Back in Brotas, then with Beto

Saturday came in the window shining. We got out close to ten, grabbed a light bite and a cab to Brotas. We had a date to see the house Eneida had built and hang for awhile. I had the map she had created for me in August. Brotas is a large neighborhood, a former colonial sugar plantation, and a large hill with various means of egress into the hood. Learning a new hood, requires knowing which Ladeira-or hill is the right one to get into the area of the neighborhood that you will need to access.


We started out fine. Better than when Michele and I had taken a cab and given the map to the driver. This man, Luis with a sunny smile and raspy voice had knowledge of the hood, and the streets enumerated on my map. Great/Otimo. Well, that fell away on the third circuit of up and down hill and valley. By chance he stopped a passerby who ended up being his friend, they hashed it out and resolved nothing.
A phone call to Eneida got us there.


Set a severe dip in the road, this home seems like it was planted in the forest. Magic starts the minute you open the door. The house breathes with the simple elegance that characterizes Eneida’s work as an architect. This time Giba Conceição, her former partner and pandeiro, is home preparing for a meeting with colleagues involved in a rural music education initiative, “Caravan of Music.” They educate music educators in rural Brazil on creative way to teach and make instruments and music; giving new seeds to the those who are seed planters.


We laughed, giggled, we all shot pictures. Tracy and Giba, then Eneida, then one of Giba’s homey’s: Ocimar played on a few of the many percussive instruments laying about. Bliss. Hours went by, and I kept seeing both Tracy and Kathy with those wide dimply grins on. By the time we made a studio visit, Tracy was planted, roots twining towards the stream below.


We split up in mid afternoon to pursue various goals. Mine was to return to Paraiso Tropical, ( rua Edgar Loureiro, 98-B, Cabula. Tel. 71 3384-7464) and spend some time with chef, Beto Pimentel. He and his restaurant are quite unique.

Do I tell you of his first careers as agronomist, nutritionist and clothing manufacturer in São Paulo? Or his dedication to cooking artisanal products and not industrial ones? Hmm, the 23 kids and four wives? His cuisine inspired by the African culinary influences, local produce and healthful eating. The youthful vigor and spunk that keeps him refining his game moment to moment? The fifty acre tropical farm, wild habitat with a small cadre of free range chickens on the hillside behind the restaurant;—where he can pick the bulk of his produce as it ripens. I think he said more than 3,000 fruits, vegetables, edible and decorative flowers. Or his Farm in Reconcavo where he can grow whatever is not available in sufficient quantity in Cabula? Ready for dinner?

I watched Jorelma, one of his children and Chef de Cuisine lead her cooks through lunch service. The food is anchored in tradition, but constructed spontaneously building layers of flavors savory, sour and sweet. A moqueca created by Beto will begin with a light fumet like broth, fish bones, smoked-dried shrimp and a few veggies. Coconut water blended with Coco Verde, the jelly like soft fruity stage of coconut’s life comes in to create the emulsion. Kerplunk of Octopus, Shrimp, Crab, the core flavor you chose comes next. Pitanga, acerola, jaca, a panoply of herbs, green cashews or fresh Palm fruit become the coda. A of drizzled freshly pressed Po or Dende oil, Liquid Butter or Virgin Olive oil infused with Urucum seeds (for a red color) if you have an allergy to Palm get added at appropriate moments.


They have worked it out. Beto says it took him six months to create the dish grilled fish and grilled fruits. The day I came back to visit that ended up being my dinner. Before that time I alternated between watching Jorelma from their pass and taking pictures. Or, sitting with Beto watching Futbol on a large bulky set placed in the outdoor café area. He’s a chain smoker who can’t sit still. TV seemed to provide a momentary pacifier.


After the first hour he invited me to look at his garden before it got dark. One of the gardener’s walked me through pointing out various fruits unknown to me, some veggies and many budding flowers some edible, some not. It sounded like they have a litter of some animal like a tapir or one of the other oversized rodent-ish mammals native to the area. I don’t think that I saw a quarter of the property before the light faded.

Coming back to my perch between TV & kitchen, I realized that I still hadn’t eaten, since the cod pastry this morning. Beto got up and split somewhere. I asked Jorelma for a small appetizer or something easy. I got crispy fried Adulignha with a biri-biri pepper relish and a tropical fruit vinaigrette. I told her that I would be going soon. She was too. Shopping for a few missing bits to cook with. It was nearly six o’clock, I wanted to leave at 6, catch a bus, shower, change, meet Kath & Tracy and hike up to Castro Alves for the Pina Bausch protégé’s dance concert.


