Earthly Delights

Guest Posting: If You Are Ever in Santa Marta...

"Clementine," as she is sometimes known, writes this from Colombia. Delish! Please visit her weblog, Luna Tells All. Tell her I sent ya. --Wendy

We spent much of our time in the north coast of Colombia running from the large crowds of Colombian tourists and hiding in out of the way beaches, shacks, and cliffs. These places offered seafood harvested on a small scale, so fresh that it still carried with it the life of the ocean. In Playa Blanca we frequented Hugo's small thatch shack, where he lifted the lid of his cooler to show us the day´s catch on ice. We chose the fish we wanted, bargained a price for four served fried (head and all) with rice, patacones, and a salad of tomato and onion. We then relaxed under a little shade tent on a white sand beach, the carribean blue stretching before us as we sipped beer incredibly cold for such a hot place with little to no electricity, and waited to be called to the table nestled a few steps from the beach in the shade of a palm tree.

In Playa Granate we camped high on a cliff above the ocean with Limber, an old Colombian black man who took a liking to me and talked my ear off though I could only understand about 60% of his rapid coastal spanish. He walked to the neighboring beach where the men pull in their nets to sell in the nearby city of Santa Marta, and picked 10 fish for a feast. When I asked him how I could help, he said "la ensalada, amiga" and I did my best to reproduce a Colombian salad of beets, boiled, then diced with chunked tomatoes, and thinly sliced onions dressed with a heavy dose of lemon and vinegar, and a small dose of oil and salt. He then taught me how to make patacones: cut green platanoes into twos or threes, then plop them into a vat of oil for a moment. Remove them to drain on paper bags or towels, and prepare to squish. Place one on a plastic bag, fold the plastic over the top, and then squish it with a cutting board. Drop the flat guy back into the oil and fry until slightly crispy. They make these in Ecuador, too, but they don't usually do the first fry, and tend to be a bit dryer.

Our best meal, however, took place in the heart of Santa Marta at San Basilio (address to come). A sunburnt German I met months ago in Quito described this restaurant as serving the best food in all of South America, and I have to agree. The young Colombian woman who is the owner/chef/server knows how to choose quality ingredients and cook them in a way that showcases their natural attributes, nover smothering or overcooking. Hence the lime jumbo shrimp dotted with a parsley vinagrette, the bright red lobster tail, the medallions of tender beef, the pesto emmersed in fresh olive oil all sung their pure songs in our mouths, leaving us happy and satisfied with our choice to splurge for the evening.

San Basilio
Carrera 2 No 16-39
Colombia

by Clementine, @ Luna Tells All

Returning

I have a glass of wine in front of me. It’s organic and deep plum red. Today I purchased an English cucumber wrapped in plastic. I roasted a chicken with a clove of garlic, chopped, nestled in its cavity and under its skin, with olive oil, salt and pepper. I cut the potatoes Josh left and threw those into the baking pan. The lid for the salt came off and for the second night in a row, we had too much salt. The chicken was still heavenly perfect: juicy, garlicky, tasty, and the potatoes were soft, yielding, buttery.

I won’t bore you with where my fantasy life takes me from there (yielding…buttery…bungalow…ocean…) but from that secret place, unspoken fantasy place, I go to the fishing village in Ecuador with all of its restaurants, tiendas, farmacias completely open air. If you had grown up there, perhaps you would feel claustrophobic inside four walls (or you longed for it—wanting something to envelope you). You would grow used to flies and other animals that might land on your skin. Your feet would grow calloused from the bumpy sidewalk and cobbled road and you might go barefoot everyday anyway. You would live in the Hostal Ramos, on the beach, and avoid the men with their laminated pages of photos of whales, species of birds, open ocean, for you had already been out there.

You would be living in the Hostal Ramos without your passport, clinging to your lover who you were not supposed to be with. You would walk down the 96 stairs at least three times a day to sit on the patio, drink beer, then back up to the room to apply more sunscreen, look one more time for your passport. Not there. Back to your lover.

You will be off the map. And still, the scent of chicken can, and will, bring you back, the reliability of potatoes and the prevalence of salt will ground you.