"...más de cien palabras
más de cien motivos..."

Roque Dalton assured in one of his poems that his “one true Honduran-Salvadorian conflict was with a young woman”. Since I have been force by circumstances to play geopolitical gambits with beings of such a gender, I am more than prepared to believe him.

Maybe thats the reason why it has been a while since the last time I wrote this chronicles of my visits to places chosen both by instinct and hazard. You already know our sayings about what lives under the skin of the Island, but going out there to find it without inspiration is just not the same thing.

My Muse, the instigator of both conflagration and paraphrasis (“my one true interplanetary conflict was with a young woman”), will not be around for a while and every now and then it becomes really hard for me to leave the 28.6 m3 of green walls of “my dent” to crawl out and make you guys happy. And for the record, the crisis (economic, financial, global and, above all personal) is also a reason. I say so just in case you may want to make a donation.

So I fill the gap of hours with occupational therapy.

For those among you readers who have not the infinite joy, pride and pain (all of them equally awarded) of being part of the band of brothers known as AlaMesa team I must specificity that the so called therapy is what we call “typing menus”. That’s a harsh labor where I've seen one.

Restaurants menus are gathered in many different formats (from lucky and rare .txt to not funny at all .jpg including treacherous .pdf) and must be standardized by typing each plate into a spreadsheet with its category, price and English translation.

Such a work is remunerated with a dose of mental peace, the satisfaction produced by the act of performing your duty, the smallest amount of money and the muscle pains produced by incorrect postures in front of the computer.

Anyone feels like joining me?

Of course, there is a collateral payment. Like those mind travelers seeing the world by the eyes of readings without leaving the room, the act of “typing menus” gives the unique opportunity of discovering minimal treasures that spur our tired imagination inviting us to further adventures.

For example, Café Fortuna proposes a preparation labeled with its name, containing in God knows the proportions (I quote) “condensed milk, whiskey and basil”. The Café Casino mixes lemon and coffee in the very same recipe and the Don Pepe puts spearmint and chocolate together.

Maybe the reader is not a confessed caffeine addict and cannot appreciate this descriptions as what it is to me: a symbolic equivalent of Marquis de Sade's literature. In any case, both reader and writer will agree on the fact that I owe myself a visit to this Wonderland.

Waoo!!  offers a version of famous Mojito in which the components are mixed in a blender and afterward filtered to eliminate the residues of spearmint. 3 years old Havana Club rum and a drop of Angostura liquor, all sweetened with honey instead of cane sugar. Now, in one hand, the taste will necessarily be changed by the action of the used sweetener and strengthened by the blended spearmint , in the other hand the aroma will vanish much sooner and the ornamental element brought by the iconic little branch inside the glass will be lost. What kind of unexpected sensations will be spring by the resulting cocktail? Here we have yet another enigma to be solved.

La Catedral has developed its own recipe of Margarita by adding a beer. This is hardly a novelty. There is more than just one way to make beer Margaritas under the sun. Nevertheless this one here is quite a different thing. They prepare the cocktail in a beer jar instead of the traditional cup, then they uncork a Corona bottle, flip the bottle and sink it, still full, into the jar. The drinker slightly rises the bottle making the “cold Blondie” out mixing it with the Margarita. Lovely...

 …And is not just the cocktails. There is a restaurant in Matanzas named  Ranchón la Taberna offering something they call “King of the Tavern”. Briefly described, it is a pork steak stuffed with sausage, ham, cheese, olives and vegetables served with congri, vegetables salad, sautéed vegetables, and fried or boiled root vegetables. I admit that this is hardly the most imaginative proposal of Matanzas haute cuisine but... for 5 CUCs (around $5.55 USD)? Who was that King again? Henry the VIII? Richard Plantagenet? Robert Baratheon?

 A few lines beneath and for the same price we find Presas de Pollo, that being 4 breaded chicken legs sided with congri, vegetables salad and fried root vegetables. So it’s official: I am adding this place to the short list. A feast of such an amount of calories would make the point of a journey to the so called Athens of Cuba.

In Camagüey, restaurant El Solar sales snapper fillets and lobster enchilado in $60 MN (around $3 USD) and fellow restaurant La Herradura sells the same things in $12 CUC (around $13.30 USD). Speaking of possibilities.

In the same city, El Mesón del Príncipe describes its specialty with unexpected lyricism: 

“Parador Principeño ($2.50 CUC or $60.00 MN around $3.00 USD): In order to prepare this attractive dish, use a pork steak seasoned with salt and pepper, its center must be stuffed with batonnet cut ham and cheese, then breaded and fried in hot oil, decorated and artistically presented for your enjoyment.

Touching… isn’t it?

At this point, I can’t talk for the reader, but the writer is having so much trouble with managing the keyboard while paying deaf ear to the sound of his guts.

While I wait for this "exodus of darkened swallows" that will return me to my muse, I shuffle possibilities, imagine auspicious circumstances, run hand in hand with my fantasy. Desire and palate are the surrogates of her presence that feed my hope. A sweet delight ... a medida da paixao.

I put aside the keys ... I’ll go out for a bite to eat.

By: Aleph
Alchemist, blotter, revisionist and drinker