Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Day 6-Zaragoza: Nothing brings friends together like a delicious paella cookout!

Oct. 11-

















We were privileged to have one of our Spanish friends from the region of Valencia cook us a "Paella Valenciana". If you have never had the chance to eat paella, I highly recommend going to a Spanish restaurant straight away and crossing it off your list of "to dos in this life". There are different varieties of paella. The one constant is saffron rice with veggies. Then you can have whatever type of meat you prefer--paella often has seafood in it, but since my tummy reacts badly to seafood, ours had chicken and rabbit. That's right people, I ate rabbit!  Sorry to sound cliche, but it tasted like chicken.  


















Part of what made this trip back to Spain so different was finding my group of friends (myself included) in new stages of life. When I lived there, the majority of us were single. Now, most of us are married, and many have kids. Our paella lunch had so many kids, there was even a kids' table (notice the princess and the ballerina seated at the head of the table).





There was a grown-up table too.  :) 


















It was a lovely afternoon with friends. That evening, we went over to my former boss, Toti's house.  He and his wife Paloma are wonderful and warm people, and it was great to see them. Toti is an artistic kindred spirit to me. He is always so encouraging to me in my artistic endeavors, and he is an incredibly talented painter and poet himself. 


2 comments:

Mrs. G. said...

So many beautiful smiles.

J said...

I agree with Mrs. G's comment. The paella looks GOOD.

On my screen, the pic of the toddler is covering up the kids' table.