Agnès Barceló: "People are afraid of vegetarian restaurants because many of them are bad."

ManacorAgnès Barceló (Manacor, 1995) has been the chef of the Plaer Vegetarià restaurant in Manacor for years. an Instagram profileLaurelito Millo, where he posts explanatory videos about how cooking can be healthy while still being tasty. And he does it very well.

How did you first get interested in cooking?

— I've always liked it, but I suppose it was more serious when I decided to enter the UIB School of Hospitality... even though it didn't turn out well.

And this?

— I quit before finishing because they put the kitchen and living room together... and I didn't like the living room at all. It also influenced me because I started after high school, at 16 and without a driver's license. There were so many things against me that it felt like I was grounded! Anyway, it didn't really disillusion me: as soon as I could, I started working in a kitchen.

Does it run in the family?

— My mother has been a vegetarian cook all her life. There's always been a lot of cooking at home. I remember when my mother got cold, for example, I would make her soup when I was little. I knew I wanted to be in a kitchen.

What's better to drink against the heat: a hot coffee or an ice-cold beer or soft drink?

— It depends. In any case, it's not recommended to drink a super-cold beverage, due to the contrast between a liquid at 7 degrees Celsius and stomach temperature. This causes more indigestion than the typical bathing right after eating, for example.

Where does your Instagram name, Laurelito Millo, come from?

— Bay leaf and thyme. These are two herbs that should be mandatory in every kitchen because they have incredible properties that we don't utilize and that have been lost in many dishes. A thyme infusion, for example, is antibacterial and strengthens the immune system.

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Why do we have more and more cooking waste?

— Because people always think they don't know how to cook, when in reality, they just don't want to waste a lot of time trying. Recipes, if you follow them, are hard to fail. And if you don't get it right, you can always modify it to transform it into something else. You can do a lot of different things.coolEven if you don't have much time... it's a matter of willpower and practice.

Of course, I'm not going to cook a slow-cooked chicken on a weekday, but there are plenty of quick and healthy alternatives. Now, if I have time and have to cook for friends, I sometimes start preparing things three days in advance, simply because I don't like challenging myself. It's clear that it's always more fun to cook for more people. If it's just me, I try to keep it simple: make things for the whole week, freeze others...

Do they pay close attention to what you eat? For example, are there any dishes that don't seem healthy but actually are, or, on the contrary, are there foods that seem healthy but make them doubtful?

— When I'm involved, I'm going to enjoy it. You can't always be on top of everything. Look, a hamburger can be healthy if you make the bun yourself. The cheese should be goat's cheese, and you should leave out any sugary sauces. And if we bake the potatoes in the oven, we'll have it. Eggs cooked in tomato sauce are very good, if the sauce is homemade. On the contrary, there are many foods sold as healthy, like vegan meat, which in most cases is overly processed and lacks any good properties. Vegan food isn't always synonymous with healthy.

I hadn't asked her until now, but, working in a restaurant like Placer Vegetarià, she will be vegan.

— Ido, we're not. I was until I was 13, that's true.

And what happened?

— I tried meat [smiles]. It was one day in Cantabria when I was working as a cook during the holidays.

What do you think about vegetarian restaurants in general? Which one has caught your attention the most recently?

— I think they have a problem, and that's that many of them are fairies. So I can understand why people in general are worried about them. I always say there's a lack of aromatic herbs; they're essential. It's also because most restaurants don't usually use processed products, and that forces you to buy fresher products, and to make them tasty, you have to know how to cook better. I would recommend Teresa Carles in Barcelona.

Have you ever been frustrated at work?

— I've never lost my enthusiasm. There are times when you burn out or get angry. But if you ask me what I would do for a living if I had to quit, I wouldn't know how to answer. In the end, burning out is something that hooks you, if you know how to see it in a positive way, to go a little further. There are many people who start out and burn out. Cooking at home isn't the same as opening a restaurant; you have to be prepared for when that surge of customers and the pressure will come.

What do you need from a kitchen to work comfortably?

— Always be organized. Understand that your colleagues have their own pace and organization. You can't demand yours from everyone, because that would quickly lead to frustration.

Tell me about Vegetarian Pleasure. How long have you been open, and how did you get started?

— My mother opened it 13 years ago. She'd already tried it with two restaurants before: Sa Farigola and then Avui tenim... At first, I was there all day, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. At the time, I was working at a hotel on the Costa dels Pins. She asked me if I'd be interested in joining her.

Do you value cooking without meat little, you fool?

— It's usually like that. The foreigners They value the quality of the product much more, for example. Whenever they come, they let us know they liked it.

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What makes you move forward?

— Finding this perfect blend of nutrition and fun, tasty cooking. Now that I've started to study more about which ingredients can be mixed with others and what specific properties they have according to cooks, I'm increasingly fascinated... Broccoli, for example, contains sulforaphane, which, to be activated and beneficial, must be cut 40 minutes before cooking, and after that, at most, it only lasts. If you drink coffee after a dish loaded with iron, it will cause the iron to become blocked, rendering it useless. Potatoes and rice cooked the day before are always more beneficial for the intestines. It's important to respect the chemical processes in each food.

When did you start making these fun and educational videos online? Do they take a lot of work?

— It usually takes me two days to edit. Duque has been working since May, learning how to script... all with the aim of spreading the word.