Food Part1

Dearest friends and family I must apologize. I simply cannot do what I promised I would, and I am genuinely sorry. I continue to set personal records here: I rolled out of bed at 2: 15 this afternoon, just in time for lunch. It was a long, long night. As such I lack the necessary mental acuity (and time. It's hard to have a productive day that starts at 2 in the afternoon) to do THE food post justice, for you and me both. An idea has occurred to me, however. What if I have a running series of posts about foods, and in doing so I can truly get into each dish or delicacy as I experience them. It will also give me more material to feed you. Hah. food puns. There will undoubtedly be more. So today we go big, as in all of Spain big. The dish is called Paella, and it is delicious. Mira

Not quite the best picture but it serves a point. Paella is fairly easy to prepare and you can make tons and tons of it. Reme usually does and I average three plates and a whole loaf of bread at those lunches.
Your basic Paella ingredients:

• Rice
• Saffron, which gives the dish its trademark yellow-orange-ish color.
• Seafood, especially whole shrimp (heads on) and shellfish of any sort.

Here you can see that somebody really really likes peppers. Our Paella usually includes peas but not much other vegetables. It has a vaguely fishy taste, but not in the way you might be used to. Adding shrimp is kind of stupid in my humble opinion, given that eating one lousy shrimp requires stopping the hydraulic shoveling of rice and bread mouth-ward just to peel all the shell off and detach the head. Too much work. Reme thinks I hate shrimp. Also, where I once despised shellfish as a general rule I now have a much higher opinion of them, at least as they are prepared in Paella. They soak up more of the olive oil flavor and are tasty even though I would prefer some grilled chicken if it were up to me.

Paella is fairly universal throughout Spain, but the ingredients vary depending on the region. Seafood is ubiquitous because of the sheer amount of coastline Spain has. If it weren't for the historical side note that is Portugal Spain would be bordered on three sides by the Atlantic and Mediterranean and relatively cut off from France by the western end of the Pyrenees.