Miles Collins

Taking it easy in Spain….

The Spanish have a saying called ‘tranquilo’, roughly translated it means ‘take it easy’ and that’s what I have been doing for the last four days. My venue for some tranquilo was Conil de la Frontera in Cadiz province, Southern Spain.

Conil is a beautiful town in a beautiful province, a taste of the real Spain, as far removed from the ugliness of ex-pat bars, nightclubs and package tours as you can get. Largely left alone by the masses it is an area of natural beauty, fields of sunflowers stretching out as far as the eye can see to a never ending coastline dotted with chilled out locals and fabulous sunsets.

This is a way of tasting Spain as it should be tasted, free from greasy English ‘fry-ups’ and German sausages. Tapas and seafood is the staple diet, home to the superb red tuna-soft as butter and much revered throughout the region. The influene of the Moors can still be seen in the outlying towns and villages from the decorated houses to the cooks within them.

Staying here gave me chance to sit back and think about food from a different perspective, it made me question my own dishes whilst getting inside the mind’s eye of Spanish cuisine and how every dish seemed to match the area in which it was eaten so effortlessly.

Tranquilo allows us to sit back and remember what is most important, it reminds us that we all need some time out, to recharge and reconnect…