My dad enjoyed his family, his work and coming home at the end of the day to eat a buttered slice of rye bread with caraway seeds before dinner. This became a ritual for me too. Dad was the youngest in his family of five children and as a child he also loved to eat a stick of candy after school in his family’s small corner grocery store in Peoria, IL. He used to tell me the penny candy was the best tasting because it was free.
Dad was ambitious but agreed to leave a college premed program to help his family make ends meet by taking a job in Des Moines, IA, where I was born. Dad’s oldest brother helped him win a job as a shoe store manager, traveling around the Midwest opening up stores. He met my mother in Des Moines, married her and remained there the rest of his life in the home he bought from his father-in-law, where mom grew up. He liked the slower pace of America’s heartland, especially eating BBQ in Kansas City, matzo ball soup in Chicago and enchiladas in Denver. He enjoyed visiting and working temporarily in these towns. He could be independent while earning a nice living for his family.
I was lucky to know my dad pretty well during this period of his life partly because, as the youngest of three children, I was eager to please him and my mom. My older siblings seemed more independent than I was. I rebelled for a short time as a teenager but it didn’t last long. My greater pleasure was attending Class C baseball games in Des Moines with my dad at Sec Taylor stadium or driving to Iowa City with him on a Saturday morning to see the Iowa Hawkeyes play football. The game was fun and winning was better, but stopping in Amana, IA, on the way to the game for a big farm breakfast was the highlight of our day.
I hadn’t realized at the time that so many of these vignettes dad and I experienced together involved eating memorable meals across the table from one another. For example, dad enjoyed inviting me to lunch at Babe Bisignano’s Restaurant—a local wrestling celebrity who was as big as a house and twice as nice. I also loved having breakfast with dad as a young boy at Bishop’s Cafeteria in downtown Des Moines on Saturdays. He reminded me each time to pay attention to the sign overlooking the many buffet dishes behind the counter which read: “Remember your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”
The memory of eating with dad is particularly poignant for me when I remember a business trip I took with him to Spain. Dad and I did some sightseeing in Madrid, the capital. We also visited Toledo, the historic village to the south where in the early 15th Century Catholic churches stood side by side next to Jewish temples and Muslim mosques. This was before Ferdinand and Isabella chose to remove all non-Catholics from Spain—before Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492.
Of course today we know Spain more for its artists, its beautiful coastlines and its tapas bars. These food oases have become better known since the release of the cookbook and film telling about the culinary road trip to Spain taken by Chef Mario Batali and his friends a few years ago.
The culmination of my Spanish road trip with dad was to drive to Barcelona, where we stayed in a small fishing village a few miles outside town. Barcelona is known for its special paella dishes. It was a riotously, wonderful time for a father and son to experience together, filled with laughter and much conversation. We both enjoyed ourselves immensely even though dad’s well-known, slow style of eating become an unexpected delight for the young waiters who tended to us. It took us a while to realize that they were betting on dad’s slow style of eating and whether he would finish his meal.
Dad ordered the paella with shrimp and chicken, while I got the one that included spicy andouille sausage and fresh clams. The waiters seemed to smile at us as they stood nearby anticipating another evening of wagering. Understanding Spanish from the time I lived in Colombia, I was able to capture the essence of what was going on. Dad didn’t understand the language, but I let him in on the waiters’ activities. Dad merely smiled and continued eating. It was so delicious that we both wanted to return the next evening. He ordered the same dish. I had the one with cuttlefish and chicken. By the time our dishes arrived, there were a half dozen more waiters standing nearby. The food and Rioja wine were too good to let a few waiters’ good-natured fun spoil our evening. Dad thought it was funny too. We were both in total bliss. It was an experience I will always treasure. Dad has been gone for more than 20 years now, but I will never forget being with him, feeling the warm evening breezes and watching the waves and the multi-colored fishing boats bobbing up and down on the water. These are sweet memories to cherish as time goes by.
Paella With Chicken, Clams And Sweet Sausage Or Spicy Andouille
5 to 6 Servings
½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups Arborio or Bomba rice
10 cups chicken or vegetable stock; heated in medium pot until simmering
1 large onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 large red bell pepper, diced
4 plum tomatoes, diced or one 24 oz. can plum tomatoes
½ can tomato paste
12 fresh clams
1 whole chicken, 3½ to 4 lb., cut into 10 pieces
3 sweet sausages, cut into ½-inch rounds
½ cup fresh parsley, medium chopped
2 to 3 tsp fresh marjoram
1 tsp thyme
¼ tsp cardamom
½ tsp smoked paprika
2 pinches saffron, soaking in ½ cup boiling water
1 lemon, quartered
Equipment:
Large Skillet—16 to 18 inches wide over outdoor grill with burning coals or a wood burning fire; or an oven-top burner
1. Heat ¼ cup of oil in your skillet and brown all the chicken parts; do the same with the sausage. Do not fully cook. Set aside in a separate bowl.
2. Sauté the diced onion, garlic and strips of red pepper until soft. Add the diced tomatoes and juice.
3. Carmelize the tomato paste by spreading in the skillet until it starts to blacken. Add the parsley and other spices, to the carmelized tomato paste.
4. Add the remaining oil and heat at medium; then add the rice for 2 to 3 minutes until all rice is coated and toasted with oil. Leave in the skillet.
5. Add the saffron liquid and strands of saffron to the rice. Bring it to a boil.
6. Add a hot ladle of chicken stock to the pan, stirring gently until stock evaporates. Continue the same process until all stock is absorbed by the rice. Taste to see if the rice is al dente.
7. Add the clams and chicken and rice to the skillet and cover for 35 to 40 minutes. Don’t stir. Test the rice again; also test the chicken to be sure it’s done. If necessary, add 1 to 2 more cups of stock until rice and chicken is done.
8. When the rice on top of the skillet is done, remove the paella from the heat.
9. The rice on the bottom of the skillet will form a crust. This is good. The Spanish call it socarrat. Don’t stir. This is a delicacy. Use a spatula to release the socarrat. It’s absolutely delicious.
10. Serve chicken, sausage, shrimp, vegetables and rice to each plate plus a little socarrat for everyone. Garnish with lemon wedges.
Please send comments, questions or observations of interest to Chef Alan at [email protected].