Congrats on the vax!
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An upside-down martini, happy birthday Julia.
Dinner was a melange. Peruvian blsl chicken thighs with aji verde. Fingerling papas bravas with smoky aioli and pan con tomate from Spain. A salad of mixed heritage, grilled corn, cherry tomatoes, avocado, red onion. piquillo pepper, parsley with a sherry vinegar dressing.
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how fun for you guys!
ok, i love that shaker! is it copper or is that just the lighting?
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More of Ina’s fresh tomato pasta. with spaghetti this time, but I really do prefer it with capellini/angel hair - the spaghetti just doesn’t seem to soak up as much of the juice. I used all TJs Early Girl tomatoes instead of any cherry toms this time. So good and summery.
Also, buttermilk brined pork chops marinated since yesterday afternoon, with crushed garlic, smoked paprika & salt. Rubbed them with a coffee/smoked paprika/granulated onion & garlic/brown sugar/fennel pollen/salt rub, then sous-vided them for 1 hour at 140. JUICY!!
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Must be the lighting. It’s more of a brass color if I had to describe it. A pickup in TJ Maxx two or three years ago. Very durable.
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We enjoyed another excellent dinner at Il Nido in Marlboro, NJ. Besides the always excellent charcuterie board, we enjoyed stuffed scarpinocc pasta with a delicious pork ragu, short ribs, and red snapper. It all went great with a couple of excellent Amarones. The highlight of the evening was seeing an Instagram friend in person for the first time. We go to the same restaurants, and have recommended several restaurants to each other, so it was nice to finally meet her in person.
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Brass - yes, that makes more sense. I really like it!
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that dinner is just perfect!
what is upside-down about the martini, pray tell?
and yes, HB, Julia!
More vermouth than gin. Julia’s favorite cocktail. I won’t be having seconds.
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i’ve become a 50/50 gal - with good vermouth, i like to taste it.
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I like to taste the gin.
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me too. hence, 50/50! 
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Wow ! An exceptional creation !
Pleased to hear that you had spent time in Ibiza.
Prior to Covid, it had been the place very young people spent their summers.
While I’m neither an expert in rice or paella yet I am of the belief Bomba and Valencia are the same - short grained rice which is typical for paella. 
I prefer Noel Coward’s martini recipe: “Fill a glass with gin and wave in the general direction of Italy”.
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It was my son who had contract with Ibiza to provide techno music for many years and the right to film them for his website , then called dance trippy.tv. now called dance television. He enjoyed his many years there traveling there from Amsterdam, his headquarter then by station wagon to carry his equipment thru France and Spain, and then ferry, He stayed there during the summer.
I was too old then, just visit our condo in Amsterdam during the months of Feb March when he was around. Techno was never my kind of music. I am into classical.
That is how we started cooking paella before I became afflicted with alpha gal syndrome that does not allow me to eat red meat since 2018.
Prior to that, I did a lot of smoking, and even have him buy when he was driving thru Barcelona a Jamon swivel older as when he returned home for Christmas, he wanted an Iberia or Mangalitsa Ham and that is what we would have in our kitchen, for friends when they drop by. We would have very thinly sliced ham with crusty garlic rubbed bread, and Campari tomato juice. I have it together with the Michelangelo knife in storage as I no longer can eat ham. What a shame!!!
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I’ve always been curious - do you take your own wine to the restaurants? If so, how does that work?
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I can’t eat any smoked foods since undergoing a long stretch of chemotherapy for Stage 3 breast cancer. I miss ham, bacon, BBQ, smoked salmon. I even become nauseous walking by a BBQ pit. I have to read menus very carefully. No chipotle anything for me…
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I can still eat smoked pastrami salmon ( my favorite from duck. trap) and their smoked mussels, as well as d’artagnan duck salami, just no red meat! So, I empathize with. you.
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Yes, in NJ there are plenty of BYO restaurants that have no liquor license, and allow you to bring your own wine for free. We only go to BYO restaurants because I don’t want to pay triple or quadruple the price of a bottle of wine 
I don’t mind paying extra for good food, but don’t want to pay an extra $50 to $100 for wine. We also bring our own wine glasses, since most places provide you with small glasses, and we like the large wine glasses.
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