Beto returned, deciding that I needed to have the grilled fish. I begged off, and he wasn’t having it. I went back to the kitchen and observed for a while. I tried the route home in my head, and thought I could make it work in a cab, if I left by 6:45. Coming out of the toilet, I looked up at the crestfallen face of the one male cook in designer whites and matching cap. The kitchen has a large window in it, keeping everyone inside on display. I couldn’t hear it all, but it sounds like he burned the fish or the grilling fruit. I caught enough to bring it to Beto’s attention.

Returning from the kitchen, he said, “It’s a good dish, but it takes time.” I tried to chill. Forty five minutes later I had decided that I didn’t need to shower or go home. If I could just get this fish, then a cab and be on my way; I’d be fine.

Jorelma came in with a young man pushing a small grocery cart, her supplies. I had told both he and his daughter that I had a compromiso with Eneida, they knew her. He checked in the kitchen; a little while longer. He called a cab from his cell. I was pacing now. By returning to review his wall of fame, eyeing the many snapshots and awards, validated my activity.


Thirty minutes later it arrived on an elliptical marble platter, compartmentalized to segregate each type of fruit. Fourteen in total. He hand fed me with a fork. Just, stop. After the pear and lime, he realized that the fruit was too sticky. He started poking around my plate after he fed me a large piece of succulent fish. He put the fork down and stalked off into the kitchen. He was disappointed and pissed. As he turned around he mumbled how this guy was new, not one week on the job. “Eu tinha O Exposição Culinaria Baiana. Devia dormir alguns dias depois dos eventos. Não entendiu bem, ele.”


If the cab would come I could go. It seemed like thirty minutes had gone by since called them. After he finished his rant, I asked the waiter-runner if he knew. He checked with Beto, now in the kitchen counseling the cook in technique. He had called three cabs. One was busy, and the rest hadn’t showed, so he decided to call his friend Jo.

Twenty minutes later I was saying goodnight just before I got into the cab. Jo promised to get me there within 14 minutes. “Most folks take 22,” he said. “I need to live through this” was my rejoinder. “I have four filhos, don’t worry.” Banking the curves tightly as he drove, I hid my anxiety, and vented the last three and a half hours to Jo and nobody. He promised to arrive more quickly. I basically said, “Don’t worry, I’m fucked.”

He tried to assuage my guilt by talking about himself. If he ran late he just told his wife after he had had some stiff drinks. Coming out of the car drunk and weaving all his wife could say was, “Take a shower and sleep it off.” He hadn’t any cares. I tried to show how that wouldn’t work for me, even if my friend agreed to the behaviors. We were at a stalemate, and I am not really Baiano.


He took a few more shortcuts and got me there just after 8:15. The guard told me that the gates had been locked at 8:10. There was no intermission, nor egress. No one was coming in or out until it was finished. I walked back across Campo Grande and waited in the wrong place for the bus by accident. When I sorted it out and was home fifteen minutes later. Here at the same glass and chrome dining table writing when they came home. I had just sent an e-apology to Eneida.

No one was cussing but they weren’t happy either. Post industrial mechanical music, with excellent, beautiful dancers who didn’t move. Well didn’t move enough. It played something like that. They chuckled when I said, “It sounds Germanic.” I had had the best evening, according to them. I coulda skipped the stress, the thirty dollar cab-ride for nothing, and bitchy attitude that I had had in Jo’s cab. Again, nobody got hurt. It isn’t that hard.

Mr. Ninja Stealth Weapon & O Senhor Axê

Rhasaan* sang screeches about Bright Moments like when your lover takes the last bite of what you wanted to be eating on and you got to go get it the other way, (from off their lips and tongue).


Some of these moments for me have been watching young men on the island and in the country take their caged birds for walks ‘cause they can. Bringing their birds out into nature to hear the fullest sound of their song.

Seeing the Amaralina school children fly with their raggy kites full of hope and handmade passion.

Feeling that just right slithery texture and unctuous flavor outta the moqueca bubblin’ on the table in front of you as it courses over your taste buds and gets swallowed down below.


People who care to give kindness, love and help in a minute without thinking of remuneration. People who could use a double dose of that in their own lives.


