05 Tuesday Dec 2023
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The Christmas lights were switched on this past weekend. Traditionally it should have been this week on the eve of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th) but, you know, money. I took walk around to check them out. Bit too much purple for my liking, but overall quite pretty.
(more pics below)
04 Monday Dec 2023
Posted in sevilla
When I first moved to Sevilla in 1992 at first I lived in a tiny studio apartment in calle Mateos Gago and a year later moved to a larger place across and down the street, on the corner of Rodrigo Caro, where I lived for 18 years. But almost from day one I met Antonio the newsagent, whose tiny shop was also filled with sweets, cold drinks and school supplies for the kids at the nearby elementary school, international papers and magazines for us “guiris” who lived in the barrio, videos and cds… and of course there was always Antonio. Turns out he had just opened there a couple of years before I arrived in town, but he became a solid fixture in my day to day life in the barrio.
Over the weekend I found out that last Friday was his final day at his cosy kiosko and I missed his farewell party with all the neighbours who either still live there (next to none) or who used to, like me. They showed up to wish him well, to show him how much he has meant to them all these years. And for me that’s it for the Barrio Santa Cruz. It no longer exists for me as a barrio. Antonio’s tiny shop was the last stand – and last straw – because, as I understand it, this was a forced retirement because – guess what? – the building he has occupied for all these wonderful years is now going to become MORE FUCKING TOURIST APARTMENTS.
Below you can see a lovely note left by a family who also missed his farewell party. 💔
01 Friday Dec 2023
Posted in azahars kitchen, home, homecooking, sevilla
I don’t know why but it has been QUITE A WHILE since I updated Azahar’s Kitchen. I caught up with a couple of recipes last month and was shocked to see that previous updates had stopped over a year before that. Oops. It’s not like I’m not cooking stuff all the time but these days I often share my homecooking dishes on Instagram and then I guess forget about uploading them to the blog.
Anyhow with today being cold and drizzly, I felt the need for some comfort food and immediately thought of one of my favourite standbys – stroganoff – and realised that I had never published the recipe in spite of making it a gazillion times over the past couple of years. And so here it is! The original one I made – a mushroom stroganoff. Along with a few other variations…
29 Wednesday Nov 2023
Posted in rants, sevilla, tapas tours
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Yeah yeah… I know they say that imitation is a form of flattery, but I mean look at this fucker. New Instagram account basically calling his tours by the same name as mine. And it’s not like he doesn’t know me, or who I am. For the past year or so I have noticed this guy almost everywhere I go on my tapas tours. So not only copying my tours but also my name??
You’d think that if you were starting up a food tour company you would choose a distinct name so that it wouldn’t be confused with one that has been established for 15 years… oh wait. UNLESS THAT IS THE POINT. It’s actually a bit pathetic that he doesn’t want to build his brand on his own.
Anyhoodle… fuck him. Also, if you have to describe yourself as THE BEST (as he does on his website, in very poor English) then you clearly aren’t. I mean, this guy isn’t going to take away any business from me, but it irks that he thinks he can by appropriating my brand. Jerk.
28 Tuesday Nov 2023
Posted in food & drink, hospitals, sevilla, tapas
What does a gorgeous looking gamba taco have to do with being proactive? Well I’m here to tell ya.
Today I decided to stop waiting around for my upcoming appointments with my oncologist and also the breast ultrasound that was ordered after my mammogram… last spring!? So off I went to the hospital to talk directly to the Oncology secretary. And well, damn good thing I did too! After more than an hour wait – with next to nobody wearing a fucking mask IN THE FUCKING ONCOLOGY WAITING ROOM – I managed to secure an appointment for two weeks from now. The hold up, it seems, was that they were waiting for me to do the second colonoscopy, which I did in August, but blah blah… it somehow wasn’t registered in their files.
Then it was off to the Women’s Hospital to ask about the ultrasound but by the time I got there the office had closed, so now I will have to call. I hate calling. But I will.
After that, given the location of the Women’s Hospital, I suggested to Peter and we go to a cosy local bar about ten minutes away for a beer and a snack. Well, it wasn’t ten minutes, more like twenty after having to go under rail tracks and and back up, whatever… we got there to be told the tables were all reserved for members. Fuck. So we kept walking… until Tradevo Nervión.
Tradevo is one of my fave places, though I usually go to the central location, and well, we literally stumbled in really needing to SIT DOWN only to see the entire bar and restaurant jam-packed full. Then someone said “Shawn, is that you?” and we were whisked out to the back patio with a little heater beside us and all was well. There was a quick cold beer, followed by a couple of tapitas, a glass of wine, and after that lovely experience it was just a ten minute walk to the Tram to take us five minutes from home.
And so… appointment secured, a lovely light lunch and almost 10,000 steps!
casa azahar 