Eating Tapas in the World
Since our eldest daughter, Emma, started working for the travel magazine, there seems to be a lot of research trips, which she goes to great lengths to explain are actually hard work, and not nearly as fun (or relaxing) as one might expect. She got back from Spain last night, having spent ten days driving round the county learning about tapas, and eating a great deal of it too. See - I told you it was hard work.
It seems that not all the trips are this glamorous. Her first trip was to a former military training centre in Dorset, that’s now been converted into an activity retreat for hyperactive teenagers and executives suffering their mid-life crisis. Fortunately she was only there for two nights, as a third night in the non-stop rain and sleeping in a canvas tent may have sent her packing. Still, someone must have been impressed with her article “Trench Foot: The Great Character Builder” as even she admits that the assignments have been a little less draining since then.
Although she fell asleep within an hour of getting through the door last night, she had time to present us with half a leg of cured ham and a bag of marinated chick peas. The ham looked especially mouth-watering, and we would have tucked into it with gusto, had Emma not said that she “didn’t want to see another chorizo, breadstick or cured ham for as long as she lived” and insisted on having some proper food that reminded her of home - this apparently meant calling out to the ‘Garam Masala’ for a korma.
Before she wandered zombie-like to bed, we flicked through some of her notes together. She’d been particularly enthusiastic about Cordoba, where the concierge from the NH Califa Hotel had told her that with half a million inhabitants in the tenth century it was possibly the largest city in the world!
And where do you find the finest ingredients for the perfect tapas? Apparently we have to wait until her next article is published, and so - I’m afraid - will you.
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