Listening to the Irmandade da Boa Morte sing praise songs for luck as they cut up the okra for their Caruru . Winter morning light bathes the room adding shines to their faces peaking out from the veil of frankincense that added its own blessing.


Watching joyous women, middle aged and elder at home, create their own Roda for Samba dancing ecstatically for each other. The song comes from their voicings and hand claps. It all seems to signify the end and the beginning.


Lost in the morning waves, briny smells, streaming sun and idle chatter of people in the bow of the Lancha.


Waking up to the calling drum, with the knowing that it is time to go back into festing.


Sitting with Augusto Alberquerque smiling toothily, eyes a glimmer, dimples floating and bobbing as he recounts another story you really do need to hear. Padrininho, O Senhor Axê, Ursinho or whatever you call him you really do need him in your life.


Finding the water at the right place to swim when you want to be there. The sand bar and your own agenda can too easily trip you up.


Knowing that its ok not to eat Papaya anywhere else after you understood what ripe really means on Itaparica.


Loving on new fruits that you might not be able to spell or pronounce.


That imperceptible feeling like when the air is just feeling sweet, the perfume of ripe goiava or rustling pitanga leaves might have got you there.


Finding that person who can sweetly complete your thoughts and is not your lover and doesn’t want to be. He just wants you to help you better find yourself and what you need to be doing. I call him Luis Mario. You can call him Mr. Ninja Stealth Weapon. He or a She may be other people for you where you are.

Hearing Rahul sing and feeling his song resonate inside of you.

Arroz, Feijoes, Cebola, Cenoura e Alho- both for eating, or the ones who play Capoeira

Laughing until you infect the room with giggles and tears

Giovanna, Eneida & Bia

Knowing that you can.

*Rhasaan Roland Kirk- http://www.alfanet.hu/kirk/

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.

Em frente, em frente vou chegar com algo quente!

8:30 AM. The moto-taxi had just dropped me off, and I was still a bit sluggish. I hadn't had breakfast and I was not quite coffee'd up.

I walked into the terreiro, and Mae Stella immediately began to provide me with a little bit of her background and describe the dishes she would be making for the Olu Baje. She generally begins to prepare for a ceremony two weeks ahead. She has four major ceremonies to prepare for each year in her terreiro. But, she has daily and weekly obligations that are essential to maintaining the terreiro. She is often called to other terreiro's to function as a Mae de Santo channeling Orixa's just as her colleague will do for her this evening. She and the other Mae de Santo will both function as Omulu, while the third Mae will receive Oxum. She now only has one spiritual godparent, her Pai de Santo. Recently, she lost her Mae de Santo. She has completed her training and is a full Mae de Santo, so the apprenticeship has been completed. The relationship is still very nurturing. She said that she will be sad to when she loses her Pai. Now she has godchildren that she is tutoring, so the cycle continues. She began her spiritual practice by initiating after her ninth birthday in 1971.

Her culinary preparation sourcing all of the necessary foods, focusing on all of the items that require special care. She smokes and dries her own shrimp to use in her "temperos" or spice mixture. Ideally, she prefers to smoke the shrimp with Canela or Cinnamon bark. Animals for sacrifice need to obtained, killed, skinned and processed. Skins and certain parts have to be dried to be used within the ceremony. Herbs for the Orixa need to be picked or obtained. When there is time she likes to pick and dry all of her own herbs. Certain leaves and branches need to be found just before the ceremony. Green branches of Pitanga, Changeiro and Fafeio need to be cut from the trees and whittled for drumsticks. Finally, cleaning and slicing of coconuts, boiling eggs, roasting peanuts and cashews, cleansing and blessing the terreiro will all take time. Giggling a bit, she tells me that in her younger years, she fished for the shrimp herself, instead of buying it from the fishermen or at the market. Pointing to the five gallon tin can in the corner, she said that for many many years, she used to gather her own palm fruit and press the oil. Everything had to be just so.

In preparing the meal Mae Stella must consider foods that will appeal to each Orixa, knowing that they all have foods that they prefer. She gave me a few examples. Xango and Iansa like quiabo or okra. "Oxum pega fraginho"; she loves beans. Iemenja loves rice, Oxumare will need a salad of cucumbers, lettuce, xuxu or chayote, cenoura/carrots and banana de terra (similar, but not equivalent to our plantain) and Omulu loves popcorn. As a blessing devotees are ceremonially washed in popcorn, which was said to have removed the pustules and scars from Omulu's body. I listen, shooting pictures while she speaks. I look in the sitting room up front. One of the younger woman has put down her knife and is dancing. I try to snap her picture she blushes, giggles turns away, covering her face with her hands. Her cohorts, hiss, "Pesquisas!- Nao se preocupe; Ele esta fazendo pesquisas." Research, don't worry, he is alright. She continues to laugh and blush.

