La Tienda in the Press

Nicole Paitsel

It's not quite a Hallmark holiday, but Cyber Monday has been gaining traction over the past few years as a well-known day to score shopping discounts.

Always on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday earned its name after Shop.org — a division of the National Retail Federation — noted that people were flocking to the Internet to shop, often at their work terminals. Web sites were created to focus on specific Cyber Monday deals, and a virtual shopping holiday was born.

Some bargain hunters, like Mike and Jerry Tietjens of crazytowndeals.com, say that the pickings weren't all that impressive last year. Most of the deals were carried over from Black Friday promotions. But this season's highly competitive atmosphere may push retailers to take advantage of Cyber Monday press.

Touted as the official Cyber Monday Web site, cybermonday.com aggregates deals from major retailers around the Internet, such as Target's "Daily Deals" Web site. Special codes and coupons are also compiled on the official site.

Other sites to check if you're hoping to score a deal: Amazon.com's Gold Box section, crazytowndeals.com and deals.woot.com. Big-box retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, J.C. Penney and Staples are also hosting special Cyber Monday sales, with some of the sales lasting for several days.

Although Internet shopping is common, there are still precautions you should take. The National Consumers League gives these tips for shopping safely online:

Don't shop on an unencrypted or open wireless network: Don't use a public wireless connection, like a coffee shop or airport network, to shop. Entering personal and financial information over an unsecured connection can leave your computer open to thieves.

Secure your own computer: Before connecting to the Internet, install anti-virus software and install a personal firewall.

Know who you're dealing with: Check out the seller and the physical address of the vendor. Be wary of sellers you have never heard of before and who don't have a track record.

Pay by credit card: Traditionally, credit cards offer more protection against fraud than debit cards. Check with your bank to learn about the specifics.

Look for the "s:" When providing payment information, the Web site URL should begin with "https." Sometimes the URL will be "shttp." That indicates the Web site can accept secure payments.

Turn off your computer: People who leave their computers running all the time are more susceptible to scammers who try to install malicious software on your computer.

For more tips on how to shop online safely, visit fraud.org.

Shop locally, online

Several retailers who call Hampton Roads home are also offering cyber-Monday specials. Among them:

Tasteunlimited.com

Headquartered in Virginia Beach, Taste Unlimited sells gift baskets and wine. It also has stores in Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.

Tienda.com

La Tienda, headquartered in Toano, sells products imported from Spain.

Smithfieldhams.com

The Genuine Smithfield Ham Shoppe, which has retail locations in Smithfield and Williamsburg, plans to notify customers who opt into e-mail promotions about cyber Monday offers. It sells hams, sweets, nuts, breakfast foods and other items.

VAdiner.com

The Virginia Diner in Wakefield also plans to notify customers on its e-mail list about a Monday promotion. It sells peanuts, nuts, ham and other items online.

Finding Old World Charm Online
Leona Liu


Instead of hitting the crowded malls this holiday season, why not shop for your loved ones curled up in flannel pajamas in front of a blazing fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate? And for a bit of variety, why not consider hand-crafted gifts from Europe, which are now easy to find and buy online?

Whether you're looking for Scottish tartans, French country furnishings, gourmet foods from Spain and Italy, Scandinavian design, or German kitsch, our selection of e-commerce sites covers the territory.

La Tienda
Spanish gourmet items

Sample products: Mont Marcal Brut Cava sparkling wine ($15), sliced jamón Serrano ham ($18), mini-paella kit in a wooden gift box with paella cookbook ($75), "Feast of Spanish Flavor" sampler gift basket for 10-12 people ($350)
Payment methods: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover
Christmas delivery cutoff: Dec. 15

This family-owned company offers the largest selection of Spanish food online (700 specialty products), including paella, jamón (Spanish ham), chorizo, and even Piquillo peppers. In addition to food and wine offerings, the site also sells traditional dinnerware so you can enjoy Spanish cuisine in all its authenticity by eating sizzling garlic shrimp out of a terra-cotta cazuela or munching on tapas off a Spanish wood plate.

