La Paella

Yesterday for lunch, our host mom made Paella.  If you are not familiar with Paella, it is a traditional Spanish dish with rice, vegetables, seafood, chicken, meat, pork; sometimes all of the meats are included, other times a variety of them or just vegetables.  I have been told that Paella comes from an Arabic word meaning leftovers, from the Muslim influence in Spain.  However, I am not sure on the accuracy.  The idea is that leftovers of different meals (i.e. beef, seafood, etc.) are taken and cooked with rice to create another meal.  I do not like seafood, but I gave it a try.  It was good and I only had to leave my shrimp to the side.  We also had Sangria, which is a fruity beverage with a little bit of wine.  For those of you in Spanish club, you may remember the non-alcoholic version of this.  I took some pictures of this as well.

 La ensalada (salad- I was surprised to find out it had crab in it - not in a good way surprised)

 El postre (desert - again surprised, this time to find out there were those little fruits at the bottom that are put in fruit cake - :(  The rest of it was good though.)

 El pan (bread)

 La paella (ours had shrimp, mussels (I think so, they had shells), pork, vegetables, and rice.)

 La sangria  (Can you see the pieces of fruit?)

Paella on my plate