El Gringoqueño

All a man needs out of life is a place to sit ‘n’ spit in the fire.

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First Look at Project Coffee 2009

November 19, 2009 /

Here is my humble drum roaster for roasting coffee.  It’s a steel can that I re-purposed by cutting, shaping, drilling, and riveting.  It’s ugly, but I can say it works.  Check out my coffee below.
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In order to calibrate my roast, I put 2 and a half cups of fresh café oro (green unroasted coffee) and set the clock for 20 minutes at more or less 450 to 500 degrees F. There was furious cracking at the end of the time, and I quickly extracted the beans and cooled them by tossing them between two metal colanders. This also removes the chaff, which is a thin skin that surrounds the bean and flakes off during roasting. Usually, I don’t like my coffee so dark,  but surprisingly it was delicious, full bodied, fresh, with a hint of smokiness.  I expected it to be burnt tasting, but it was fabulous black, smooth, flavorful.

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The next batch, I put in just 2 cups of café oro and set it for 17 minutes.  By color alone, this batch came out more like what you find in the supermarket, a nice medium brown roast. Again, I cooled it, removed the chaff, and ground that sucker up to brew. This one tasted different. I’m no expert in all the adjectives, but it seemed like I could taste more of the coffee bean this time and less of the roast. The flavor was fuller but still smooth and drinkable. There was no hint of smokiness. It was equally fabulous, but different.

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Side by side comparison of the color.

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Next batch, I’m going for 18 and a half minutes.

Upcoming – next post on how the coffee cherry tea came out.

Being Handled by My Daughter

November 9, 2009 /

All the kids are in nine million different after school activities, and as per our lot in life, Laura and I get to drive them all over God’s creation at all hours of the day.  Recently, Olaia, auditioned for a local production of the opera La Boheme.  Awesome, she made it.  It’s an honor, and our talented little singing girl is excited beyond measure.  But – the rehearsals are murder.  Tonight for example, she has a rehearsal from 6:30pm to 10pm.

“Olaia, do you know we’ve made 4 round trips to Santurce today?  Twice for Jaimito and now twice for you,” I complained.

“Daddy, you and mommy are like Miracle Max and his wife – making miracles.”

I laughed, ’cause that little girl knows how to tickle my funny bone.  She knows I’m weak for Princess Bride quotes and uses that knowledge to her advantage.

“Hello,” she said next, “my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

“That’s funny, Olaia.” And I launched verbatim into the battle of wits and other snippets.  Suddenly I forgot that two hours of my day had been spent as a bus driver.  I was just hanging with my wise and funny little girl.  I am one lucky daddy!

Boo-boo-bacca and the Sloppy Joe

September 25, 2009 /

“Hey Asier, say Chewbacca.”

“Boo-boo-bacca.”

That’s been our running joke for the past couple of days.  Asier is little Mr. Boo-boo-bacca boy.

That reminds me; a couple of months ago, Olaia said to me, “Hey Daddy, there’s that one store – the store with that sloppy joe chair.”

“The what, Olaia?  Sloppy Joe?”

“You know, that chair that goes back and is comfy.”

“Oh, you mean the La-z-boy chair.”

“Yeah, you know what I meant.”

Haha, it’s been a few months but every time we see a La-z-boy recliner or anything that resembles one, we all say in loud voices, “Hey Olaia, look, there’s a Sloppy Joe chair.”

Good times were had by all.  My family never ceases to crack me up.

Javier’s First Days of School

August 25, 2009 /

Javier Ignacio just started pre-kinder, or “school” as he calls it.  What will those kids think up next, huh?  He has been so excited to attend school like his siblings.   On his first day, he asked for his lunchbox, his lonchera, and I had to tell him that it was only to be a half-day.  No lunch.

“Why, Daddy, I want my lunchbox!”  And he cried and wailed.  He was so excited to pack a lunch and head off to school.

“Javier, you’re only going to be there for a half day.  There’s no lunch.  You’ll have lunch when you get home.”

And Javier was despondent, thoroughly dejected and disillusioned.  Poor little munchkin.

“Javier,” said Laura coming to the rescue, “why don’t we pack you a snack in your lonchera.  You can take an apple, a snack bar, and some juice.  Does that sound good?”

Javier cheered right up and all was right with the world.

His first day was a success.  Javier was just like Jaimito, ready to learn, ready to be in SCHOOL!  But the next day, due to the swine flu and a staggered schedule, he didn’t have school.

“Why?!  I want to go to school.  Why does Jaimito get to go to school?!”  And Javier cried, for the world was not fair and just.

