España.
My favorite piece of orchestral music. It’s a jota (LOOK IT UP!) As in the letter “j”. As in Jorge. My paternal grandparents were from Galicia, Spain. The land of Santiago Matamoros (“Saint James Killer of Muslims”). Oh, boy! Shall I renounce that tarnished ancestry? What about Spanish music, Spanish fans, Spanish wine, Spanish food?
I made paella for New Year’s Eve. I had never made it before. I consulted with an expert: my FB friend Carlos, who was born in Casablanca but lives in Alicante, a two-hour drive from Valencia. I asked for advice. The first thing he whatsapp’d me was: “My advice is NOT to make it if you have never made it before, for such important date.” I replied: “It’s just me and my husband so far. If we get poisoned, we’ll die together and the epitaph will read: ‘They died as they lived, in union and in unison. The last supper was Paella a la Valenciana.’ ”
So after a good laugh, Carlos proceeded to tell me how to make a seafood paella by video chat. Forty two minutes later and with the help of Google translate (names of fish in Spain differ from Argentinean Spanish) and copious notes, I faced the challenge and left for the fish store the next day with my list. I won’t say how it came out —yet— because that is discourse for my dinner companion to include in his yelp! review.
—New York City, 1/1/2021