Tag Archives: sevilla

give me gluten!

27 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in food & drink, sevilla

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gluten free (1)

Aaaack! I bought gluten free bread by mistake! These days my favourite bread is “pan cristal” which is pretty much what it sounds like. Cristal bread, like a super light chapata with a thin crispy crust. It’s also about as far away from this sad soulless stodge as you can get. I mean just look at it. Anyhow, I’m sorry to say I tossed it, because I hate food waste, but I just couldn’t. Made some buttery noodles in self defence and ended up feeling so much empathy for coeliacs everywhere. As for the “gluten free” brigade who somehow think gluten is bad for them, they deserve every miserable moment they get from eating this crap.

gluten free (2)

the accidental influencer

25 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by in food & drink, gastronomy, sevilla, spain

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soana (1)

Last Monday it was the special wine tasting event with Bodegas Mustigullo and this Monday it was an invitation to try the Mediterranean tasting menu at the new Saona Restaurant in Triana with other invited INFLUENCERS. Gotta admit I’ve never warmed to this idea and still think of myself as an accidental influencer, but in the end it was a fun afternoon. Very good food paired with wonderful wines from Valencia, and also fun meeting up with a few friends I hadn’t seen in ages.

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mission accomplished

22 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in sevilla, spain

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mission accomplished

The deed is done. Or undone. WHATEVS. The most important thing is that I never have to think about this ever again. It was exactly two weeks ago when I went to the Registro Mercantil with my recently stamped and paid for deed from the notary, dissolving once and for all the never-needed limited company that I set up in 2005. You’d think that after having forked out 200€ to the notary he would have told me that my deed was useless unless I had the all important MODULO 600, but no. And thus commenced a rather unpleasant week-long email war with this fucker. Apparently he hadn’t given me a Modulo 600 because I hadn’t asked for one (don’t.get.me.started) and then said it could be done as an extra service for 50€. Well fuck that shit.

I got back in touch with my lovely “gestora” Sandra, who has looked after my taxes and other bits and bobs for the past few years, and she sent me a link to the one-page Modulo 600 which could be filled out online in about ten minutes if you knew what you were doing. Me? No. I just looked at it and my brain went numb and I wanted to cry. So Sandra said, not to worry, she would do it for me. Bless her. She’s been helping me out with a few things since lockdown. Obviously no real accounting since there has been no work, but just taking care of some things such as filing year end forms saying there was nothing to declare, including with the stupid limited company. While she was preparing the Modulo 600 she informed me that I had to pay a 30€ tax, but so as to not hold things up she had paid it herself. Oh, and it turned out I only had 30 days from the day the Dissolution Deed was signed to present the papers to the Registro Mercantil. Did my shitbag notary tell me that? Did he fuck. It was Sandra who filled me in on everything I needed to know. So when she gave me her bank account number so I could pay back the 30€ tax (whenever you can Shawn) I added on the 50€ that the slapdash notary would have charged me. And she was so happy, saying she wasn’t going to charge me, and so we both felt good about that.

I walked into the Registro Mercantil with copies of EVERYTHING and handed over the documents. Five minutes (and another 200 euros!) later, I walked away a free woman. Apparently I will receive an email in a week or so confirming that this is indeed all behind me. And so to celebrate… well of course, we went out for pisco sours!

mission accomplished (2)

just one more thing…

21 Thursday Oct 2021

Posted by in sevilla, tapas, tapas bars, tapas tours

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suze

The other day on Twitter I saw that two mutual friends, Tim and Rachel, had seen their friend Suze was coming to Sevilla and was looking for recommendations, and both of them recommended that Suze and her family take a tapas tour with me. That day Suze got in touch and in no time at all we had the tour booked. And THEN she sent me this when I asked if there was anything I should know about food preferences or allergies…

I eat meat and seafood but not fish.
My parents eat seafood and fish but no meat.
My aunt eats meat and fish but not seafood (prawns and mussels ok)

And then my head exploded. So I decided the only thing to do was Venn diagram this because I honestly couldn’t keep all this info in my head without visual help. Then I sent the diagram to Suze. Ha. She loved it.

It’s actually not going to be that difficult, only with things that people usually share (obvs). But that’s the great thing about tapas. You can either share or not, and there is always something for everyone. EXCEPT… when people have a serious allergy or are celiac. I’ve had this happen just before booking and I have to tell them I can’t take on that responsibility on a food tour. I mean, a bit gluten intolerant? No problem. But if you’re going to go into anaphylactic shock if you come into contact with a few breadcrumbs… nope. Also, vegan? Again, can’t do it. Simply because I am all about showing people Spanish culture through food and wine, and vegan is not at all Spanish. Anyhow, just saying that it’s good to know all this stuff before we get to the booking stage.

sustainable tourism – an oxymoron?

20 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in coronavirus, covid, sevilla, spain, tourism, travel

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sustainable

If there’s one thing the latest holiday long weekend (October 8-12) has shown it’s that nobody gives a fuck about so-called sustainable tourism. What l saw in the bars and in the streets was total greed in action and it was not pretty. Visitors desperate for an “experience” and a tourism/hospitality industry that only cares about massive profit. All backed by the government that miraculously discovered the Covid data it needed to justify the elimination of all restrictions just in time for the biggest national holiday between summer and Christmas. Coincidence?

Most people appeared to have thrown caution to the wind in terms of Covid (no masks or social distancing AT ALL) while hotels were crowing about having a 90% occupation rate, and many bars were allowing way too many people inside… back to normal! What short memories we have. And how stupid we are to blindly believe that we are safe at “Level 0” when just a few days previously we were not. I get it, sort of. People are tired of being locked down, shut in, etc. Except most people haven’t been. They just haven’t been able to go on holiday abroad without testing or pack themselves into tapas bars. Boo fucking hoo.

I truly see this sudden return to “normal” in Sevilla with cheap flights, hordes of mindless (and maskless) tourists milling about everywhere, streets clogged, bars and restaurants overflowing, as not only a special kind of hell, but also a reaffirmation that people, at heart, are basically selfish assholes.

I mean, have we not learned anything during these past almost 20 months?? Have we not learned to re-evaluate what is truly valuable to us? Have we not given one thought to the idea that our past NORMAL was in part what caused this most recent global catastrophe? Apparently not. And even though there has been a lot of press about the concept of sustainable tourism, it looks like that is just so much lip service. No such thing exists at the moment.