today was brought to you by the letter P

A puncture on Punt Road. There is something delightfully alliterative about that concept.

As those of you who are familiar with Punt Road can testify, Melbourne's busiest conduit between north and south of the city holds little that lends itself to the poetic. Getting a puncture in the middle lane of Punt Road in the rain is the antithesis of all that is poetry.

I can change a tyre. I really can. But it has been a while and the last time I had my tyres changed, it was in the specialty tyre place and I swear they used a machine to tighten those nuts. Plus, I have a French car and, despite my desire to embrace all things French, believe I actually am French and, in lieu of that do a really good job at pretending to be French, throwing my arms around wildly and inserting random oh là làs here and there, I have to say, French cars are very annoying. Changing a tyre is definitely a two person job. Tight nuts aside, there's some tricky holding the tyre in place to align the nuts type of action which would have been impossible for me to perform singlehandedly. Happily for me, an unsuspecting guy, who usually packs his own lunch and who, happily for me, unfortunately for him, had opted for the Thursday Thai option on Victoria Street, made sympathetic eye contact and ended up doing his good deed for the day in helping me change my tyre.

Twenty minutes and much gratitude and filthy hands later, I was good to go. And appreciative that in this big city, people are still willing to help. Even to help a crazed looking women holding a jack in a very unconvincing way.

The P-ness certainly got better with dinner at Phil and Suzanne's.

Paella night. Is there a better night?

Phil is my friend for many wonderful reasons and it also happens that he is a chef and he loves to cook beautiful food for those he cares about. I am a very happy recipient of his gift.

Now Paella is an identifying symbol of the Valencians, the Spanish people from the east coast of Spain. An identifying symbol carries a great deal of weight and there are conflicting stories about what constitutes a 'real' paella.

Phil says that there are many secrets to Paella. The big thing to aim for when cooking paella is achieving a thin oily crust on top of the tomatoey-ness, which is absolutely a word and I defy you to tell me otherwise.

The three essentials for Phil's Paella are
1) Sugo, a rich Spanish tomato sauce
2)seafood stock, and here, Phil advocates bonito flakes steeped in water for 3 hours
3) saffron water, which is pretty much what its name says...saffron soaked in water

I think Phil knows what he is talking about. The delicious combination of almost sticky rice with tomatoey richness, prawns and chicken which had absorbed the rich Spanish fragrance and the finishing touch of aioli and grilled lemons...the perfect way to celebrate P Thursday.

Gracias, mi querido amigo.