Iolanda Bustos

Flow­ers are al­ready part of our diet; we are all fa­mil­iar with broc­coli, ar­ti­chokes, and cau­li­flower, rose petal jam or squash flow­ers tem­pura. But have you ever tried el­der­flower cham­pagne or the highly en­er­getic dill water? Iolanda Bus­tos pre­pares them at her restau­rant La Calèndula, where she showed us some of her tips and favourites.

1.​Calendula. Each plant has its own per­son­al­ity, and each per­son has his or her own flower. Mine, of course, is the cal­en­dula. This ver­sa­tile plant is a sym­bol for me, as it has the po­ten­tial to live every­where and adapt to every­thing. It has so many ther­a­peu­tic prop­er­ties; it's good for the skin, it has di­ges­tive, an­tibi­otic and an­ti­sep­tic prop­er­ties. When I don't feel well I make my­self rice with cal­en­dula.

2. El­der­flow­ers. For me, it is the good tree, as you can make nat­ural reme­dies for the whole fam­ily, not to men­tion its use in the kitchen. My grandma's fried el­der­flow­ers, is one of the best mem­o­ries I have from child­hood and I still make them in the restau­rant. The cough syrup that my par­ents used to pre­pare was so good that we wanted more. I also make xam­pa­nyet de saüc, a de­li­cious sparkling drink.

3. Gala de flors is a home brewed rosé flower beer we make our­selves with hi­bis­cus, cal­en­dula and el­der­flow­ers. We sell it through Vins i licors Grau in Palafrugell, and Set de vins and Gerunda in Girona.

4. My first book, Cuina fresca i nat­ural (2008) brings to­gether all the recipes I made dur­ing the cook­ing pro­gramme I used to pre­sent for TVGi.

5. La mil­l­lor cuina amb flors, plantes i fruits sil­vestres (La Columna). For my sec­ond book I talked to hun­dreds of coun­try peo­ple to re­vive recipes with flow­ers and herbs used by our grand­par­ents but which are com­pletely for­got­ten nowa­days, such as net­tle omelette or dan­de­lion salad.

6. Plantes med­i­c­i­nals by Pio Font Queris a com­plete guide of all the med­i­c­i­nal plants in Cat­alo­nia, My own 'vade­me­cum'. This book taught me a lot and I al­ways keep it at hand for con­sult­ing.

7. A photo of my­self doing sports fish­ing. My ideal of peace and tran­quil­ity is the sea, such as this day's fish­ing on a boat with my hus­band and son, when we caught 200 kilos of tuna!

8. The ipad al­lows me to be con­nected with my clients and han­dle my blog, Face­book, Twit­ter, In­sta­gram at the same time. I am quite ac­tive on so­cial net­works and I like doing it my­self.

9. Bas­ket. I use it for when I pick flow­ers, going to the mar­ket... I wouldn't know what to do it with­out.

10. Tea. I start my day with green with ste­via. I use in­fu­sions with sea­sonal herbs to drink, for the sauces in the restau­rant, ice­creams...

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