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Spanish Foods

Over 800 specialties, including Catunambu coffee, tons of chorizos (spicy sausages), and manzanilla olives are yours from this family-owned business. It's a smart resource for tips and recipes too.

Shown: Bonito del Norte tuna in olive oil, Ortiz, $8/3.95 oz.; at latienda.com.

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WASHINGTON, DC - On the evening of Monday, October 19, the Society of Spain (SoS) will host its first annual Pedro Menendez Awards Gala and Dinner. During the event, which will be held at La Taberna del Albardero, three awards will be presented to members of the Washington, DC community to honor them for the tremendous work they have done to further Spain-DC relations here in the DC area. This year, the Friend of Spain Award will be presented to Don Harris, founder and owner of La Tienda.

The Menendez Friend of Spain Award honors individuals who live and work in the Washington, DC area and have demonstrated through their work a special commitment to promoting Spain and Spanish culture here in the United States.

After serving in Spain during his career as a U.S. Navy Chaplain, Mr. Harris could not forget the impression Spanish food and culture had made on him and his family. This deep connection he felt led him to create La Tienda in 1996. La Tienda is an online store offering the broadest selection of Spanish food and products on the web, including many artisanal and traditional items not previously available outside of Spain. Today, La Tienda has warehouses in Williamsburg, VA and Alicante, Spain, and ships thousands of orders around the US and Canada each month.

Of his selection as the 2009 Menendez Friend of Spain Award Winner, Mr. Harris says, “I truly appreciate The Society of Spain for granting me this award in the name of Admiral Menendez, a naval officer and Spanish explorer. It was as a young naval officer forty years ago that I first discovered Spain and her traditional family-based culture. My admiration for Spain and its culture has only increased as time has passed, and my family and I have been returning ever since. ”

José Andrés, chef/owner of THINKfoodGROUP, the creative team behind DC restaurants such as Café Atlantico, Jaleo, Zaytinya, Oyamel, will present this award. He says of Mr. Harris, “Don is a true pioneer when it comes to bringing Spanish food to the United States. Early on he helped lay the groundwork for others like myself to come to this country and share the food and culture that we all love so much.”

Vinegar and Beyond
Amy Albert

For perfectly balancing the flavors of a dish, acidity is a cook's trump card: Tart fruit juices and vinegars bring an instant brightness to braises, sauces, and vinaigrettes. Any one of these tangy ingredients will give new flair to your cooking.

Alvear Vinagre de Pedro Ximénez Semi Seco Solera 10 (Spain) - Flavorful and punchy, this Sherry wine vinegar is aged in wood for ten years. Ideal for finishing braised greens or ribs. ($35 for 9 ounces; tienda.com)

Obsessions
Leah Price

INES ROSALES SWEET 'TORTAS DE ACEITE' CRISPS
"These cracker-like creations from Seville are made using extra-virgin olive oil and savory enough to serve with goat cheese yet just sweet enough to pass as a dessert." ($11.95 for a package of 12; tienda.com)

Summer Savvy

PIQUILLO PEPPERS
A jar of piquillos is your passport to the exotic yet accessible cuisine of northeastern Spain. The Valentino-red pointy peppers (their name means "little beak" in Spanish) are a sweet variety with a flavor that manages to be both subtle and intense. Never eaten raw, they're roasted until tender in metal drums turned with a crank, hurdy-gurdy style, over beechwood fires. Each fall, everyone around the town of Lodosa gathers for the event; after roasting, the peppers are carefully hand-peeled to keep the flesh intact, then cored and seeded before being packed in glass jars with nothing more for company than their own juices, a smoky aroma, and errant flecks of ash. Piquillo peppers are often stuffed with salt-cod purée or ground pork. They're also pretty great on a sandwich or on nothing more complicated than toast drizzled with good olive oil. Look for them at specialty food shops or La Tienda (800-710-4304; tienda.com).

