How to make a real-deal Spanish paella

Start with snacks. This might take awhile. Jamón and cheese are perfect.

Then, assemble a team of helpers. Provide beer.

First, assemble your ingredients: spices, rice, fish broth, clams, rabbit, chorizo, peppers and tomatoes. Garlic is good also but never, under any circumstances must you put an onion in paella. If you have added an onion, cross yourself and hope God forgives you for your transgressions. Spanish grandmothers sure won't. 

Then, set up an outdoor cooking area if at all possible. Paella making is a community event, and you'll need the space. And cooking outside makes people happy. Spaniards are all about happiness. 

Now you're ready to begin. Soak your clams well. Nobody likes gritty clams. Go ahead and put a lot of good Spanish olive oil in your heated paella pan and add the rabbit. If you use Italian olive oil or otherwise sully your paella with an inferior non-Spanish product, repeat the crossing and praying maneuver as directed in the instructions regarding onions.

When the rabbit is browning well and smells like heaven, toss in the chorizo and peppers. Have another beer. Now add tomatoes and salt. Inhale deeply, it smells good. Add in rice. Two handfuls per person. If you have small hands, better make it three. Nobody hates leftover paella. Add in fish broth. You can boil fish heads and shrimp shells to make some yourself, or you can cheat and buy the pre-made kind. I won't judge you. But someone out there definitely is, so watch out.

Also take this opportunity to throw in your super secret spice mix passed down from your great-grandfather. Add in raw shrimp. In Spain they generally like them with the heads and eye stalks still attached, but this is my friend's paella and he went easy because he knows how squeamish Americans are. Sprinkle your clams in. Have another beer. Wait twenty minutes.

Now, it's done. For Pete's sake, EAT. And then EAT MORE. And have another beer.

Seasons

The spring weather is already melting into summer and new cruise ships are docking outside my house every day. The marina and the beach are busier, and the quiet solitude of chilly walks on the deserted beach are long gone.

Málaga is one of those seaside towns that only really comes alive in the sunshine and heat. It's strange to think that I won't see it again in the winter, or for any other seasons really, since The Mister and I are preparing for departure in late June. It's strange to think of leaving Spain and our life here. We're excited for the next season of our lives in Boston, but there's no denying that it will be a seismic shift of scenery.

A post brought to you by jet lag

I am tired. I am back in Spain, jet-lagged from here to Alaska, blissed out on the love of family and friends, but totally, completely to-the-bone tired.

And yet somehow, playing outside my window at 8:40 p.m. on a Monday night is a marching band. Tubas, drums, the whole thing. Every night for the past three weeks. Heaven only know what they are doing out there. How festive do they feel that they need to play every night? Outside my window? For no apparent reason?

If you have any answers to the riddle, by all means let me know. I'll be the one sleeping with earplugs in.

In which I address my lack of blogging

I haven't been blogging about life in Spain because I'm currently in the good ole' USA! I'm out for a few days visiting my family and eating sushi and going to Target - you know, real 'Merican stuff. I feel like I should start roasting s'mores around a campfire while simultaneously sipping grape Kool-Aid, thinking about football and singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

I love Spain but, like my good friend Dorothy always says, there's just no place like home.

Haavahd

Do we look like two Harvard Law students?

Because we're about to be.

Just got notice this morning - officially admitted to the school o' dreams.

Looks like we're moving to Boston this summer.

Holy crap.

Semana Santa

Spain's Semana Santa, or holy week, is one of those things that you kind of have to see to believe. For starters, as Americans we have a deeply engrained run-and-hide instinct when we see anyone in a white robe and tall cone-shaped hats with masks and eyeholes. But I promise, this has nothing to do with any of that. 

Semana Santa in Málaga means that the streets are filled with processions of  heavy, huge pieces of antique religious iconography, which are laboriously carried through the streets by men in odd outfits. Children don robes and hold candles or incense, and there are lots of trumpet players and drums proceeding the main event. There's a lot of pageantry and solemnness. 

Two oranges for me, one kiwi for you

The Mister has been teaching me how to play Texas Hold 'Em.

With fruit instead of poker chips. One orange = two kiwi (kiwis?)

I've been cleaning him out. He scoffs "beginner's luck," but he knows and I know that I am wiley. 

And that I like to eat my winnings.

Extra motivation never hurts.

Quail eggs

  

Spain, 2012 = America, 1966?

I'm a fan of the TV show Mad Men and lately I keep thinking about how living in Spain in 2012 is kind of similar to living in America in the 60s and 70s:

• Total economic upheaval. In America in the 60s the economy was shooting through the roof and in Spain in 2012 it's smashing through the floor in a race to the depths of the Earth. 
• Racism is alive and well and it's still okay to say things like "Be sure to check for cleanliness before you eat there, it is an Asian restaurant after all. You never know about them." (actual quote)
• Political upheaval. Spaniards roundly distrust and dislike their politicians. They voted out the ruling party in huge numbers last fall and now they're equally as furious with the new guys. Their political system is shockingly corrupt for the first world.
• New technology. Back then in America it was the television that was the real cultural revolution, but nowadays Spain is just starting to warm up to the internet. People use email and Facebook, but shopping online is a relative novelty, and trying to find an updated website for any non-national company is a nonstarter.
• People are really annoyed about anti-smoking measures. Smoking was just banned indoors in public places last year - last year. And people are angry about it still, because here it seems like everybody smokes (Mad Men, cough).
• People, kids especially, are starting to get fat because of the wonder of processed foods. We gorged ourselves on TV dinners with abandon when they were first available a few decades ago, without a real sense of the health drawbacks. Spain's love affair with processed stuff started later than ours did and is now in full bloom. Their child obesity rates have doubled in the last 15 years.
• People are mad. Furious. There are protests in front of town hall on a regular basis here in Málaga. Last week there was a general strike in all of Spain, including teachers and transportation workers. Last year there were thousands of protesters in Madrid and other cities. With a deepening recession and a terrible economic outlook (much worse than the one in the U.S.) people are angry and they're making themselves heard.
• People dress nicer. I mean, they don't wear top hats or anything, but Spaniards are currently experiencing a generational fashion divide a bit like I imagine it in the 60s in America: the senior citizens wear skirts, nylons, dress slacks and blazers, even for a walk in the park, and the young people wear jeans and other informal gear.

I can't decide if I'm onto something here or if I've just been watching too much Mad Men.