A Halloween Paella at Ron and Nancy's

Yesterday Sharon and I were invited to have a paella at Ron and Nancy's. This was a lot of fun for me, because other than a paella that I had at Solera, all other paellas that I have eaten in the last 10+ years were cooked by me, so it is great to level-set one's palate with somebody else's cuisine.

The hosts did an excellent job setting the Halloween tone with devil horns and vampire fangs for everybody. Patti Mayonnaise was also invited and she brought her four legged companion. Pictured at right is Bogey who wasn't particularly pleased wearing the horns. I guess she would have preferred little angle wings :-)

The paella itself was different from the ones I have cooked. This is something I have learned to expect and enjoy with paellas. I have always felt that paella is a rice dish with saffron and whatever else you want to add. Purists will fight me on this, but food is to be enjoyed, not to be restricted with rules.

Nancy used an old recipe that at least physically looks very much like mine, covered with stains and very wrinkled. That is a signature of a proven, favorite recipes. It would be a sin to retype them. Her setup was very similar to the one I have, a tested mise en place that allows the host/chef to cook the paella while everybody is there, but doesn't tie her up in the kitchen in a way that she'd miss being part of the conversation. Because several of the ingredients were cooked ahead of time, time to serve was very fast.

For proteins, Nancy used pork sausage, shrimp, salt pork (cooked to a yummy crisp), chicken and clams. She later added some artichokes, saffron, onion (pre-coocked), roasted red peppers, garlic, thyme, rice, organic chicken broth and a few other ingredients I missed. The result was delicious.

Thanks Nancy and Ron!