Category Archives: food & drink

macarena day trip

16 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in food & drink, friends, sevilla, spain, tapas, trips

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san luis day trip[click to biggify]

The Macarena barrio is a hodge-podge of grand old churches, seen-better-days houses and squares, and trendy new shops and restaurants. Yesterday I headed out on a “day trip” to this part of town with my intrepid travelling friends Ang & Ryan (Jets Like Taxis), who are always up for anything new. My main objective was to visit a fabulous new craft centre called Rompemoldes but, as usual, we ended up exploring further afield (in search of tapas, natch).

It was a fab afternoon filled with new sights, great food, beautiful blue skies and lots of walking and talking. Am really going to miss Ang & Ryan when they leave Sevilla next week, heading off on new adventures and challenges. It’s been great having such lovely neighbours these past couple of months.

pre-pet low carb day

11 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in cancer, food & drink, hope, hospitals

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low carbApparently you are not supposed to eat carbohydrates 48 hours before a PET scan. Who knew? Well okay, I sorta knew as I used to read about some people’s pre-PET regimens on the Colon Club forum, but as nobody here had ever said anything other than I shouldn’t eat six hours before the scan I didn’t think it mattered that much.

Turns out that it is rather important as too much carb-sugar can skew the scan results, often ending up with false positives. Likewise doing any strenuous exercise 48 hours before a scan. I actually knew about the latter but can’t actually see the connection in the same way as the sugar connection – Sledpress, can you shed any light on this?

It also turned out that, coming home after two days of – let’s be honest – some rather intense tapearing in Málaga, I felt like I needed to detox a bit. So yesterday I eschewed carbs and went for nice light veggie and protein meals, which means that just by chance I am doing the 48-hour thing. But I wonder why I have never been told about this at the hospital here. Ah well, by this time mañana I will know if I am okay for another six months or if……

thursday

28 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in food & drink, friends, holidays, home, sevilla, tapas

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thursday
As the late great Douglas Adams‘ hero Arthur Dent, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, famously said just moments before the Earth was destroyed… “This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursday”. I feel something similar. It’s an ‘in between’ kind of day and especially today when it is also a dreaded Bank Holiday. Can’t stand Bank Holidays. Or Sundays. Everything shuts down and is, well, shut down.  So today is like a double-whammy and I had no recourse other than to go out and have tapas with my friends and temporary vecinos Ryan & Ang (aka JetsLikeTaxis). Not sooo bad, really 😉 … but what was meant to be a light lunch tapeo turned into a massive gastronomic feast. Ah well, these things happen.

Thanks for a great afternoon Ang & Ryan! Rooftop BBQ coming up!

cooking class!

06 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by in food & drink, sevilla, work

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cooking class
So this is what I did yesterday! For ages I have been looking for a Spanish cooking class in Sevilla that is offered in English because so many of my Sevilla Tapas Tour clients ask me about this. Then a couple of weeks ago I happened to mention this to my friend Sam @AndaluciaSam and he told me about a local company Travel & Cuisine, who have recently moved to new premises. And as another friend Fiona @Seville_Writer also has a client interested in cooking classes we arranged to take a class with T & C to see if we would be comfortable recommending them personally. And we not only had a great time – and a great lunch – but we were also very happy with the quality of the class and the great space they have. I’ll be writing more about this on the Azahar Sevilla blog, but for now here’s a sneak photo peek.

Later on yesterday evening I had a last-minute Gourmet Tapas Tour and ended up rolling home around 1.00 am. So today it was a bit of a recovery day, with a trip to the gym and a nice salad for dinner. How’s your week going?

[update: the Azahar Sevilla blog post is up! Travel & Cuisine Cooking Class]

twitter strikes again

04 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in blogging, food & drink, friends, sevilla, social media, twitter

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indietravel
As you no doubt recall last Thursday and Friday was spent with food writer Kalyan (@FinelyChopped) and his lovely wife Kainaz from Mumbai. They were in town for a few days and we did a Sevilla Tapas Tour one night and Flamenco & Tapas the next.

Then on Saturday I got in touch with new neighbours and professional travellers Ang & Ryan (@JetsLikeTaxis) from Chicago who are in Sevilla for a couple of months, and who had taken a walking tour with Peter last week. I was planning on checking out a new tapas bar and asked if they’d like to join me, which they happily did. And it was great getting their input as well as just enjoying a nice lunch out with new friends.

Today I met up with world travelling podcasters Linda & Craig Martin (@indietravel) from New Zealand, who have been in Spain since last spring and happened to be in Sevilla for the day with their friend Alba from La Coruña. So we went out for an impromptu lunchtime tapeo which, as usual, got a bit carried away. You can see a bit of what we got up to in that collage. Our extended lunch also meant they missed going to the two main sites they had planned on visiting (which closed at 5 o’clock). Oops!

The thing is, none of these encounters would have happened without Twitter. Amazing, innit?