Good from the First Drop

La Granja de Don Eduardo (Salento)

The Coffee Region is a stunningly gorgeous part of Colombia--and bear in mind that Colombia is a pretty outstandingly beautiful country in general. On either side of the highway, precipitously steep mountainsides overflow with a verdant abundance of flora. The countless shades of green run the gamut from the glossy darkness of coffee, to the electric green of sugar cane, to the towering, distant grey-green of the wax palms. Periodically, the forests and fields are broken by small towns, where old men in wool ponchos sip tiny cups of coffee, and where the milkman still makes his morning rounds, flush with fresh milk from the campo. Though the districts of Calderas, Quidio, and Risaralda are now distinct from Antioquia (of which Medellin is the capital), the tiny districts of Eje Cafetero share the paisa heritage of hard work, a quirky vernacular, and radical hospitality.

Arriving in Eje Cafetero intent on visiting farms, I had no farming contacts, no personal transportation, and only the most rudimentary agricultural vocabulary in Spanish. Additionally and unsurprisingly, small-scale organic growers in Colombia are basically devoid of a web presence, so my only means of finding farms was to cross my fingers, put my faith in Colombian hospitality, and begin asking around.

As luck that can only happen in Colombia would have it, my hostel, Plantation House, had just purchased a small granja down the road, which they were converting to organic production of pineapples, moras, oranges, strawberries, bananas, plantains, avocados, and (most importantly) coffee. I took a tour under Freddie Andres, the manager of the farm, and asked approximately 1,000 questions. Freddie, whose personal goal is to own a self-sufficient farm of his own someday, was happy to satisfy my curiosity. He taught me about the biannual coffee harvest and the nutrient needs of coffee, which he fills via home-made compost and purchased organic fertilizer. He pointed out the corridors of native trees that snaked shadily among the coffee plants (so that short-flight birds would be able to move from one side of the farm to the other) and explained that his triangular planting pattern helped minimize erosion and maximize growing space. He extolled the virtues of guadua, a sort of Colombian bamboo, for soil improvement and as a sustainable building material. Guadua, I learned, ought to be harvested during the dead of night under a new moon, as only then will the normally water-filled stalks stand empty for easy cutting. (Several other Colombian farmers have since confirmed this practice for me).

Sadly, I had chosen to visit at precisely the wrong time of year for purchasing coffee or participating in the harvest. The major coffee harvest occurs in September-November, with a smaller second harvest in April-May. As the farm has only recently come back online after years of neglect, the harvests are still small, and holiday guests to Salento had already snatched up all of last season's crop by the time I arrived in early March. The bright red of ripe coffee beans peaked out occasionally from the midst of green clusters, and I plucked one to examine the various husks that stood between me and my pot of joe.

After the ripe beans are harvested, the farmer runs the beans through a mill to remove the red husk, which is similar to the inedible skin of a banana or the rind of an orange. The beans, still encased in a slimy pulp, then soak in a tank of water for 1-4 days, until fermentation breaks down the pulp and the beans are clean. Many farmers allow this fermented coffee-pulp-water to run off into streams; Freddie saves it and uses it as a compost tea for the plants. The beans are then dried in the sun. Once dry, a final papery gray skin can be sloughed off the beans, and they are at last ready for roasting. And I thought making a cappuccino was complicated...

Full Circle

I am a memory junkie. On long bus rides (of which there have been many, as of late), in line at DAS (Colombia's Kafka-esque cross between the CIA and the DMV), or during a lazy afternoon in the Botanical Gardens, I can always count on my memory to entertain me. Like easing into a warm bath, I slowly lower myself into some pleasant past event and wallow in my own private nostalgia-fest. It passes the time quite pleasantly where there is nothing else to do.

I have heard that there is a specific hormone that a woman's body produces after childbirth, which dulls the memory of pain. Apparently, you remember that you were in unholy pain, but you can't remember precisely how it felt. The explains why we are not all only children, I suppose.

Recently, as I was reflecting on this bit of trivia, it occurred to me that the memory of a physical sensation, good or bad, is always at best (or worst) a shade of the actual experience. So while the worst experiences hopefully lose the sharpness of their edges, the good ones gradually become less clear, less intense. The memory of your first love, while quite likely strong enough to bring a smile to your face, doesn't pack the same earth-shaking punch as the actual encounter. You don't need to be flush with hormones for a memory to fade.

