It's that time of year again...the time for...

THE TIME FOR WHAT???

Here's your first clue:  It's purple.

Here's your second clue: It's not a dinosaur.

Here's your third clue: I went to the market today.  The basket was so heavy I nearly got hit by cars several times on the way home.

Ladies & Gentlemen, may I now present...the cast of Colada Morada 2012!!!!!!

 

[applause, applause]

 

This is Black Corn Flour, the star of the show.  Miss Flour's personality is perfect for the role: poised and subtle in demeanor until, out of the blue, she stuns you with a breathtaking moment of pure brilliance.  Everyone agrees that she imbues any production with a rich color that would otherwise be lacking.  We eagerly await her performance.

Señorita Naranjilla hails from the exotic tropics.  She's a feisty one; she and the director suffered some creative differences, leading to a number of public arguments, broken nails, and hurled stiletto heels.  Now that she's mastered the basics of anger management, Srta. Naranjilla adds some much needed zest to the ensemble.

 

 

The perfect counterbalance to Srta. Naranjilla, Señor Panela is all sweetness.  Rumor has it that the ring is bought and the only question is when he will pop The Question.



Piña is a funky dude who doesn't let his hair get in the way of his work: he is 100% dedicated and will throw his entire self, from the skin to the core, into any professional endeavor.



Herbs.

Spices.

Herbs and Spices are the rival factions of supporting roles in this production.  The constant petty antogonizing between the two groups will make you feel like you're back in high school.  When threatened by a common enemy, however, Herbs and Spices are the first to agree that, in this play, There are no small parts, only small actors -- and then forget about the common enemy and turn to look accusingly at each other.

It's no secret that Mr. Mortiño feels somewhat out of his element among this cast of highly skilled, highly experienced actors.  He is content to play his part with emphasis and meaning, ever serious and always seeking to serve his fellow castmates out of a strict sense of duty.  People tend to wonder whether he ever goes out and has fun.

Miss Mamey plays the unassuming matron who's got more than one surprise up her sleeve, and she fits her character to a tee.

The first of several redheads to join the cast, Señorita Frutilla is a down-home country girl, but she's not without her quirks.  (Tell me, do you know of any other fruit whose seeds are on the outside?)

Señorita Ciruela lives up to the stereotype: yes, she's got a taste for sass, but she's also got a heart of gold.

 

Doña Mora, the reigning redhead of the bunch, practically oozes emotion and evokes strong responses from every audience.  An experienced and versatile performer, she commands respect in any role.

So that's that. Basically what you do is boil a bunch of stuff in one pot, and a bunch of other stuff in another pot. 

Herbs and Spices come into play here, Spices being cinnamon; cloves; and allspice, and Herbs being the things on the left, only two of which I can positively identify (citronella and orange leaves).  Of the other two, one smells lemony, and one is, I am fairly certain, colloquially called a "monkey tail."

Thank you for your interest in herbology, and yes, there will be a test.


So after you've boiled your monkey tails, &tc.; and boiled your berries; and strained both mixtures separately, this is what you've got:

A bowl of pineapple-sugar-spice-and-herbs water, a bowl of berries, and the pièce de résistance: the black corn flour.  Watch the transformation when we take a bit of the mulled spice liquid and mix it with the flour...

...et, voilà: jewel tone purple.  This is where colada morada (purple colada) gets its name.  Colada morada is a traditional Ecuadorian drink consumed on the Day of the Dead (November 2).  In the week or so leading up to the actual day, you can find it sold on the streets and in restaurants, or even from family owned shops and private homes, and if you go to the market you'll see sacks of black corn flour, piles of ciruelas, bricks of panela, little bags of mortiños, rows of mamey, and bundles of herbs every which way you look.

To finish brewing our colada, we throw everything together into a pot and then add in whatever fruit hasn't already been boiled. This includes more pineapple, as well as the ciruelas, which are a type of plum.


It also includes the mamey.

I'd never cut one of these open before, but if you've ever cut a mango, then you know what it's like, what with trying to navigate around the pit.


Only the mamey has not one...not two...but three separate egg-sized pits.  Oh, joy.

Throw it all in the pot, let it simmer, and give it a stir.

 

You've got yourself some colada morada.

 

Happy Halloween!!!

The Garden is Ba-aaaaack

This year has been a challenging one for the garden.

 

Twice, we lost our seedlings.

 

Once, someone broke in and tore up part of the fencing and some of the beds.  (As evidenced by the lengths of cane resting against the trunk of a nearby mango tree, the mystery hooligans were using the cane slats to knock down mangos.)

 

And now, finally, we have something to show for the work we've put into the garden - planting and replanting and re-replanting seedlings, and lots of repairs - :

 

Green things are growing!  Callooh, callay!

Here, we have our bell peppers.

And loads and loads of radishes.

The determination of the handful of people from the garden group who have stuck with it thus far is inspiring and will, I hope, see at least a partial harvest before the rains come.  Keep growing, little green guys, and bring us some veg to eat!

This, That, The Other, Their Twin Sister and Their Mother

Life is all about being frazzled.  That's how the saying goes, right?  ...Right?

1. It's been two months since my trip to Peru and Machu Picchu.  Many of you have started to make sneaking comments that you would like to hear about it, or at least see pictures.  I will get right on that (which in my language means maybe a week?).

