19 Friday Nov 2021
Posted in gastronomy, spain
Sanlúcar de Barrameda will officially become the Gastronomic Capital of Spain in 2022. The city of Manzanilla was awarded this title by the Hospitality Industry Federation of Spain and the Federation of Writers and Tourism Journalists, which will also commemorate the V Centenary of the First Around the World Voyage of Magallanes and Elcano. I’m quite excited about this and hope to spend a good part of next year enjoying the Cádiz coast. Stay tuned…
05 Wednesday Feb 2020
Posted in food & drink, gastronomy, madrid
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Excited to see this online (after ALL THAT RESEARCH)! The longer print version is also out now, and I’m hoping to get one soon for my collection. This is the list part.
05 Tuesday Nov 2019
Posted in friends, gastronomy, tapas, wine
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So I got this invitation to a wine salon being hosted at Taberna Alabardero and thought I’d pop over to see which bodegas were showing there. Then I found out that Esteban and Jota were also on their way and… well… I should have known it was not going to end with me trying a few wines and then going to do my 10,000 step walk.
Jota, Jorge, Esteban, me!, Domingo
I actually don’t like going to these events alone, and so it was great to be following Esteban around, especially as he knows a lot about wines and also knows many of the producers. Then we bumped into a couple other of his friends, Domingo and Jorge, and somehow became a group of five moving from table to table.
01 Friday Nov 2019
Posted in food & drink, gastronomy, getaways, madrid, wine
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Nobody can say I don’t take my research seriously! 😉
14 Monday Oct 2019
Posted in friends, gastronomy, getaways, madrid
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On my way to ENBHIGA 2019, starting off in Madrid. The official “cocktail party” meet up at the hotel was scheduled for 9 pm, but I came into town at midday to meet pal Andrew @undertheflor and have lunch at La Retasca, the latest venture by chef Juanjo López.
It’s always fun meeting up with Andrew, and this was a place he’d been wanting to go to as well. I left my bag at the station and walked to La Retasca, somehow missed my turn off and arrived late, which was unfortunate because Andrew was on a tight schedule. So it was short and sweet, with the company way better than the food.
Then it was back to the station to collect my bag and taxi over to the Hotel Nuevo Madrid, which was way the hell out somewhere I’d never been before. Checked in and went down to meet the group that was to be my travelling companions over the next few days. I’m so not good at group stuff, especially meet and greets. Lovely to see Jorge & Anna again of course, and also Twitter pal Rachel @R_McCormack from Scotland, but l snuck away while desserts were being served because it was going to be an early morning and long (5 hour!) bus ride to Ourense in the morning.
Rachel, Jorge, Anna, Pepe
casa azahar 