Tag Archives: tapas

weekend plans and other stuff…

16 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by in food & drink, friends, restaurants, spain, summer, tapas, travel, trips, work

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

So what the heck.

Have been invited to Vejer to participate in a cooking class headed by the fabulous Annie B, and I am to stay over in the “yellow guest suite”, which sounds delightful. The next day Annie is going to drive me down to Zahara de los Atunes where we will have a delicious lunch in the village before she drops me off in Atlanterra so I can get down to work.

Said work involves taking photos and lots of notes about my Seville client’s sister restaurant in Zahara, which I already know well from my visit there two years ago. You may recall the time my friend Agustín asked me to look after their old pup Mini while they were away in Mexico. Not sure if this time I’ll be able to stay over at Agustín’s because he’s having work done on the place, but if not my client Charo says she can put me up. So why not?

And since you’re probably wondering… no, it never occurs to anyone to pay me extra for going out of town or spending days at events with them. At least, not so far. And so far I am more or less okay with that because I am trying to prove myself to them, that I really am a valuable asset. And, it must be said, a lot of the extra work is actually quite fun. But it doesn’t pay the rent.

There will be another trip to Zahara in early July – just overnight again – to make a video of a wine and food pairing evening with two of my clients. Which I think is going to be amazing. Stay tuned…

I give in!

15 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by in home, sevilla, summer, tapas, twitter, weather, work

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

It’s too darn hot…

And yes, I know it’s not nearly as hot as it’s going to get (and bear in mind that when it says it’s 36º it’s usually a good 5º hotter than that in the centre of town) but Nog and I just got back from his first “dress rehearsal” Sevilla Walk, with our twitter pals @annalibera and @jorgeguitian, and I finally put on the AIR CONDITIONING. Because I can.

And man, does it ever feel good. Even taking the inside temp down from 31 to 28 feels amazing, especially after a nice cool refreshing shower. But I mostly did this because when I got in I saw that Azar had thrown up on my bed (just “water” but all over the clean sheets I’d just changed last night) and then I found him hiding underneat the bed  looking decidedly floppy. So I decided he needed a little cool down time, during this hottest part of the day.

I had hoped to hold out until July, but oh well. I shudder to think what every hour of centrally cooling down all 90 square metres of this place will cost, but I reckon that an hour at lunch time and an hour in the evening before bed should help get us through the worst of it. And I have to say that it feels so luxurious to be able to come home and be comfortable! I expect to feel just as amazed next winter when I don’t have to wear four layers and shiver in front of a space heater. Now I just have to figure out how to pay for this luxury.

To wit… the first run of Nog’s Sevilla Walk went well. Still some editing and fine tuning to do, but over-all I think Anna and Jorge enjoyed themselves. Afterwards we had some great tapas at La Giganta. Cheap too! All that food and two drinks each for just 8 euros a person…

tapas galore!

30 Monday May 2011

Posted by in cats, food & drink, friends, restaurants, sevilla, tapas, twitter, work

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

It was a very full day, in every sense of the word. First twitter friends @annalibera and @jorgeguitian came over to see the new place and we had a cold Galician beer and a tortilla snack up on the rooftop. As you can see, Loki was being his usual shy self (ha). Then we went out to a neighbourhood favourite – Casa Antonio – for some lunch…


Then after a quick late afternoon meeting with Victoria about her new website and store I was off on another tapas tour. This time we went over the bridge to Triana, which I think is going to become a nice option, especially in the summer as it’s always a bit cooler down by the river. Rick and Michelle were very happy with their tapas …

It was great fun but I’ll have to do a double session at the gym mañana!

impromptu

19 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by in food & drink, restaurants, sevilla, tapas, twitter, wine, work

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , ,

It’s been a bit of a crazy week, especially with me thinking I was quite mad to have taken on five – FIVE! – tapas tours during Semana Santa. The logistics of trying to organise the tours so as to avoid crowds and processions has been challenging to say the least. And so, having just finished three days in a row of evening tours – which all went very well I am happy to report – I was looking forward to making a nice meal at home and putting my feet up this evening.

So Nog & I went out to the Encarnación market (under Las Setas) to see what looked good and I decided to check out the little café/bar inside the market that Agustín had told me about. A bit like La Cantina in the Feria market, La Encarnación has a short list of daily fish on offer which they will fry or grill for you. Super fresh and very tasty.

Then along came a couple who asked if we spoke English and Spanish and said they needed our help. Turns out they wanted to find out if “huevas” were the same as shad roe and I suggested that they should try a tapa of it right then and there. Which they did. Verdict: almost the same but shad roe wasn’t quite so dry.

So after chatting a while and tweeting this photo of Philip with his huevas (which Fiona said came so near to being a naughty comment!) I mentioned my tapas blog and the tours and it turns out that I won’t be putting my feet up tonight. Instead I’ll be meeting Philip and Mary from New York at their hotel and going out on an impromptu tapas tour! They even invited Nog along.

As it’s been raining off and on all afternoon I don’t expect there to be many (if any) processions tonight, but that doesn’t mean that the bars won’t be crazy busy. Anyhooo… I just love it when stuff like this happens. And I’m quite looking forward to doing something a bit different tour-wise tonight as Philip & Mary have expressed an interest in trying out Flores Jamones & Vinos, which isn’t usually on my list as they don’t do tapas per se. They also told me that they didn’t mind if we had to get a taxi to go somewhere special – cool!

Stay tuned to my Sevilla Tapas twitter feed later if you’d like to come along…

easyjet az

06 Wednesday Apr 2011

Posted by in blogging, computers, culture, fiestas, friends, internet, iphone, sevilla, social media, spam, twitter, work

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Yesterday evening I was thrilled when I got an email from Annie Manson saying that while flying from Geneva to Málaga she’d seen me mentioned and quoted in the EasyJet’s April Inflight magazine, and congratulating me on such a great PR coup. At first I was totally flummoxed as I had no idea why I would be in there, then when I saw the article (about the Feria in Sevilla) written by Derek Workman, I remembered meeting Derek for tapas a while back and spending a pleasant leisurely lunchtime chatting about Sevilla stuff. He was in town doing research for this article as EasyJet was about to launch a new London-Sevilla route in April. So that was quite exciting! If you want to read the article (which starts on page 50) you’ll have to register, which is a bit of a pain but only takes a minute.

Anyhow, after a few emails back and forth to Annie I got into bed with my iPhone to read a few last tweets and emails before sleeping and saw that one of my favourite tapas bars was mentioned in an article by Shaney Hudson, an Australian travel writer now living in Holland who was here on a research visit last autumn. Then I saw that my tapas tours got a personal recommendation from Shaney in her Essential Guide to Sevilla (!!!). How cool is that?

All of which has me thinking this morning about all the amazing connections I’ve made, and continue to make, via my blogs, Twitter and – okay I admit it – even Facebook.  I’ve made friends and biz contacts, and have also found work, as a result of not only sitting in front of my laptop (or with iPhone in hand) several hours a day, but also by going out to meet many of these people when they are in town. Which of course I love as one of my favourite things to do is show people “my Sevilla” and especially take them out for tapas. So anyone who still thinks social media is silly is, well, silly.  😉