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There is a tribe of these lovelies eating one of our Jasmine trees. They are, sadly, not smoking hookah’s and did not ask me, “Whoooo are youooo?”
Outra criatura de Alice no País das Maravilhas encontrada na fazenda. Achei ela comendo as folhas da nossa árvore de jasmim. Infelizmente, ela não estava fumando um cachimbo e não me deu nenhum conselho.
“If you write a story today, and you get up tomorrow and start another story, all the expertise that you put into the first story doesn’t transfer over automatically to the second story. You’re always starting at the bottom of the mountain. So you’re always becoming a writer. You’re never really arriving.”
–Edward P. Jones
Every day lately it feels like I am at the bottom of this mountain, looking up. Most days, I’m not confident I’ll make it. The story in my head is never what actually appears on the page. In my heard the story is perfect. On the page it is a mess.
Back in 2005, James and I traveled to Chile’s Atacama desert. From there, we headed up into the Altiplano of the Andes mountains. The weather was not on our side–there were ice and snow storms that prevented our little group from going to the area’s hot springs and seeing the Tatio geysers. We’d brought warm clothes, but none felt warm enough. About three-quarters through the trip, after a few bouts of altitude sickness and one too many ice-cold showers, I was ready to leave. Luckily, the stubborn penny-pincher in me was stronger than the part of me that needed creature comforts; we’d paid for two weeks in the Andes and, frostbite be damned, we would get our money’s worth.
We saw wild vincunãs and, at the end of our trip, spent the night on the edge of Lake Chungará , one of the highest lakes in the world. At Chungará, the air was very thin. While putting up our tent, we had to stop and rest every five minutes. I felt as if my lungs were the size of an infant’s. Dizzy, I sat on a pile of rocks and admired the lake. Chungará wasn’t a comfortable place to be, but it was lovely. As the sun set, the sky and the snow around us turned pink. The view of the twin volcanoes Parinacota and Pomerape was one of the most spectacular I have ever seen. It was exhilarating to finally be at the top of those mountains. But it wasn’t a place we could stay forever. Nor would I want to.
I’ve never been a comic book fan, but I have recently discovered the graphic novel. After reading (or should I say viewing?) Shaun Tan’s incredible and haunting graphic novel, The Arrival, I’ve been on the hunt for similar works. The trouble is, graphic novels cannot be read on my Kindle. Graphic novels need color and hardcovers and big, glossy pages. They are hard to find out here. So, I covet.
I recently read about a graphic novel (actually, critics call this particular book a biography-in-collage) called Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. It looks beautiful. Here’s what Amazon has to say about it:
Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2010: Lauren Redniss’s brilliant biography-in-collage is an astounding portrait of Marie and Pierre Curie, the husband-and-wife team who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. Broken into seven chapters (introduced with scientific terms that hint at the stories to come), Radioactive fuses quotes from the scientists themselves with ones from the Curies’ own granddaughter, engineering and weapons experts, and even atomic bomb survivors that form a most interesting and informative narrative. Redniss’s styling doesn’t end with the way she tells the story: Radioactive is as visually stunning as it is factually rich. She jumps from black-and-white sketches to vibrantly colored depictions of the young couple’s courtship, collaborations, and eventually Pierre’s unexpected death. Within the stark pages of the chapter titled “Isolation,” the reader feels Marie’s loss; then in “Exposure” we watch as she falls in love again–this time under more controversial circumstances. Despite personal challenges, Marie continued to be ambitious and eventually became the first female professor at the Sorbonne, winning a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In Radioactive, Redniss shows a similar determination. Through her moody, evocative collages, she captures the drama of the Curies’ lives and their contributions to science and medicine, sending the reader on a one-of-a-kind historical and biographical journey that any curious mind will appreciate. –Jessica Schein
I just reread “Time Will Darken It” by the American writer William Maxwell (1908-2000). Every time I read this book, it leaves me feeling unmoored, amazed, haunted, sad, an completely in awe of William Maxwell.