2. One of my kids gave me a flower! which I promptly brought home and set up for a still life photo shoot.

This one I call "Flower."

This one I call "Flower II."

This one I call "Flower III."

This one I call "Bob's Yer Uncle."

This one I haven't decided what to call yet, so if you think of something, let me know.

 

2. I got a hole in my jeans, again. 

Remind me to tell you about my experience with holey jeans getting exponentially holier with every passing day; after that, I got this pair patched right up.

3. There are too many cats in my life lately.

So I gave one away. 

Does this make me heartless?  Answer: Only with respect to my friend who took the cat in and has been rewarded with consecutive nights of interrupted sleep as my former pet frolics among the rafters.

4. Biggest news in Ecuador: There's a new beer!

 

It wasn't actually on the news; the last thing I actually saw on the news was a recap of the United States presidential debates with a ticker-tape at the bottom of the screen reading "Obama won the debate."  Hmm, I wonder how they figure that?


More importantly, there's this new beer!  On the scale of Ecuadorian beers (which, generally speaking, runs from Option #1 all the way to Option #2), it falls right smack dab in the middle.

5. The best part about a trip is...

 

 

...crossing the Río Guayas into the lovely evening view of downtown Guayaquil. 

Love & Fried Plantains,
jordan

On the Playlist: Yo No Sé Mañana

Here's some salsa for ya.  This song by Nicaraguan singer Luis Enrique is something of a standard.  I have fond memories of it, as it's one of the songs that's frequently featured in the soundtrack of daily life - played on buses, tinny-sounding store radios, blared at bars on the weekend, etc. - over the past 2,5 years I've spent in Ecuador.  It's about love, and hope, and the past, and the future.  Mostly, though, it's just darn fun.

 

Making Chocolate

Ecuador was once famous for its cacao (cocoa).  It still is, to a degree.  From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, Ecuador was one of the world's largest producers and suppliers of cacao.  Then, in the 1920's, the cacao crisis hit, bringing with it a larger economic downturn.  Since then, Ecuador has not regained the same level of cacao production it once had.

That's not to say, however, that the farmers aren't trying.  Many of the PC-Agriculture volunteers here have worked with cacao farmers, cooperatives, and other organizations.  I could delve much deeper into the topic, talking about the different types of plants, the pros and cons of each, etc.  But I won't bore you with that.  Instead, I will show you simple proof that chocolate is indeed being made in Ecuador!  I witnessed the process; I tasted the final product; and it was good.  Amen.

It all starts with the seedlings.  The seedlings grow into plants.  The plants grow really big.  They produce pods the size of your face.  And when you split a ripe cacao pod open, here's what it looks like:

 

 

There's a column of seeds nestled inside, covered in a filmy white coating.  If you pop the seeds into your mouth, you'll find that the coating is tangy and tasty -- but make sure not to bite into the bean itself, which is extremely bitter.  This is the part that is used to make chocolate.

 

The next step is roasting and drying the seeds:

 

In the streets of Guayaquil cacao beans are spread in the sun to dry.  They make great rectangular patches of brownish orange color.  In the heat they diffuse a subtly exotic perfume ... Occasionally the natives walk among the beans, stirring them about with their bare feet that all may have a turn in the sunshine.

 

That description was written by Blair Niles and published in her book Casual Wanderings in Ecuador in 1923, nearly one hundred years ago.  If you are riding through coastal Ecuador today, you will see the same thing, albeit with some subtle differences.  The great rectangular patches are still there, laid out on cement patios in the golden light of the afternoon sun.  Nowadays, they're tended to with rakes instead of bare feet.  And while you'll see yards filled with cacao in the countryside, you won't find them in Guayaquil.  In Blair's day, so clean a little city is Guayaquil that the fragrance of drying cacao clings to our memory of it, uncontaminated by anything more gross.  I am sad to say (and my olfactory sense is likewise sad to confirm) that this is no longer the case.

 

When the drying and roasting process is complete, the cacao beans look like this.

Next up: grinding the beans.

For the demonstration we saw, a small hand grinder was used.  Specifically, we made one of the little boys do the hard work while we stood back and snapped pictures.  The cacao beans went in the top, and after being grinded, they dropped out onto the plate below as a lumpy, oily paste.

At this point, you have the option of implementing various methods to refine your cacao paste.  You can remove the oil.  You can add sugar.  You can mix it with milk.  You can set the paste into molds to form bars.  You can do combinations of the above.

Rather than bother with carrying out these minutae, however, our hosts ushered us over to a table that had been prepared before our arrival:

On it were various fruits native to Ecuador (all of which, I am happy to report, pair exceedingly well with chocolate), as well as chocolate in its various stages -- on the left, the cacao pods; in the center, roasted cacao beans; and on the right, molded chocolate.

The chocolate we tasted was very dark and bitter.  If you like dark chocolate, I recommend roasted cacao nibs for a crunchy, savory snack.  The drink we were served was pure, unrefined cacao paste mixed with hot water - another type of hot chocolate, if you will (we would, and we did).  If you let it sit long enough, you could see the oil separate and rise to the top of the glass.

My favorite version of the chocolate we tried, however, was the ganache, made by mixing cacao paste with milk.  We drizzled it all over various tropical fruits - papaya, mamey, melon, and starfruit.  Add a sprig of mint and you're good to go.

 

Que viva el chocolate!  Say it with me now...Vivaaaaaa!