Marie Lourdes

This is dedicated to Marie Lourdes.   If I talk her into a picture this week, I will move the mashed potatoes and gravy to the end of this post.  Marie Lourdes is the cook at the school up the street from me. It's run by an order of Catholic brothers and is the same school Dr. Mortel attended as a boy. There is usually a lot of activity there, kids after school, soccer tournaments, and so on. Also, if I want to print something from my computer I take it up there on my thumbdrive and they are very helpful with that (15 Gde a page).  From time to time I go there to see Jean-Rony (who took me on his motor scooter to see the hospital that Sunday?).  

The night I met Marie Lourdes, I had a bad cough and had lost my voice.  To show you what kind of a person she is, she asked me if I liked chadèques, the sweet grapefruits they grow here, and I said yes.  She hustled me into her kitchen, carefully washed one, cut the core out of it with a paring knife, and gave me a spoon to eat it with.  You cannot believe how much better my throat felt after eating that chadèque.  That night might be when I developed such a taste for them.

After that I stopped in to visit her from time to time, and the night I attended Carnaval on the balcony at their school, Marie Lourdes was part of the group.  About two weeks ago I made bread and took a loaf to Marie Lourdes.  She had given me a jar of really good jam that she makes out of the rind of chadèque. Kind of like orange marmelade but spicier.
The next time I saw her, I asked how she liked the bread. She said she never got to eat any; she sent it up with the dinner that night, thinking they would send down the leftovers- and they didn't.  So last week I took her another loaf and said this one is for you, don't share it!  She liked it and asked me if I would show her how I make it.

Last Sunday afternoon I went to Marie Lourdes' kitchen and we made bread.  Also, I took her some of Aunt Clare's chocolate-peanutbutter oatmeal cookies, adapted for Haiti, and they were a big hit.  Brother Elward, who is the principal of the school, stopped in a couple of times and even went and fixed the gas line to the stove, when he heard we were going to be using it. They have three built-in charcoal burners on a big ceramic counter that she often cooks with instead of the stove.  We had a great time and the bread turned out fantastic.  Brother Elward invited me to have supper with them and say the evening prayers, too, so it was a wonderful day.

I need to mention next that when we were in the kitchen, making the bread, I could not help but notice that they had butchered. I am guessing it was the previous day.  There were two big basins of pig quarters on a table in the corner, its trotters pointing here and there, skinned tail draped over the edge, and on the counter behind me was a big pan covered by a lid, from under which the poor guy's snout was poking.  I did not lift the lid to check out the rest of his face.  We had pasta for supper that night; it was mostly veggies and Marie Lourdes grated a little bit of (already prepared) salami into it. I was glad it was nothing fresh, not liking to be acquainted with my dinner.

The next day, Jean-Rony came to me and said that Marie Lourdes wanted to give me some meat. Gulp!  All I could think about was that snout.  Also, my American fetish for refrigerating everything.  Then I remembered! My pressure cooker!  I brought my pressure cooker with me to Haiti, thinking I was going to be cooking a lot of beans, but this was precisely the sort of situation where a pressure cooker will take care of any minute (i.e. microscopic) details.  ¡Viva los Pressure Cooker!  

I went to see Marie Lourdes on the way back from the grocery store. (5 pound bag of sugar; going to make more chocolate cookies)  She gave me probably a pound and half or two pounds of what look like shoulder chunks.  She also had some parsley and a little onion and sprigs of other stuff with it.

I browned the chunks in oil, added about a half a cup of water and set it on low for a half an hour.  When almost all the water was gone (when it started to get quiet- so imagine the tsk!tsk! stopping) I took out my pieces of pork and they really were lovely:  All brown and carmelized, and falling apart.  Since I am a mashed potatoes and gravy person, I put in about two cups of water with all that brown, caramelized broth, and cooked that a little bit more. Also, I went to the market where I was once again robbed over 6 or 7 small, white potatoes.  -But at least I got the lady to go halves, from $1.25 US to $.65, so I am improving. Also, I was able to just laugh, because I knew that I was going to have mashed potatoes and gravy no matter what!

On Friday night I went to Foun's to have dinner with my friend Jennifer and two engineers from an organization (I think it is French) called ACTED. They do municipal improvements like roads and water and sanitation systems, etc.  Sitting around the table was a crew with at least ten years of active work experience in Haiti, not counting my humble two months.  Gerard, who also makes his own bread, by the way, just arrived from France after a one-year hiatus. He had spent the previous two years in Haiti high in the mountains in the border country next to the Dominican Republic.  "No electric, no water, no telephone.  After two years I went home exhausted and 20 kilos lighter.  But now I am better and glad to be back."

I was telling them about the pig parts on the kitchen counter and we were all smiling about my squeamishness, when I went on to say that Marie Lourdes then gave me some of the meat.  Jennifer, a Peace Corps veteran, said, "You do realize what a big deal that is?  Giving you meat?"  Gerard nodded. "That's huge."  Wow.  I did not realize.  

So today I plan on dining on mashed potatoes and gravy and chunks of pork roast.  Thanks to my friend Marie Lourdes.