Our evening excursion today was to a Paella cooking demonstration. I think it was misrepresented but since we were the first group to have this perhaps Collette didn't know just what was going to happen. It was a paella explanation, not cooking demonstration. We were bused to the center of town and went down alleys and around corners and saw the local skateboard folks in action and finally we were there.
A lady with a soft voice and very accented English tried to tell us about the process of making Paella. By the way--it is a rice dish with some kind of meat and veggies and saffron. We were finally ushered into a large room with long tables and plastic ware on the tables. We were given plates of salad and instructed to put salad on top of our paella. As the folks were serving the 50 plates--one at a time--pitchers of Sangria were put on the table. It was better than just wine ( I don't like the taste of wine), but could have used lots more fruit juice. After eating the Paella, which was good, we had home grown Navelos (navel oranges) which were WONDERFUL. They were peeled and sliced and so, so sweet. If I were going to prepare Sangria, I would bone and de-skin the chicken before putting it in the dish. The typical Valencia paella is made with rabbit, which would be an interesting taste, and I have heard of folks using sausage and all sorts of fish and shell fish. I suppose it can be adapted to all different tastes. It may originally have been a way to use up left overs.
A festival is about to be celebrated in Valencia to celebrate Spring. March 15th, brings a carnival-like atmosphere to the city with bonfires and a procession to the Basillica. This is called Fallas (fai-as) and was originally a celebration of St Joseph, the carpenter.
After finishing our oranges, we trooped back the way we came through now really dark alleys to wait for our bus. We must have our bags out in the morning at 7, and will have a city tour (some riding in the bus and some walking) of Valencia, before heading to our last stop in this tour Barcelona. More tomorrow------------
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