on the weekend.  A recently published article in La Voz de Galicia newspaper put it this way: “Lo que pasa es que unas veces uno puede elegir la aldea y otras veces la aldea ya viene de fábrica con la familia.” (What happens is that sometimes one can choose the aldea and other times the aldea comes by default with the family.)

When I was planning my first camino walk on the English route in 2014, there were so many town names that appeared on the map I thought we would be walking through something like suburban areas.  Instead, these were aldeas, very small hamlets of just a few houses, some occupied, but many not.  As is also seen in rural America, many small rural towns in Galicia are being abandoned and falling into disrepair as people move to larger towns and cities, or the elderly inhabitants pass on.

In October 2015 we fortunate to be able to accompany José of Turismo Verde de Galicia and his wife in a visit to the aldea of Fofán, where Monica Novas and husband Juan Lusquiños have a thriving specialty bread business, Made In Fofán.  This is not your ordinary Galician bread (although, ordinary Galician bread is incredibly delicious, so “ordinary” isn’t really the best word to use); this bread is made with calabaza (pumpkin/squash) and topped with poppy or sunflower seeds, made into single serving rolls.

We made the short drive up to Fofán that Monday afternoon from Cambados, Galicia after a fabulous lunch at Yayo Daporta’s restaurant.

Fofán is a quick 20 minute drive from Cambados, Galicia, in the O Salnés comarca (region).

Juan met us at the gate and gave us a guided tour of the gardens and orchard on our way to the house.

Juan leading the tour, but Luna also helped to guide us around the gardens.

Trees are all labeled.  This is a cherry tree (cerezo).

Mano de Buda = Buddha’s Hand

The beginning of a Buddha’s Hand fruit!

How does your garden grow?

Greenhouse

Hola Monica! Monica welcomes us warmly to Fofán.

Monica greeted us on the stairs and showed us her ever so charming kitchen where rolls were already baking in the oven. Just imagine the smell!  There’s nothing like the smell of fresh bread baking.

Bread making in process!

Clockwise from the top left: selection of grapes, guavasteen (feijoa), kiwi, persimmon, and avocado, all grown in Fofán.

They also have baskets of their own organic produce from the garden and orchard that are offered as part of a kind of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture – where consumers can buy local, seasonal produce directly from the farmer).  I was quite surprised to learn that there is so much tropical fruit grown in Galicia.  Kiwi is quite common, as are avocados and guavasteens, as seen in the photo above.

The squash used in making the bread is actually all grown in the aldea, not just by Monica but also by her neighbors.  The project brings the neighbors together and they are looking at increasing the plantings again this year.  In a time where many aldeas are nearly empty with people moving to the cities, it’s really special to see that this one is holding on.

The finished product – delicious poppy seed rolls!

This particular day there were several other visitors to Made In Fofán, including Gonzalo Germade and his family. Gonzalo operates La Queserí Tasting Room in nearby O Grove, where we had the great pleasure of dining a few nights before, and where we first sampled the delicious Made In Fofán bread.

When life gives you an abundance of black currants, you make licor de cassis!

We spent the afternoon chatting and relaxing in the comfortable basement living room with a fireplace lit in the corner.  We were even treated to some of Juan’s homemade black currant liqueur.  As night was falling, Monica threw some chorizo on the fire and we all enjoyed a nice little supper of those flame grilled chorizo on her wonderful bread.

“Chef” Monica throwing chorizo on the fire.

Yum!

Luna and Danna smelled the chorizo cooking. “Can we join the party?!”

It was such an enjoyable, memorable afternoon and evening!  When we went to leave, Monica sent some of that freshly baked bread with us which we also enjoyed for breakfast the next morning.

Lovely view of the aldea, including a Galician hórreo in the yard.

At the time of our visit, they were preparing to offer the house as a Bed & Breakfast called Sleep In Fofán.  If you want to experience life in the aldea yourself, Sleep in Fofán is now available via AirBnB.

And in other exciting news, Monica now has a different kind of bun in the oven … she and Juan are expecting in the fall of this year (August 2016)!  Congratulations and Felicidades, pareja!!

MadeInFofán  / SleepInFofán
Lugar de Fofán 8, Armenteira
Meis, Galicia, Spain
+34 622 098 721
http://www.madeinfofan.com/
Email: madeinfofan@gmail.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/madeinfofan
AirBnB: SleepInFofán

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