In 2000, Daniel Menaker wrote an article in the New York Times about Maxwell, describing what it was like to work with the author when he was an editor at the New Yorker. A few days before his death, Maxwell told Menaker the following story:
“ ‘When my mother died and I was 10,’’ he said, ‘a man came to the door ostensibly to pay his respects to my father. But my father suspected that the man came in triumph or glee about my mother’s death. It may have had something to do with a sexual secret. In any case, my father opened the door, saw who it was, and slammed the door in the man’s face so hard that the house shook. I had never seen him do anything like that before, and I never knew until that moment that anyone could be so direct and angry in polite circles. And I haven’t forgotten it since.’”
After reading this, I realized that this could have easily been a scene in “Time Will Darken It.” The story takes place in a quiet Midwestern town in 1912. There are no obvious villains in the book (except, of course, Rachel’s unwelcome ex-con husband, who is a very minor player). The book’s omniscient point-of-view floats in and out of a dozen character’s heads, making them all seem vulnerable and complex. Austin King, the main character, is so outwardly generous and kind that, in the beginning, I always find him a little boring. But this quickly changes. Austin’s need to be seen as a good man is his undoing. He is frustratingly sympathetic to all and, even as a reader allowed into his head and into his thoughts, it is difficult to understand him. It is difficult to know what he loves and why. His layers of goodness and duty make him a mystery to the reader, to his wife Martha, and to himself.
Austin’s pretty cousin Nora believes wholeheartedly that she is in love with him. She is too young to see Austin’s self-deception and only sees his goodness, and her own. There were times that I got so frustrated with poor, chatty, earnest Nora that I wanted to throttle her (which is probably how Austin’s wife Martha felt about her, too). But Nora pays dearly for her misguided feelings; Maxwell doesn’t give her an easy end. Maxwell is a master of dialogue, of ending a scene exactly where it needs to end, of guiding the reader to make crucial discoveries without hitting us over the head with silly clues. Every time I finish this book, I’m left with more questions than answers. But they are really satisfying questions, ones that make me wonder about the characters for days. They haunt me. And I’m certain that each time I reread “Time Will Darken It,” I’ll discover something new.
Churros and chocolate on a break from all of our meat-eating in Spain.
Churros com chocolate. Depois de comer tanta carne na Espanha, nós tivemos uma pausa muito agradável!
I’ve decided to add a recurring segment to the blog about Things I Covet. I am a material girl. Living on a farm. I find myself drooling over items I see online, and coveting them. Except I can’t buy them because a) they would never arrive here and b) I would have no use for these items if they did arrive. But by God, a girl can troll the internet and dream.
So, here’s what I’ve been dreaming of lately. Penguin Classics cloth-bound books designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Gosh are they lovely! You don’t even need to read them. Why even crack the spines! I just want them to sit on a shelf and look pretty for me. A shelf in a bright, hip loft that I don’t own.
Doing Some Pig Whispering
The Area:
The Dehesa is a pasture area and a natural forest ecosystem that covers approximately 3 million acres of Spain and Portugal. In this area, Iberian pigs graze on mushrooms, herbs, grasses, pine nuts, chestnuts, and acorns or bellotas. The area is very dry throughout the year, with low humidity and cool nights. 4 months out of the year, from approximately October to late January, is acorn season. There are three kinds of acorns in the Dehesa: encina, quejigo, and alcornque. The soil of the Dehesa is not fertile enough for traditional agriculture.
The Breed:
Over time, the Iberian pig has adapted to the Dehesa. They have longer snouts, thinner bodies, and thinner ankles than their white pig counterparts. Ibericos have flat ears that cover their eyes to shade them from the sun while they forage. Pure Ibericos have a very long, slow growth period. In order to generate larger pigs in a shorter time period, Ibericos are now crossed with Duroc Jerseys, but only a 25% cross is allowed. In Spain, pigs are weighed in arrobas. One arroba equals approximately 11.5 kilos.
The Feed:
The Cebo or fattening period begins when pigs are 11-12 months, or 80-115 kilos. Pigs then eat for 3-5 months in order to gain approximately 50 more kilos. Some pigs are fed strictly man-made feed. Others are released into pasture to eat acorns. The acorn-fed pigs become the more expensive Iberico de Bellota hams
A Spanish Bellota or Acorn
Acorns contain oleic acid, which affects the pig meat’s fat and its taste. Pigs must wander the Dehesa and exercise in order to help fat deposits distribute throughout meat and not simply accumulate on the skin layer. A pig needs to eat 9.5 kilos of encina acorns to gain 1 kilo, 18 kilos of quejigo acorns to gain 1 kilo, and/or 14 kilos of alcornque acorns to gain 1 kilo. That is a lot of acrons over a 4 month period!
