Category Archives: books

wines of central & southern spain

03 Thursday Jul 2025

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Look what came today! Been looking forward to this, the companion book to my friend Sarah Jane Evans MW‘s The Wines of Norther Spain. I even get a nice mention for advising Sarah Jane (ever so slightly) about Sevilla wines, still very much unheard of, even here. Excellent timing to help with research I’m presently doing for a couple of Bitesize Sevilla articles as well as an upcoming travel piece for Decanter.

Things are hopping down here in the south. As Sarah Jane says in her book, if she had written the chapter on Andaculía ten years ago it would have been very different. Exciting times. Also nice to see so many people I’ve come to know over the years mentioned in the book. Worth taking a look.

jerez travel book

22 Friday Sep 2023

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jerez travel book

My friend Anne is one of the most thoughtful gift givers I know. Not only because she thinks about giving people gifts (which she loves to do) but she also thinks it through and somehow, at least with me, always gets it right. And trust me, I’m not the easiest person to give things to, simply because I think my tastes are difficult to pinpoint. So normally when someone surprises me with a gift I wince a bit inwardly knowing that I’ll smile and say it’s lovely (and I’ll mean it because the thought is always lovely) while also knowing I will never use, wear, read whatever it is.

But not with Anne. So when she surprised me with this fabulous book last week at the Lustau Cata Magistral I had a look, saw it was signed by both the author and illustrator, and thanked her so much, knowing I was going to love it even though I didn’t really know what I was looking at.

Later when I got home I had a better look at this beautiful love letter to Jerez.  Journalist María José Solano and artist Miki Leal bring Jerez to life on these delightful pages and I can’t wait to read it.

Thanks again, Anne! Though I’m still a bit miffed you got me hooked on those azahar oil stick diffusers a few years ago THAT ARE NOW DISCONTINUED. 😘

he signed it!

15 Friday Sep 2023

Posted by in books, sherry

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signed

Last night I was invited to a posh presentation at the Hotel Alfonso XIII and, when I found out César Saldaña was going to be there, I decided to take the opportunity of getting my copy of The Book of Sherry Wine signed. César is not only an author, he’s the president of the Sherry Council and was one of my teachers when I took the Sherry Educator course back in 2015. I think I caught him by surprise with the book, but he was a good sport about it. Though he didn’t write “to the BEST sherry student I’ve ever had” like I asked him to… 😉

national dish

09 Wednesday Aug 2023

Posted by in books, food & drink, sevilla

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national dish

Look what came today! This was the second book I ordered last week, along with The Book of Sherry Wines, bringing my total book purchases since downsizing in 2017 to a resounding three (the third, well, first one was The Wines of Northern Spain by my friend (and Master of Wine) Sarah Jane Evans.

National Dish is by Anya von Bremzen and looks like it’s going to be delightful. I had a teeny-tiny part in it when Anya and her partner Barry were here doing research in the spring of 2019 and we met up a couple of times, going to a few bars where I introduced her to the owners who agreed to be interviewed. It’ll be hard not to skip ahead to the chapter on Sevilla!

In this engrossing and timely journey to the crossroads of food and identity award-winning writer Anya von Bremzen explores six of the world’s most fascinating and iconic culinary cultures—France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey—brilliantly weaving cuisine, history, and politics into a work of scintillating connoisseurship and charm.