not Sinatra

As a point of reference for excellent writing that is thorough, well constructed and engaging I brought along a book of essays by Gay Talese. The most famous selection being, "Frank Sinatra Has Caught a Cold." I just finished re-reading it this week. I enjoyed it for many reasons, though at times the intimacy he has with his subject matter, Sinatra is almost too much.

My first thoughts were that Talese's children, if they exist, must have had to live a completely honest youth. His ability to succinctly and clinically investigate and analyze a situation or a person is quite unique. I imagined all of the fibs and half truths that children try to pawn off on their parents being quickly flushed in anticipation of the actual sequence of events; the honest truth.

Coincidentally, reading about Frank made me consider a seemingly unrelated detail, his iconic blue eyes. Talese acknowledged them, but didn’t subject them to inspection, or overwrite their position in his identity.

I need to read through the Bluest Eye, again, Toni Morrison's book. It has been many years since I read it. A kernel of that story surfaced here in Salvador for me.

Last week Urânia, my new acquaintance and I were discussing her interest in making film and video. One of her recent activities has been to ask black and brown children on the bus or the Lancha, what it is that they would want. On her way to Itaparica to visit with Augusto a young boy on the Lancha a boy told her, “Mamão, mamão, mamão, mamãomamãomamãomamãomamãomamãmammamão-Muito Mamão;”(-Papaya). He explained that he loves mamão, eats it all the time and it has many uses, including growing and selling it. He said it will keep him alive. I have been told by several people that the best mamão in Brazil comes from Itaparica.

On the bus, a young girl simply said, “Eu quero olhos azuis.” -“I want blue eyes." Nothing further.

We kept talking about blue eyes and their relationship to perceived economic, racial and cultural access in society. I mentioned the novel and the history I knew of Blue eyed Blacks. My understanding is that in addition to their eye color, they are/were fair skins-high yella, with good hair. People brought up with a notion that the blue eyed factor signified a greater percentage of white blood and resultant privileges to grow up the ladder of race. Atlanta is allegedly to be home to several membership societies and country clubs for blue eyed's.

My curiosity was piqued from day one in Salvador. The blue eyed's that I see here are darker people, from teakwood, bootblack or blue black. Often, their eyes appear aqueous and filmy, not fixed and piercing. I don't know if there is a change in a tonality similar to Russian blue eyed’s. I find the Russians striking in the contrast between their eyes, their pale skin and inky hair. The blue eyed Baianos are both subtle and arresting. The contrast between dusky skin and muted blue eyes is easy to overlook. Checking your gaze, your mind reviews the visual information hesitating momentarily. At close range suddenly they pop, ethereally.


Something in their countenance resonates with me. This may be a singular invention, but if I see them in the street I momentarily freeze. I feel drawn into their personal space. There isn't any snap or click of a real firing pin releasing the trigger and discharging a bullet. Another type of trigger, an emotional one fires inside of me. I am find the place of Saudade; yearning Delta blues, wounded and rough. Ring shouts, guttural jazz riffs. I am lost in the attack of a swooping Samba or Gospel song.

Sometimes I want the science class depicting the specific factors of dominant and recessive traits that manifest this genetic aberration. I am sure someone has created the graph defining the appropriate mix of “x” generations of Portuguese male seeds with “y” generations of African females and/or alternating with “z”, Indigenous females. So many categories and demarcations have already been created. Is there relevance in these externals ineffectively defining how we truly are who we are?

It seems clear that the juxtaposition talks story. It speaks rivers of time, of travel, subjugation and of melancholy. I read a thread of that story whenever I see these people often older men, dock workers, cabbies or wheelbarrow haulers. I want to sit and hear the story of their eyes. They consistently suggest more questions than answers.

I have to re-remember to check my reverie. …..The cabdriver needs to move on. A peanut or a Picolit vendor has dropped the coins, my change into my open palm. My hand has been marking time between the purchase and this closure, which had created the subterfuge for closer observation.

Irrespective of my bias, these eyes reveal an irrevocable truth of domination of one people over another. What is left is a mark, beautifully blue in the wake.

Spring can hang you up the most

A chronic insomniac cherishes that elusive sleep as their manna. I am a lifetime member of this tribe. I am often caught in bed alternating between states of wakefulness and random thought.

I came to consciousness last Friday morning lying in bed my legs warmed, no roasting by rising sun’s heat. I had spent the night in Salvador in the tenement apartment of a new acquaintance. We had conceived of a night out, at a food expo, relevant to my research.

It never occurred, TV did. I had begun dozing in between the tele-novelas and the rangy local political debates. Urania, my hostess made us snacks of café com leite, shards of freshly toasted coconut, crackers and slices of a soulless cheese. I convince myself to bed down now, get up early, shop the market and interview older cook’s, grandmothers of Urania’s friends.

