27 Thursday May 2021
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Actually, it wasn’t. It was grey and drizzly and I was trapped inside all day waiting for The Plumber That Never Came. So I will show you this instead, a lovely pic of Barrio Santa Cruz taken yesterday while out “on tour” with José Andrés. Enjoy! 🙂 💙
25 Tuesday May 2021
I can’t even remember the last time I went out after dark. But yesterday I had spent all day inside (when I really wanted to go out) working on a possible reboot of We Love Tapas (watch this space!). So then about 9 pm I was still restless and got to thinking about recent photos I’d seen of the Setas lit up all deep cobalt blue and thought that was actually worth getting dressed and going out to see. Also, I quite fancied a cold beer. Well, instead of deep blues I got plaid! And an actual non-stop light show with the colours flashing and moving all over the place. Not sure how I feel about it yet, but hey it was something different.
17 Monday May 2021
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I was so excited when Alex pinged me with a link to this video about her latest project. I had no idea that she was doing this and it’s absolutely amazing. She will be creating 15 gigantic murals themed around the 500th anniversary of the first round the world voyage, the Magellan-El Cano circumnavigation (1519 – 1522). See those buildings up there? Those will be her canvases. Located in Calle Tarfia, facing the river it is expected to set a Guinness world record.
Below you can see virtual depictions of how they will look when finished. Impressive, right?
I first met Alexandra by chance ten years ago when she was starting out here working as a “graffiti artist for hire” painting shop and bar shutters so that they wouldn’t get vandalised by taggers. One day I saw her painting a bar shutter while out for a walk on a Sunday afternoon and stopped to chat and we’ve been friends ever since. She once even joined one of my tapas tours in progress while “on the job” painting the shutters at Bodeguita Romero.
And while Alexandra still does the occasional shutter art, she is now also an award-winning artist recognised both here and abroad. An amazing accomplishment for someone who arrived here from Rome in 2010 with a young daughter to start a new life. I am quite in awe of not only her talent but also her energy and spirit. You can check out her website here…
14 Friday May 2021
Posted in food & drink, friends, spain
I’m the one with the napkin over my face.
Taken by my friend Tomoko in June 2017.
Restaurante El Faro, El Puerto de Santa María.
11 Tuesday May 2021
Posted in sevilla, spain, tapas, tapas bars
Well this made my day! Yesterday I met up with Peter after running a couple of errands as we wanted to visit the new location of a fabulous local cheese shop. We started going down Sierpes and Peter said, “let’s take Cuna”, so that’s what we did. And a good thing too because when we almost reached the end of the street I suddenly I heard someone say: “¡Mira! Es la más bonita y más buena de Sevilla!”
And this masked man walks up to me, saying, “you don’t recognise me, do you?”. And I kind of did, but I also didn’t and struggled to recall until he finally said, “It’s me, Eme!”. And oh, how stupid did I feel for not recognising him. Because I adore Eme, but to be fair, he had the mask on and – most importantly – wasn’t standing behind his bar.
In March 2020 I wrote a sad update on Bar Casa Eme’s page on Sevilla Tapas announcing that after 25 years Eme had closed the doors on his bar for good. And I haven’t seen him since, though I had been trying to get in touch with him for his famous solomillo al whisky recipe (hands down the best in Sevilla). Turned out the phone number I had for him wasn’t actually his.
casa azahar 