Sunday night. Beans are cooking in an iron pot over a fire ten feet from the base of the giant mango tree. Katie is playing her guitar next to the fire, which she started, and was her first ever so she’s making up a song about it and throwing in the Bufo toad event that occurred earlier, singing about my telling her not to touch it, the damned thing is poisonous, but she already had. The dog, Milo, lays on the concrete at the edge of the porch a few feet to my right staring at the fire and looking forlorn as I swing in the hammock and type this up. Kimmy is in the kitchen, I can see her head only over the window ledge and she’s washing the stove top, in her own world created by the space between the earbuds spilling out tunes from her ipod. The washing machine is cycling and humming and draining in harmony to the woop woop of the frogs across the road. It was a great day of creativity. Katie puts down the guitar and proclaims she’s going to make a pot of rice. Then the moon pops out, two days from full and it’s peeking through the knifey mango leaves almost directly over the fire.
Tomorrow I am thinking I’ll go to town, take the early bus at 5:30 in the morning, do some banking in Puriscal, buy more tuna, the smoked variety I had the other night when Joel came through with supplies for the patio extension. Over rice it hits the spot and my mouth waters even now just thinking about it. Kimmy just put on some Norah Jones and she’s humming to it while Katie chops something on the cutting board. Kimmy tells me Joel will be here again tomorrow, bringing my panels for artwork I’ve got planned. Now the dog decides to lick and chew my big toe on the foot I’m using to push my hammock to and fro. It just doesn’t get any richer. Homemade bread is rising on the window ledge too, to be baked fresh in the morning for breakfast with cacao – home made chocolate spread, like we had today at lunch in an avocado skin. Kimmy is such a great cook it’s truly heaven to experience her every next creation. Do you have any idea how mindblowingly delicious the fresh pineapple is here? Norah Jones – “The Nearness of You” is playing now. And it makes me feel saudade for a girl I once knew…hell, I know her still. But she isn’t mine any more. And I spin into a longing for all the people I know, and for the way things were.
So I was craving something on the order of dessert. I found a plantain, perfectly ripe. Heated a pan with a bit of coconut oil in it, enough to deep fry the oval cut plantain slices. While they deep fried I cut some hardened cane sugar from the block it comes in here and put it in a sauce pan with a little butter. I caramelized it, turned the plantain chips over and took the caramel off the heat. I added a little water to make a thick syrup and placed the plantain chips on a paper towel to wick off the excess oil. I grabbed the cinnamon and set it to the side of a fresh plate. I placed the plantain chips in an array around it and drizzled the caramel along the inner ring of the chips. Then I sprinkled cinnamon over the syrup and took it out to the girls. Can I tell you that the crispy sweet tangy flavor blast with spice was orgasmic? You would believe me if you had heard their groans of pleasure. Another chapter in the annals of Sunday the 20th of March, 2011.
The dutch oven black beans are almost done. CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT DELICIOUS MEAL THEY BECOME A PART OF! These are the simple pleasures of what is essentially a camping experience in the jungle of Costa Rica. Am I ever going to go home? I wonder. I wonder…