How to Pull off Seafood Paella for Twenty People

Some like to go clubbing, some like to go out to dinner, and others (like me) like to take on the challenge of feeding and hosting twenty people for their 25th birthday.

Now feeding and hosting twenty people wouldn’t have been a challenge if I had decided to cook up my traditional risotto recipe, but no, I set out to make paella, a notoriously finicky dish that I had never made before.  Most of my friends thought I was joking when I mentioned what I might be serving at my dinner, but with help from a number of sous chefs I was able to pull off a stunning and pretty authentic dish and feed a crowd of friends.

This is not to say that I went into this endeavor completely unprepared.  I’ve grown up under the wing of Juan Carlos Herguera, oceanographer and paella champion, whose paella I’ve had the…