“My mother will kill me for publishing this recipe.
Specifically, he asked me not to.
I'm sorry, Mom".
Gabriela Palatchi (Barcelona, 1990) has published a recipe book in which she reveals her mastery of the kitchen but also some family secrets.
From his mother, the businesswoman Susana Gallardo, the most important discovery is her recipe for gazpacho.
Gabriela, a culinary entrepreneur in Istanbul, where she lives with her husband, apologizes to him, something Gallardo has surely already agreed to — for a reason, maternal love is the most unconditional.
The book, titled
Casa
and self-published by the author, is dedicated to her grandmother, who died in 2020 due to covid-19.
Gabriela and her two brothers, Alberto and Marta, are the new generation of one of the Spanish fortunes that has made the most headlines in recent years: Susana Gallardo, a member of the family that is the main shareholder of the pharmaceutical company Almirall, got married in 2019 in second nuptials with former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls;
his father, Alberto Palatchi, was the founder and president of the fashion company Pronovias, a company that was sold in 2017 for 550 million euros to a British investment fund.
Gabriela says that to set up Gabfoods, her restaurant and paleo cuisine brand –based on unprocessed foods–, she followed the advice her father gave her: "The best way to get to know a business is to start from the bottom."
In Pronovias, says the author of the book, she started out as a salesperson in the group's stores.
From that experience, he assures that his conviction came, transmitted to his father, that wedding dresses should be "sexier."
Gabriela Palatchi lives between Madrid and Istanbul, where she settled in 2016 following the love of her life, her husband, businessman Ediz Elhadef.
Gabfood, his company, is domiciled in the capital of Spain, in a well-known high-
end
residential building in
the Salamanca district.
Palatchi recipes are inspired by the most varied international gastronomy, also in traditional Jewish dishes, influenced by the Elhadef family.
Gabriela reveals at
Casa
that her husband's favorite dish is baked chicken that she prepares for him with devotion.
"In the wedding speech, my husband mentioned this chicken: 'You always make me happy when you cook my chicken."
The recipe for his mother's gazpacho consists of tomato, garlic, onion, green pepper, bread from the day before, olive oil, salt, vinegar and a special touch of red wine.
There are other culinary contributions that Palatchi first tasted at the family home or on his winter holidays in Cerdanya.
From an Italian cook whom the Palatchi Gallardos hired for a ski trip, she learned how to make
focaccia
bread
accompanied by flowers and other herbs.
In the same chalet in the Catalan Pyrenees where she married Elhadef, Gabriela recalls the fricandó that she ate after a long day of skiing, or the duck with
foie
that her mother prepares for New Year's Eve.
“This dish is so sophisticated that if it could speak, it would recite Baudelaire to you,” Gabriela writes.
The eldest of the children was predestined to dedicate herself to fashion, but love crossed her path.
The adaptation to Turkey has been unbeatable, according to his testimony.
She herself has roots in the Palatchi, she admits in her first book country: Grandfather Palatchi was a Turkish Sephardic who emigrated to Spain at the outbreak of the First World War.
The grandfather arrived in Barcelona accompanied by his brother.
With a suitcase full of fabrics as their sole property, the Palatchi brothers posed as Swiss tailors to gain the trust of the local bourgeoisie.
In a short time they made a name for themselves among the elites of Barcelona.
They opened a store and then the patriarch founded Pronovias with his son Alberto.
Gabriela explains that she enjoys so much social life in Istanbul that she had to give up the habit of buying a dress for each evening.
She replaced it by designing the clothes herself, buying the fabrics in one of the most traditional neighborhoods in the city, Osmanbey.
Among the book's acknowledgments are several of her local friends –the foreword is signed by one of them, the kundalini yoga teacher Serra Gürkaynak–, the manager of Gabfoods, Omer, who began as her driver, or “my little monkeys”, as she calls affectionately to the employees of the kitchen of your establishment.
The death of the grandmother, María Teresa Torrededía, last March at the age of 84, was a blow to the Palatchi Gallardo.
Gabriela posted on Instagram a heartfelt tribute to her grandmother: “Every Wednesday together, Christmas, walks along the Ramblas, through the market, you taught me to sew, cook, take care of others ... It's unfair how you have gone, without being able to say goodbye.
What will we do without you?
Gabriela offers at
Casa
glimpses of the culinary wisdom of
Torrededía, like the recipe for preparing a cockle appetizer that she taught her by videoconference, she in Barcelona and her granddaughter in Boston, where she studied business management.