Differences in Ham Curing Methods and Pigs:
French and Italian cured hams are made from “white” pigs. These are the Landresse, Large White, and Duroc breeds. White pig meat is said to be sweeter than Iberico meat. But white pigs they do not have marbled meat like Ibericos, because they do not pasture graze or eat acorns. Because there is less marbling in white pig meat, it cures faster and runs the risk of drying out during a cure. French and Italian hams are cut to resemble a chicken drumstick, removing the hoof and hip bone. Spanish hams keep hoof and hip bone in tact. This is cultural and a matter of differing styles. I personally think the French and Italian hams look much prettier than Iberico hams. But the Iberico hams sure taste amazing!
Jamon from the Jabugo region of Spain
parceria
(parceiro + -ia)
s. f.
Relação de colaboração entre duas ou mais pessoas com vista à realização de um objectivo comum.
Alimento é vida. É o que nos sustenta e nutre. Além de seus benefícios práticos, o alimento pode também ser fonte de prazer, de camaradagem, e de parceria. É com muito orgulho que Café Yaguara entra em parceria com o Restaurante Picuí e seu chef, Wanderson Medeiros.
Picuí e Yaguara acreditem na ecogastronomia — criar e comer alimentos de qualidade, produzidos de modo sustentável. O Restaurante Picuí é conhecido como um dos melhores restaurantes do Brasil recebendo a estrela do Guia 4 Rodas de melhor comida regional em Alagoas. Em 2009, o Picuí entrou para o seleto grupo da Associação dos Restaurantes da Boa Lembrança,
Amanhã, o restaurante Picuí completará 21 anos de sucesso em Maceió. Para comemorar a data o chef Wanderson Medeiros e mais 5 Chefs convidados irão promover um evento beneficente com foco na responsabilidade social. O café Yaguara será servido para todos os convidados.
Torramos o café para Picuí neste ultimo fim de semana. Amanhã, eu e James, como representantes de Yagaura, iremos a Maceió para comemorar nossa nova parceria com Picuí e Chef Medeiros.
Vou tirar fotos do evento e, assim que voltar, escrevo um novo post dizendo como foi. Espero que todos gostem do café!
Jamonero in Madrid
We arrived in Madrid a little groggy, but resolved to stay awake in an effort to trick our jet lag. We accomplished this trickery by eating. And drinking. We went to Spain to gain an in-depth understanding of cured hams. So our first meal in Madrid was, you guessed it, jamon.
Hams are cured all over the world using slightly different methods. The French have Bayonne hams. The Italians have Prosciutto de Parma, Toscano, and Jambon de Bosses. In Portugal there is Jamon de Barrancos, which is very similar to Spain’s Jamon Iberico. In Spain there are several kinds of cured hams. The Iberico de Cebo (made from an Iberian pig fed man-made feed all of its life), Iberico de Recebo (made from an Iberian pig fed a combination of man-made feed and wild pasture during ts last months) and Iberico de Bellota (made from an Iberian pig finished exclusively with pasture grazing). There are also Spanish hams made from white (not Iberian) pigs that are called Jamon de Teruel, Trevelez, and Serrano depending on their area of origin.
We went to a great market in Madrid’s downtown and had our first sample of Jamon Iberico de Bellota. We learned that good Jamon should be thinly sliced and served minutes after slicing. It should always be served at room temperature, so that the fat melts in your mouth. Speaking of fat, it should be marbled throughout the ham’s meat—this is a sign that the pig is a true black-hoofed Iberian breed. The ham should be moist, never rubbery or stringy. And the flavors should be strong and nutty. (Much stronger than Italian prosciutto.) The best Jamon needs no seasoning, no side dishes, no dressings. Nor is it used as an accessory to a dish—it is not wrapped around chicken or scattered on pizzas. The best Jamon is served all by itself, and is eaten with your hands. It’s amazing food. And boy, did we eat a lot of it. (My pants barely buttoned by the end of our trip.)