Meanwhile, Mae Stella continues sharing her story and prep list with me, as she cooks a corn mush made from ground dried white corn and water. Once it is quite thick, she will cool it slightly, form into a pyramid and then wrap it in banana leaves to be shaped for an offering. In the end each form will be peeled, the leaves discarded and the Acaca will be placed on top of every dish prepared for the Orixa. Once the cooking is done, she will have to receive Omulu and perform in the ceremony, channeling the Orixa and dancing late into the night. Tomorrow morning, after the Olu Baje she will lead the preparation for Oxumare's birthday. He loves sweets, so I have been asked to bring soda, juice or candy for him tomorrow.I The ritual meal will be a Cozido. I had learned in Cachoeira that Cozido was a symbolic meal served by the Senhoras to symbolize the food regularly eaten by the African slaves. The parallels between home foods, historic or symbolic foods that reference the colonial period and ritual dishes prepared for ceremony is quite unique.

The only job given to a man is the gathering of leaves and branches, the whittling of drumsticks and the preparation of the instruments to be played at the service. The shirtless young man, enters the kitchen carrying his catch. He is nineteen-ish, has on rough cotton drawstring pants, a baseball cap turned sideways, a lovely jute and beaded necklace and ankle bracelets. He shoots me a homeboy smile, an air five and begins to titter and giggle. He addresses Mae Stella, with a quick embrace, pecking at her cheeks. Setting his load down, he sits cross legged on the floor and begins to whittle. He sees me jotting notes on my pad and turns towards me to explain his work. Abuptly, in the middle of his story, he stops, looks me in the eye and asks me if I am a gringo? I look a bit puzzled, hesitate trying to think of what sparked his query. "Nao." I answer slowly, "Americano do Norte, e preto come voce." He looks satisfied, turns to his saplings and finishes whittling the drumsticks

Walking back and forth through this terreiro I am continually inspired by the purposefulness put to each task. Each of the ten women and three apprentices are acutely focused on their respective tasks. The ceremonial room is redolent of the musky rich smell of the simmered goat; almost off putting since it was not skinned before being cooked. For hours the woman entrusted to prepare this meat, scrapes sinew and tendon, separating it from bone and flesh. Each ingredient is placed in separate ceramic bowls. For different periods of time the dishes are placed on the roof of the terreiro, I assume to signal the appropriate Orixa of its pending inclusion in the Olu Baje. Sand is heated over a high flame in a large stock pot. A winnowing basket is set in a large bowl and placed near the hot pot. Popping corn is added to the hot pot and then it is quickly covered. The pot is struck three or four times in rapid succession to coerce the corn to do its work. Without any fat, it is popped quickly, and drained through the winnowing basket. The sand is sifted from the corn and returned to the pot to begin the cycle over again. The nuts had been previously roasted in the same fashion. Frequently, she stops, puts down her cigarette or coffee cup, takes a deep breathe, surveying the food production or a finished dish and proclaims, "Esta Linda!" She smiles until the dimples show, reflecting her passion and devotion to her cooking and spiritual practice.

Just before I leave for my nap between the food preparation and the service she calls me to come follow her into the Orixa's chamber as she begins to decorate it with mimoca leaves and some of the dishes that she has been preparing. Before she begins to decorate the room, she removes a small ceramic dish that held chicken hearts and leaves it by the dish drain near the sink. Returning to this small room, filled with figurines, jars, ritual objects and flowers, she reaches into another small bowl containing a few cowrie shells. She throws them three times, looks around the room quite contently and happily says, "Bom." She finishes decorating the room with the mimoca leaves, pulls out a key from her bosom and quickly closes and locks the door. Back in the kitchen she taps each drum, running a quick melody over the skin to see if they are in tune. I watch her, and listen to one of the women in the corner finish her lunch break by cracking the chicken bones with her molars so that she can suck out the marrow. As I walk to the door, someone is cutting flowers for another offering and Mae Stella is calling Lucas to bring her a hammer so that she and one of the other Mae's can string a plastic tarp in the backyard in case this rain continues into the night. I hear her cry out, she has whacked her thumb and not the nail.