Tangled in the sheet, I quietly mused on the coming day and I recalled another Friday morning two weeks earlier. A few of us were sitting under the thatch in the grove of scroggy Pitanga trees just beside the house. We were finishing our breakfast of local fruits, cinnamon coffee and that day’s incarnation of manioc.

The base of my spine tensed and my teeth were poised to chatter from a rare chill wind and drizzly rain. During our meal the sky had become bleak and overcast. Rain stung my skin as I ran back to the kitchen.

I deposited the dirty dishes in the sink and turned to Marcia, (Mah-seeaa), our cook, “It is mid September, why is it raining now?”-“Porque está chuvando agora mesmo? ---“Ilhe gostaria dar você uma lembrança do inverno. A manha vai comecar primavera. Você deve ter pacíenca.”-They would like you to remember winter. Tomorrow is the first day of spring. Have some patience.

I was too warm in this single guest bed. I wanted to move and go. Urania was sprawled across her bed asleep in the next room. I did not have my own set of keys. Stuck in the moment, I tossed and went back to thinking about Marcia’s advice on seasons and patience.

It is currently the season of elections. I see and hear election season everywhere I am in Bahia. The internet and my friends have kept me current on the U.S. situation. Each party has media machines belching their daily litany of slogans and flabby messages.

Appropriately, in Brazil the words are sung by choirs in flatbed trucks, ad hoc pop rock groups and processed versions blaring from vehicles modified with welded loudspeaker systems. Littering off ramps and intersections, volunteers wave flocks of oversized racing flags or guard tethered helium balloons, plastered with party platforms and iconic photos of their candidate. Daily TV and radio debates allow the candidates segmented airtime based on their stature in the legislature. There is just sixty days of this overload, and voting is mandatory. Missing the moment is a serious and punishable offense. It seems better than the nearly two year slog we have been experiencing way up north.
*
Seasons: Fashion, Back to school, Jewish New Year, the twilight of Gulf Coast hurricanes, Fall Art Galleries, Theatre, etc. If I had remembered Fall, I should have realized that here it would be Spring. This year the tussle between Summer, Indian Summer, and Autumn had eluded me. I assume I was disoriented by the perennially green hills and profusion of palms occasionally tinged brown at their tips. Seeing chance vivid blossoms here and there, more dudes in Speedos without t-shirts after dark may have been the clue.

I still might not “get” the tropics. I lose sight of the subtle shifts in landscape and weather that mark each week or season. I rarely listen to the weather, though always try and read the sky. As a newcomer, unconsciously the exotic cues become mundane with their constancy. I do not see the contrasts clearly. I do revel in an unusual flower, the quality of the light or a particular fruit. But, I am socialized to consider the stark contrast of the seasons. The snowy blankets of winter, mounds of black ice and mud followed by a blaze of crocus, tulip and narcissus are my familiar triggers.

Earlier this week I watched Dete, (Day-tchay), Marcia’s partner picking the Pitanga, (Surinam Cherry) berries. They are a stemmed and ribbed a bit smaller than a cherry, with delicate white flowers. They were just becoming, maduro, or ripe. She explained that the trees should bear fruit until December or January. She carefully chose ripe fruit, filling her large ceramic bowl with the orange, scarlet and crimson Pitangas. She described to me that each variety colors up differently when ripe. Pitangas are bracingly tart with a slightly sweet aftertaste. I think of them as cranberries equatorial twin. She also told me that they make a mean Caipirinha.

As with most of the local fruits here the yield is great enough to make fresh juice, or jam if you have the time. Placing a few in her palm she shows me the miniature dried petals at the end of the fruit. “They must be removed or your juice is bitter. Inside they have a smooth lentil shaped white seed. Carefully she will crush the pulp and strain it without breaking the husk of the seeds. She prefers not to sweeten them, but pick them just ripe. I have learned to crave the juice, while my colleague Hannah disdains it.


The key to this pawky climate may be the micro-seasons which provide a variety and abundance of unique fruits. I imagine being Brazilian and lying here in this same bed sated in a re-memory of favorite fruits, prepared as juice, jams or unctuous Portuguese style conserves or
Doces.

Uh, what do you think about women in the kitchen?

Lucky for me that I love to eat fish and shellfish. Three quarters of the food in class is made with a broth or base of smoked dried shrimp and then often has fish, shellfish or chicken as the featured protein. I always seem to be in heaven by lunchtime. Everyday I try to think of some way to get Cliff to come and join me. He would love the abundance of fresh fish. And, to give you a sense of reality, a kilo of freshly shucked crabmeat is about $12.00 reals or about eight bucks. Shucked mussels, clams and oysters are usually less. Pristine shrimp in the shell, Squid, Skate, Red Snapper, Corvina, Oily fish like Sardines and Mackerel, even Salmon. I have seen three types of Crab, and there is Spiny Lobster too.

