Stories

RUNNING CIRCLES AROUND HAITIAN SALT FLATS

12/3/2016

I expected dust to cloud my ankles as my green-strapped Chaco sandal hit the ground. But nothing moved. The dirt was harder than I had imagined.
Cemented in time.
Stories in stone.

Three little boys ran toward our vehicle, encircling us, jabbering in Creole. The only member of our ten-person team that spoke any semblance of French, long-forgotten words spilled off my lips. Three faces twisted up to meet ours then launched toward the ground - belly-aching over in an explosion of laughter. Their eyes sparkled brighter than the crystals of salt piled high in the dirt behind them. To my surprise, they grabbed my arm and yanked me across the arid landscape.

I considered a tree's roots pulling everything it needs from the ground it touched as I watched their six feet, bare and calloused, energized by the earth below them.

They led us away from the corrogated metal and cinder block buildings they called home, across an intrepid little bridge. Humble hands had nailed irregular bits of nature together. Powerful bodies crossed them daily.

A walk to the flats. A walk home. A walk to the flats.
A walk home. A walk to the flats.
A walk home.

Suddenly the firmly-packed dirt turned electric white. I squinted on cue and glued a hand to my forehead. Admiring the craftsmanship of the handmade depressions, I imagined trying to jam a shovel into this rugged terrain under this beating sun. I looked further and found a single plastic lawn chair in the water. A woman. A bucket. A basket. The hot sun quickly evicted any liquid tenants. White sedimentary lines cracked across black bodies.

I was thirsty, and the heaps of salt policing the edges of each pit taunted me. I attempted a few questions in a hobbled-together blend of English, French, and Haitian Creole. She amused me with a response in her native tongue, in which I caught disconnected bits of her process.

She knew I didn't fully understand.

I thanked her just the same.

My head swivled back to find my friends far ahead with a tall man who I hadn't noticed before. In the other direction, Tommy was frozen in position, capturing the boys crossing that bridge over and over, to their amusement. We hustled to catch up, then crawled to a stop after ducking under heavy foliage that welcomed us to the seaside mangroves. The thick muck jailing our feet was an opposing juxtaposition to the dry salt flats not fifty feet behind. As the man attempted to tell stories of trees that revived villages, three fishermen jumped and screamed and shouted and rocked the boat until we acknowledged their presence - or rather, they acknowledged ours - and we sent friendly waves across murky waters.

I felt another little hand slip into my fingers on my left side. Between the two, I was grounded and at peace in a foreign land. A balance scale at equilibrium, weighing both our differences and our similarities. Thankful for naive trust and irresponsible friendship. Humbled by the immediate assumption that I was safe to them
- and them to me.

"Est-ce que vous etes prêts?!" We all smiled coyly at each other out of the sides of our eyes before attempting the overzealous leap across a tributary. One, two, three sets of legs safely across. The fourth - attached to my right hand as it trailed behind me in mid-air - got one foot on the other side before sliding backward and splashing directly into the grey liquid below. This brought his friends a week's worth of joy. I reached out a hand. He refused. He climbed up on his own and held his arms in the air until we cheered for him.

We all give and take energies from this earth - whether shoeless in the dirt, or sneaker-clad in the streets.

The farther I venture, the more I'm reminded to occasionally stand with my bare feet on the ground, sending my energy back in.

_________________

Take a trip with Onwards Travel, an incredible nonprofit that's harnessing the power of micro-enterprise development and sustainable travel to fight poverty.

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NIGHTFALL on the world's most densely populated island

11/23/2016

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Santa Cruz del Islote.
Three square miles.
Nearly 1,300 people.

Sunburned and desperate, I dumped crystallized shards of instant coffee into a half-filled plastic water bottle from the night before. I left it sloshing on the wooden dock to warm in the early morning sun. I waited an hour. Its vanilla sweetness stuck to the back of my teeth as I lifted the black liquid to my lips - spilling it down the front of my shirt as our motor boat lurched into the air with every crunching wave. Fifty miles and two hours later, we arrived at the very point we aimed to find in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. An inconspicuous dot of land - every inch covered by multicolored cinderblock structures; each one bursting with stories. We befriended two young men. Eddie - lanky, his shoulders hunched forward in a permanent state of leisure - held me steady as I stepped onto the island on which he'd spent every day of his life. Leo - tall, bald, and spritely - sprang out of the boat behind me, pulling my wide-eyed best friend along with him.

