17 Tuesday May 2016
Today I got to introduce two good friends to each other: Anna (Galicia) and Victor (Málaga). We met up for a quick lunch at Las Teresas and had a fabulous time. Looking forward to seeing Victor again on his home turf during my next Málaga Getaway in June. And there are also plans afoot for me to visit Anna in Santiago de Compostela (first time ever!) in August. Other getaways may include San Sebastían and London. Looks like it’s going to be a busy summer.
16 Monday May 2016
Posted in animals & pets, blogging, food & drink, friends, sevilla, websites
Today I FINALLY got to meet fellow-blogger Mary Biles and her lovely pup Sunday. We met for lunch at a bar neither of us had been to before (and probably won’t visit again) but mediocre food was saved by good company and LOTS of chat. Mary has been writing I Know A Little Place In Sevilla – one of the best blogs about the city – for about three years. As the title suggests, it focuses on hidden corners and lesser-know spots, many of which I’ve never heard of. Very happy to have met another kindred spirit and – I hope – another Tapas Research cohort.
11 Wednesday May 2016
Posted in food & drink, instagram, sevilla, social media, spain, tapas, tapas tours
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When I first started using Instagram I made sure I didn’t make the same “mistake” I had made with Twitter… having too many accounts. So I started using my @azahar Instagram account for everything: personal, travel, sherry, tapas, food tours. I didn’t realise back then that I would end up using Instagram so much, but decided to leave things as they were. Of course this ended up with some confusion with linking, and people who knew me as Sevilla Tapas would use @sevillatapas on Instagram, which linked to nothing. So I created a @sevillatapas account as a placeholder, which directed people to my @azahar account. I also created a @sevillatapastours placeholder account, mostly so that b*tch who stole my name couldn’t start using it, but also because that’s how many people know me.
Then this week I decided to add social media links to the @sevillatapas account so that, say, if someone used that on Instagram, it would link to my Sevilla Tapas twitter and facebook. Confused yet? Anyhow, by doing that suddenly I started getting all kinds of new followers as this automatically sent out notices, and I wondered whether I should have just changed the name of the @azahar account. Too late now!
Meanwhile, I did set up a separate @WeLoveTapas Instagram last year, which made sense as it is a separate business and brand. But, for now at least, I will keep using the @azahar account for everything. Phew!
10 Tuesday May 2016
I set off on Monday afternoon to meet up with my friend Anna Mayer for a tapita. She had just arrived in town for a short stay and I hadn’t seen her in ages. So we started off with a vermouth cocktail at Palabra de Bar, near my house. But I should have known by that mischievous look on Anna’s face that the day would take a turn or three.
After our lovely vermouth cocktails we were walking towards the centre of town and the skies suddenly opened. We ended up taking shelter at Casa Antonio Los Caracoles. As Anna pointed out – it was destiny! Snails are now in season and there is no better place in town to try them.
But since women can’t live on snails alone, we ordered a few other tapitas. Which we needed to fortify ourselves because…
…just before we met up, Anna had been invited to a Rías Baixas wine tasting event at the Hotel Alfonso XIII and this ended up including me. Thrilled! So after our hearty tapas lunch we headed over to the event.
Here’s Anna and I seriously tasting seriously lovely wines. But I should’ve either sat closer or brought my glasses because I couldn’t read the powerpoint thingy.
Long story short…. after the wine tasting there was a “salon de vinos” with I don’t remember how many bodegas offering their delicious wines and then one thing led to another. By this time Anna had gone home, and I stayed on with other friends, going out for tapas later on, and even later rolling home around 1 am (!!), about twelve hours after I’d left the house. I blame Anna. 😉
07 Saturday May 2016
Posted in food & drink, gastronomy, sevilla, sherry, twitter, twitter friends
It was Saturday morning, a rare weekend day off, and so I posted on Twitter… “what to do today…?” About an hour later I got a text from the most wonderful José Pizarro saying that he and his partner Peter Meades were still in Jerez and thinking about heading to Sevilla. And then it happened.
José called to say they’d be arriving at their hotel around 2 pm, so I met them there and we embarked on a Tapeo Extremo, starting off at Bodeguita Romero, where José and Peter had their first ever pringá. We had a lot more than that, actually, with José saying I should order the food and then he would order the sherry to go with it. Talk about matches made in heaven.
It must be said that Bodeguita Romero has a new – and amazing – sherry list. We finished off with a 20 year old VOR Cream from Bodegas Traditción, and even though I’m not crazy about creams I totally fell in love with this one, perfectly paired with aged manchego in manteca.
Then it was time to wander a bit. So we wandered into Barrio Santa Cruz and I showed José and Peter where I used to live, and P snapped this photo of us outside my old house. I think this set a personal record for the number of photos ever posted of me on the internet… EVER. This one and the one above. But somehow Peter has a very gentle eye and a knack for catching the spirit of the moment, not just faces. Love this pic of me and José. 
During our stroll around Barrio Santa Cruz we stopped into another of my favourite places, Las Teresas. And I got a pic of these gorgeous guys “hamming it up”. Then it was off to Gourmet Experience atop the central Corte Inglés in Plaza del Duque. I can’t actually remember why we did this, but we ended up eating oysters and drinking pink champagne.
And then like Cinderella I returned home after my magical lunch with these two wonderful guys, while they went off to finally check into their hotel and later on go out for dinner. Meanwhile I was happily in PJs by 8 pm and Netflixing with Morcilla. But what a wonderful day!
casa azahar 