Here they are heading out on day one.  Jaimito didn’t have school on that first day due to a staggered start schedule.

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Don’t confuse squinting in morning tropical sun for frowning… at least I don’t think they were frowning.

After an uneven start, the next few days were uneventful, except for Javier’s excessive requirement for sleep. This little boy would come home so happy, so thrilled, so excited, so tired, he started falling asleep at 6pm and waking up at 6am the following morning.   But on days, he was deprived of his sleep, his tired yet still passionate brain would complain:  “I don’t want to go to school.”  And he cried,  “Daddy, how do you make the world end?”

“Huh, like end how?”

“End. I want the world to end.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to go to school.”

“Oh, who’s my little evil super villain in training?  Shall I get you a monocle and a Persian cat?”

“What, Daddy?”

We teased him and made fun of his overly dramatic attempts to ditch.  He seems to be over it, but Javier, as it turns out, is not a morning person.  For the past two days I’ve been forced to awakened my little sleeping super villain with whispers of strawberries, his favorite fruit.

“Javier, it’s time to get up for school.”

“I don’t wanna,” and he curled up in his blanket turning away from me hoping I’d go away.

“Javier, Daddy has strawberries.  Would you like some strawberries on your cereal?”

“Uh huh.” And he got up in a flash.  He got up for strawberries.

The next day it was strawberries and pancakes.  “Javier, I have pancakes with strawberries and syrup.  Yum.  Doesn’t that sound good?”

“Yeah, Daddy.”  And he bounced right up.  Cute.

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We seem to have gotten past the whole destroy the world to avoid school scheme.  Whew!  That was a close one.

Health Care Reform

August 6, 2009 /

With all the wailing and gnashing of teeth concerning health care reform, I don’t know why we just don’t start with something simple.  It is simple, people.  Fix what’s broken.  We do not have to over-complicate this.  Proponents of reform have been testifying mightily about the insurance industry’s agent provocateurs at town hall meetings, their paid ads denouncing choice, and their furious lobbying to crush health care reform.

I have a solution, though, something they would hate, and something they would not be able to combat. The public would love it, because in it, everyone could see themselves.  Everyone could see that there but for the grace of God, go I.

All it would take to start would be one law – one little stinking law.  And there is precedent for this type of law, the kind of law that says, if you want access to this market you can’t discriminate.

Have a store on Mainstreet?  You can’t refuse business to someone because of the color of their skin.  It’s my store, you say.  I can do what I damn well please.  If I don’t want to serve a certain type of person, it is my right.  It’s my store.

A-ha, I say, it’s not exactly your store.  You paid money for it, yes, a pecuniary outlay to build your establishment, but there are other costs too, costs paid by this town.  The town maintains the road that goes in front of your store, the cables that bring electricity, communications, the water treatment plant and distribution system that brings it to your faucet.  We the people have to look at your establishment in our society, in our town, on our Mainstreet, and we have to ask ourselves:  Are we better off for allowing this space to be used by you?  If you don’t let black people in your store, then we will revoke your right to do business here.

We won’t shoulder the cost of your discrimination.  It is too high.

Ownership is a lie.  Operating a business is an implied social contract with certain responsibilities, duties, and burdens.

So, here’s what I propose:  Pass a law making it illegal to deny coverage or raise rates based on a pre-existing condition.

The commons, this commons that we call the US, is the platform upon which business operates.  We the people own the platform, and given some basic rules, we allow people to operate businesses upon that infrastructure.

It has been said that people do not have a “right” to health care.  I counter that corporations and businesses do not have a right to yield infinite profits at the expense of the margins.  If you do business in this fair land of ours, there are certain liabilities, responsibilities that you must shoulder.  There are going to be very sick people among us.  Those very sick people deserve the protection of a just society.  They deserve to be subsidized by those that never get a runny nose.  They deserve to be subsidized by the stock holders of the insurance companies, and the great mass of caring and decent people within our borders.

“It sucks to be you.” Is not an acceptable response to the unfortunate circumstances of a cronic, debilitating, or otherwise serious and incurable medical condition.

If it’s illegal to deny coverage or raise rates based on pre-existing conditions, I think it goes a long way to delivering justice to those burdened unfairly by a simple and cruel twist of fate.  Let’s look after our sick, shall we?  Let’s ease their suffering and we can start with a very simple and easy to understand piece of legislation.

