Mad Cook
Master Chef
I live in a place which falls somewhere between being a very small town and a very large village. Today was our annual food and drink festival - all the restaurants and food shops and the local craft brewery had stands in the main street and the Womens' Institutute and various interest groups and charities were selling home made cakes, pickles and jams, home grown fruit and veg, etc.
I was at the local Spanish restaurant's stand where, among other goodies, they were making and selling paella
I was very much amused when a woman in her 60s, so about my age, started berating the (Spanish) chef about the paella not being a "real" one. The basis of her argument was that she had eaten paella once in Spain when she was 15 years old and it wasn't like this.
I was sorely tempted to tell her that I'd spent several years in Spain when I was younger and had been taught to make paella by a Spaniard but none of the many paellas I've eaten, including my own, has ever been the same as the previous one I ate. I've had them with all shellfish or shellfish and rabbit or chicken or hake or all of them or no shellfish at all and once a vegetarian paella (which was delicious). I even went to a beach party when host was going to cook the paella on a portable stove and, spotting a plastic carrier bag on a chair, I opened it and discovered a live wild duck looking enquiringly up at me. And yes, the poor thing was destined for the paella! Fortunately good manners topped revulsion and I ate my share of the poor thing. (I'm not averse to eating dead animals, I just don't like to be introduced to them while they are still alive.)
I was at the local Spanish restaurant's stand where, among other goodies, they were making and selling paella
I was very much amused when a woman in her 60s, so about my age, started berating the (Spanish) chef about the paella not being a "real" one. The basis of her argument was that she had eaten paella once in Spain when she was 15 years old and it wasn't like this.
I was sorely tempted to tell her that I'd spent several years in Spain when I was younger and had been taught to make paella by a Spaniard but none of the many paellas I've eaten, including my own, has ever been the same as the previous one I ate. I've had them with all shellfish or shellfish and rabbit or chicken or hake or all of them or no shellfish at all and once a vegetarian paella (which was delicious). I even went to a beach party when host was going to cook the paella on a portable stove and, spotting a plastic carrier bag on a chair, I opened it and discovered a live wild duck looking enquiringly up at me. And yes, the poor thing was destined for the paella! Fortunately good manners topped revulsion and I ate my share of the poor thing. (I'm not averse to eating dead animals, I just don't like to be introduced to them while they are still alive.)
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