Category Archives: food & drink

tapas update – las golondrinas

11 Monday Feb 2008

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

≈ 7 Comments

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As I mentioned on the crackberry post, I was heading out for tapas on Friday with a new friend I’d met at the AWC lunch. First Traci and I met for a drink and were later joined by T’s husband and Nog. Las Golondrinas (which means The Swallows in English) is one of my favourite tapa bars. And the new second location we went to on Friday night had the very same excellent food. But what was missing for me was the charm and cosiness of the original place. Still, a lovely time was had by all and you can check out the photos here…

Las Golondrinas II

[updating a few hours later…]

I thought I’d also add photos taken at ay Maricrú yesterday afternoon when Nog and I went out for lunch before going to see No Country For Old Men. (photos 15-17) . I don’t know why but I get a lot more blurry pics with the new camera, even though it has an ‘anti-shake’ option. I wonder if it’s because it’s so small and not as solid as the old one to hold onto. I almost never got blurry photos with the old one.  😦

what kind of fruit are you?

10 Sunday Feb 2008

Posted by in food & drink, fun stuff, quizzes

≈ 15 Comments

You Are a Strawberry

You are friendly, outgoing, and well liked by many people.

You are popular, but there’s nothing you ordinary or average about you.

You a very interesting person, and you have many facets to your personality.

Sometimes you feel very conflicted. Your different sides of your personality pull at you.

You are a very sensual and passionate person. You are fiery… you can’t help it.

In general, you keep your passionate side under wraps. You are only wild in private.

~ found at Archie’s ~

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first time for everything

04 Monday Feb 2008

Posted by in food & drink, health & happiness, home

≈ 8 Comments

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First ever lamb stew … also first ever dumplings.

I can’t believe I’ve made it this far in life without ever having made these two very basic things before. It all started a week ago when I was preparing the weekly casa az stew (a tradition I’ve been carrying on since I talked about it over here) but then – eep! – after making up a chicken stew last Sunday night it was left out overnight by accident, which made me wonder if I should keep it as long in the fridge as I usually do (3-5 days).

So I posted what I thought was a very simple question on Ask h2g2 and OMG, you wouldn’t believe it. There were suddenly all these ‘foodies’ telling me that I was about to die, how could I do this, food should always be prepared fresh every day, blah blah blah… but amongst the nonsense there were also a few saner comments, the best ones including other stew suggestions. And one hootooer wrote that one of her favourite things in the world was lamb stew with herb dumplings, which kind of stayed in my mind and so yesterday I decided to try it out.

After googling around for a dumpling recipe it seemed that the recipes themselves were pretty standard – in general it’s just flour, baking powder, butter and water (or milk) with parsley or chives added. And I saw two basic cooking options – cooked on baking tray in the oven before adding to stew, or cooked directly in the stew. But then Delia Smith had a third option – a recipe for ‘crusted dumplings’ that is a combination of both methods – “When the stew is ready, remove the lid, place the dumplings all over the surface, then transfer the casserole to the highest shelf of the oven (without a lid) and leave it there for 30 minutes or until the dumplings are golden brown and crusty.” And that’s the one I went for.

Looks good, eh? It really was quite deliciuos.

But Nog is going to have a helluva time getting that pot clean…

food philistines

01 Friday Feb 2008

Posted by in blogging, food & drink

≈ 20 Comments

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Today upset waitress linked to this site on nursemyra’s blog. It’s wonderfully awful, and I even recognised a few ‘favourite dishes’ from my childhood.

Of course that was back before I even knew what broccoli was and these days I tend to be something of a food snob. But there are still some things that I occasionally crave (like chip butties) even though they also gross me out, and so I wonder if inside every food snob there also lurks a food philistine with a shameful secret desire for things that they will only eat when they think nobody is watching.

What’s yours?

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ladies who lunch

25 Friday Jan 2008

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

≈ 12 Comments

Further to yesterday’s post on the AWC, and also ian’s comment about me now falling into the ladies who lunch category…

I guess I’m feeling a sudden need to ‘broaden my horizons’ this year – in many different ways. And developing new contacts and friendships in Sevilla has now become one of them. Funny how you wake up one morning and realise that your life has kind of been shrinking without you having even noticed.

When I first moved to Sevilla and was living in an eensy studio apartment I used to spend a lot of time going out and meeting people. Because my place was so small I often used the terrace at Bar Campanario, which was right across the street, as my ‘extended livingroom’. I’d take a book or some writing paper with me, have a glass or two of wine, and invariably meet someone new while chatting with the owners of the bar (who quickly became good friends). About a year later I moved to a larger apartment down the street, which was followed by several impecunious years, making going out for drinks and tapas with friends no longer an option. And so my social circle started getting smaller and smaller…

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