Suffering from a acute case of Not-Stupid

August 3, 2009 /

SAN FRANCISCO – An American linguistics student traveling in northern Iraq didn’t go on an ill-fated hiking trip because he had a cold — a twist of fate that prevented him from mistakenly wandering into Iran where his three friends were reportedly detained.

“Dude, we’re going to hike into the northern territory today – see if we can fuck with the border guards.”

“Um, I’m not feeling so well.  You guys go ahead without me.”

“Whatever – It’s gonna be a blast, pussy.  You can be lame if you want.  Cya.  Let’s roll.”

I think what he was really suffering from was an acute case of Not-Stupid.

On the Death of Journey Sentences

July 28, 2009 /

This has been sitting in my drafts folder for over two years (Feb 19, 2006) – time to publish, I say!

You’ve all read them; they are what I like to term, “Journey Sentences.”  They are the typical sentences from the earlier part of the 20th Century and before. Most them would start out like the following:

Having all the deftness of a barnacled fishing trawler and half the wit of a common ordinary housefly, which is to say, not a lot, and wishing to keep up appearances so that should a potential suitor ever be quite so oblivious to said traits and stumble or perhaps bumble might trip and land with such a thud as to cause an impression upon the earth from which his posterior might never escape, Grace quietly nibbled on her egg salad sandwich.

Hah! that was a hoot.  Look, I don’t even know if that was grammatically correct or whatever, and frankly, I’m not going to go back find out.  You get the point.  But ahh, the journey sentence, the sentence which begins and ends you know not where.  Half the fun was the journey and the folly.  Might you reread the sentence, absorb its richness for clever clues as to vistas one might find along the windy path.  Lovely.

Who has time for that?

In today’s society with its fast pace and ruthless efficiency, we have no time for journeys.  Where are we going?  We ask.  Tell me now, dammit!  I don’t have time for your foppery, your magic journeys of butterflies and candy coated magical literary foreplay.

Let’s just get to it, shall we?

Perhaps this style of prose had its place long ago when the well-placed and small gentry of leisure had more time on their hands. Reading was idle time, time for relaxation.

Then: They wrote these crazy mad sentences.
Now: We watch people eating bugs.

Or maybe the world was so arbitrary and ruthless that literature just reflected what was familiar.  Whether rich or poor, you or your kids/wife/husband might be dead in a week from some fever, infection, or God’s will.  You didn’t know where it was going or when it might end, so you needed to be vigilant in all moments.  Literature might have reflected the capricious nature of life.  Meandering verbiage reflected what was known of the world and our control over it, which is to say, not much and very little.

I note with amusement that Spanish speaking people still have a tendency to write this way in English as they do in Spanish.  There is a taste to the words, something intrinsic to them that renders them uniquely  important not just as constructs of a sentence.  Their order, the languid pace, the setup, the tendril-like clauses that reach out in all directions pushing and pulling and twisting all feel like some kind of full sensual body massage of prose.

Is it a Catholic centric culture that shows less willingness to own the future?  It is not my place, I might say.  I am but a conduit.  The journey is what it is, to endure, to accept the way as it unfolds according to God’s plan.  Should it transpire too quickly, all enjoyment, all suffering, and by default all Grace is lost.

I’m not sure I buy it myself, but it does explain a lot.

The Sage Does Not Exact His Due

July 23, 2009 /

Today’s quote spoke to me.

After a bitter quarrel, some resentment must remain. What can one do about it? Therefore the sage keeps his half of the bargain But does not exact his due. A man of Virtue performs his part, But a man without Virtue requires others to fulfill their obligations. The Tao of heaven is impartial. It stays with good men all the time.

I did some work for a guy (a collections agency of all things), and he stiffed me.   I had known him from the business community, Chamber of Commerce, a church group of all places, and our general neighborhood zone.  We bumped into each other from time to time.  I had attempted to get him to pay me for some time, but my emails and phone calls went unanswered.  I’d see him here and there and make it a point to talk to him, but he always managed to slip away.  I knew that his business was struggling, but damnit, I was struggling too, and I had wasted my time helping him out.  He needed to talk to me, make a payment plan, something, I thought.

It was in that mindset that I ran into him at his church one day.  “Hey J,” I said, “How’s it going?” And I clasped his hand firmly.  Very firmly.

“Hey! Let go of me,” he whined.

“J, you owe me some money.  You know that right?  You’ve not paid me a dime.  Not one dime. Never.  I did work for you and you won’t even talk to me.”

“Hey, let go of me.”

“You know, J, it’s awkward.  We travel in the same circles.   We can’t help but run into each other, talk to the same people.  You know that right?  I need you to pay me something, J.”

