paella_del_reyes_
FOOD: Inverness Park resident Tom Meckfessel says his most popular paella, a traditional Spanish rice dish, includes chorizo, ham, chicken, mussels, clams, prawns and saffron—pricey, but key.   Samantha Kimmey

Tom Meckfessel loves rice. “I have this fascination with rice. I see it as the universal comfort food,” he said. Every culture has a rice dish, he went on, and even a name for the mouthwatering crust that forms on the bottom when cooked. The word is “socarrat” for paella, the focus of his seven-year-old catering business Paella del Reyes. Mr. Meckfessel, who is offering monthly paella nights at Saltwater Oyster Depot, is an Inverness Park resident and co-owner of Clavey Paddlesports. He started cooking for large crowds while working as a river guide in Oregon, Idaho and Alaska, where he and other guides would cook every meal during rafting trips up to 12 days long. Later, he and his neighbor Jim Lino got into paella, a Spanish dish cooked in a broad, shallow pan (Mr. Meckfessel’s biggest vessel is 45 inches in diameter and can feed 200 people). By 2009, he was catering events for between 40 and 500 people—often outdoors, where he sets up a temporary fire pit and cooks over an open flame, a process that can take three hours. Traditional paella is usually simple, Mr. Meckfessel says, but “my paella—I wouldn’t call it completely traditional.” He prefers to use a wider variety of ingredients in a dish; his most popular option is the combo paella, which features both land animals—chorizo, ham and chicken—and seafood, including mussels, clams and prawns. He can cook up versions featuring Mexican or Italian ingredients, and can make it vegetarian or vegan. One big challenge, he said, has been sourcing the highest quality saffron, typically a key ingredient in paella. It steeps in the cooking liquid for a long time to extract its full delicate flavor, but it’s expensive. His favorite saffron comes from Iran, and was almost impossible to obtain before the U.S. lifted a longstanding embargo against the country. But one of his favorite versions is black paella, made with relatively little saffron but featuring squid ink that turns the rice the color of the night sky. His second paella night at Saltwater will take place next Monday, Sept. 26. $50 tickets include appetizers and dessert.