Easy like Sunday morning

I love Sunday mornings. Sitting on my terrace drinking fresh coffee, with the sun shining through the trees on the golf course and the sound of the water cascading down through fountains outside - sheer bliss. Sunday is a day for being selfish. A day for doing exactly what you want - having a lay in and not feeling guilty, reading the Sunday papers or enjoying a few drinks before lunch at the local. I like to walk Barney on Cabopino Beach after breakfast (Barney is the dog, not the husband), go home for a shower and then either cook for friends at home or enjoy some of the fantastic local restaurants. A particular favourite is the excellent Santiago del Calvario Restaurant in Alhaurin el Grande. Elegant and welcoming with ornate Moroccan decor and superb food, this is something of a Sunday treat par excellence. Boasting an innovative menu with home-made delights including chicken liver terrine, the best roast beef you will eat in Spain and some deliciously naughty desserts, Santiago´s is a jewel among inland restaurants. What I love about living in Andalucia is the diversity of things to do when you are not working. Whether you are a lover of the countryside, a golf enthusiast (yawn), a footie fan (yes), or simply an afficionado of fine food, wine and good company (that´s me), you won´t find a better region in Europe to put down roots. So with that in mind, I am just going to half prepare lunch, and stroll over to the park for a few ´liveners´ (as my dad refers to them) before the rest of the family arrive for their Sunday roast. As long as the sun keeps shining, Autumn is the best time of year in Spain - and I wouldn´t want to be anywhere else. Santiago del Calvario is situated in Alhaurin el Grande. Telephone for reservations - 95 211 2602.

Eating the Andalucian way

Being such a cosmopolitan area, we are lucky enough on the Costa del Sol to have a wide range of fabulous restaurants to suit all tastes. English fish and chip bars sit alongside fine dining restaurants and Chinese takeaways, and every type of food is served in the resort towns along the coast.
As good as most of these restaurants are, I always find it a shame that visitors to the south of Spain are not more adventurous when it comes to food, and many Andalucian delicacies go largely untried.
Traditional Spanish food, like Italian food, is unpretentious and simple. It is the subtlety of flavourings and combinations of fresh ingredients which make it so tasty and easy to prepare.Traditional cooking in Spain today is still very much as it has always been, and only the utensils and methods of buying ingredients have changed. I have eaten some of the best Spanish meals in the homes of friends and family who have lived here for generations.
Once provisions arrived by donkey or mule from nearby fields and fishing ports, now they arrive by refrigerated truck from all over Spain and from across the world. A fusion of flavours is nothing new in Spain, and it goes back at least as far as the days of the Phonecians who landed on Spain's Mediterranean coast and brought with them Mojama - an air cured type of tuna. This is still widely popular along the Costa de la Luz, and the aptly named Cabo de los Atunes.
The Romans are thought to have introduced olives, figs, grapes and wine, and the Moors and the Arabs contributed greatly by introducing rice and sugar cane plus a host of previously unseen fruits and vegetables, and also by creating complex irrigation systems enabling previously hot barren land to grow crops. The discovery of the Americas brought potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, chillis, beans, avocado and chocolate. Gazpacho - the Moorish cold vegetable soup - didn't become so well known until tomatoes came from the New World.As superb as Spanish tapas are, there is much more to Spain´s cuisine than these tasty offerings. Many recipes make full use of Spain´s superb olive oil, home-grown vegetables and locally-caught fish.