Paella for Twelve!

You know when you get all excited about a project and then at some point it sometimes spirals out of control? Well, we almost had Mercury leaving its orbit and crashing into Venus, starting a galactic pinball game around here last weekend. As part of writing an article for Culinate.com on making paella on the grill (based on the blog entry you all read here), I volunteered to have the photo shoot at the house.

My most excellent and talented friend, Mr. Bloch, said he'd do it gratis (thanks, Steve!) and Culinate editor Kim and her husband James accepted our invitation to supervise. Then, of course, I invited my brother Bruce and his partner in crime Wendy. So we're up to, what...three...four...six...eight? And Kathryn and Jeff weren't busy and Tim and Luan had missed the last paella feed opportunity, so that brings us to...EEK!...twelve???

Fortunately the paella recipe is infinitely expandable and Cost Plus has very reasonably priced glassware and table accessories, so with a little creative mixing of silverware patterns, we were all set to go. The evening came off without major hitches (okay, okay...I miscounted and set the table for ten instead of twelve, but we squeezed in two more without too much fuss), everyone had their fill of appies, including, if I do say so myself, a lovely fava bean spread (see above), there was rosé and red wine aplenty with rhubarb crisp and coffee for dessert.

As they all toddled off home and Tim zipped off on his new scooter, we sighed and started working through the detritus of yet another successful evening. Now all I have to do is hope that the article I wrote last week measures up!