Category Archives: food & drink

do-it-yourself doctor

16 Thursday Jul 2009

Posted by in cancer, chemo, food & drink, friends, health & happiness, hospitals, tapas

≈ 10 Comments

diy doctor

Just call me Dr az.

I went to see the oncologist yesterday. Dr Ana is on holiday so I saw one of my original colon cancer oncs. As I mentioned in my summer holidays post, I’ve had very bad reactions to the last three infusions of Oxyplatin and so I decided that for the sixth and final round of chemo I’d just take the Xeloda chemo pills and forgo the infusion. When I told my friend/student/GP Agustín this the other day he went all doctory on me and said this wasn’t a decision I should make without the advice of my oncologist. So I gave that a shot and I’m not surprised at all how things went…

Continue reading →

twitter lunch

10 Friday Jul 2009

Posted by in food & drink, friends, internet, restaurants, sevilla, tapas, twitter

≈ 4 Comments

anna & pedro

The other day I met the lovely Anna on Twitter via a mutual acquaintance and, after tweeting back and forth a bit, I asked if she would like to meet up for a cold beer one day. And yesterday was the day. The plan was to meet for a pre-lunch beer and so I suggested Zaragoza 64 because they serve excellent Galician beer there, far superior to the pale and tasteless Cruz Campo, which is the bog standard lager sold in bars here. I’m not much of a beer drinker but I really like the taste of Galicia Estrella.

At the last minute Anna also invited her very charming Twitter friend Pedro to join us and – you guessed it – we ended up having lunch. A wonderful time was had by all. Very pleasant company, lots of laughs, including the very satisfying discovery that we are all “strong and bossy” types, which led to a few good anecdotes about those who feel the need to label decisive people “bossy”. We are also all a bit gadget crazy (who me?) and I couldn’t help but smile when Pedro took out his iPhone to send a few tweets. And also all expats – from Italy, Venezuela & Canada.

So, it was my first ever twitter lunch – hopefully the first of many.

(food pics below…)

Continue reading →

food porn

06 Monday Jul 2009

Posted by in cancer, food & drink, health & happiness, photos, restaurants, sevilla, spain, tapas

≈ 15 Comments

romero prawn nests

I don’t know how many calories these babies have and I don’t care.

After doing some Saturday morning errands and a bit of grocery shopping the other day, Nog & I stopped in for a tapa at one of our favourite bars, Bodeguita Romero. Everyone there knows about the cancer so, as I hadn’t been there in a few months, a full health update was required by the bar staff and Pedro Romero, the owner. After that was taken care of we tried something new on the menu – these really fabulous prawns wrapped in crispy fried potato threads. Then Pedro gave us a free sample of another new tapa they are trying out (see below). Little brie-filled pastries, kind of like spring rolls. The one on the left has spinach and the other one leeks. Also very nice.

All of this reminded me that I have been neglecting my Sevilla Tapas site, which still needs a lot of work done on it. So that is going to be one of my projects this week. In between yoga and breathing and walking and healing…

Continue reading →

ad for anorexia

05 Sunday Jul 2009

Posted by in food & drink, health & happiness, rants, video, wtf?

≈ 27 Comments

This ad has been showing on Spanish television for awhile now and, everytime I see it, I get really annoyed. The girls are saying “I’m smarter than hunger” (hunger = hambre) and with close up shots of their eensy-weensy bums they encourage hungry women to eat “30 delicious calories” of puffed corn crap with virtually no nutritional value (1 cake; Calories: 30, Total Fat: 0.2g, Carbs: 6g, Protein:0.7g). I doubt most women would fall for this bullshit, but what about impressionable teenage girls? Which I am sure is Bicentury’s intended target market.

I admit that I tend to find most advertising geared towards women offensive, but this one takes things too far by appearing to promote anorexia. There’s no mention that this product is an occasional snack option if one is on a weight loss programme. The ad just blatantly flaunts stick-thin models boasting about how they beat hunger. Sick.

In reality, a nice crisp apple would make one feel less hungry than two air-puffed corn cakes.  Same calories, but with way more natural goodness.  Here is the nutritional content of an apple…

apple

I rest my case.

summer solstice christmas

22 Monday Jun 2009

Posted by in culture, food & drink, friends, health & happiness, hope, restaurants, sevilla

≈ 9 Comments

manolo leon lunch

Yesterday was Susan’s last Sunday in Sevilla and she treated me to this fabulously decadent lunch at Manolo León. Some of you may remember that after the erroneous second prognosis last October, when I was told that I maybe had a year to live, we (Nog, Pablo & I) went to Manolo León for a “post-prognosis party” in order to, well, eat like there was no tomorrow and get shit-faced. And so it was nice to go back there under more pleasant circumstances.

Yesterday was also the summer solstice, which ended up feeling a bit like Christmas…

Continue reading →