CAPER BERRIES
Odds are that somewhere in your refrigerator is a half-forgotten bottle of capers, those little bullets of bring that add a pungent, tangy note (from a naturally occurring mustard-oil compound) to everything from tartar sauce to tapenade to vitello tonnato and smoked salmon. Capers are the pickled green (unripe) buds of Capparis spinosa, a shrub that likely originated in Western or Central Asia and now grows throughout the Mediterranean. Caper berries are not larger, more mature buds but the fruit that appears after the buds have been allowed to bloom into white flowers. When pickled, the berries, which are the size of a grape and have pale streaks, are starchier than capers and generally less intense in flavor. We use them as a garnish in Bloody Marys, but you can also eat them like olives, as you would at a tapas bar in Spain. They're available at specialty food shops or La Tienda (see above).

Smoky Essentials for Spain Lovers

Fast and easy new ways to get smokiness without a grill.

Olive Oil - Miguel & Valentino's bright oil, poured into trays and smoked over a pinecone fire, is delicious on fish.

Anchovies - Nardin's tender smoked anchovies are great on pasta or on a bruschetta with piquillo peppers.

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Sofia Perez

The idea of preparing an appetizer just by opening a can might sound hopelessly 1950s to many Americans (spam, anyone?), but in Spain the practice remains as common as arguing about politics. There, some of the finest seafood is often served right from the tin. The best of this seafood comes from the northwestern region of Galicia, where the catch that emerges from the area's cold, turbulent waters has been prized for centuries for its superior quality. A local canning industry was born there more than two hundred years ago to preserve the perishable bounty.

Up to now, I've had to travel to Spain to savor the finest of these briny delicacies, but recently I tasted some from Los Peperetes, a Galician company that exports to the United States. There were cockles that tasted simply and utterly of the sea; plump, earthy mussels enrobed in a vinegary escabeche sauce; and succulent razor clams. Each was every bit as good as those I've had on Spanish soil.

Like many Galicians, Los Peperetes's owner and founder, Jesús Lorenzo, began getting his hands wet when he was a little boy, gathering cockles for his grandfather's canning company. He eventually took up canning, too, but on a smaller scale: all the company's seafood is cooked in small batches and packed by hand. "When the business started, in 1993, we produced only 20 cans per day," recounts Lorenzo's daughter Belén. The company was also the first to can delicate percebes (gooseneck barnacles still in their shells), which command a particularly high price because of the risks faced by the percebeiros who retrieve them from the rocks in often deadly surf.

Los Peperetes's other selections include exquisite baby squid and octopus, which Belén says can be heated in the olive oil they're packed in and served with rice or potatoes, though she maintains that the company's other offerings, in saltwater or vinegar, are best eaten with nothing more than a chilled glass of albariño (political debate optional). Tins of Los Peperetes's seafood range from $13.95 to $64.50 each. To order, call La Tienda at 800/710-4304 or visit www.latienda.com.

Michael S. Sanders

LIKE style on the runway, style for pigs is changeable. With their abundant fat, the curly-haired Mangalitsa pigs of Hungary were all the rage a century ago. But as time went on, they became has-beens.

Now that succulent pork is back in fashion, the Mangalitsa — saved from near extinction on a farm here at the edge of Hungary’s bleak and barren Great Plain — are making a comeback.

Most of those raised here become ham and other cured meats in Spain. But Mangalitsas are also being raised at farms in the United States for chefs who pay as much as 40 percent more for them than for Berkshires, another elite breed.

Last Wednesday April Bloomfield at the Spotted Pig in Greenwich Village served the belly and trotters of a Mangalitsa/Berkshire crossbreed with Agen prunes for $32. (She hopes to have more in two to three weeks.)

