During the hour José and I spent around his huge paellera—a paella pan—he made a number of outrageous claims. A certain chef (surprisingly, a friend of his) was “the best chef in the world, no question.” The salt in Spain was saltier because Americans, you see, are savvy entrepreneurs who put less “salt” in the salt so you have to buy more. And his paella was cooking unevenly, not because the stovetop it was on was uneven but “because here in Washington we have a problem with the soil. In Spain, the ground is perfectly flat.”

Those quips, plus his vociferous knife-in-hand defense of the pelicula—the glossy residue of evaporating liquid that develops on the paella as it cooks—kept me in stitches.

When he wasn’t making outlandish claims, José gave me some great pointers about paella making: For one thing, he said—and it’s probably true—that a thin layer of rice across the pan produces rice with the best texture; it never becomes soupy. He also believes in oversalting slightly, because rice soaks up so much salt. And, finally, he nearly killed me when I threatened to touch, or even breathe on, the paella during the last 10 minutes of boiling, when the precious pelicula formed, claiming I would ruin the dish.

This last one seemed apocryphal, but whatever; his paella is great. For a less rigid—and by José’s standards, less authentic—paella, see my Fast and Easy Shrimp “Paella”.