Greetings from Mykanos, and a Happy Easter to you all.
Easter has been very Colombian here, not in the sense of religious rites and chocolate eggs, but in spontaneous meals. It seems to be a rule in Colombia that if you plan something in advance it won’t happen. It only works if you make it up as you go along.
On Easter Saturday, for example, completely unplanned, we had a dinner for five of us … langoustine and cucumber salad with chillies and coriander flowers, followed by a mille-feuille of caramelised beetroot slices and sautéed chicken livers, followed by baked rainbow trout, green beans and Aligot potatoes (mashed potato with garlic and cheese).
Adriano just looks in the refrigerator and the huerta (vegetable garden) and makes it up.
I try and find out how many courses and how many people so I can organise the cutlery and glasses, but neither number is definite until the food hits the table, and even then, either or both can change half way through. On Thursday I already had the table set for four, when it expanded to six just before aperitifs, and then to seven just as the first course was being served.
Our lovely British friend Vicki, writer and social commentator extraordinaire, wrote that she never has Colombians to dinner because she cannot cook ‘arroz con pollo’ (chicken rice) for 100. Invite a Colombian to dinner and it is not unusual for him to turn up with a couple of friends he was drinking with earlier, two ‘tias’ (aunties) visiting from Medellin, the son from his first wife who is staying for university holidays, and a policeman who booked him for going through a red light before providing directions for getting to your address. No problem … there is bound to be plenty of food for all.
That’s not quite how it works in the UK. I remember seeing (what looked like) Dowager Duchesses shopping in Marks & Spencer in Kensington High Street ticking off the items as their chauffeurs emptied the shopping trolley onto the conveyor belt at the checkout; six smoked salmon parcels, six individual Beef Wellingtons, six chocolate fondants, two bottles of red, two bottles of white and a half bottle of dessert wine. I assume there were probably 12 carrots, 18 potatoes, and 36 sugar snap peas in their fridge already, along with 12 after dinner mints. I worried what would happen if anyone turned up with a stray ‘tia’.
By the way, for those who might be interested, the polite (and approving) code for recognising or acknowledging an M&S prepared dish at the dinner table is: “Ah, I see Lady Sieff is in the kitchen”, a reference to the wife of Marcus Sieff, Baron Sieff of Brimpton, who was CEO of Marks & Spencer, the company his family founded. Aren’t you glad you read these Letters?
It has been quite a while since my last one, as we have had a bit of travelling to do, and it is only now that both of us are back on the farm.
I also had a bit of writing to do.
There is a new book currently being printed entitled ‘Was Gabo An Irishman?’. It is an anthology of stories, in English, by writers in Colombia, about Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez and how his works, his influence, his inspiration have encroached on, informed or, in some cases, changed the writers’ lives.
There are 26 stories, by 23 writers, and I am delighted, and not a little flattered, to be one of them. In fact, it seems that I am up first in the batting order, so if the book is not a success with browsers it might all be down to me.
The book!
I can’t tell you any more at this stage as the book will be launched officially at the Bogotá Book Fair in May, however the publishers, Papen Press, tell me that there is to be a ‘soft launch’ on April 17, so you will hear more via a Letters From Colombia update. That has to be more interesting than Lord Sieff, don’t you think?
And speaking of Letters From Colombia, this encouraging nod as to the viability of entertaining a wider audience with my haphazard ramblings about our life here has spurred me out of my normal state of amused inertia and inspired me to do what so many of you have been urging me to do. No, not write less about cats, but instead give more people access to my view of nothing very important.
So, in the biographical information about me included in ‘Was Gabo An Irishman?’ readers are directed to this website. There they will find the current Letter plus an archive of past Letters, and something about me and coffee and a link to ZamudioCoffee.com.
Complete strangers … people without your patience and tolerant, forgiving natures, or modicum of personal affection based on shared histories … will go there to see what else I have been writing. Will all three of them be impressed, or wonder if there is not something better on daytime TV? We shall see.
Have no fear however, or unrealistic hopes, because you will still be sent my Letter before it appears on the website. Sorry about that.
Anyway, it is all a lot to think about, and of course it means that, more than ever, I need to finish the book, so that I can capitalise on (or ‘leverage’ as I tried for many years to avoid saying in my other career as corporate wordsmith) this bit of public exposure.
So I am here in my office writing each day … well more accurately … staring out at the palms and bougainvillea, with Torsalino dozing in the green chair and the sounds of chicken, sheep, geese and Martin in the background.
Martin is the latest member of the family … a small, very young and very personable goat … who responds to his name, even from the far reaches of the paddock, with a high-pitched bleat.
It is, after all, the Year of the Goat in the Chinese horoscope. Seems appropriate.
And he will, in the fullness of time, probably be the delicious centrepiece of an impromptu banquet.
Love from him and me
Barry
Martin, the goat.