The minimal surface area on Islote - combined with a tight-knit community of lifetime residents - meant that a nimble game of Follow the Leader was in order. Eddie's wild knots of hair, wind-blown from days at sea, remained my guide as we snaked through the narrow alleyways. Some points forced us into peoples' homes to get through. A kind-hearted woman in a crimson t-shirt and multi-colored sarong laughed as she exclaimed something about my baking cakes in her outdoor galley kitchen. Her children stared and in their confusion surrounding our presence, did not return my smile. Men chanted "princesa" if we made eye contact. Eddie wasted no time in punching his brothers' biceps, smirking, rolling his eyes, and apologizing. Bold flashes of primary colors bounced off our skin as Tom and Jerry flooded the television screens in each living room. We slipped past one home after another, finally arriving in the 'town square'.

One building served as King of Islote. It was their church. Their school. Their hospital (open on occasion). Their library. Their soccer field. The men took great pride in showing off a cock fighting ring - by far, the most elegant structure on the island. We visited the 'aquarium': nets in the ocean where fishermen kept live sea turtles, lobsters, and octopuses to sell to neighboring islands for a better price. Two children screamed with delight as they tried to catch the largest turtle. We gathered around the island's sole telephone as our walk concluded.

Through broken Spanish and English, we agreed we'd like to share a beer while night fell. We walked a few feet to an old man's home where a single large window exposed batteries, toilet paper, chips, and other necessities. Eddie retrieved four Aguilas which went down quickly as darkness overtook the island. Four pairs of bare feet slipped back into the thin boat. As we bobbed over to a nearby island where our hammocks were currently swinging to the beat of an incoming storm, Islote's lights twinkled against the ripples of the dark Caribbean waters. Suddenly, the humble horizon flickered and then went completely black.

"Solar," Eddie muttered. And he steered us home.

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FACES OF MEZCAL

11/7/2016

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The mirrored blade of a paring knife etched its way down the curves of a lime green nopale.
Smoke billowed from the pineapple rinds on the open gas range.
The odor of burnt sugar forced tears from every eye in the kitchen.
I sipped my mezcal.

Tasting notes on mezcal fill the entire spectrum - offering up sweet, spicy, floral, fatty, herbal, nutty, grassy, and vegetal profiles. By preserving the diversity of agave species, the variety of farmland, and the families' traditional methods of distilling, the same final product transitions from a very crisp spirit with a short, clean finish, to a rich mouthful, ripe with complex flavors. The possibilities for pairings are truly limitless. So, when Greg Buda - a talented photographer and the Director of Education behind New York City's world-class cocktail bars Dead Rabbit and BlackTail - asked me to develop desserts that would showcase the breadth of mezcal's flavors, I jumped at the opportunity.

We landed on a playful dessert pairing menu that both complemented and contrasted with the mezcals being poured that night. We pulled inspiration from local produce - sourcing fresh cactus pads, tomatillos, pineapples, and pepitas, and creating a fruity twist on the traditional salsas from the region. We happily changed our plating set-up as the massive Iberico ham - specially flown in for the occasion - took up much more bar space than anticipated. Guests flooded the second floor parlor bar to get a close look at Greg's photographs from his trip to Oaxaca, each capturing the essence of the people, tools, and land used to transform agave into a valuable global export and well-preserved taste of Mexican culture.

Halfway through the evening - as Del Maguey founder Don Cooper etched words and pictures across small clay copitas with a Sharpie - his laughter drew everyone in around the bar. The packed room raised our mezcal overhead, and toasted "¡Stigibeau!" to the farmers of Oaxaca who dedicate their lives to the craft
of such a beautiful spirit.

All photos courtesy of Del Maguey Mezcal & Gregory J Buda. Follow his work at budaphotography.com.

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UNA FIESTA PARA TRUMP

11/6/2016

Because Trump is nothing more than a suit and bad cotton candy hair.

Because when your British friend special orders a custom Trump piñata on his trip to Mexico,
pays the $300 to ship it to NYC,
raises a bunch of money through a crowdfunding campaign,
then donates that money to an immigrant advocacy group -
you party really hard.

Because foreigners with no voting rights needed to speak so aggressively that they broke through two broomsticks.

And because if Trump was a cake flavor, he'd still be orange.

We feasted, because AMERICA.

#politicakes #makeamericacakeagain #drumpf

Huge thanks to Ed Stocker for making this brilliant thing happen.