“When I tasted this pig,” Ms. Bloomfield said of the Mangalitsa, “it took me back to my grandmother’s kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, windows steaming from the roasting pork in the oven. Back then pork tasted as it should: like a pig. This pork has that same authentic taste.”

Devin Knell, executive sous-chef at the French Laundry, confits the belly of the Mangalitsa (pronounced MAHN-ga-leet-za); roasts the liver, kidneys, and chops, and poaches the saddle sous vide with a garlic mousse.

“Unlike workaday pork,” Mr. Knell said, “Mangalitsa is marbled, and the fat dissolves on your tongue — it’s softer and creamier, akin to Wagyu beef.”

George Faison, an owner of the New York City specialty meats company DeBragga and Spitler, will start selling chefs pork from Mangalitsas fattened on the West Coast this summer. He said the fat was luscious, more like that of duck than pork. Recalling a tasting for chefs last fall, he said, “The belly meat was unctuous, but it was the loin meat that really impressed me.”

Mosefund Farm in Branchville, N.J., sells Mangalitsa pork to restaurants, including the Spotted Pig, for $10 to $11 a pound, about $3 a pound more than what Berkshire pork costs. Ms. Bloomfield said Mosefund sells the Berkshire crossbreed for $7.99 pound.

Mangalitsas were bred for their lard on the Hungarian farms of Archduke Joseph in the 1830s. Herds shrank with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I and declined further with the introduction of fast-growing white pigs and cheaper, higher quality vegetable oils after World War II.

But Peter Toth, a Hungarian animal geneticist, did not want this Hapsburg legacy to be lost. He has worked to save the pigs here on a farm with buildings of whitewashed stone, with roofs of thick thatch. Dimly lighted wooden pens filled with straw shelter piglets and nursing sows. Breeding boars and sows live in pens open at one end. On a tour of the farm, 100 miles east of Budapest, a bitter wind blew out of the Carpathian foothills just visible to the east.

Their feed is a mix of barley, wheat, wheat bran, alfalfa, and sunflower seeds, but unlike the feed on factory farms, little corn and nothing with soy.

“When Communism collapsed,” Mr. Toth said, “the state farms that served as the last gene banks also collapsed. It was a total anarchy in the country. When I started to save Mangalitsas, to search for them in 1991, I found only 198 purebred pigs in the country. Sometimes, I would rescue the pigs right from the slaughterhouse.”

Today his company, Olmos and Toth, in addition to maintaining breeding stock, fattens some 8,000 pigs and oversees the production of 12,000 more on farms in the surrounding regions.

Because these pigs can cost 40 percent more to raise, Hungarians, who earn less than most Europeans, use them mostly to make lard and sausages.

“The Mangalitsa — many problems!” Mr. Toth said. “We must kill them at 140 kilos” — about 300 pounds — “to make sure that the marbling is maximized and the meat the best quality. If you kill it at 80 kilos” — 176 pounds, when industrially produced pigs are slaughtered — “you won’t have marbled meat. You need time, more than one year, when a normal pig takes five months to raise.”
“The second big problem,” he said, “is at the slaughterhouse: the carcass has only half of the quantity of meat and double the fat. So the Mangalitsa product we will have to sell, cured dried ham or fresh loin, always at two to three times more in price.”

Also, Mangalitsas give birth to only 5 to 8 piglets instead of the 12 to 14 of more commonly raised breeds.

Mr. Toth’s partner, Juan Vicente Olmos Llorente, who runs Monte Nevado in Spain, takes every Mangalitsa ham, loin and shoulder produced on the farms. In Spain, the hams are finished and sold as jamón Mangalica, the most expensive going for $70 a pound, rivaling pata negra hams. Monte Nevado hopes to begin Internet sales in the United States in June at latienda.com.

There is one American breeder of Mangalitsas, on the West Coast: Heath Putnam. His company, Wooly Pigs, based in Auburn, Wash., fattens the swine for sale but also sells neutered piglets for others to raise. Mr. Putnam started three years ago with 25 pigs he brought from Europe, before imports were restricted. He now produces about 1,200 piglets a year and has begun selling pork to chefs, wholesaling larger cuts for between $12 and $15 a pound.

