“Another egregious offense is to serve the paella on a plate rather than from the pan. I urge you to seat yourself and your guests around the paella pan and eat the paella right from the pan, starting from the perimeter and working toward the center. This communal style is the traditional way to eat paella, and I can vouch for at least one family in Granada that still does it, every Sunday afternoon without fail.” Sarah Jay, co-founder of paellapans.com and one of my dearest friends in the entire world.
Sarah and me in the early '90s, when I guess those pants were fashionable?
I met Sarah Jay when we were both young and eager newspaper reporters in the early ’90s in Stuart, Florida. To create a complete list of the what she has meant and given to me throughout our almost two-decade-long friendship — the lust and bravery for travel, the discovery of my intense aversion for cilantro, a deeper understanding of myself that can come only through the eyes of someone who seems to know you even better than you know yourself at times, the best chocolate chip banana bread recipe known to man, the courage to follow my instincts about love — would be impossible.
For all of this, I will be eternally grateful. But the one thing she gave me that comes up every single day of my life is a passion for food — from tuna salad to fresh mozzarella to the spectacular paella.
It was with memories that fill my soul of paellas with Sarah and created on my own with Sarah on the other end of the phone in New York that I anticipated a paella gathering Saturday evening with friends from the boys’ school. I’d had a long six weeks of intense work, a long stretch of difficult parent with our 12-year-old, and a long day at said 12-year-old’s rock climbing competition. Nothing sounded better than sitting around a fire pit, drinking sangria, and eating paella with friends.
Today’s headache proves I took the evening’s fun very seriously.
A perfect Saturday night
For a rare five hours, I did nothing but indulge my senses, as it is the paella foreplay I enjoy as much as the paella itself. The sangria (followed by a bit of red wine and port, as I recall), the vision and intoxicating smells of the paella as it came together, the laughter and stories of friends, the chill of perhaps one of winter’s last evenings and the warmth of the fire that eased it, the taste of the culmination of hours of effort in a meal that is itself an event. For five hours, I didn’t think about Noah’s homework schedule, how we’ll afford their school next year, how much time I had until I needed to be at the next entry on my to-go list, deadlines, a friend dying of cancer, paperwork that needs to be filed, orphans in the Congo that need to be fed, how video games are ruining our children, or whether our country will do the right thing in the health-care debate.
I simply ate, drank, and laughed.
The paella itself, inspired by Peruvian friends of my friends, was delicious. Coincidentally, when the hostess was looking to buy a paella pan, she came across Sarah’s web site, stumbling upon a quote from me about how much I enjoyed my pan. Having the paella cooked in one of Sarah’s pans completed the circle of paella love for me. But the memory that remains (hangover aside) is that of everything that surrounded it as it was cooked and enjoyed. We didn’t eat the paella the way Sarah suggested — communal style around the huge pan. But the communal feel was there. I think it’s almost unavoidable when eating paella.
The paella is served!
I paid for the fun today, suffering through a 4th-grade science project, cooking dinner for 30 youth, and an intellectual discussion of economics and faith at church that my post-sangria brain at times had a difficult time following. Oh but it was worth it. Paella and good friends. Doesn’t get much better than that.
For both, Sarah Jay, I thank you.
I remember those pants!