paelladas.

on saturday. ohhhh saturday. let me tell you about saturday. it was in the high seventies. i wore a sundress. hair up. sunglasses on. i shaved. all big deals. i was spending the weekend at erins house: finally a place all to ourselves (unfortunately of utmost importance. not out of a distain for our families, but more out of a distain for the jump backwards from once-hand independence). it would have been good enough.  the sun would have been good enough. the shaving. the dress. the cold drinks. the sand. all would have been good enough. 

but then we get invited. we get invited to go make paella at la punta. there is a place in cádiz called "la punta" which is a literal "point" surrounded by water in the old part of the town. it is the only place that is still legal to drink publicly; knock-em-back, spain. the place is usually only populated between the hours of 2am and 6am where it looks something like this: a row of pretty shitty dance-clubs, dirty, crowded, and populated with raging seventeen-year-olds. to be honest, description aside, it is not the greatest place to go (although it will always have a place in my heart). but this description of la punta is solely the after-dark description. we had no idea what we were in for when we were invited to go make paella at la punta in the middle of the day. ha! it. was. incredible. we pack up a grocery back with some tinto de verano (the summer delight that has made its face shine again) and hit up la punta. 

there you have it: a group of about twenty or thirty twenty or thirty somethings, having the time of their life, wearing chef hats, laughing and singing and shananagining. standing around a portable burner and gas tank. and. a. huge. absolutely huge. pan of paella in the works (kira, thought of you and steven and those way-too-large paella pans at his work that we never really knew why anybody would ever use them. i now know.). in go the veggies and the chicken and the stock and the rice and the tender love and care. out comes paella. then a kiddy pool shines his face. in goes the apples and the red wine and the sugar and the alc. out comes sangria. 

astounding. spaniards have a way of standing around in the sun all day and making it feel like the day was completely spent worthwhile. satisfying. with a purpose. well, paella, of course. :)