Our first dinner
We visited factories, pig farms, butchers, bodegas, you name it. I even got to try my hand at slicing a Jamon, which is no easy task. (For events and parties, Spaniards hire professional slicers. There is even a ham slicing institute in Guijuelo, one of Spain’s ham capitals.) But I’m getting ahead of myself. More about all of that in the next few posts.
We are headed to Spain for 15 days to immerse ourselves in all things Jamon. Jamon is salt-cured ham. It sounds simple, but to produce a flavorful ham cured only in salt and essentially eaten raw takes time and practice. The Spanish have been curing hams for centuries. Their process depends upon the right breed of pig fed on right kinds of foods. It also depends upon patience.
On our farm we have pigs and plenty of patience. We also have questions about curing hams. Many of them. And who better to answer these questions than the masters themselves, the Spanish jamoneiros. During our first days in Spain, our guide will be an expert named Bosco (the brother-in-law of a friend) who will take us to ham-producing regions like Huelva, Jabugo, and Salamanca. Below is a map of traditional Jamon-producing regions.
Our hopes for the trip are high. We’d like to see some acorn-fed Iberico pigs. We’d like to unravel the mystery of mold: what kinds are good? What kinds of mold are dangerous or hallucinogens or both? We’d like to understand what makes the shoulder cure differently from the leg. We’d like to see a pig “sacrifice” as the Spanish call it. And we’d like to eat some great ham.
Since we are on a quest (hopefully not a quixotic one), I hope to meet one of my new idols in the food world, a Spanish farmer named Eduardo Sousa. He raises geese and creates humane foie-gras. He lives for his geese, he listens to them, he cares for them and loves them. And in honor of his geese he creates great food. Here’s a TED video where Chef Dan Barber talks about Sousa.
I probably won’t post while we are away, but there will be many posts when we return from our Jamon quest.
Agora em Português:
Estamos indo para a Espanha por 15 dias para mergulhar em todas as coisas relacionadas a Jamon. Jamon é presunto curado no sal. Parece simples, mas para produzir um bom presunto curado apenas com sal e comido cru, leva tempo e prática. Os espanhóis tem curado presuntos para séculos. Seu processo depende da raça do porco e a sua alimentção. Também depende de sal e paciência.
Nós também temos porcos e muita paciência. E, alem disso, temos muitas perguntas. E quem seria melhor para responder a estas perguntas de que os próprios mestres (chamados jamoneiros em espanhol). Durante nossos primeiros dias em Espanha, nosso guia será um mestre chamado Bosco (o cunhado de um amigo) que nos levará para as regiões produtoras como Huelva, Jabugo e Salamanca. Abaixo está um mapa de regiões produtoras de Jamon na Espanha.
Nossas esperanças para a viagem são grandes. Nós gostaríamos de ver alguns suínos alimentados com bolota Iberico. Nós gostaríamos de descobrir o mistério do fungo: que tipos são bons? Que tipos de fungos são perigosas ou alucinógenos? Gostaríamos de entender o que faz a pá cura de forma diferente do pernil. E nós gostaríamos de comer presunto, claro!
Quando estamos em nossa busca espero encontrar um dos meus ídolos no mundo gastronomico, um fazendeiro espanhol chamado Eduardo Sousa. Ele cria gansos e faz foie-gras. Ele vive por seus gansos. E, em homenagem ao seu gansos, Sr. Sousa cria comida boa e saudavel. Aqui está um vídeo onde o chef americano Dan Barber fala de Sousa.
Eu provavelmente não vou escrever no blog quando estamos na Espanha, mas escreverá muitos posts quando voltamos da nossa busca Jamonica!
Seventh grader Suriya K. recently contacted me. Suriya is a web designer and filmmaker. She and her friend Cynthia made a very informative public service announcement about global warming. I tried to embed the video into the blog, but no luck. (Suriya, maybe you can help an old technophobe like me out?) But the video is available on Suriya’s site. Check it out!