And he pulled his hand away.  He was obviously stressed out and nervous at this point.  He turned tail and fled, disappearing into his meeting room where he was on his church council.  Oh the irony, I thought.  I did feel bad however.  I may look like a big tall American asshole, but I’m a softy, and I felt bad for putting on the spot like that.  Fuck it, I thought.  Son of a bitch owes me money, least he can do is say he’s sorry and try to make it up.  I’m not the one who stiffed him.  He called me, I showed up, slaved over his network issues, went to meetings for him at the drop of a hat – everything he asked.  The fees were also discussed up front, so there should have been no surprise.  Asshole.  And my pity faded quickly – aw, who am I kidding.  I thought that he probably felt like shit that night, worried that I would tell everybody I knew what a creep he was.  Poor guy, I thought.

About a month later, I get a nice email from him saying that he has been trying to put things right with his creditors, that he wants to make it right with me, that he feels bad for not being able to pay, that things have been tough.  He wanted to know what sort of payment plan I would be willing to accept.  I said three payments of $750 should do it.  I could spread them out over quarters, if he wanted.

He agreed and I resubmitted my invoice for the initial payment.  It took him a while, but I eventually got a check along with a nice note wishing me and my family a Merry Christmas, that he was sorry for the almost two year delay, and that he hoped this began to mend the business relationship.

That’s nice, I thought, but I’m not writing shit back until this thing clears.  Hah, I’m such a cynic, no?

So, to finish up, I deposited the check, it cleared, I wrote him back thanking him and saying no hard feelings, that I’m cool, and that I’d do business with him again (a lie, but I didn’t want him to think I would be badmouthing him).  His worst fear, I’m sure, was that I would be spreading the gossip of our problem to others in the community.  I wanted him to know that he had nothing to fear from me at that point.  J, you’re off the hook.

And I never submitted the other two invoices.  I don’t know why.  Maybe I wanted to be righteous, maybe I wanted the upper hand, maybe I wanted to be magnanimous.  Maybe I just felt bad for him and figured I was better to be done with it.  I got some money out of it and the poor man had suffered enough.  I’m a softy.  Don’t tell anyone.  I had never considered that I was a sage*, though.  That’s cool, I very much like that.

*Laura says I am not a sage.  Okay, can I be a little itty bitty sage?  Is that all right with you, hon?

This Morning’s Pancakes

July 18, 2009 /

These beauties were made in the style of Mandela and generously topped with strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries, and finished with Cool Whip and maple syrup.  Yum yum.  Anybody that went to college with me has had these and knows how good they are.

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Mandela Pancakes

July 16, 2009 /

When I finished reading Nelson Mandela’s memoir, there were many things that stuck with me.  One detail in particular, rattling around in the back of my mind, was the Xhosa tradition of leaving milk in the sun to sour it.  Apparently this makes it easier to digest for those that have mild lactose intolerance and is common practice for the Xhosa people.

Mandela related a specific incident involving this spoiled milk while on the run from authorities.  He was staying in a safe house in a white area, and without thinking, put some milk on a windowsill to sour.  A couple of laborers noticed it and remarked, “Why would a white man put milk in the windowsill?  We are the only ones that do that.”  Nelson was spooked by his near discovery and left for a new hiding place that very night.  Interesting, I thought, and yucky.  But, I mused, sour milk is absolutely perfect in baking, cakes and… pancakes.

“Yes, pancakes,” I said, “I resolve to make Mandela Pancakes.  I will call them Mandela Pancakes, and I will sing an African Folk song while I make them.  Nel-son  Man-del-a, Nel-son Man-del-a. ”

Yesterday, I zipped out on my bicycle to fetch a small carton of whole milk for the purpose of spoiling it.  I left it out the entire day in the hot Caribbean sun, the sides bulging as gases pressed on the waxy cardboard container.  I picked it up several times to check it, shaking it for good measure and when the night arrived,  I opened it and took a whiff.  It was there, yes it was, that faint sweet acrid smell of spoiled milk.  Aha!  Tomorrow, we shall have Mandela Pancakes, and they will be delicious.  “Nel-son Man-del-a, Nel-son Man-del-a,” I sang, and the kids laughed.  I then told the story of how he was almost caught because of his soured milk.

Who knew the things one can learn from a man on another continent?  And it is suggested to me that these things we learn, the serendipitous delights of interconnected knowledge, are made possible by diversity, by embracing the pluralism we find everywhere.  And the pancakes?  They were delicious.

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