23 Sunday Dec 2007
Posted in christmas, food & drink, fun stuff, humour
Click on the pic and start splatting!
Defend your Christmas dinner!
(even if you quite like sprouts it’s still a fun game)
from the casa az christmas archives
01 Saturday Dec 2007
Posted in food & drink, home, sevilla, spain, tapas
Well, it’s not just any potato salad. . .
For years now I’ve been going to Bodequita Romero and one of the very lovely things they do is give you a complementary tapa of fabulously garlicky marinated potatoes as a starter. And I have tried copying this very simple dish at home, time and time again, yet it never turns out just how Pedro Romero makes it.
And so today Nog & I stopped at Bodeguita Romero for our usual Saturday pre-shopping snack (around 1pm) and it turned out that Pedro was just about to mix up the potato salad and I asked if I could watch … you can see the pics here (photos 8-11).
It was very simple, yet also methodical … not at all how I’d tried doing it at home, which was mixing up all the marinade together first. Clearly I’d been doing it all wrong! And so, this is how you do it right. . .
First you sprinkle on some coarse sea salt and toss the potatoes. Then some more salt and toss some more. Then you add finely chopped garlic and do a bit more tossing, likewise after adding very finely chopped spring onion bit by bit. And toss, toss, toss – by toss I actually mean flipping the pot outwards and upwards. No spoons, no stirring – I reckon this is also where I was going wrong.
Then pour over some dry sherry vinegar, once, twice, three times, and after each time flip the potatoes so it’s all mixed up together. Finally pour a whole whack of very green virgin olive oil over the salad, let it sit for a few minutes and then tip the entire mixture into a large bowl. Then gently mix with a large spoon, backside of the spoon up … and then serve to extremely appreciative customers who have been watching you and taking photos. 
26 Monday Nov 2007
Posted in food & drink, friends, health & happiness, home, life stuff, nablopomo, retail therapy, sevilla
Actually, I don’t hate Mondays at all. In fact, I have quite a nice Monday schedule these days, starting with an 8.30 yoga class, followed by a bit of food shopping and then home to do the marathon cooking thing for the week that I first talked about here (still doing it – it works great!). I don’t have any English classes on Monday morning, which makes it possible. Then after I’ve done cooking and Nog has finished his morning classes, we might go out for a pre-lunch beer or vino. After lunch Nog goes off to his afternoon classes and I have an hour or so to obsess on the internet take care of a few things before my first class of the afternoon. On Mondays I usually work from 4.45 – 9-15 pm.
Anyhow, today it turned out that two of my afternoon classes had to reschedule so I was free from 6pm, and so after obessing on the internet doing a few chores I sent a text message to Nog asking if he wanted to meet me at the half-way point between his classes and home, as I had a couple of things I felt a sudden need for (comfy slippers and a new sweater). So I hopped on a rental bike and was at the mid-way point shopping centre in about 15 minutes. Found both comfy slippers and a gorgeous Liz Claiborne 100% cotton sweater (that I couldn’t afford, but I also almost never find 100% cotton sweaters here so I decided – ah, fuck it), and then met up with Nog to do a little pre-Christmas digital camera reconnoitering.
The plan after we finished was that we’d take rental bikes back to Catalina for a glass of wine before going home for dinner, but for some reason Nog’s card wouldn’t work, so we decided to have a race (me on the bike, him taking the bus) to see who’d get there first. Nog was there about two minutes before me because a bus came straight away and I had to stop for a red light. I’m totally loving this rental bike thang, especially as the first half hour is free.
Anyhow, got back home and I went – eek! I haven’t posted anything today! And so, here I am. 🙂 Just heating up some stew I made this morning (which was inspired by this one we had at La Estrella the other day) and then we’ll curl up on the sofa with hot stew, fresh country bread and a couple of cats to watch an episode of The West Wing. Then it’ll be a nice hot shower before getting into fresh sun-dried sheets (Monday is also ‘clean sheets day’ at casa az) . . .
How was your Monday?
22 Thursday Nov 2007
Posted in food & drink, home, nablopomo, sevilla, tapas
Last night Nog & I went to La Estrella.
This is the sister bar of CervecerÃa Giralda, which re-opened last July after being sold in May. La Estrella was also sold a couple of months later (to the same new owners of the Giralda) and re-opened sometime in September, but last night was our first visit since the change over. As with the Giralda Bar, the staff and menu have remained pretty much the same (though unlike the Giralda, La Estrella also has the same old prices).
We used to go to La Estrella quite often because it is at the end of AgustÃn’s street and it was part of our ‘Wednesday night tapas’ routine. Nog would pick me up at 8.30 when I finished my class with AgustÃn and then we would stop somewhere for a tapita and some rioja. This still happens but Agu has relocated to the Plaza Nueva for six months while his house is being renovated and so La Estrella is no longer en route.
Anyhow, last night’s outing was more of a proper meal than a tapita snack, which is good for getting tapa blog pics but not especially good for trying to get my waistline back. Ah well . . . off to pilates class soon.
Oh, and a question. What does the background yellow look like on the tapa blog? On SB it’s quite a nice pale yellow, on Nog’s laptop it’s kind of a light ochre – but on the Jaguar it’s an awful, very bright ‘Simpson’s yellow’. I’d like to do a bit of a survey to know if I should tone it down a bit. If you don’t get much background colour on your screen, it’s the same yellow that’s in the google ads on the sidebar. Thanks!
21 Sunday Oct 2007
Posted in food & drink, home, life stuff, sevilla
But I guess that’s what Sundays are for.
Bit of a late start after lying in bed reading until about 10 o’clock (finally finished Lamb – very good!), at which time the idea of coffee and toast got me up and moving. Spent some time playing (fighting?) with my new website and then Nog & I did a bit of housecleaning. By this time it was around one o’clock and we decided it would be a good idea to go for a bike ride.
Unfortunately, the rest of Sevilla had obviously been thinking the same thing, and so after going to four bike stations (and annoyingly there were groups of people grabbing the last bikes each time we walked up) we decided to give up and go for a cold beer on a sunny terrace instead. Then a leisurely stroll through the barrio, stopping in at the bakery to get a baguette for lunch and then – whoops! – slipped into the Irish pub for another cold one before going home. 
And then I don’t know what happened or what we did. Mostly just this and that – had lunch, blogged a bit, played online Scrabble, watched about 4 episodes of West Wing (in between ‘activities’, not all at once) and . . . now it’s bedtime.
Boring post, I know, but I’m feeling very happy and relaxed after this very lazy and pleasant ‘cat day’.
Buenas noches.
casa azahar 
