Day 5: Paella, paella, paella, paella, goose!

VALENCIA, Spain -- Tonight I partook of la quinta paella -- the fifth of five paellas -- over the course of a little over 48 hours. Valencia is the birthplace and proud keeper of the Spanish paella tradition, and I agree: it's better here. The first two paellas we ate al fresco at a traditional Valencian barraca, a waterside grass-roofed house in the heart of La Albufuera, a national park with a long, skinny lagoon where paella was, in fact, born.














The next two were at La Pepica, an historic seaside restaurant in the city that ol'Ernest Hemingway made famous in his posthumously published novel The Dangerous Summer. I was able to confirm at La Pepica that the mixing of arroz negro (which gets its hue from squid ink) and the paella variation we had before us (not technically paella valenciana, which includes rabbit), is not a faux pas. In fact, to me it recalls the classic New York black and white cookie: such culinary harmony. Served with lemon and alioli, a spread of garlic and olive oil whipped to a creamy consistency, we had no trouble polishing them off.













It just seems right to spend a beautiful Sunday in Valencia eating nothing but paella, so we topped it off with a paella mixta (with chicken, green pepper, shrimp, and chirlas -- tiny bite-sized clams) crafted by Mario, who claims that having summered in a town south of Valencia as a kid makes him a self-styled homemade paella expert. Judging by his paella, I have no reason to doubt this argument. It was a little sickly-looking only because we lacked azafrán (saffron), which gives paella that warm yellow glow.

Sadly, after I leave Valencia tomorrow, I'm going to have to start thinking about something other than food.