Being in a kitchen on such chilly days feels like a heart-warming blessing, a real joy, even if the world outside is approaching the bleak midwinter. The warmth inside must compensate for the cold outside, and when customers enter the restaurant, we must bring this warmth to their hearts. At this time of the year, food can be comforting – comfort food indeed!

These are the shortest days of the year, until the joy of Christmas wraps us up in its light. But before and after that, at Can Fabes, we will keep the lights and the fires burning to greet you.

In its first year, Santi has become one of the addresses not to be missed in Singapore, the ‘Lion City’, capital of South-East Asia and a thriving metropolis open to the whole world. It is not a coincidence that Santi earned the coveted award Best New Restaurant in the prestigious Singapore Tatler Best Restaurants Guide 2011. And it surely isn’t a coincidence, either, that some of the greatest names in the world of wine and food should choose our restaurant to be introduced to Singaporeans.

This is why we are celebrating this first anniversary, with the certainty that it will signal the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.

There are thousands of stories on woodcocks, although the most common one is the myth that people used to eat them after a long faisandage. The bird was hung from a beam until its neck was in such an advanced state of decay that the body fell to the ground. This is an obvious exaggeration, but it is important to keep woodcocks hanging for a few days (five at most) for their meat to become tastiest. A woodcock hanging in the dark evokes memories of still-lifes by the greatest old masters.

When I see a woodcock on my kitchen board, I feel deeply moved, and I feel just as moved when I delicately pluck its feathers trying not to damage its skin. Then I scorch the remaining fine feathers, I rub its skin gently and remove the tips of the wings, where feathers tend to be more persistent. I rub off scorched bits of skin or feathers and remove the eyes, the anus and the preen gland. I cut the head and the breast along the sternum across the whole body. I cover the breasts with thin bacon slices to prevent them from getting dry. I tie the woodcock and season to taste. As you have probably noticed, I do not remove the guts, because they are extremely important for the final dish.

The best way to cook woodcock is to spit-roast it, but if you cannot, then you can cook it with an iron cocotte. Brown the woodcock on each side with olive oil and butter for less than 12 minutes and carve it, leaving the breasts whole. Purée the guts with some brandy and duck foie gras, sieve it, spread it on some toast and put it under the salamander grill. However, if we can spit-roast the woodcock, I suggest that you put the bread under the woodcock so that the juices fall on the pâté. Use the bones to make a sauce with shallots and brandy, and serve reproducing the bird’s anatomy on the plate, with some mushrooms, shallots or sautéed onions.

The best wine for woodcock is a great reserve from a great vintage, well kept and displaying all the complexity that can only be acquired through time, patience and wisdom.

A healthy diet is a balanced diet, a diet ruled by the simplicity urged upon us by the Greek sage whose only food was bread, olives and cheese. Returning to the path of nature with a healthy diet is exactly what our bodies need. The growing cult to appearances, to the way things and people look rather than to our innermost feelings is leading us to a world of mock reality.

However, the simple appearance of a pasta dish, for instance, is deceptive, because for that dish to be perfectly cooked, cooking time must be perfect, together with a perfectly balanced harmony of condiments and fat. And this is to me the quintessence of cooking: tiem, harmony, precision, balance – things that sometimes we find missing in many restaurants, where they should always bear in mind that the food cannot wait for the customers.

Autumn brings us chestnuts, figs, game and mushrooms. It is a season of poetry, a time to write letters as sincere as the one sent by Paul Gauguin from Quimper, in Britanny, to his friend and colleague Claude-Émile Schuffenecker: “I know I’ll be less and less understood. But I don’t care if I distance myself from others – I will always be a cipher to the masses, or a poet to some. But sooner or later,  good will prevail.”

Autumn is a season for quiet reflection: the calm mid-afternoon sun and an occasional walk into the Natural Park of Montseny invigorate us and help us understand that, as Gaugin said, good will prevail.

The smell of an autumn pulse stew – with chickpeas or lentils – when we lift the lid of a soup tureen brings out emotions that a few seconds later will be apprehended by our mind. They will fill our senses of smell and taste as well as touch. Even our sight will be delighted by this soup so evocative of the autumn.

It is a time to gaze over our old photo albums, to relive the warmest moments of our lives. The sight of leaves falling from the trees prepares us for the season’s mellowness.

When the heat becomes painfully intense, we appreciate a lighter, fresher, mouth-watering kind of cuisine. The flavours of salted fishes, such as anchovies and cod, are just as welcome as some grilled vegetables seasoned with herbs and olive oil. Typical Catalan summer dishes include escalivada (grilled peppers, aubergine and onions), esqueixada (salted cod and tomato salad) and empedrat (bean, tomato and salted cod salad).

Fruits are essential in the summer and they can be starters as well as desserts. A fruit salad is always refreshing, a Cantaloup melon with sweet Banyuls wine or port or the universally-acclaimed melon with Parma ham are all delicious, but a chilled melon eaten by the spoonful is a superb starter.

Summer cuisine tends to be less solid – literally: a gazpacho, a jellied consommé or a vichyssoise are perfect examples of the liquid cuisine of summer, although they lack the forcefulness of some other summer dishes, liquid – like bouillabaisse – or solid, such as Mediterranean spiny lobster with potatoes.

If we associate bouillabaisse and spiny lobsters with the summer it’s because this is the season of seafood cuisine, of sophisticated fish casseroles that express our culinary identity – I find them as ravishing, magical and seductive as the bonfires of Saint John’s eve.

The renewal of the menus will continue in the autumn, when one of the gastronomic events of the year is scheduled to take place at Can Fabes: Xavier Pellicer will join our team as chef and joint director. He will contribute to increase the level of excellence in our culinary offer – the whole will be far more than the sum of its parts. And this will also mean that there will always be a great cook present at Can Fabes, be it Santamaria or Pellicer, leading a great team.