23 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in christmas, gastronomy, home, homecooking, sevilla
Tags
I was so excited to find the recipe for chef Shaun Searley’s amazing confit potatoes (pictured below at the amazing Quality Chop House in London) and decided to include them in my Christmas Eve dinner. Well, they ended up taking all of Friday evening to prepare, with slicing and layering and slow baking for three hours (!!). The final frying happens just before serving. I hope they turn out, but just in case I’ll have some back-up roasties. What are you making for Christmas dinner?
15 Thursday Dec 2016
Posted in andalucia, christmas, food & drink, friends, gastronomy, getaways, Malaga, malaga getaway, tapas, travel, trips
Tags
christmas, estraperlo, friends, lunch, Malaga, malaga getaways, mixturate
Yes, ANOTHER Málaga Christmas lunch. This time with Fred & Arpy at a new place called Mixtúrate, with a pleasant fusiony menu including Peruvian and Brazilian influences. After lunch we popped over to Café Bar Estraperlo and lucked out finding both José & Mark there at the same time. Over coffee it transpired that Arpy had a packet of Waitrose mince pies in her bag, so out those came and I got to enjoy my first mince pie in YEARS. Happy.
Later on I wandered up to meet my friend David at Corte Inglés Gourmet Experience as it was the only time during the week we were both free to meet up. I always love my chats with David, he’s so supportive and smart, funny and fun to be with too.
After such a great day out I was happy to go home and have a quiet evening in. I really love this about my Málaga Getaways. I get to feel both on holiday and at home at the same time.
10 Saturday Dec 2016
Posted in birthdays, friends, gastronomy, sevilla, sherry, spain, tapas, tapas bars, wine
So okay, it was almost a month late (through no real fault of either myself or Pilar) but better late than never. Today we finally managed to get together for lunch and celebrate Pilar’s birthday, which has become a bit of a tradition over the years.
This time we went to the always fabulous Vineria San Telmo and, not only was Pilar sung to by the staff when her candle lit birthday, erm, pie arrived, another client came over to us and said it was HIS birthday too, and gave Pilar a kiss. Great food and wine (including sherry), cosy ambiance… a lovely afternoon with a lovely friend.
09 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in christmas, food & drink, friends, gastronomy, sevilla, sherry, tapas, tapas bars
Getting the We Love Tapas team all together at once can be a bit like herding cats, which isn’t really surprising when talking about four (including me) busy free-lancers. But we finally managed to find a few hours for a nice pre-Christmas lunch to catch up and connect. First we did a little Tapas Research, trying out a new bar (with mixed results) and then ended up for a “dessert” course of cheese and sherry at Palo Cortao. Good times.
03 Saturday Dec 2016
Posted in food & drink, gastronomy, restaurants, sevilla
Tags
So THIS was fun. On Thursday evening – after THE SCAN – I went to a jamón cutting masterclass, put on by Pando Restaurants as part of their new series of gastronomy classes. We started off with a bit of theory, but soon it was all hands on, with professional cortador Victor Fernández showing us how it’s done. And while we watch we got to taste the various cuts of jamón as they were passed around the room. Some brave souls even got up to try wielding the knife (with mixed results).
Although I know a fair bit about jamón, and also (in theory at least) about how to cut it, there is always something more to learn, and it was a lovely evening out with other “foodies”, food writers, journalists, etc. Looking forward to the next class.
I’ll be doing a “proper” blog post about it tomorrow on Azahar Sevilla.
casa azahar 