Well we finally did it, we made one of the most famous Spanish dishes of all, the mighty PAELLA. Truth be told, we were holding off in attempting this dish cause we really felt that it was out of our league. But just like Remy, the little rat from Ratatouille learned, ANYONE can cook. Keeping Remy’s lesson on repeat in my mind, I marched off to the market armed with a very specific list which is usually reserved for short and squat old Spanish women. I was determined to put the CAN in Canadian. (I couldn’t resist.)

We invited Mary and Demian over for dinner to act as our official Catalan (and adopted Spaniard) taste testers and critics. Preparation was long but with the eye on the prize and a good helper (Shanti), we breezed through and were soon ready to bring the fearful paella pan off the mantel. What is in a paella you ask? Well, there are plenty of variations with the original hailing from Valencia which contains chicken, rabbit, and sometimes duck. Our first attempt was a seafood paella consisting of musclos, gambas, sepia, rape (mussels, prawns, squid, monkfish) and a small amount of chorizo. *To all you non-meat eating freaks out there it is important for you to realize that the chorizo is vital to the flavour of the dish so pick it out later, but do not omit it.*

So here it is….enough talk….may I present our first paella.

Perfect consistency packed al dente rice, and great seafood.

Demian, a Catalan, feels he is simply not worthy. He really is though!

Mary (AKA ‘the critic to fear’)  just before her first blissful mouthful.

So there you have it, I CAN cook. Too bad Shanti has started taking notice of this.  Next up is Arroz Negro which is a paella dish that is black from the ink of squid. Maybe I will make this one for Stan?!