Last week I left Colombia and returned to Atlanta. In a frantic few days of packing and visiting, I prepared myself for my migration North, to Caretaker Farm. But before I could leave, I had to revisit Serenbe: to put my hands in the dirt and witness the outline of the season as it comes into focus. It was the kind of true blue dream of sky day that is almost holy in its vividness. I walked between the tables in the greenhouse naming the trays and marveling at the transformation of last years' nervousness into familiarity. I couldn't help but run from place to place, as the whole farm seemed to merit a joyful gallop rather than a sedate field walk. And as I ran pell-mell past the new asparagus beds and the young pear trees, I thought to myself: this is the joy that memory can never fully depict.

I spent the brief hour that I had harvesting spinach, cutting the leafy bunches just beneath the surface of the soil and then stripping away any bad leaves. It was my first task at Serenbe, just over one year ago. I remembered dragging the bin behind me and basking in the spring sunshine. But I didn't spend long in that memory, as I was too busy savoring the present.



N.B.: I still have a lot to say about Colombia...stay tuned over the next week or two for dispatches about the Coffee Region of Colombia, where, I am happy to report, there is a great deal of wonderful organic growing going on.

If You Like Piña Coladas....

There are several ways to make a really good piña colada. Obviously, you can run to the store and buy yourself a can of coconut milk and have fairly instant gratification.

Or, you can take 2 months´ vacation and head to Colombia.

Head east along the coast until you hit the tiny beach town of Taganga. Try to avoid a hostel that is adjacent to a discotec, or where the roof flaps in the wind and sends up an infernal racket every 10 minutes. In the morning, take a 15 foot fiberglass fishing dinghy across less than glassy seas to the pristine sands of Parque Tayrona, one of Colombia`s most beautiful national parks. Pack lots of water and food, cuz they`ll charge you an arm and a leg (aka American prices) if you try to buy everything beachside. Be sure to waterproof everything you take on the boat, and strap that lifejacket on tightly. You`ll want to reassuring presure of the straps when the boat flies up one side of the swells and crashes down the other.

At Parque Tayrona, reserve one of the overpriced hammocks and lather up the sunscreen. Try not to sit directly under the coconut trees; just a suggestion. If you wait a while, you are bound to hear the telltale thud of a coconut surrendering itself to gravity and falling to earth. Find a rock (or a machete, if you want to get all fancy). Start hammering away at the outer hull, which feels a bit like soft, fibrous wood. Get comfortable, as this could take a while. It will eventually give under your ministrations, and you should be able to tear the outer husk off in strips and chunks. Increase the fury of your blows against the inner shell until it cracks and the sweet coconut water begins leaking out. Alternatively, after an hour and a half of banging, you could also start looking for friendly old Colombian men who can help you, and who will finish the whole process off in about 3 minutes.

Drink the water, and save the thick skin of cocnut that encircles the interior of the inner shell. Cocnut milk is made from juicing the coconut meat and adding a bit of water. You`ll probably want a blender for this, so you might return to civilization at this point. But first, be sure to take a few days to lounge on the beach, to sample the amazingly delicious chocolate-filled rolls that they make in the tiny bakery a few beaches over, and to explore the interior of the park as well. To be honest, I haven´t got a recipe for amazing piña coladas, as I never got further than greedily slurping down the coconut water and then prying the meat out with my knife. But I´m working on finding a good one for arroz con coco, a real Colombian coastal treat.

Oh and if you wander over to the nudist beach a little farther down the shore, don`t be stingy with the sunscreen.

Brain Food

As I have noted, if someone were to make a top five list of Paisa weekend activities it would probably look something like this:

5. Eat really delicious food

4. Spend time with friends

3. Visit with family

2. Chill at a finca

1. Party at your finca, with your family and friends, celebrating someone's birthday with lots of meat.

Guess what I got to do last weekend?

Alina's good friend Nati was celebrating her 25th birthday, and I was invited to join in the festivites at Nati's aunt's finca, about 30 minute outside of Medellin. After a great deal of vehicular logistics and last minute food shopping, we drove out of the warm, rainy Medellin night and into the mountains, finlly turning off of the autopista onto a dirt road that in turn deposited us at the threshold of Nati's finca.

Immediately, various male members of the party began clustering around the makeshift barbecue grill, blowing on the coals, and offering advice. Nati set to work reassembling the stereo and selecting appropriately festive music. (By morning, the neighbors had all been serenaded by a mix of the best of the 90's and Colombian Cumba.) The devastatingly seductive aroma of chorizo and toasting arepas slowly overshadowed the scents of the campo so that we all began eyeing the grill hungrily and hefting our forks. Candela, the neighbor's curious puppy, waited patiently beside the coals in the vain hope that something dreadful would call us all away and provide her with a window in which to feast. As we passed the bowls of steaming, cripy chorizo from person to person (there were not plates enought for everyone), a mug of mate--a caffeinated herb beverage--passed behind. I was more than content.