A 2004 Political Rally in Taquaritinga do Norte, PE
There’s a popular story in northeast Brazil’s political folklore: back in the 1950’s, a powerful Brazilian landowner named Colonel Chico wanted to rig local elections. He distributed ballots that had already been filled out and instructed farm workers to slip them into the voting box. “But, who am I voting for?” one worker asked. “Can’t tell you,” the Colonel replied. “It’s a secret ballot.”
On October 3, millions of Brazilian voters will use electronic voting machines to elect their president, senators, and state representatives. Brazil’s electronic voting machines are called urnas, a reference to a time not so long ago when paper ballots were deposited into urns. The electronic urnas are portable voting machines designed by the Brazilian government and manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. Unlike the United States, where voting procedures vary widely from district to district, Brazil’s procedures are federally standardized by the Tribunal Eleitoral, a branch of the justice department created solely to implement and regulate elections.
In 2004, during the nationwide election for mayors and city council members, I interviewed mayoral candidates, voters, and other election officials from Taquaritinga do Norte, Pernambuco. Taquaritinga is a rural town in northeast Brazil, where our farm is located. 2004 was only the second election that electronic urnas were used in all Brazilian cities.
“God forbid we use a system other than the electronic urna,” said 2004 mayoral candidate José Pereira Coelho. Coelho, the son of a shoemaker, was running for reelection in Taquaritinga do Norte, In 2000, the first year electronic urnas were used in local elections, Coelho won an upset victory against the PFL party, which had dominated local politics for 112 years. “The elections here are very, very close,” Coelho said while eating a plate of chicken and rice at a supporter’s home. “The electronic urna is the security that all Brazilians needed to guarantee our votes.”
The former mayor, Janio Arruda da Silva, once again Coelho’s opponent in the 2004 election, had no complaints about the urnas either. “The electoral process here is lengthy,” Silva said. “The campaign itself lasts many months. But a positive point is the electronic urna, which gives results instantly.” Silva looked at his cell phone and let it ring while his wife rushed to answer their home phone. Their house’s shutters were drawn and it’s front gate closed. “If people knew I was home,” Silva said quietly. “There would be a line outside my door.”
Before the 2004 mayoral election, each candidate had a loyal following. Coelho’s supporters, backed by a coalition of ten different political parties, are known as the calabars, or “traitors,” a reference to toppling the former, 112-year-old regime. Silva’s supporters call themselves the boca pretas, or “black mouths,” a name which comes from a local superstition that a catching grasshopper with a black mouth means good luck. The candidates also had official campaign colors—Coelho’s was red, Silva’s was blue. The municipality of Taquaritinga do Norte covers over 450 square kilometers of land with voters scattered across small townships and farms. The majority of Silva and Coelho’s 2004 constituency was made up of farmers, day laborers, and textile workers earning the Brazilian minimum wage which, at the time, was approximately $85 dollars a month. Many constituents could not read or write. Most did not have phone lines and had never accessed the internet. (In 2010 this has changed significantly thanks to inexpensive cell phones and internet cafés.)
Voting is mandatory in Brazil. All citizens between the ages of 18 and 70 must register with the Tribunal Eleitoral and appear at the voting center on Election Day. If a citizen is continuously absent from the voting process, that person cannot hold public office, cannot enter competitions to become teachers, judges or district attorneys, cannot attend a federal university, and cannot take out a bank loan in a federal institution. The law permits that, once in the voting booth, you may annul your vote or vote in blank. “A blank vote says you prefer not to vote. A null vote says you don’t like either candidate,” explained Taquaritinga’s chief judge, the Honorable Lauro Pedro dos Santos Murilo, a young man in his mid-thirties. “Those are two very different things.” His voice echoed in his chambers, a massive white room with a desk, a crucifix, and a view of Taquaritinga’s mountainside. “Whether the vote is optional or obligatory, what’s certain is that the vote ensures the growth of democratic institutions.”
With electronic voting machines, voters simply punch their chosen candidate’s numeric code into the machine’s keypad. The candidate’s picture then appears on the screen and the voter is asked to confirm their vote. Before electronic voting, Taquaritinga’s citizens voted on paper ballots signed by the local judge and president of the voting commission. The votes were collected and counted by a voting commission comprised of the local judge and voting officials approved by both parties. This led to human error—if a barely literate person drew an “x” between two candidates’ names, the voting commission had to interpret that voter’s intention. There were also instances of fraud.
