[brazil-pro] tim maia! brazil! tim maia!

From: Ankur Shah <ank@gotog.net>
To: brazil-pro@gotog.net
Date: Oct 20, 2004 - 4:20pm


october 19th

it's an important day. an anniversary. hard to be sure. i get the feeling
that none of this is deserved, that all of it is owed -- polonius, w'ere
sorry -- in some way or another. especially to you, to brazil-pro.

karim got here two weeks ago. erik waltzed in from a longer-than-life
hiatus yesterday afternoon. lily -- who i picked up bussing covertly
across the argentine border, just three months out of berkeley (high
school) -- changed her ticket and said words to her mother and will be
staying until christmas.

so i finally have the sense it's a full house. eight rooms and eight
people and a steadily growing number of murals. the crime scene downstairs
-- dj quick and buster mcgraw -- is almost done; lupe's benevolent
hex-armed goddess has been smiling on us for weeks now, a cominbation of
hindu mysticism and bahian body proportions.

avocados and mangos are ripening on the trees, in and out of sight. the
restaurant and bar are functioning and open. sunday the landlord came by
in the morning for a dozen beers and three whiskeys, dragging his
not-quite-rehabilitated ex-brother-in-law out at sundown.

the opening day of the restaurant, a week ago saturday, nobody came. there
was a red bean curry with organic red rice on a reddish earthen plate. and
carrot mayonnaise and cilantro chutney and mango salsa. that's not exactly
true -- one couple sat down and was ready to eat until i explained to them
that a) there was no meat and b) there was no fixed priced. so, you know,
they left.

the next day, last friday, i decided to skip the main dish and just make
sauces, if nobody was going to come anyways. amanda put together a carrot
ginger dressing and i whipped up a beet version, and karim and i put
together a roasted red pepper salsa. and nobody came. so we had a great
amandan samosa feast with some lilytian papaya salad and all kinds of
leftover sauces for kicks.

and then, saturday, shit really took off. we had a customer. a young
couple from salvador whose male half was super psyched to find a
vegetarian restaurant for his girl, even though he would never touch the
stuff. and i had to explain the pricing scheme half a dozen times because
they -- understandly -- thought it was just a language problem when i told
them they could pay whatever they wanted.

so they left 5 points for a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a
plate of food -- baked squash sandwich on a bun i made that morning, with
roasted tomato salsa, carrot dressing, and black-eyed pea hummous.

and we're psyched. they came back the next day for some eggplant curry and
brown rice, some roasted tomato hummous, and asian cucumber salad. and for
paying, they through the game back in our face, handing me a ten and
allowing me to set the change...

so that's cool. lupe got a sewing machine and made 40 napkins for the
clients. we're working out glitches in accounting and we threw a really
really awesome party. all the hot 14 year old girls were there, but it
took a contigent of roving gay brazilians (who are now are heroes) to
really get the shit started.

there's as many laptops as digital cameras and one would think that
facilitates communication, but perhaps not. maybe tolstoy was right and we
should look both ways before crossing that picture frame, ms. karenina.

love, ankur