Mr. Putnam had Christoph Wiesner, an Austrian breeder who selected the Putnam herd, give chefs a workshop on European butchering and curing.

“When I opened the belly of the first pig,” Mr. Wiesner said, “you could see the chefs’ eyes getting big. ‘Oh, wow!’ they were saying. ‘Look at that fat!’ You could see they were already thinking what I can do with this part and that.”

The workshop took place on the farm of Keith Luce, the executive chef at the Herbfarm Restaurant outside Seattle.

“Because it’s so great for curing,” Mr. Luce said, “we’re laying it down and curing the legs predominantly, making lardo, all the traditional things. It’s a true nose-to-tail experience with the Mangalitsa, and there’s not any part we’re not using.”

The restaurant has also featured the meat on its tasting menu in a different form almost every night recently.

“We were laughing when we tasted it,” Mr. Luce continued. “We couldn’t control ourselves. The taste, the texture was so unbelievable.”

Mangalitsas may be too expensive for most local bistros, but Mr. Faison, the specialty meat wholesaler, said there should be a place for them. “We tell the chefs, you got to keep some magic on the menu, some fun,” he said, “because the people are coming in to escape whatever hell they’re facing out there.”

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Associated Press


There's trouble afoot in the world of high-priced Spanish hams. A black foot to be precise.

Less than a year after the U.S. government finally allowed the import of Spain's succulent and exceedingly expensive jamón Ibérico de bellota, the cured meat long sought by American gourmets has become caught in a quagmire of regulations and trade wars.

The trouble started just months after the hams — traditionally presented with the distinctive black hoof still attached — began arriving. Someone noticed that the hoofs violated a USDA sanitary rule requiring they be removed.

USDA spokeswoman Peggy Riek says the rule, which also applies to domestic production, is designed to reduce the risk of contamination. So officials began making importers cut off the hoofs. It satisfied the regulations, but irritated eaters.

"In all its glory, it won't be the same without the hoof," says Jonathan Harris, co-owner of LaTienda.com, an online retailer of Spanish wine and food, including the bellota ham.

Meanwhile, the ham also is caught in a trade dispute between the United States and Europe that could double its already exorbitant price. As of April 23, dozens of European foods, from mineral water to chickens, could be slapped with steep new taxes.

The tax — which is 100 percent on cured Spanish hams shipped with the bone — is the latest parry in a long-running quarrel with the European Union over its ban on U.S. beef produced with growth hormones.

"You're just hurting individual businesses," says Taylor Griffin, president of The Rogers Collection, a Portland, Maine-based luxury foods importer. "You're not helping American trade in any way."

The high-end ham is made from pampered free-range pigs fattened on acorns in the forests of southwestern Spain.

The acorn diet gives the meat a satiny taste that sets it apart even from other prized Iberico hams.

It can sell for $1,400 for a full ham from thigh to hoof and is described without irony as the Holy Grail of ham.

"It's the best ham in the world. It's the caviar of ham. I'm such a proponent of it," says chef Terrance Brennan of the New York restaurants Picholine and Artisanal. "Once you have it, you can't go back to proscuitto ... For me, it's sublime."

Strict regulations kept the bellota and other Iberico hams out of this country until a Spanish company, Embutidos Fermin, built a slaughterhouse that met muster.

They began importing Iberico hams to the U.S. last year in partnership with Rogers Collection and chef Jose Andres.

The pending arrival of Iberico hams in the United States made headlines. Even then-candidate Barack Obama indulged in a sample during a campaign stop last year in Philadelphia. He called it "delicious."

There is hope for ham lovers. The tariff covers only hams shipped on the bone, so sliced products won't be affected.

