Fernando's Paella

On Saturday my host family took me to an 8th birthday party for one of their family friends. It was in the country so we drove about 30 mins from Bilbao. I was introduced as 'Anne, our american student' and everyone was so nice and accommodating. The language barrier was very apparent because they all spoke minimal English and I had to continually say 'mas despacio por favor' slower please, but I've gotten over the embarrassment of not being a native speaker. We had appetizers while Fernanodo was cooking the Paella. They eat lots of ham in Spain. One dish that i particularly liked was bread with tomatoe, olive oil and ham on it, interesting but yummy. Fernano, the brother of Jose [whose house we were at] told me he had won the world championships for Paella five times... I watched as he heated up the oil in the calderna (a very large, shallow dish) cooked the chicken, added the shrimp that had been cooked earlier, the vegetables, and then the rice. It took a very long time to cook and while it was being made the grandpa of the house was talking to  me and kept being like 'here try this food, its good. Now this, do you like it?' It was cute! Needless to say we sat down for Paella and it was delicious. Fernando asked how I liked it and he told me every time I hear Lady Gaga sing about Fernando and Alejandro [he had a 1 year old son named Alejandro] that I have to think about his Paella, he also asked me to talk about him in the States, so here you go Fernando! 

This picture was emailed to me by my first host mom. Its Paula (my host sister) Fernando holding his son Alejandro and me! In the bottom left of the picture you can see the Calderna with the paella in it!!!