Well in the last few classes I have had a few culinary ephiphanies. Last week was Cozido, and today we made Caruru. I previously described Cozido from my trip to the Festa de Boa Morte. I may have mentioned Caruru at that point as well. In any case both dishes are emblematic recipes passed on from slavery days, as a reminder and reinforcement of the African and Indentured heritage that goes with being Brazilian, black or otherwise. In the terreiro's both of these dishes, among others are foods for the Orixa. It is quite informative to watch them being produced in a terreiro to feed an Orixa and a crowd, and compare it with the precise culinary technique employed by Chef Josuenilton, (Joe-sway-nil-Ton) at Senac. Chef is a sweet and passionate young man, probably twenty nine to thirty one years old, and a father of two children under eight. It sounds as though he left the restaurant and hotel scene to raise a family and have normal hours as a culinary professor. He is a linear, no nonsense, not one spot on his white's kinda guy. Good hearted and politically conservative.

You should know that my folks chose my first name, and Craig my brother's because they were clear and simple. They do not necessarily lend themselves to diminution, i.e.; Margaret, Meg, Peg, Peggy, Maggie, etc. Well, every time I leave the country, no one can pronounce my first name. The dipthong throws them. The only way they can achieve it is if I become Scotchy. You see where that is going. I have even had people give me the drinking sign, and a side glance suggesting that this must be a nickname based on my predilections, No? Well, Chef Josuenilton, you can call him Chef Jonilton, for short, refers to me as Chef, once he learned of my background.

Friday, one of the more strident young women in class wanted to engage him and our classmates on the role of women in food. My class is made up of about fifteen people, of mixed backgrounds; almost all Baianos. A few seem to be matriculating as culinary students with the restaurant aspirations. Some folks just want to cook better; or learn their native recipes properly. Nobody is sitting on fat cash or living as a housewife/husband. Well, this gutsy young woman thought that women could and should aspire to culinary careers including management or Executive Chef status. Chef Jonilton, tried his best to be diplomatic. He hemmed around the idea of difference, you know the stock pot analogy...so much lifting and physical labor involved with cooking. The raucous nature of working, "The Line" on a Friday night. If you know the biz, the usual jive suspects. He began with the anatomy and physical limitations of women, and then moved onto discipline and leadership. You know that drill, when it comes to the bottom line, can she be an asshole drill sergeant and get the food out. At this point, even the working class women with no apparent feminist leanings or culinary aspirations began to take issue with him. Do you see what stop the train is headed for?

"Entao, Chef, (Scotchy), que pensa voce sobre a ideia a ter molheres dentro da cozinha, ou pra ter cozinheres-chefas? {What did I think about the idea of women in the kitchen, and or women as chefs?}-Hmmm? Lead balloon in my lap. Do I side with the women in a scenario that is not at all analogous to where we are at based on my culinary experiences, stick with the dude on a position of gender or professionalism; or pretened not to understand his Portuguese and deflect the question? I thought for a moment and said, in Portuguese, "I have worked for women chefs before." The room quieted. "Entao, que pas......? "In my experience women bring a different energy into the kitchen that I appreciate. A different sensitivity to food, team building and authority or manageme..." Before I could truly finish my thoughts of how many women ignited the farm to table movement, have fought for fair wages for all folks in the culinary food chain, and though they are not exempt from being jerks; just don't automatically just put on the "I am a big f-ing a-hole and you are going to redo all of that mis en place-NOW game-face" and ruin your life; Chef Jonilton started discussing better ways to create a smooth blend in your Fundo Misto, (equal mixture of ground dried shrimp, cashews and peanuts). I was off the hook of sorts.

Then today, he rolled a simple conversation of what I did for my weekend, with details of a family dinner in an outdoor restaurant complete with ocean views into a diatribe of conservative political ideology. I made sure that this time, I was busy snapping photos of the food in preparation to be cooked, so that I would be seemingly caught unawares if called upon. I guess he felt that local politics was out of my purview. I had followed his argument, silently questioning his agenda and the appropriateness of presenting his views in a forum where we all have to answer to him. Ugh, the demands of Petty power. Picture that we have to ask to be excused at the end of class.

Please don't get me wrong either, I like the guy. He is sweet, informative, a good cook and an careful teacher. He just needs to find that consciousness group or Biofeedback session. The Moqueca de Mariscos (squid, clams, mussels, shrimp, oysters and clams) Kicked Butt. I think that his Caruru, might have been my favorite so far. The comparisons are awkward since in ways the Comida de Santo at times can tend to run to excess in favor of a given ingredient that is seen as desirable by a sought after Orixa. One of my culinary connections, Urania told me last week that when her grandmother taught her to cook, she began by saying, "Neta, voce deve por atencao a sua comida. Pode fazer amor o matar com sua culinaria." *

{*Grandaughter, pay attention to your cooking. You can seduce someone or kill them with your cooking}. Nuff said.