Empanadas are Beautiful

My discomfort in my withdrawal from technology is matched by an increasing awareness and appreciation of simple pleasures, like eating bread. Forget about Netflix and iPods, give me a glutinous piece of heaven to eat and a grazing cow to watch and I´m satisfied – a happy stomach and good company.

In fact, I´ve grown particularly fond of a certain variety of bread called empanadas. An empanada is basically bread that was folded over before it was baked, with a little bonus in its center. This bonus is often cheese or a sweet of some sort, but my favorite is an empanada con queso y cebolla (with cheese and onion). This seemingly odd combination of flavors is a gastronomic perfection of astronomic proportions, especially when the top of the empanada is decorated with little sugar crystals. I would argue that it´s a super food, on the level of peanut butter or quinoa. But this view might becontroversial since most bread dough here is made with loads of pork grease. I learned this when I mixed dough for Rafael´s mother when she was teaching me how to use her clay oven. She poured quite a bit of the old H1N1 juice in there. In general the experience was really great (hope to write about it next time I bake bread with her), but it did leave me wondering if there is any vegetarian bread in Ecuador. It also made me realize why the empanada dissolves so wonderfully in your mouth, yes, just as the sugar crystals begin to hit your taste buds. For those of you in Brooklyn, when you think empanada con queso y cebolla, think lard bread from that little bakery window (in Carroll Gardens?) – it approaches that level of indulgence.

A plain piece of bread costs about $0.10 or $0.15, but because empanadas con queso y cebolla have some value-added goodness, they generally run $0.25 or $0.30 each. I allow myself to enjoy one every few days. With considerations for my budget, my health, and my overall self-esteem I´ve determined this rate of empanadaconsumption to be acceptable.

Simple pleasures are important. A steaming cup of coffee on a chilly morning is a beautiful thing. So is putting on a crisp, clean shirt that you washed by hand and dried via that very basic solar technology, sunlight. Have you watched a cow graze recently? They´re incredible! There´s a young boy who lives across the street who I always hear playing his recorder as he walks home from school every afternoon, totally engrossed in his music making. It´s popular to go for walks (dar una vuelta). The aim is not to exercise or to do errands but to see what you see and to welcome a simple pleasure – maybe you´ll bump into a friend. These are random ephemera that I´ve just begun to notice, primarily because they are not hidden by electrical gadgets that would distract me and keep me from being present to my surroundings. There are so many beautifully mundane things to notice!

To lead simple lives, it seems, is to give ourselves opportunities to be aware of and appreciate our most basic and arguably our most important connections to the people around us and to our landscape. And as much as I had been seeking a simple lifestyle in the States, technology is ever-present and addictive. It needs to be put in its proper place. Ecuador is forcing me to do that, and I´m grateful.

So, come watch a cow graze. We´ll eat some empanadas.

Bees and a bit of Beston

A lot of hurry-up-and-wait at the moment, but I think it’s normal at this early stage of service. I’m waiting to hear from a couple of community presidents to see if I can start working with them. There’s a good chance I’ll meet with the president of Recinto de Pasachoa on Saturday. That community is pretty rural, and apparently some folks up there speak Quichua, which is exciting!

Yesterday, I had my first encounter with a bee colony here in Ecuador. My counterpart Rafael keeps several hives around Amaguaña, and he took me out to visit one in Cachaco. Last year when I had attended a workshop on beekeeping at the Pfeiffer Center in New York, we didn’t use any protective gear, so I was surprised when Rafael put on his jumpsuit, head net, and gloves when we went out to his hive. Apparently, most of the colonies around here are a mix of African and American bee species. The African bees produce a lot more honey, but they also tend to be more aggressive and defensive. So after tucking in my shirt and donning a head net, we were ready to head over to the colony.

It was a nice, hot day, so the bees were fairly active. They’ve been struggling a lot this rainy season, apparently, so it was great to see them so energetic. After setting up behind the hive, Rafael used a smoker (basically a tin can with a small, smoky fire in it) to calm the bees and warn them we were coming in. He then showed me the inside of the hive, which bees were which (drones and workers… didn’t see the queen), which cells were being used for what (eggs, honey storage, pollen storage), and things of that sort. After going through and checking the status of the hive, we closed her up and headed out. And nobody got stung.

The folks in Recinto de Pasachoa work with bees a fair amount, so there’s a good chance I’ll be working on a project that in some way involves bees. Vino de miel – or honey wine – also known as meade could be a cool value added product. Well, little by little Rafael is going to train me how to inspect a hive and all that, so I’m really excited. I’d definitely like to take some more workshops at the Pfeiffer Center in apiculture and have a few colonies when I get back to the States.

Que mas?

A little personal project I have for my PC service is to read/study a book called American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, edited by Bill McKibben. It’s a great compilation of excepts and essays by American nature writers, including my favorite, Wendell Berry. I recently read a piece by Henry Beston out of his book The Outermost House. After being asked by some friends what he got out of an experience of living in a cottage by the ocean in solitude for a year, he wrote,

I would answer that one’s first appreciation is a sense that the creation is still going on, that the creative forces are as great and as active today as they have ever been, and that tomorrow’s morning will be as heroic as any of the world. Creation is here and now. So near is man to the creative pageant, so much a part is he of the endless and incredible experiment, that any glimpse he may have will be but the revelation of a moment, a solitary note heard in a symphony thundering through debatable existences of time. Poetry is as necessary to comprehension as science. It is as impossible to live without reverence as it is without joy.



I hope all is well Stateside!