christmas food
26 Friday Dec 2008
Posted in christmas, food & drink, friends, holidays, home, restaurants
Category Archives: food & drink
sprouts
24 Wednesday Dec 2008
Posted in blogging, food & drink, friends, games, holidays
Sautéed sprouts with pancetta & pine nuts.
Don’t these look fabulous? (click on image to enlarge) They were prepared by the lovely and talented Wandering Coyote as part of a sumptuous solstice feast. You can check out the entire dinner menu on Retorte , WC’s blog of culinery delights (warning: do not go there when hungry).
For those of you who (like Nog) would rather stick hot pins in your eyes than eat a sprout, knock yourselves out with these…
getting that christmas feeling…
23 Tuesday Dec 2008
Posted in christmas, food & drink, friends, sevilla, tapas
It’s all been feeling rather Christmassy lately, even mundane stuff like getting my hair cut. The photo above was taken on my way home from the hairdresser’s yesterday, when I stopped in at Bar Campanario to do some bloggy research for a virtual Christmas dinner being planned over at FFE’s. At one point Sledpress mentioned a Spanish liqueur called Cuarenta y Tres (43), which I had never tried. So I asked my friend María Paz if she would let me have a wee taste, which led to her offering me & Nog free drinks and tapas … and well, we couldn’t say no.
Last weekend Nog & I had gone to pick out my Christmas prezzie (which is still a secret) and on the way home passed a tapa bar that – gasp! – we had never been to. After checking out the menu we decided to stop in at Pando for a snack, and look at what we got for just 12 euros (including two drinks!)…
slow travel
22 Monday Dec 2008
Slow Travelers go to Europe to experience different cultures and lifestyles, but they do it differently than most tourists. Instead of staying in hotels or B&Bs, they stay in vacation rentals – apartments, cottages or houses that you rent by the week. Staying in your own temporary “home”, even if just for a week or two, lets you experience a place more intensely because you get involved in the community where you are staying. You shop for groceries and supplies in the local shops, stop at the same cafe every morning, see the people in your village or neighborhood each day.
About a year ago I was looking at the Live Traffic Feed on Sevilla Tapas and saw that someone had visited from a place called Slow Travel. So I went and checked it out …
christmas cake recipe
20 Saturday Dec 2008
Posted in christmas, food & drink, humour
Years ago I used to make my annual Christmas cake just after Halloween, wrap it in rum-soaked cheesecloth and (with frequent re-soakings) let it sit in a cool cupboard until the big day. It was a very dark and dense cake, baked in a bundt pan. No icky candied fruit for me, I always used dried fruit (apricots, raisins, currants, dates) and freshly chopped nuts (pecans, almonds, hazelnuts), so that in the end the actual cake batter was just barely holding all the fruit & nuts together. It was best served very thinly sliced and was also good with a slice of very sharp old cheddar cheese on top.
It’s many years now since I made one of these fabulous cakes, but I was reminded of them yesterday when my dear friend Lizzie sent me a Christmas cake recipe that looks quite fun to make, especially as I could also practice being a pirate (ho ho ho and a bottle of rum) …
casa azahar 