27 Monday Jan 2025
16 Thursday Jan 2025
This is really about the coldest it gets here and… it’s now! I know I have a pair of gloves SOMEWHERE but can’t imagine where I might have stored them. Walking with crutches obviously means I can’t put my hands in my pockets and so… damn they get cold. The other day I hobbled into Taberna Manolo Cateca and when Manolo took my hands (like he does) he said… my god it’s like you just rode in on a Vespa. Yep.
10 Friday Jan 2025
Posted in birthdays, bitesize sevilla, friends, gastronomy, restaurants, sevilla, spain
My third (and final) birthday lunch. Well, you never know, but at least this is the last one during Birthday Week. I need to take some time off celebrating to get some work done on Bitesize Sevilla, which has turned into quite a time-consuming project (with a steep learning curve!). But I love doing it and of course the hope is that it will eventually start becoming a new source of income (I actually have three paid subscribers now!!!).
Anyhow, I had mentioned Beirutina as one of my top new openings for 2024 (both here and on the Bitesize Substack) and so Fourat got in touch to thank me and said she’d love me to come over and try some of their new dishes. Great! I’ve known Fourat for about fifteen years and we are neighbours as well as good friends. I was thrilled when she opened her little Lebanese brunch-lunch spot just three months ago, literally a stones throw from my house (I can see it from my balcony).
We got there early to find a little window table reserved for us and, well, it was fabulous. Although I’ve been here several times now this was the first time I got to try both Lebanese beer and wine and I loved them both. Fourat knows I’m not keen on sweets so for a birthday treat at the end of our meal she brought us a couple of her nutty Lebanese biscuits (also new on the menu) one with pistachio and orange, the other with peanuts, with a small bag of them to take home as well.
We had…
16 Monday Dec 2024
11 Wednesday Dec 2024
Posted in architecture, art, history, retail therapy, sevilla, shopping, welcome
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The oldest independent shop in Sevilla (founded in 1856) this gorgeous stationers is a wondrous Aladdin’s cave full of any possible thing you can imagine in paper form. I just popped in for a pedestrian order of a refill for my old agenda and was taken back to not-so-long-ago times when there were several such shops in the city, selling all manner of things. From books to toys, houseware and hardware items, fabrics, art prints and posters, jewellery, fans and shawls, hats and gloves, specialty foods and wines… each small shop brimming with charm and personality and often one-of-a-kind items. Sadly all but gone now as chains take over and push the independents out. Sigh…
casa azahar 