That simple notion in it's simplest form is of course, yes. But in my particular notion I simply mean if I am fortunate enough to be in Brazil, I ought to be considerate enough to say "yes" to any invitation extended in my direction.
Now hold up, you! I don't mean any invitation, obviously. I have the right to use personal discretion. But ones that might appear to be "less than ideal" upon initial proposal most often contain hidden gems.
Therefore, when Paul asked me if I wanted to assist him in assisting a chef in editing/creating/cooking a Mexican food menu to be offered on Saturdays at a local country club, I said "yes." He said it was unpaid. I said "So what? Sounds like fun!" And away we went.
Paul and I walked to the bus depot, he found our bus and and we waited on the sidewalk.
After about 2 minutes the bus driver came shuffling by, took his seat, and we boarded. Just me and Paul. And the cashier at the turn-style. And the driver.
It was like a chauffeured party bus without music where we just sat the whole time, on opposite sides of the same row. It was awesome.
We walked into the club, which is located on an island in the lagoon in the middle of Rio de Janeiro. Paul got us in after a friendly greeting with the front security guy, whom he knew by name. We then found Marco Lido, the head of the kitchen, and they discussed the menu. Paul's Portuguese is incredible. The entire day not a word of English was spoken except between us. Full immersion, baby!
In this discussion some of the more vague details of the arrangement were defined and we found out this project was going to be slightly more hands on than we had anticipated. But we came prepared, knowing that this very well might be the outcome.
So after the brief-but-inevitable, "Oh shit, what did we get ourselves into?!" moment, we regrouped, unpacked our knives and started prepping veggies. It seemed to calm us down; zone us in. And like when starting a painting, or an essay, or a blog, just getting that first stroke on the canvas begins to unleash the process of creation. Then things get cooking. (Please, don't pardon the pun. It was cheesy. Like a quesadilla.)
We figured pico de gallo was the place to start. A truly Mexican condiment, straigt-forward in it's construction, it would go well with everything, and at the very least provide a garnish of authenticity. And so it did. Not that he knew any better, but Marco was impressed. We were rewarded with more work.
The reason we were there in the first place was that Paul was doing a favor for an expat entrepreneur named Gary who moved from California to Brazil some years back and became the country's leading producer of corn and flour tortillas and tortilla chips (called Garytos - hahaha - get it? Gary+Doritos... which I didn't piece together until I saw my pictures). His company is very successful and has obvious interests in the further introduction of this exotic cuisine to the Brazilian public. And since Paul and I happen to be the two guys from closest to Mexico that he knows in town, and we both appreciate eating and cooking the food, and we were willing to work for free, we got the gig.
As we chopped and sliced and squeezed and tossed and tasted and seasoned we talked about how working for free took MAJOR pressure off of our shoulders - from both outside and inside forces. It allowed us to have fun. It was an adventure, an honor, to be two gringos in street clothes called into the trenches of prep and cooking. We also realized that nobody there really knew what Mexican food was supposed to taste like, so as we wrangled toward traditional as best as we could we really had creative freedom to work with what we had. In an awesome kitchen - big, spacious, clean - with the big kid tools.
No comments:
Post a Comment