Category Archives: food & drink

more sherry research!

03 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in food & drink, tapas, tapas tours, wine, work

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feria de la manzanilla
Hot on the heels of my successful World Sherry Day event I thought I’d try to recreate my own Feria de la Manzanilla here this past weekend, since I couldn’t get to the actual Feria in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (crap bus schedule from Sevilla). But although we ate and drank well that day it didn’t feel as special as my afternoon WSD thing, mostly because the waiters and bar people weren’t really into talking about the wines and suggesting good food parings. Ah well, win some lose some.

I get to win again soon because I was speaking to the brand manager from Gonzalez Byass in Jerez and told him that, inspired by my WSD experience, I wanted to start doing Introduction to Sherry tours but I needed to learn more about sherry. So he promised to give me a private sherry tasting class here in Sevilla, including food pairings. Can’t wait!

Feria de la Manzanilla

and speaking of fish…

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in books, food & drink

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mediterranean seafood… this was delivered yesterday!

It was recommended awhile ago by my friend Fiona (aka Scribbler in Seville) when I was trying to find the English name for a fish I only knew the Spanish word for. It’s a great illustrated catalogue of fish and shellfish that includes several translations, and it also includes over 200 recipes. I have to say that the recipes came as a bonus because I thought I was just buying a reference book. It’s also the first book I’ve bought in ages. What was the last book you bought?

shed likes food

04 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in food & drink, friends, tapas, tapas tours, twitter, twitter friends, wine

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shed
Just over a couple of years ago I met Nicola Swift @ShedLikesFood on Twitter when she got in touch about taking one of my Sevilla Tapas Tours. It turned out to be a memorable evening as not only is Nicola a true foodie, as well as charming and fun to be with, but I showed up for the tour on crutches. In fact, it was the tour I mentioned in this post. I didn’t know at the time that Nicola and I would stay in touch on Twitter nor that two years later she’d be back, this time with her parents, for a week-long visit in Sevilla. And so of course we had to do another food tour! This time it was the Market & Tapas Tour on Friday, which you can see was a great success. Especially because Nicola actually tried two things she’d never had before – caracoles (small snails) and fried ortigüillas (anenomes). So now the challenge is on for her to eat something “weird” every day she’s here.

Sevilla day one: some new things

Of course I’ll be helping Nicola in this endeavour as much as I can. We’ll be going out for lunch on Sunday and then to the Feria in Jerez on Wednesday (her last day in town). Stay tuned…

pat’s tapas tour revisited

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in cancer, food & drink, friends, tapas, tapas tours, video

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ellen and hilaryJust over a month ago I got an email from a woman called Ellen who said she was an acquaintance of Pat’s from the Colon Club forum. Ellen had seen the video I’d made for Pat and, as she was going to be in Spain soon with her partner Hilary, asked about the possibility of doing Pat’s Tapas Tour. And well, I was delighted to do this.

So on Tuesday I met them at the Cathedral and we headed off to the first stop. It was quite an emotional experience talking to someone who had known Pat, even a little (Ellen had only had contact with Pat on the CC forum, looking for advice about her then partner, who has since died of cancer). But it was also fun to see how both Ellen and Hilary recognised the places we went to, as well as the food, and also some of the waiters and owners. And of course we talked about Pat… brought back so many feelings and memories.

Still miss you, Pat. And I always will. xx