The food for these asadas (barbecues) is appropriately simple: arepas, chorizo, some cuts of beef, some butter, salt, and lemon juice. Upon my return to Medellin, I was savoring a different, though surprisingly apropo sort of culinary delight, my new book Feast by Martin Jones. Feast traces the uniquely human tradition of sharing food from Homo heidelbergiensis to the present day and disects the way that food sharing has shaped human culture just as human culture has shaped the experiene of sharing food. Only in humans, Jones relates, do groups not only hunt together but also share the fruits of their labor with extended groups of family and friends. Within the other branches of the animal kingdom, eating is a speedy event and the presense of other creatures is usually a challenge or a threat. But we humans not only tolerate the presense of others of our species at the table, we invite it. We build elaborate rituals around the sharing of a meal, tell stories, sing songs, pray, linger as the night grows deeper.

Shortly after returning from the finca, I happened to be reading about Neanderthals and how the development of stable family groups with hearthfires helped us grow a brain (and with it a real food culture). Food cooked with heat not only tastes sweeter and is more aromatic (a result of a chemical reaction that produces "Amadori products"), it is also easier to digest, as the fire has already broken down many complicated molecular chains into smaller pieces. Fermentation does much the same thing, coincidentally. Cooking with heat renders many toxic raw foods (of both plants and animals) suddenly nutritious, which allowed the human diet to expand and diversify. As humans no longer needed the endlessly regenerating teeth of a shark nor the four stomachs of a cow, we could care for the very old and very young (both of whom need soft, easily digested food) and use that extra caloric energy to grow a bigger brains. Our digestive equipment got smaller even as our brains got bigger. And what did we need that bigger brain for? The neocortex is a part of the mamal brain the size of which corelates with familiar group size and complexity of social interaction. We humans have a neocortex the size of which suggests a "friend" group of 150-200 people (think of your average Christmas card list). This larger group size was necessitated by the demand for greater social cohesion the better to survive in a swiftly changing world.

Which brings us back to the finca, where I sat happily munching away on arepas and chorizo and working hard to grow a bigger brain. I am a product and a producer of the same food culture that has existed for more than 40,000 years. It's manifestations are many and varied, but pretty much all (I'm convinced) are worth sampling.

Grocery Story Shopping

Check out Civil Eats (an awesome website in its own right) for a guest post by yours truly). I'm off to the grocery to conduct further "research". Yum.

Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner

I'm normally the kind of person who researches a trip semi-obsessively before my departure. By the time I boarded to the plane for my semester of "study" in New Zealand, for example, I had highlighted my Let's Go Travel Guide and already begun planning what food to pack for the hike to Milford Sound. For this Colombia expedition I decided to cultivate a bit more spontaneity, and about the only preparatory action that I took was to watch Dirty Dancing 2: Havanna Nights for salsa tips. The dancing was pretty cool, but the cheesiness was predictably quite high.

Havanna Nights must have had a subliminal effect on me, however, as once I arrived in Medellin, I set to work looking for a dance school. With Luz Helena's help, I found one--El Ultimo Cafe--not too far from my language university, and I was soon signed up for private lessons in any and all forms of latin dance. My teacher promised me 18 hours of class at a ridiculously low price, and I figured that with my gringa background, I needed all of the hours of practice that I could afford.

I began with salsa, which everyone had told me was one of the easiest dances. That may be true for Latin people, born with hips that move in perfect rhythm without either thought or effort, but my WASPy genes did not endow me with such gifts. I could do the basic steps, but the feel of the dance was totally lost on me. I tried not to lose hope, and when my teacher informed me that there would be a milonga Saturday night at my school, I decided to watch in hopes that I might learn grace by osmosis. A milonga, I learned, is a sort of tango salon, a place where couples can dance but where, during breaks in the dancing, professional dancers or singers give brief performances. I sat (happily) in the corner and watched the intricate footwork and graceful movements of the couples. Forget salsa, I thought to myself, I want to tango!