“There were instances where the canvas and leather urns arrived with ballots already inside,” said Judge Santos Murilo. With the electronic urnas, this kind of fraud is more difficult to achieve. Each citizen has a voting identification number, called a Titulo de Eleitor. Voters present poll workers with their federal voting number and a photo ID. Poll workers input the voting number into the polling place’s computer system, which recognizes the voter from a national database. Only then is the voter is allowed to vote on the electronic machine. This is not only a way to check a voter’s identity, but also to make sure they only vote once. Ten minutes after the last citizen’s vote is registered with an electronic urna, the results for that particular machine are calculated and the machine prints a paper tally of votes. Copies of the tallies are posted on the polling place door, given to each candidate, and to the town’s judge, who is the official representative of the federal Tribunal Eleitoral. Voting data is also stored in an encrypted hard drive in the voting machine. This hard drive is only readable on computers hooked into the federal elections system database.
At the end of Election Day, the voting machine hard drives are placed in a car from the federal elections bureau and taken to the local courthouse. Candidates, poll workers, federal officials, and voters accompany the car in an informal parade to the courthouse. There, everyone will hear the official tally of all of the machines.
“Today, we [judges] that lead the Federal Elections Justice System have no doubt of the results of what is in the electronic voting machine,” said judge Santos Murilo in 2004. “It represents what the voter chose. What needs perfecting now is the phase before the act of voting—the campaign.”
In order to reach voters in the 2004 mayoral election, Coelho and Silva hired cars with loudspeakers strapped to their roofs. The vehicles circled the city limits from 8 AM to 10 PM each day (this time frame is mandated by federal law) playing campaign songs. On weekends, both campaigns organized rallies where the candidates on the blue and red tickets explained their platforms. The speeches were followed by music and dancing. Candidates had to hire the bands and provide transportation for rural supporters to go to and from the rallies. In 2004, the least expensive and most effective campaign method was personal contact. Silva and Coelho made regular visits to voters’ homes and attended community events. Both men attended Catholic mass, sitting on opposite sides of the church. And when a prominent local merchant died half-way through the campaign season, both candidates appeared at the funeral wearing freshly-ironed shirts, Silva’s blue, Coelho’s red.
There is another aspect to campaigning, one that existed long before the electronic urnas, and still exists despite them. “The politics of favors is a politics of exchange, or bartering,” said 2004 mayoral candidate Janio Arruda da Silva. “A favor is done in exchange for a vote. This still exists.” (When we talked about this aspect of the campaign, both candidates began to use vague language, without specific names or personal pronouns.) “For example,” da Silva continued, “someone asks the candidate for…to give them an operation for cataracts. The candidate arranges this surgery in a public hospital. And the person who received the surgery…they feel pressured to give their vote in return. For me, it is more practical to hire a doctor who can operate on many citizens, for the common good.”
One 2004 voter, who did not want to be named, said a local candidate gave her gas money to help her take her autistic son get to the doctor in Caruaru, a large city 57 km away. A female city council candidate allowed one voter to live in her mother’s house in Recife, the state’s capital, while the voter underwent thyroid treatments. Individual favors seem to be a part of the political process in Brazil. “Its part of the culture,” said Antônio de Padua, the president of Taquaritinga’s PFL party. “It happens everywhere.”
With electronic urnas, candidates have no guarantees that their favors will win them votes. Voters may receive personal favors from both parties, and then enter whichever candidate’s numeric code they choose at the polls. Brazil has alternated between military dictatorships and democracy since the fall of the imperial monarchy in 1889, and has tried to combat election fraud through out its electoral history, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Fifty years ago, in rural voting districts like Colonel Chico’s, voters weren’t given a choice. People did not matter but their ballots did. Today, things are different. While the culture of personal favors is not ideal or just, it illustrates a marked shift in the role of the voter in Brazilian elections. Voters must be courted now, and given tangible evidence of a candidate’s intentions before they head to the polling place. It’s not ideal, but it is an evolution.
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