Tag Archives: sevilla

party!!!

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in 20th anniversary

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Next Sunday I am having a party to celebrate my 20th anniversary of moving to Spain. The actual anniversary date was May 25th and my idea was to spend the rest of the year taking trips here and there, but it also seemed that a party was in order. I chose the last Sunday in September a bit randomly (though I wanted it to be on a Sunday so friends who own restaurants could come), then Sledpress told me it was also the night of the Harvest Moon, which I think adds a nice serendipitous touch. If any of you will be around and would like to be invited just drop me an email. And if you’d like to join the “virtual” party then be sure to follow me on my Sevilla Tapas twitter account that evening.

At first I was going to have the party on my rooftop terrace but then thought it would be more appropriate (and way less hassle!) to have it at a tapas bar. Happily Manuel and Ana at Chinkoa said they would open up that evening (they’re normally closed on Sunday) so I could celebrate there with my friends. I think it’s going to be quite fun!

lupi

23 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by in sevilla, spain, weird

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It’s not every morning you pass a guy in the street with a hooded raptor perched on his arm (to be honest, it had never happened before today). And so of course I had to stop and ask him what he was doing there with such a splendid bird. Turns out they were both working! They were just below the Metropol Parasol (aka The Mushrooms) and apparently José Manuel lets the beautiful Lupi loose on a regular basis to swoop around the Parasols and return to her perch, thereby keeping pigeons from roosting. Amazing! When you think about it, the Parasols would make a great pigeon hang-out and yet there are never any there. Thanks to Lupi and José Manuel.

It was only afterwards that I realised I had more questions. Are there several pigeon prevention teams that work on shifts, or are a few hours a day with a hawk shadow passing over the structure enough to keep pigeons away? Does Lupi also hunt and kill or just maintain a menacing presence? And who the hell thought this up? I think it’s brilliant.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen today?

el aljarafe

20 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by in 20th anniversary, food & drink, sevilla, spain, summer, tapas, trips

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El Aljarafe is Arabic for “knoll”, and is the name for the cluster of villages dotting the hills just outside Sevilla. I rarely venture out there other than to go to IKEA (in Castilleja de la Cuesta), mostly because it’s a pain to get to by bus. It would actually be fun to do a day trip to some of the little villages out there some time if I can convince someone with a car to do this with me. But I digress…

I’ve only been to Salteras once, about 12 years ago, when I was invited to a special lunch at one of the “parrilla” restaurants there. About thirty years ago the first one – La Bodega – opened in Salteras and was such a great success that soon other places started copying its “formula” of offering a simple menu based on BBQ grilled meats served with “papas arrugás” and “mojo picón”. These are small potatoes boiled in a small amount of very salty water leaving the skins wrinkled and sparkling with salt, which are then dipped in a spicy Canarian sauce. Soon Salteras was full of these establishments and became THE place to go for fabulous meat & potato meals. Since then the menus have become more extensive while the number of restaurants has diminished. Now there are about five left and yesterday I decided to go out there and try one out.

After a bit of online research I chose La Resolana because I liked the look of their website and I especially liked that they had a “tapas corner”, which meant that Peter and I could try more dishes. So we trekked down to the bus station just in time to catch the 1pm to Salteras and when the bus driver pulled out of the station and put on some rock-a-billy music it started to feel like a proper Road Trip. We got held up for awhile in a village just outside of Camas when the main road became blocked by a funeral procession. I’d never seen this before and got one of those odd “I’m living in Spain” moments as I watched a crowd of at least fifty people walking slowly behind a hearse, with half a dozen pallbearers in the lead. It was a sad and beautiful sight.

If you go to Salteras from Sevilla by car it would take you about ten minutes. The bus takes about 25 minutes (or 35 with funeral) and we stopped in places I didn’t even know existed. Luckily we had been told which stop in Salteras to get off at, which ended up being just a few minutes walk to La Resolana. And well, we had a wonderful lunch. As it was a hot afternoon in August the place was pretty quiet, though I’m told it’s always packed out during the rest of the year. I can see why. The service was great, the food excellent, and at one point when a Twitter friend asked me exactly which part of the pig “pluma” comes from (yes, I tweeted the whole lunch) one of the chefs brought me out a book showing me the different pork cuts. After that we got some boozy sorbets on the house and I got to take photos of everyone for Sevilla Tapas. If you want to see all the great stuff we had to eat then have a look here:
La Resolana

It was only after I got home that I realised this had actually been another of my 20th anniversary day trip! And I’m now keen to explore El Aljarafe a bit more. If I can find someone to take me…

[also posted on the azahar sevilla blog]

holidays at home

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in 20th anniversary, holidays, home, sevilla, spain, travel, trips

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Yesterday evening I decided to mix a little business with pleasure and go out to do some research on rooftop bars. I’ve actually had a blog post written on this since June but needed photos. So I went out with Peter and managed to get to five places before sunset (black sky with a blurry Giralda tower in the distance – not interesting!), stopping at the last one for a drink, and then returning to one of the previous ones for another, before heading home for a late snack. And although some work was involved it did feel a bit like being on holiday.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, because of Azar’s health situation I’ve postponed all my 20th anniversary travel plans other than day trips (though I’m still struggling with that one overnight biz trip to Córdoba) and have decided to spend the rest of August “on holiday” in Sevilla. This isn’t to say I won’t be working, just that I’ll be treating myself (and Peter) to going out more, and spending a bit less time in front of the computer. I haven’t had many tapas tours this month, and at first I was stressing about that, but now I’m just going to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer. You know, “this may be my last one” is always in the back of my mind and, especially after Pat’s death and with the next PET scan coming up soon, things feel more precarious than ever. So what the heck. Holidays at home.

so what do you do when it’s 51º…?

11 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in food & drink, sevilla, spain, summer, tapas, weather

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Well, if you are completely mad like me, and an Englishman like Peter, you go out in the midday sun!

Of course we didn’t know it was going to be 51º. The official weather forecast was much more conservative and said the high would be 42º, but you know, who lives at the airport? In the centre of Sevilla with the sun blazing down on narrow cobbled streets with very little air-flow it soon turned into a blast furnace. But I was determined to go and visit a little abacería I’ve been meaning to go to for years. Finally did go on a Saturday at the end of June only to see a sign posted outside saying they were closed for holidays – starting that day! I later found out that this was the first time in 15 years they’ve closed for holiday.

Anyhoo… when I saw an article in the local paper about the post-holiday re-opening party yesterday at La Antigua Abacería de San Lorenzo (on San Lorenzo day!) I knew I had to get over there. And I’m really glad I did. What a little curiosity shop of tasty delights! An abacería is a combination of provisions store, take-away delicatessen and tapas bar, and the best ones have been around forever and have a loyal and local clientelle. In fact, we were not only the only foreigners in there but also the only non-neighbours. Everyone was clearly on a first-name basis and the old guys hanging around the bar area made me feel like I was in a small village rather than in Spain’s fourth largest city.

After trying a couple of tapas I got to talking with the owner Ramón who was charming as heck and really keen to tell me all about the place and even about future plans, including cooking classes that will be starting up in September. I loved how he’d take an occasional trip through the bar with a tray of complementary snacks, and I also loved how they served the bottled beer in tiny ice buckets. And the tapas were very good! So all in all, a very worthwhile reason to go out in the very intense HEAT.