Kevin Bronson on October 2nd, 2008

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[Here’s the second installment of Morgan Kibby’s M83 tour diary. If you’re just joining in, Chapter 1 is here and your introduction to Morgan is here.]

Chapter 2: Today’s rehearsal started off a bit slow, but about 2 o’clock Anthony abruptly announced that we were going to his grandfather’s house for lunch.”  On the menu was paella.”  I had heard mythical stories about his granddad’s dish, not to mention his cooking on a whole, and I must say we were not disappointed. Saffron. Mussels. Red wine, plump rice, succulent tomatoes, spicy cheese, grapes that taste like honey and the sun. … Oh, the sweet orgy of tastes in my mouth.

I was too shy to take a picture of the giant paella pan that was propped beautifully and ceremoniously on the table, but I did manage to find a magnet on Anthony’s fridge at home. Doesn’t quite do the dish justice, but you get the point:

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but one of the pluses of working with M83 is that I went to a French school so I speak the language fluently. You would think that this would be a point in my favor, but it turned out that even my language proficiency wasn’t enough to hide the fact that I was American.”  It was hilarious to me how surprised they were when I didn’t have any ice cream for desert (“An American who doesn’t eat ice cream?”  Impossible,” said Anthony’s aunt).

Of course it was all in good fun, we talked politics and Anto, Lo, PM and I proceeded to demolish the dishes that just wouldn’t stop coming (crostinis with salmon, little sausages, paella, cheeses, grapes and plums, ice cream, then cake, and finally a tin of cookies to go with coffee). We had been cooking on the fly at the house as we were all exhausted at night, so to give you an idea of what was going on in the Gonzales kitchen, here is another scrumptious photo of some frozen meat patties:

Anthony was a sweetheart this week and wouldn’t let any of us in the kitchen to cook, although I did manage to impress them with my excellent salad dressing yesterday.”  As you can imagine his grandfather’s meal was like a miracle to our stomachs and our taste buds. Full, a little tipsy, and in all honesty dreading the idea of standing behind our instruments for the rest of the afternoon, we went back to the studio where we promptly stayed outside for another 30 minutes to enjoy the small patch of sunshine that had miraculously appeared overhead.

Then, shut in once again, we were back at it.”  We’ve actually accomplished a lot in the last few days and I have to say that things have been going pretty well considering past equipment escapades (which I will definitely be recalling in a future post).”  And so we’re back to pasta with no sauce tonight.”  Actually if we have any brains we won’t eat at all.”  Can your stomach explode from paella happiness?