Feasting: Lunch in Sevilla's Barrio Santa Cruz

Baked cod with muscat grapes

Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but I remember that it was right on the edge of the Santa Cruz neighborhood in Sevilla (maybe along  La Avenida de Menéndez Pelayo, but I'm not sure anymore).  Anyway, my sister and I stopped in this bright bistro-like restaurant for an amazing tapas lunch.

Spinach with chickpeas and garlic

Tomato and mozzarella "napoleon"

Fritto misto - including calalmari, sardines, and cod

And then we took a stroll before the day got too hot (we ducked indoors everyday in Seville at 2 or 3 in the afternoon).  The residents of the Barrio Santa Cruz say it's always 10°F cooler there because of the whitewashed, thick walls and narrow streets.  I wouldn't say it was cool, but the little streets were definitely a welcome relief from the sun-baked thoroughfares near the cathedral.  And they make a lovely labyrinth to wander through...

with niches for mini-altars,

small plazas with citron trees and tinkling fountains,

past old doors, hiding cool, dark secrets.

Here's to a mellow, breezy summer weekend!

Making: Mazapán in Toledo

June has come and gone - an altogether crazy month for me.  I managed to take (and pass!) my qualifying exam and stop over in five different countries in four weeks . . . something I probably won't do again.  I'm not complaining - I know I've been thoroughly spoiled in having the opportunity to see and experience so many different places.  The last two weeks of my travels I spent with my sister, wandering through Spain, one tiny, meandering, hot, and colorful street at a time.  Don't you just love the hydrangeas and colored tiles of that balcony above?  We found that on a little random street in Toledo.  But I said this post was going to be about mazapán, and so it shall.

Mazapán is the Spanish version of marzipan, made of sugar and finely ground almonds.  I'm holding a couple Toledan mazapán confections baked either plain (left) or with fruit perserves (right).  Toledo's mazapán is famous, and it can be bought at virtually any street corner in that beautiful little city-on-a-hill. 

Nuns are often the artisans behind the little confections, as this little diorama in a storefront shows.  Actually, nun-made-sweets were a theme on our trip through Andalusia: there were many convents that offered sweets for sale.

This is a sign we found on the walls outside a Franciscan convent.

And there's the door you'd knock on to purchase some sweets!  We found this to be the case also in Madrid, Granada, Córdoba, and Sevilla.  Sometimes you had to ring a buzzer and give the password, dulces, to be let in for a purchase.  Other times you could just buy nun-made-sweets pre-packaged at a confection shop.

 This, my friends, is a detail on a mini-cathedral made entirely of mazapán.  The cathedral was on display at a Santo Tomé shop - one of a couple in Toledo.  If you're ever in Toledo, I'd recommend buying a box from Santo Tomé.  Their mazapán is excellent and always beautifully boxed for travel.

A dragon crafted of mazapán in a handy tin in a Santo Tomé shop.  Of course I packed a few sweets to take home myself!