 My daughter, Celia, has always wanted a cat. But, nobody else in our family likes them. We're basically a dog family that likes to birdwatch. I would do it just to make my daughter happy, but I would say my husband and son border on cat haters. So, given our present family dynamics, getting a cat just isn't in the cards. Imagine our surprise when on the first day in our new house in Spain, a cat sat and watched us on our back porch. My daughter was elated. She saw a possible future of having a Spain cat. Even though the cat ran away when she approached it, there was still hope.
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 Paella is the main dish of Valencia. Even though other parts of Spain serve it, it originated here. The rice produced in Valencia is a wonderful short-grain rice that is flavorful and creamy. When making paella, the key is to have the rice become crusty on the bottom and soft on top. Although cooking in Spain is squarely in the woman's domain, paella is a manly dish. It could be considered a contact sport for cooking. Men are very competitive about their paella. It is somewhat akin to barbecuing in the United States. To be true paella, it must be cooked over a fire. And, I have heard women talking about rice dishes that look exactly like paella, but they say
In Spain, Halloween is a confusing holiday. In fact, it is not really a holiday and many people here have asked me why we celebrate it in the United States and what it means. Inquiries like this cause me to question more and more many American traditions, which are often a melting pot of immigrant traditions blended together throughout our country's short 200 plus years. With the exception of celebrations of nationalism like Thanksgiving and the 4th of July, most of our holidays are a commercialized version of something brought to us from elsewhere. In the case of Halloween, it came to the US from Ireland in the form of their traditional celebration, Samhain.
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