And U.S. trade officials already have delayed the tariff from the original date of March 23 to give them time to hash out an "interim solution" with their European counterparts.

The tariff also is being challenged by Nestle Waters North America, a Greenwich, Conn.-based subsidiary of Switzerland-based Nestle SA that sells Pellegrino mineral water.

The company claims in U.S. International Trade Court that U.S. trade officials improperly exceeded their authority with the tariff, in part because the value of the imported goods exceeds the amount allowed by law.

On the hoof issue, Griffin says the governments of Spain and the United States are working to solve it, though the USDA said it has yet to receive an appeal. Meanwhile, Harris says La Tienda will just have to sell bellota ham without the hoof.

He says they still have some of the hoofed ham in stock. But once they're gone, that's all folks.

Read full article...

Michael Hill

There's trouble afoot in the world of high-priced Spanish hams. A black foot to be precise.

Less than a year after the U.S. government finally allowed the import of Spain's succulent and exceedingly expensive jamon Iberico de bellota, the cured meat long sought by American gourmets has become caught in a quagmire of regulations and trade wars.

The trouble started just months after the hams — traditionally presented with the distinctive black hoof still attached — began arriving. Someone noticed that the hoofs violated a USDA sanitary rule requiring they be removed.

USDA spokeswoman Peggy Riek says the rule, which also applies to domestic production, is designed to reduce the risk of contamination. So officials began making importers cut off the hoofs. It satisfied the regulations, but irritated eaters.

"In all its glory, it won't be the same without the hoof," says Jonathan Harris, co-owner of LaTienda.com, an online retailer of Spanish wine and food, including the bellota ham.

Meanwhile, the ham also is caught in a trade dispute between the United States and Europe that could double its already exorbitant price. As of April 23, dozens of European foods, from mineral water to chickens, could be slapped with steep new taxes.

The tax — which is 100 percent on cured Spanish hams shipped with the bone — is the latest parry in a long-running quarrel with the European Union over its ban on U.S. beef produced with growth hormones.

"You're just hurting individual businesses," says Taylor Griffin, president of The Rogers Collection, a Portland, Maine-based luxury foods importer. "You're not helping American trade in any way."

The high-end ham is made from pampered free-range pigs fattened on acorns in the forests of southwestern Spain. The acorn diet gives the meat a satiny taste that sets it apart even from other prized Iberico hams. It can sell for $1,400 for a full ham from thigh to hoof and is described without irony as the Holy Grail of ham.

"It's the best ham in the world. It's the caviar of ham. I'm such a proponent of it," says chef Terrance Brennan of the New York restaurants Picholine and Artisanal. "Once you have it, you can't go back to proscuitto ... For me, it's sublime."

Strict regulations kept the bellota and other Iberico hams out of this country until a Spanish company, Embutidos Fermin, built a slaughterhouse that met muster. They began importing Iberico hams to the U.S. last year in partnership with Rogers Collection and chef Jose Andres.

The pending arrival of Iberico hams in the United States made headlines. Even then-candidate Barack Obama indulged in a sample during a campaign stop last year in Philadelphia. He called it "delicious."

There is hope for ham lovers. The tariff covers only hams shipped on the bone, so sliced products won't be affected. And U.S. trade officials already have delayed the tariff from the original date of March 23 to give them time to hash out an "interim solution" with their European counterparts.

The tariff also is being challenged by Nestle Waters North America, a Greenwich, Conn.-based subsidiary of Switzerland-based Nestle SA that sells Pellegrino mineral water. The company claims in U.S. International Trade Court that U.S. trade officials improperly exceeded their authority with the tariff, in part because the value of the imported goods exceeds the amount allowed by law.

On the hoof issue, Griffin says the governments of Spain and the United States are working to solve it, though the USDA said it has yet to receive an appeal. Meanwhile, Harris says La Tienda will just have to sell bellota ham without the hoof.

He says they still have some of the hoofed ham in stock. But once they're gone, that's all folks.