Paella with Fuentabravia friends

In a rare stroke of scheduling luck, a group of friends from my tour in Spain were all in town last night. While stationed in Rota, I lived in a pretty sweet apartment building right on the beach of a little town called Fuentabravia. OK, even though I technically lived there I was deployed so much I'd forget where the light switches were every time I'd come back! Whit was my upstairs neighbor in this great building and Laurie lived in the apartment right next door. Whit and Laurie (in the black and blue shirts in the picture) are both officers in the Navy in the CEC (Civil Engineering Corp). Just up the beach lived Sergio (a civilian working with Navy CEC in Spain) and Ana, the life of any get-together! Whit has been the link between this diverse group ever since we all moved away from Spain in the mid to late 90s. Coincidentally, Whit, Ana and I all live in the San Diego area now. Laurie and her husband just got orders to Hawaii so they were out here visiting friends same as Sergio (who lives in the DC area now). Somehow, we all converged on Whit & Kathie's house for a night of paella.

For those of you not lucky enough to be stationed in Spain at some point in your life, paella is an amazing rice dish similar to Cajun jambalaya but with a lot more ingredients. I don't know how it's prepared in the rest of Spain, but on the southern coasts of Spain and Portugal, it's laden with seafood. It's not an easy dish to make; food preparation is labor intensive and the whole thing takes quite a while, and a lot of patience to cook. Lucky for us, Ana is an expert Paella maker and doesn't mind preparing it for friends who really appreciate the art of its creation. Being from Spain, Ana had brought to the States the essential equipment for this dish's preparation. As you can see in the picture, a large shallow pan is placed over a custom made stand atop a propane burner. I went over to Whit & Kathie's straight from work because I didn't want to miss any of the steps in the cooking of this unique dish. I arrived in time to watch Sergio cure the new pan but most of the ingredients were already prepped upon my arrival.

Ana is a lot like my late Papa Babin; an amazing cook but can't tell you a recipe to save her life! She hardly measured anything, she'd just eye-ball it up and throw it in the pan. I was trying to pay close attention, but with so much catching up to do with so many people it was hard to stay focused! The ingredients I did catch though were olive oil & garlic (lots of both!), green sweet peppers, shrimp, clams, calamari (squid), chicken, green beans, rice (from a Cuban grocery store), saffron and lemons. I asked Ana for the recipe, but she said I'd just have to invite her over to make it and pay closer attention next time! Umm, OK!!!

Several hours later with way too many appetizers already in our bellies, we dug into the paella. The picture above is the finished product. Whit & Kathie have the perfect party patio (complete with candle chandelier) so we settled in for some great food and conversation. With only 3 of us in the group of 10 not fluent in Spanish, the conversation kept sliding between Spanish laden with accents from Spain and Mexico, to English. Once again I was humbled by my lack of linguistic ability but appreciative of the broad spectrum of friends in my life.

For those of you who know Whit & Kathie, you'll be happy to hear that they are expecting. Not only is Kathie pregnant, she's carrying twins! Yep, Whit's strutting around like he's a stud!! She's due in the January-February time frame so maybe she won't be so cold all the time this winter! Get ready Whit, I have a feeling you're in for some strange food cravings while she's eating for three!