The Balearic Islands are the Mediterranean chapter of the Naora circumnavigation at its most Spanish and most summer and most distinctly itself: the clear water of the Formentera calas, the volcanic red rocks of Ibiza’s northern coast, the Mallorcan almond groves above the anchorages of the Serra de Tramuntana.
The Eighty2 anchors in the Formentera cala on the first evening after the passage from the Spanish mainland, with the water the specific turquoise of the shallow sandy bottom and the pine trees on the headland and the light that the Balearic July evening produces as the reason the photographers and the painters and the offshore sailors have been coming to this anchorage for as long as any of those categories has existed.
The gazpacho was made that morning from the tomatoes and the cucumber and the red pepper and the garlic and the sherry vinegar and the olive oil from the Palma market provisioning, blended and chilled through the day’s sailing so that by the evening it has the temperature and the consistency of the cold Spanish summer soup that the Andalusian kitchen perfected as the answer to the question of what to eat when the heat requires the cold and the tomato is at the peak of the season and the blender is the only equipment the preparation requires.
The jamón ibérico is sliced thin and laid on the board with the olive oil and the bread.
The First Balearic Evening
The cold gazpacho and the Iberian ham is the dinner that requires no heat and no complexity and no occasion beyond the first evening in the Balearic anchorage after the Mediterranean passage. The bowl of the cold soup with the olive oil drizzle and the small dice of the cucumber and tomato that is the traditional garnish. The jamón ibérico from the acorn-fed pigs of the Extremadura dehesa, the specific sweetness and the fat that melts at the temperature of the hand.
The bread and the olive oil. The Balearic wine in the glass. Twelve people at the outdoor table with the sun going down over the Formentera cala and the first evening of the Balearic chapter producing exactly what the first evening of the Balearic chapter has always produced for the person who arrives by boat and drops the anchor and lets the Mediterranean summer do what the Mediterranean summer does when the conditions are correct. The gazpacho is cold. The evening is warm. The anchorage is the anchorage it has always been.
