My little raspi

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"London is a roost for every bird," B. Disraeli

When I look back, one of my funniest trips was the one that I took to London five years ago. I was working in a Spanish restaurant in Berlin and one of my coworkers, Monica, and I, decided to take a little trip to the capital of the U.K., where we wanted to meet a couple of friends of hers who were coming from Madrid, Belfast, and Brussels. We took a cheap Ryanair flight from Berlin Schoenefeld to London Stansted. Everyone knows that it rains a lot in England. It rained even inside of the aircraft!! Yes, I don’t know why, but, once we landed, water began to pour down while we were picking up our hand luggage. Neither Monica nor I could speak English very well. We arrived two days before her friends, so, adventure was assured! We had to take a bus to center city and I laughed a lot when Monica ordered two round trip tickets with the hilarious phrase “go and welcome.” The vendor laughed, too, but we got our tickets and in less than an hour we were at Victoria Station. London is a very expensive city and we had a tight budget, so, we stayed in a youth hostel in Notting Hill, which is a wonderful borough with beautiful architecture. Like I said, because of the lack of pounds we never took the Tube (London’s subway). Instead, we walked for hours throughout the city and we always bought food at a supermarket or at McDonald’s, if we wanted something special. We were there for a week and we were able to visit the city’s highlights and terrific museums. We even were invited to a rave called “Save the Thames” or something like that. The rave was at the shores of the river close to Charing Cross Station. It was just fantastic and we met a lot of new people. I have to say that most of them were a little crazy. The most amazing thing is that after a couple of hours the water level began to rise. People kept drumming on the sidewalk. After a while the party ended. We took a night bus straight to the hostel but our flight was leaving early in the morning. Monica and I didn’t make it. We missed the bus to the airport and we had to take a taxi!!! We, with our low budget!! After one hour in a beautiful London taxi and 170 pounds!!! we took off. Tired but happy we arrived in Berlin and went to work for eight hours. Exhausted, bankrupt, full of life.

Paella Negra

Spain’s most famous dish is Paella and actually it’s typical from my region, Valencia. There are as many ways to cook paella as chefs. The ingredients vary as well. In the past, people tended to use vegetables of each season. So, you would eat a different dish in the winter than in the summer. You can cook it with meat, fish, both, and even vegetarian. Today I’d like to tell you how you cook Black Rice (Paella Negra). From the name we can intuit that our paella will be black and you’ll now the reason soon. Let’s start with the ingredients:

• 14 oz. of small squid, cleaned, with their ink sacks reserved
• 1 cup olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• 6 ¼ cups fish stock (you can make it at home or use a bouillon cube)
• 2 ½ cups long-grain rice
• 1 canned or bottled red bell pepper, drained and cut into strips
• Salt

I’ve always bought the ink ready in little plastic bags. It’s easy to find in Spain. I’m not sure if you can find it in the U.S. First cut the squid into thin rings. We’ll heat the oil in a pan and add the rings, stirring them regularly for about 5 minutes. Then, we’ll add the onion and the garlic and a little bit of our stock (it should cover the ingredients in the pan). We’ll cook that for about 20 minutes. Now, we’ll add the rice, the ink, and the rest of our stock, all with a pinch of salt. First, we’ll cook it at a high temperature for 10 minutes but then, we should lower it, put the pepper on top of it, and cook until the rice is ready. Red pepper is used in the low-cost version. You can use shrimp or mussels. It tastes even better!!!!
I like to eat it with a homemade garlic mayonnaise (allioli). The tastiest thing is the lightly burned rice on the pan. It’s delicious!! I’m going to warn you: you’ll need a nap after that!

My Family

Today I’m here to write about my family. I can start by telling you that I have two brothers and one sister, but I’m not going to write about them. They are too boring. Instead, I would like to write about their wonderful children. Oh, children, they always soften our hearts. I have two nieces and one nephew. Anna is the oldest one. She’ll turn thirteen this year and she’s a little lady. She likes fashion and wearing a different outfit every day. I’d say that she isn’t a child anymore. She’s an adolescent and I feel sorry for my brother and his wife. That’s going to be hard!! She’s not the best student as well. My sister and I make jokes about it. We tell her that she’ll be a wonderful hairdresser. She always gets mad.
Anna has a brother, Carles. He’s three and half years old but he’s still a big baby that only wants to be with “mama.” His parents were able to take him off diapers very early and then, suddenly, after a couple of successful months, he started to pee on himself again. They’re still working on it. Regardless of that, he’s very nice and lovely. He loves motorcycles, cars, and Fernando Alonso (a Spanish Formula One champion). If you ask him what he wants to be when he’s grown-up, he’ll always say “Alonso!”
My second Brother, Jorge, also has a daughter. Her name is Aitana and she’s two and half years old. She’s younger than Carles but she talks a lot more, though. She loves singing and dancing and you better watch her performing if you don’t want her to get angry. Aitana is very smart for her age. She’s what we call a “little grandma” because of her comments about things. I like seeing them growing up although I don’t spend a lot of time with them.
This photograph was taken two years ago. We all are “bigger” now!