Tag Archives: spain

sherry education

31 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in travel, trips, wine, work

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sanlucar sherry education
Continuing my sherry education, this time focusing on manzanilla made in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. These three people were very generous with their time and very patient with explaining what makes manzanilla special. Here you can see Nuria (Bodegas Delgado Zuleta – passionate employee), Rosario (Barbadillo – 6th generation family member) and Juan (Hidalgo – 7th generation family member). I’ll be writing much more about my bodega visits on the Azahar Travels blog, but I have to say my 36 hours in Sanlúcar were quite fruitful and very memorable. Also fun! Stay tuned…

jerez getaway

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by in cats, spain, travel, trips, work

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jerez getaway
So what went from thinking of spending a few days in Granada yesterday somehow morphed into this very impromptu Jerez getaway today. Two nights, three days, all thrown together in less than a few hours. A couple of bodegas have been booked, along with what I hope is a nice hotel, and so off I go mañana. Peter is coming with me and will stay over the first night. Second night he’ll go home to check on the cats (it’s just an hour by train) and will come back early Friday morning. Then we’ll both come home Friday evening. I’m probably being over-protective but it’s hard enough leaving the beasts overnight. Somehow I’d be fine leaving Luna and Loki for two nights, but I worry about Morcilla. Too much, I know. Well. We’ll see how it goes. If I’m feeling more relaxed about this on Thursday evening then maybe Peter won’t go back to check on them.

Meanwhile, it’s going to be three days of sherry research and spending some quality time in Jerez when it isn’t Feria. Looking forward to it!

on holiday!

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in holidays, home, life stuff, sevilla, spain, summer, travel, work

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on holidayIt suddenly occurred to me around 9 pm last night that I am ON HOLIDAY!

This doesn’t mean that I’m not working as much as always, just that there are fewer tapas tours this month and that I have also made plans to travel here and there in Andalucía doing research for my new trip planning biz. So how does this qualify as being ON HOLIDAY you ask? Well, the main difference is not feeling any pressure to have to be anywhere or do anything at any particular moment. So I can just get up in the morning and deal with new things as they come up, go to the gym or takes walks whenever I want, and also comfortably get on with updating website stuff…  at my leisure. Just writing this makes me want to stretch like a cat.

f_star.giff_star.giff_star.gifH – O – L – I – D – A – Y – Sf_star.giff_star.giff_star.gif

azahar’s kitchen has moved!

14 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in blogging, sevilla, spain, websites, work

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azahar's kitchenazahar’s kitchen

Don’t worry, it’s not a new blog! It’s the same azahar’s kitchen that I’ve had on WordPress.com for years, but now that I’m “housecleaning” I’ve decided to put it on my new Spain site (continuity, etc, blah blah). No pesky ads, nice clean layout. What do you think?

I was also going to move my photo blog over to azahar-spain.com since, like the kitchen blog, it isn’t “city specific”, and then only have Sevilla Tapas and Azahar in Sevilla on azahar-sevilla.com. But I had a few issues with the photos not importing properly and I can’t spend time re-doing the whole thing, so for now at least, it will stay where it is. Phew! It will all be worth it in the end…

yomvi

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in spain, television

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yomvi
Apparently I’ve had access to YOMVI ever since I subscribed to Canal+ (after moving house in February 2011). Thing is, I’ve never worked out exactly how it works, though recently I found out that in order to get it to work I need to have my Canal+ decoder box plugged into my internet modem. Which is across the room. So fuck. In order to that I can either buy some widgety connecting thingies that will do this through the air, or I can get Telefónica to install a phone jack next to the television. Either of which will cost about 90 euros. But then I will – apparently – be able to download entire series even before they’ve been shown on TV and watch them at my leisure on any of my devices that have internet access. Is it worth doing this? What if I move next year? Anyone out there have YOMVI?