I had my first lesson the following Monday and--much to my surprise--I was actually kind of decent (at least for a total newbie gringa). The steps which had seemed incomprehensible and totally improvised, began to make sense to me. The underlying beat pulsed behind the accordion and piano flourishes and guided me around the dancefloor on tiptoes. I began to recognize the subtle shifts in pressure and footwork that my teacher used to direct me: sometimes holding back and hesitating, sometimes matching our paces to the sweet, tripping notes. I became so enraptured with this dance that I stopped feeling self-conscious, stopped trying to watch my feet or catch my reflection in the mirror. The discovered that the romance of tango can be bold and red: women in tight dresses with a rose between their teeth. Or it can be simple and timeless: the happy feeling of moving in well-paired synchronicity with another person. Unlike Dirty Dancing's Baby, I'm not in love with my teacher, but I am in love with the dance.

Gastronomic Synchretism

A "finca" according to my college Spanish, is a farm. So you can imagine my excitement, shortly after arriving in Medellin, to discover that most Paisas like nothing better than to spend a weekend chilling at their family`s finca. Wow, I thought, this is farming county! Well, not exactly. As it turns out, "finca" translates more accurately as "country house" ("granjas" are the places that produce the food), a point which I was speedily apprised of when I started talking about helping with the weeding.

So when Luz Helena (my host mother here in Colombia) invited me to her finca last weekend, I abandoned my dreams of hard labor and contented myself with long walks, slow meals, and a warm fire at night. Medellin, though high enough in the mountains that the climate belies its equatorial location, is still a fairly warm place. The midday temperature is usually around 80° and the nightime low doesn`t go below 60°. Going out to a finca entails a climb higher up into the mountains to cooler weather, and justifies a fire in the fireplace.

Luz Helena`s finca could have been plucked from the happy ending of a fairy tale: it was surrounded by beds of explosively colorful flowers, and a tiny brook cut through the lawn before disappearing into the trees. Daniel, Luz Helena`s 8-year-old grand nephew, volunteered himself as tour guide for Alina and me, and we armed ourselves with umbrellas before venturing into what was surely a dragon-filled forest. Admittedly, the nearest thing to a dragon that we encountered that weekend was a small black chiauaua (Daniel nicknamed him "Rocky"), who followed us through a gauava forest. There, in the shade of the pygmy guava trees, Alina and I ate our fill while Daniel played tug-of-war with Rocky.

The next morning, Luz Helena took us to a local market to give me a lesson in Colombian fruit words. Among the bitayas, guayavas, mangos, bananas, tomatos de arboles and other new foods, I encountered a familiar (though utterly unexpected) sight. Rhubarb. February is the perfect time for rhubarb if you live in England or the southern United States, but I was more than a bit taken aback to find that it grows in Colombia`s temperate climate. Rhubarb in endemic to Siberia, so this plant was as out of place as a mango tree in Antarctica. But that didn`t stop us from buying a few stalks (they were, after all, local) and the following week Alina and I made a pastel de rubarb (as Luz Helena called it) that combined Colombian moras (rather like blackberries) with our exotic interloper. We made our version Alina-friendly by using gluten-free flour, but the original recipe calls for the normal white stuff, which would probably yield a slightly more durable crust. In our case, the pastel looked stunning in the baking dish, but became a rather messy cobbler as soon as we tried to serve it. Hopefully, I will be able to upload some pictures shortly (which will, I think, induce any skeptics to give this recipe a try).

Pastel de Rubarb y Moras

Crust
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 large egg yolk
3 to 4 tablespoons chilled cream

Streusel
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3/4 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup all purpose flour

Filling
2 1/2 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices rhubarb

2 1/2 cups moras (raspberries or blackberries would be a good substitute, I think)

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 T lemon juice

For crust:

Blend flour, sugar, and salt in processor 5 seconds. Using on/off turns, cut in butter until coarse meal forms. Add egg yolk and blend. Add cream if necessary (we didn`t need it). Blend until moist clumps form. Gather dough into ball. Press dough into the bottom of a 9x9 inch Pyrex baking dish. Pierce crust all over with fork. Chill at least 2 hours. Bake cold crust until golden brown, pressing with back of fork if crust bubbles, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F.

For streusel:

Cook butter in large skillet over medium heat until golden, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Mix in almonds, sugar, and cinnamon. Add flour and stir until moist clumps form. Cool completely. (Crust and streusel can be made 1 day ahead. Cover separately and chill.) If you chill the streusel, it will probably be necessary to break it up with a fork when you prepare to use it.

For filling:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Toss all ingredients in bowl to blend. Let stand until filling looks moist, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Spoon filling into warm crust. Crumble streusel over. Bake until filling is bubbling and streusel is crisp and brown, about 1 hour. Cool tart on rack 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.