Joe Cawley has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 1 narrator. The most-rated is More Ketchup Than Salsa.
Even More Ketchup Than Salsa: The Final Dollop
Summary
Sequel to the award-winning More Ketchup Than Salsa: Confessions of a Tenerife Barman. A must-have reality check for anybody who has ever pondered a move to sunnier climes. If the first six months of running the Smugglers Tavern had been a baptism of fire, the subsequent years were about as much fun as bobbing for apples in a vat of acid. Having swapped the tin roof of a cold British fish market for the sunny skies of a Spanish holiday island, Joe and Joy succeeded in thwarting the first wave of attacks from bungling bureaucrats, bewildered holidaymakers, and their own spectacular ineptitude. What they didn't realize was that their enemies were regrouping. Not only that, but those enemies had made camp a lot closer to home, enemies that would make their encounters with the exploding gas bottles, East European squatters, and big-time Charlies featured in the first book, More Ketchup Than Salsa, seem like chapters from Enid Blyton. The trials and tribulations of attempting to make a better life abroad continue...with disastrous consequences.
©2012, 2018 Joe Cawley (P)2018 Joe Cawley
Less Ketchup Than Salsa: Finding My Mojo in Travel Writing
Summary
How do you go from pulling pints one day, to travelling the world, all-expenses paid the next? For this author it involved a huge dollop of ketchup, a little bit of growing up, and an extraordinary sequence of events that flings the author on a career path he’d never dreamed could happen. Throw in the patter of little feet, sharp teeth, amputations, and a smattering of characters from their Tenerife bar days, and you have another serving of ketchup - only this time, it’s a little more salsa. With the Smugglers Tavern still a nagging ghost of their past, Joe and Joy free themselves from limpet-like patrons, battle once more with Spain’s bungling bureaucracy, and dip a toe in numerous but short-lived careers to stop their bar money evaporating. Less Ketchup Than Salsa is a true story about growing up, finding your dreams in the most unexpected of places, and discovering what’s truly important in life. If you’ve ever pondered living abroad, are interested in travel writing as a career, wondered what life is all about, or just want a funny listen in the style of Bill Bryson or Carl Hiaasen...join Joe and Joy on this third and final memoir in the Ketchup trilogy.
©2018 Joe Cawley (P)2018 Joe Cawley
More Ketchup Than Salsa
Summary
It was while holding aloft a not altogether pleasant-smelling mackerel that the decision was made. The March rain hammered on the rotting tin roof high above the market stall, where I had spent the last six months pushing out dubious trays of marine life at three for a fiver. After a two-week holiday in Tenerife, Joy and I vowed that a life in fish giblets was not going to be our destiny and a life in the sun, was. A complete lack of catering experience, zero business acumen, and the sum of our vastly wealth barely reaching waist level of a ceramic pig did little to deter our enthusiasm for buying a bar. "Where do we sign?" we replied. And then the whole silly, sunny saga began.... When Joe and his girlfriend Joy decide to trade in their life on a cold Lancashire fish market to run a bar in the Tenerife sunshine, they anticipate a paradise of sea, sand, and siestas. Little did they expect their foreign fantasy to turn out to be about as exotic as Bolton on a wet Monday morning. Amidst a host of eccentric locals, homesickness, and the occasional cockroach infestation, pint-pulling novices Joe and Joy struggle with "Brits abroad" culture and learn that, although the skies might be bluer, the grass is definitely not always greener. A hilarious insight into the wild and wacky characters of an expat community in a familiar holiday destination, More Ketchup Than Salsa is a must-listen for anybody who has ever dreamed about jetting off to sunnier climes, finding a job abroad...or anybody who has even momentarily flirted with the idea of "doing a Shirley Valentine" in these trying economic times.
©2012 Joe Cawley (P)2017 Joe Cawley