[more about this later at azahar’s sevilla]
This is what I saw when I went out this morning.
How about you?
same old same old…
24 Thursday May 2012
Category Archives: spain
pat in sevilla
12 Saturday May 2012
Dearest Pat,
The other day after reading your very moving post No More Room in the Bucket I kind of fell apart. Even though you had told me that you’d stopped treatment – and although I knew exactly what that meant – I guess a part of me just couldn’t accept it. It was only after reading your blog post (published on the same day I wrote here about still being NED) that it finally struck home. Especially when I read this bit…
“There is no more room in the bucket for big dreams like cross-country train trips. I feel a pang watching tv shows set in NYC, knowing that I’ll likely never visit my favorite city again. It aches to see puppies and kittens and know I’ll never own another one. I’ve never tasted foie gras, or truffles, or uni. I never got to visit the Food Network. I’ll never meet my friend Shawn in person or visit her in Seville, Spain.”
And well, I knew straight away that I had to take you out for tapas!
This video was made on the fly on Thursday with my poky pocket video cam and so my clips turned out pretty rough (one clip showing us having some grilled foie and tuna belly at La Azotea was unsalvageable, but oh well…). Luckily my friend Juan Tarquini not only offered to invite us for tapas at his fabulous Vineria San Telmo, he also very generously edited and polished all my rough cuts into something quite wonderful that I could never have done on my own. I hope it will make you smile.
Everyone really enjoyed meeting you and plying you with fabulous food and drink. It was actually quite an amazing day and I know you touched a lot of hearts here during your brief visit in Sevilla. You will always live in mine.
te quiero Amiga,
Shawn xx
For those of you who don’t already know, I met Pat Steer on the Colon Club forum just after being diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer, when all this was new to me and I was scared and looking for helpful information. Pat had been diagnosed four years before me. She became my sister, my friend, my hero. I love her with all my heart.
feria horses and hoes
28 Saturday Apr 2012
Every year I try to get over to the April spring fair (Feria de abril) at least once to take photos of the horses during the afternoon. This year I also saw what appear to be Feria hoes!
It wasn’t a great day for taking pics, all overcast and grey. But at least it wasn’t raining and so I spent a couple of hours walking around the site after lunch.
When I first moved to Sevilla I was much more interested in Feria and would join the crowds for the opening night “alumbrao” when they lit up the gateway at midnight on the Monday and then stay until the wee hours. Although it’s pretty much an exclusive event for those who can afford their own private caseta, I would always get plenty of invitations so I could avoid the (quite awful) barnlike public ones. But frankly, since I don’t dance sevillanas and don’t enjoy milling about talking trash with a bunch of privileged posers, I eventually stopped going, except to see the horses.
There are more Feria photos – including some of horses for Beth! – over here.
I also quite like this collage of colourful ruffles I made…
[click on image to enlarge]
modulo 036
23 Monday Apr 2012
Tags
Another cross-over post with the azahar sevilla blog today just because I think this video is hilarious and I don’t think you need to be Spanish to have experienced at least something similar to this. And you don’t need to understand Spanish either, because the video is subtitled. Enjoy! 🙂
~ via Mike at Lanzarote Information ~
marmite
22 Sunday Apr 2012
Posted in food & drink, sevilla, spain, travel, twitter, twitter friends
After a whirlwind week I ended up having a whirlwind weekend. And all because of Twitter.
About a month or so ago a Twitter pal suggested to @MsMarmitelover that she get in touch with me about an upcoming visit to Sevilla. So she did, and I tried to help her find accommodation for a couple of nights. But as it was the weekend before Feria there wasn’t much available that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. So I offered her the option of the sofa bed at casa az. And then the fun started!
Turns out that MsMarmitelover (aka Kerstin Rodgers) is one of the pioneers of the whole underground “pop up” restaurant scene in London, and in fact had asked me if I knew of any such “secret suppers” going on in Sevilla. Well, I didn’t at the time. But a few days later I happened to meet Fourat (@Lebanicious) and then a whole lot of magic happened.
Not only did Fourat inspire me to get my upstairs room set up for sewing projects, along with me getting her set up on Twitter and starting a blog, but various other projects started taking shape. And so when I told Fourat about Kirsten looking for a Sevilla “secret supper” she said she would be happy to organise one of her fabulous Lebanese feasts during the weekend Kirsten would be here. As for who else would come, that was kind of up to me.
And so Kirsten arrived around 7 pm on Friday. Of course I had already picked out a few places to try out for that evening’s tapeo, but was also playing it by ear. We ended up stopping at four different tapas bars (Casa Moreno, Enrique Becerra, Bodeguita Romero, Vineria San Telmo) all very traditional other than the last one. The extra challenge for me was that Kirsten doesn’t eat meat (though she does eat some fish and seafood) so obviously I couldn’t do the obvious – jamón, chorizo, pringá, caña de lomo, carrillada…
On Saturday we visited a few specialty shops in town, including Patricia Buffana (hatmaker extraordinaire) and Bazar Victoria (Sevilla’s most eclectic hardware store) and at lunchtime we did go to a non-traditional place which was a total hit – La Azotea – amazing food and service. Then back home to rest up for “Lebaniciousness”. Although a couple of the people invited couldn’t come due to prior commitments we ended up with a fabulous group including restaurant owners Juan Tarquini and Reyes Moreno, bespoke holiday organiser Sam Lister and Sevilla’s Queen of Tapas (that would be me). Along with Fourat’s amazing family. It really was a family affair and the selected guests fit right into the very cosy ambiance as if everyone had known each other forever. And MsMarmitelover had no idea – ooops she does now! – that this whole beautiful evening had been arranged for her visit here.
Next day (today!) I thought it might be possible to take Kerstin to one more fabby tapas bar before she had to catch her afternoon flight home. Of course this morphed into “tapeoexpress” during which we attempted to – and succeeded in – getting to three tapas bars in two hours (Eslava, El Rinconcillo and La Giganta) and having a special snack at each one. Then it was a quick sprint back to the apartment to collect bags and get a taxi to the airport.
In the end we managed to hit eight tapas bars in two days. And four out of my Top Five Tapas Bars in Sevilla.
Seriously? I LOVE Twitter for all the amazing people it has put me in touch with. Makes living as a weirdo semi-recluse in Sevilla *way more interesting*!
What did you do this weekend?
[also posted on the azahar sevilla blog]
