Silja Schmidt, a lover of Spain and our gastronomy, has published the book “Tapas Kinderleicht – Tapas facilísimas”. The book includes recipes from our land that anyone could make in their country of origin, Germany, that is, you can find all the ingredients there. Each plate is accompanied by a watercolor painted by herself.

Below Silja tells us how she discovered Spain and where her interest in our gastronomy comes from:

I got to know Andalusia and Seville after professional training and during my business and commercial Spanish studies, and as a hostess in the German Pavilion at EXPO ’92, where I always lived with Spanish families.

My host mothers cooked for all the neighbors, and I soon became fascinated with dishes prepared with olive oil.

An eleven-year-old boy in Seville explained how to bake a cake with olive oil. He used the unit of measurement of a yogurt tub. I thought it was lovely, but unfortunately I can’t remember how many tubs of flour, sugar and olive oil I should add, so I thought at the earliest that a collection of recipes would be useful and wrote down more and more recipes. Of course, my recipe book contains the instructions for the cake for the eleven-year-old Sevillian boy, measured with the yogurt tubs.

My host families always had the refreshing gazpacho in the fridge. A dish with ice cubes that tasted very good and that at first seemed strange to me, until I felt how valuable this cold dish rich in vitamins is in the summer heat of Seville. During this time, at the age of 24, I began to become more and more interested in these various dishes and their preparation.

As a native of Hamburg, fish and seafood are one of my favorite foods, and they are part of my recipe book, like tapas with lots of vegetables, rice and legumes.

After graduating, I worked in the energy and shipping industry, as well as twelve years as a freelancer in tourism with Andalusia. During all this time, I discovered watercolor painting due to its spontaneity and lightness, which fascinates me to this day. The recipes are illustrated with watercolors, the bright and vivid colors represent for me the joy that I was able to indulge in my travels and life in Andalusia.

For me, preparing an Andalusian meal is always a journey to the origin and history of this fascinating region, its people and its nature. I have reported this feeling to the book through small anecdotes.

Very soon we will have the book physically in the hotel to sell it to anyone who wants it.