People love Spanish food! I hear it all the time from people who either have visited me or want to visit. “I love that Pai-lela! Ohhh give me some Tor-tila!” People love it regardless of whether or not they can pronounce it. I generally do too for that matter. But my real love is the ingrediants. You see Spain is the land of the most incredible ingredients known to man. While the dishes can be great, they can also consist of overcooked vegetables and sauce less fried foods - things that have never made sense to me. It’s the ingredients though that are the real stars, so fresh and so varied that I can never get enough of them.

Take tonight for example. Gabriella comes home from a long day at work and what does she want? “Something with vegetables and fish in it.” It’s a mantra that I know so well and Imore then happily appease from time to time. However, fish is the best when purchased at the market, which is open in the mornings when I’m working. Although I try to get there as often as possible because I love fish, it’s not always easy; but tonight, I walked down to the local supermarket and found some frozen shrimp - head on, body intact and well, better than any other frozen shrimp I’ve seen back in the States. It’s not that good frozen shrimp doesn’t exist back there; I’ve just never seen anything quite like the frozen shrimp you get here before. Along with some fresh string beans I encountered, I also picked up a sweet wine from Valencia thatwould have to pass as Mirin for that Asian touched she requested.