Tastes of Mozambique

 

September is a beautiful month. The temperature is hot, yet bearable, and days became longer. It’s also when south winds or suladas constantly rise, as if nature had this form of telling us about change. Summer is what lies ahead. The incognita. An exciting incognita, not a stressful one. Thankfully.

 

Before suladas sweep once and for all winter 2009 from my memory, I look back and perceive two main ingredients making it: 1) Very demanding tae bo classes. 2) Experimental cooking.

 

Somehow both are related, since I believe I was pushed into cooking (and eating) because I was afraid I wouldn’t survive the aggressive methods of my new tae teacher.

 

My experimental cooking means trying part of the recipes collected over a set period. In the end, there’s only one or two destined to mark our winter. I was almost getting rid of one of the recipes never tried, when I decided to give it a chance. It seemed impracticable, but at the same time it underlined a nice Mozambican flavour: cashew. So I tried it and the impossible turned into our favourite winter recipe. If you are curious about Mozambican tastes, why don’t you give it a try too?

 

Four Ingredients and Four Steps Cashew Nut Cake

 

250gr of good plain cashew nut
6 to 8 eggs
200 to 250gr of white sugar
½ to 1 tablespoon of good almond essence

 

1. Using any good food processor, reduce the nuts to flour consistency. If necessary, strain it.
2. Beat together egg yolks and sugar until you get a whitish cream. It’s difficult to reach the right consistency manually, but the end result can be good too.
3. Beat the whites until firm, if necessary adding 2 or 3 tablespoons of the sugar.
4. Fold into the yolks mixture: cashew flour, the whites (Softly, please!) and the essence.

 

That’s it. You just have to pour the mix into a well-buttered middle size tin and cook it for about 40 minutes at medium temperature. If you feel like it, you can cover your cake with good melted chocolate. The result is a very light and slightly moist cake, just like this country is.

Obviously…

 

You may or may not wonder about Seabell, The Dancer. The answer is simple: she has not been dancing for a long time. The reason? Her gentle teacher is expecting a baby.

 

You may or may not wonder about Seabell, The Fighter. The answer is not so simple, because she cannot be sure (just suspect) that her enthusiastic tae bo teacher might be expecting too.

 

Meanwhile, Seabell got herself a new tae teacher with a mind set on two things: “Higher! Stronger!” No need to say what his philosophy has done to Seabell throughout winter 2009! It was a bit too much and, except for exhaustion, she is not sure of short or medium term benefits.

 

You may or may not wonder about Seabell, The Quester. She still has her dreams. They never end. But dreams exist inside a larger spectrum called day-to-day reality. That’s why, instead of pursuing adventures, Seabell has sometimes to settle for kitchen and house quests. When she has to deal with other people’s problems, what else can she do other than that?

 

Tieta, Seabell’s chef, is a mother of three and a grandmother of one. She is single but not entirely alone. She is involved in one of those relationships just underlining the playful side of nature. She recently revealed: “I may or may not be pregnant…”

 

The rate world population grows is a serious concern. Not for Seabell’s acquaintances and friends, though. They don’t give a fig about it. Obviously…

Colour Me…

 

The importance of colours in the process of acquiring is usually imperceptible. Though, I had fully conscience of it while I was organizing the armoire where I keep around twenty straw summer baskets and the drawer where boys’ ties sleep for most of the year. Owing to climate and lifestyle, it can be months without one seeing day or night-light. I have to say that ties beat baskets in number and colourfulness. Largely.

 

During this colour awareness period I discovered a sort of quiz in an old magazine under the title: What is your true colour? I never had wondered about my true colour, but I automatically guessed it could be green. In reality, I love blue and black (Don’t we all?), but my safe, comfort colours include green or red (meaning happy mood) and brown or black (usually suiting a more serious me).

 

I followed the steps to find my true colour and got a surprise. It’s really easy: write down your date of birth and add numbers together treating each as a single digit until you arrive at a number between 1 and 9, the same process to discover your “lucky number”.

 

Basically, if you are:

 

9

You are gold, approachable, talented, perfectionist and an expert in hiding your true emotions…

 

7

Your colour is violet and you are creative, drawn to feel that you don’t fit – especially when your creativity is suppressed. (Diver Andy)

 

6

Indigo is deep, mysterious, optimistic and equipped with a finely tuned sixth sense.

 

5

Blue means maternal, caring, imaginative, stubborn and communicative.

 

4

If you are green, you like company but need to escape when feeling trapped. You believe in order and like to plan ahead. You cling to emotions and possessions. (Diver Ti)

 

3

Yellow is fun, acidly witty and meticulous. A reader and potential writer or journalist.

 

2

Orange people are sociable and relaxed, although you know when to take things seriously and people can find you difficult to deal with. When you feel down, food becomes your emotional crutch. (Diver Paul and Chanda)

 

1

Like your colour red, you are passionate and want to experience everything new, but have a relatively short attention span. You are direct and honest. Bottling up your emotions leaves you prone to illness. (Diver JP)

 

8

Finally, my number and colour: rose. Besides the surprise of being sort of pink, I wasn’t surprised at all with my main trace being “the perfect hostess”. But what really impressed me was the following passage: “Rose people often move away from where they were born and, although they may go back to visit, never live there again. In fact, you believe everyone is connected on same level. You prefer to let others take the limelight, even when it really belongs to you…”

 

That’s it about my true colour. I also liked (suspecting that it’s not far from the truth) the duality of changing from patient and understanding to “erupt like a volcano”. But really impressive is the distance thing. If I tell that I was born in a place where I stayed for about one month and left to never return, even if I was pretty close for a couple of occasions, you might understand why I picked this subject. So, if you have to, colour me… rose.

They Do It For You

 

Long ago the public sector recognized its incapacity of maintaining transport services suitable to the needs of a fast growing population. The private sector took charge and, as it always happens, it was chaos. In recent years, an effort was made to organize those services, but some aspects remain untouchable.

 

The 12 to 16 seats mini-busses used until now (they are supposed to be substituted by 25 seats busses, over the next months) have been doing an undeniable public service. Considering costs of maintenance and spare parts, I don’t believe any bus owner got rich or even closer. So I ask myself: 1) Why taxing a service supposed to ease the lives of poor working people? 2) Why keeping on the streets corrupt police officers who are not there to guarantee safety or legality but their own interests? 3) Why not restrict licences to current needs and ask for a very reasonable amount, almost symbolic, once we are talking of a public service?

 

People are not happy with some measures being taken. For the first time I’ve been overhearing very critical comments on the streets. Shops, whose owners don’t have schemes other than shops, have to close doors when the fiscal appears just because they don’t make enough money to pay the tax or the bribe. Years ago they had money to pay the bribe, at least. In such a poor country, with such a volatile small market, isn’t someone asking too much from who has so little?