Villa Victoria Blog

Deep Feast - Camp Long

On Sunday I attended a food writing workshop at Camp Long in Seattle, "Deep Feast Writing", taught by Vermont writer, Cresent Dragonwagon.  Cresent wrote the definitive treatise on cornbread in 2007, "The Cornbread Gospels".

Scheduled from noon to 6, we didn't waste time.  As each person registered, our instructions were to "turn your cell phone off and start writing".  We learned the "Twelve Percepts of Fearless Writing", we participated in some games to see how stories take form, we ate a delicious potluck and got back to writing again.  In one exercise, we were asked to pick a recipe or ingredient and have a dialogue with it.  Okay.

Dialogue with Chiles -- Camp Long, Seattle 3/6/11

First, in the voice of chiles:

1. I am the oldest cultivar in Mexico.
2. Together with beans and corn I form the basis of Mexican cuisine.
3. I am flavor and heat and dimension.
4. I stimulate language and culture.
5. I protect myself from predators.
6. I am a form of currency.
7. I am a usurperor of ketchup.
8. I have a protocol.
9. I am misunderstood.
10. I am feared.
11. My intensity cannot be measured.
12. I bring joy - serotonin.

Next, in my voice:

1. I first met you when I was born.
2. Your smell was always there.
3. Your nature first pricked my tongue and I rejected you as a child.
4. Through my mother's entreaties, you would occasionally find your way onto my beans and rice.
5. My father over-ate you and died from those complications.
6. You always reminded me -- wherever I went -- of who I am and from where I come.
7. You waited for me to learn about you.
8. You opened my world when I got comfortable with you.
9. You are there when I need you.
10. You are smooth, silky, dark, musky, floral, bright.
11. You evoke tears, laughter, love, sex

Wow!  If Cresent can get this out of me in six hours, imagine what her four-day Vermont workshop can produce.

Cooper's Hawk

I found this beautiful creature sitting on a low branch in my backyard yesterday.  He just sat there.  He let me talk to him and take pictures.  I looked him up in my "Birds of Seattle and Puget Sound" book and found that he is a Cooper's Hawk.  He was there for at least 40 minutes.  By the end of it I was blubbering and then he flew away.

Love Letters from Garfield - Valentine's Day 2011

These are my parents, Eva Andrade de Smith and Garfield Smith.
In 1944 my father went to Los Angeles from Tampico to make arrangements for my mother and the children, Edith, Nehemiah and Abigail to emigrate to the United States.  As he was tying up loose ends, finding housing and talking with lawyers and the American Consulate, he wrote a series of letters, in perfect Spanish and beautiful handwriting, giving her last minute instructions, sending her money, suitcases and encouragement.  "My Very Respected Lady and Wife--

It's been a few days since I received your letters, expressing your doubts and trepidations (about the trip).  I can understand your concern, but before anything else, I want, as is my custom, to say hello to you as well as the children.  For now, I am fine, thanks be to God, and I hope this letter finds all of you well.

I also want to let you know that I had not been able to answer your last letter because, quite frankly, I have been going here and there, taking care of the business and details of your coming here.  Every day is filled with me attending to these requirements and I have not been able to write to you until now.  Thank God everything is taken care of.

I'm sending you the necessary papers for your trip.  Enclosed are four letters for the American Consul, one from the company where I worked, another signed by my sister, Myrtle Simon, and another signed by my brother, Enrique (Henry).

At the first stop, you present yourself to the Consul to get your passports.  Second, take care of the clothes.  Bring blankets, sheets and mentholatum, nose drops, a little iodine, mercury and the photography course books and dictionaries.  Everything else you don't need, gather it and sell it.

I will send you the suitcase by Air Express addressed to Sister Lala.  You should be receiving it this week.

I am also sending you a money gram in the amount of $58.00 by telegraph today.  I will send you another letter with last minute instructions later because it's getting very late here.  If you need more money you can send me a telegram marked "urgent".

Find out who is the Secretary General of your area and let me know his name.

Before you leave Tampico, send me a telegram that says (in English) 'Leave tomorrow' [which means, I'm leaving tomorrow] , and put the date on it so I can coordinate on this end.  It will be good to leave on the 11th or 12th of February, when everything is ready, from Tampico to Guadalajara by bus, and then from there by train on the South Pacific to Nogales, where I will be waiting for you.  With no more for today,

As Always,

Your Husband, Garfield Smith"

Dulce de Camote con Piña / Yam and Pineapple Dessert

The pineapple, ananas comosus, is original to Brazil and Paraguay. Before Columbus arrived, the Indians had already introduced it as far north as Central America and throughout the West Indian islands. The Spanish inaugurated trading ships between Acapulco, Mexico and the Phillipines in 1565
and introduced the pineapple to the Phillipines, Hawaii, and Guam. In the state of Veracruz, Mexico, there are huge fields of the low-growing pineapple plants in the foothills of Xalapa. Pineapple is not only enjoyed as it is, it is made into an alcoholic drink called tepache. On the road from the city of Veracruz to the Río Papaloapan the roadside vendors display beautifully arranged pineapples and corn cob-stopped rum bottles filled with pineapple vinegar. A pineapple is ripe when you can smell it and the center fronds can be plucked out easily.  As a snack, the sweetness of freshly cut up pineapple can be enhanced with a light sprinkling of salt.   Lime juice and a little chili powder will knock it into another realm.

What can I say about yams? They should be firm, bright,not mottled and not too big. I prefer not to use brown sugar in this dessert because the almíbar, the syrup that results from this decoction, takes on the orange and the gold hues of the two main players. At the end, when you spoon the warm gold liquid over the friséed mint leaves, it drizzles down, releases the mint's volatile oils, and settles in the bottom of the dish and you get color and fragrance to the last spoonful.

2 lb. Red garnet yams, peeled and cut into chunks
1 ½ c. Sugar, organic cane
1 Medium pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
1 Small cinnamon stick
Pinch salt
2 Tbs. Butter, cut in pea-sized pieces
8” square baking dish, brushed with melted butter
Fresh mint, finely shredded

Place the yams, cinnamon, sugar and pineapple in a deep pot and pour over enough water to cover. Cook, covered, over medium heat until water begins to boil. Simmer of medium-low heat, constantly stirring with a wooden spoon. When the yams are cooked and soft, drain the pot and reserve the liquid. Beat the yam mixture with the wooden spoon until smooth. Add the pinch of salt, and a little of the reserved liquid to make it smooth. You will still have some liquid. Pour liquid into a small saucepan and reserve. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking dish, dot with the butter and bake in a hot (425˚) oven for 25 minutes, or until it starts to brown. While the dessert is baking, reduce the reserved liquid over low heat until it is syrupy. Take off heat and let cool. Serve in individual goblets and garnish with a little shredded mint and spoon a little of the syrup over all.  Serves 6

In Search of an Audience

I have been writing this blog for two years!  I posted my first piece the day after Barack Obama was inaugurated as President.  I started Villa Victoria Blog in order to create a body of work for a book.  To write that book I need to write it TO someone.  Who out there gives a rat's **** about what interests me?  Who is my audience?

I love Genealogy -- my genealogy.  I am fascinated by the fact that I am the sum-total of all the 10,000+- people who have gone before me.  I am the product of the choices they made, painted on the broad canvas of History.  

My story as an African-American chef has no redemption, no reconciliation, no transcendence, no conflict, and no struggle to get "out of the ghetto". My story is about my forbear's trajectory, tacked up on a map on a wall. The stories of my families span history, time, continents, cultures, hemispheres and languages. If I could graphically show this I would, with a push pin firmly jabbed into Seattle, tie strings from that pin to pins in the Lombard Region of Italy in the 13th Century, Northwest Spain's Galicia in the 14th Century, points along The Silk Route, Portugal, Scotland in the 17th Century, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, California, Africa in the who-knows-what-Century and Mexico.  

This motley Cast of Characters, as I have come to call them, were constantly on the move, crossing oceans and continents.  There was my ggggggrandfather, James Logan Colbert, an illiterate Scottish Trader in northern MIssissippi who had two stands on the Natchez Trace and ferried Andrew Jackson's army across the Tennessee River for $75,000.  There was the nameless (Ramos, possibly) Sephardic merchant who went East on the Silk Road to trade in China.  There was the Andrade family from A-Coruña in northwest Spain who escaped the Inquisition and went into the hinterland of Mexico.  And there were Elizabeth and Asberry Smith, my grandparents, who found it within their ken to move their family from Oklahoma  to Tampico, Mexico and acquire another language and culture.  They lived their lives, migrated, adapted to their surroundings and reinvented themselves.  But who would be interested in that?

The next phase of my blog I will bring these characters to life because they are screaming to get heard.  And I will bring them all to the forefront through food.  This is my reto, my challenge, for 2011.  Anyone who has ever wondered how it is they got here might be interested in following the push pin-tied strings with me to all those places where my people went.  You will get recipes as an added value if you continue on this armchair trip with me.  Reader, I invite you to click on the Comments link below and let me know what you think.