Thursday

I went and got Vida, yesterday morning, and offered her: a day of shopping, a day of touring or a day at my house. You know what she chose.

It was wonderful to see her smile and spend so much time with her.
As I suspected, she is not one for relaxing.
K had requested a particular seasoning from her home, and she misheard me on the phone and brought hot sauce. (Not that we won't USE the hot sauce.) When K confessed that he was hoping for the seasoning we took a drive to the market to buy the ingredients - because Vida doesn't BUY seasoning. She MAKES it.
The stuff I am talking about is greenish and a spread that is a tiny bit chunky with onion and peppers. It has great complex flavors that I couldn't put my finger on, until yesterday.

She requested a big cutting board and a small knife (You get better control!) and set to work.



Yes, she is using a big knife here, but only at the very end to get the finest mince.



She wore her fancy pants. She teased me pretty mercilessly about my height.



K jumped up to grate the onions while Vida poured little handfuls of spices and finely chopped herbs into the bowl. When she was done it was exactly the seasoning K loves.
(It is spread on chicken or fish before grilling and comprised of scallions, onion, clove, thyme, garlic and lime.)

But we weren't done.
Her husband had grated a couple of pounds of coconut for us. She brought it to us frozen and had me defrost it.
Ordering me around the kitchen she whipped up the dough for three coconut breads.



We watched Judge Judy while the breads baked. (Vida likes it when the people on Judge Judy "get tangled up")
She imparted many words of wisdom to me, quietly.

You have to have some luxuries in life cause you don't want anything after you're dead...

is the one I remember right now.

She shopped very carefully in the market, checking the prices for canned fish and meat with a tiny slip of paper and pen to do all her calculating, and was pleased with the price of Tetley Tea.

Can you reach it, I asked timidly.
Well I know YOU can't, she cracked.

Our mailman was interested in the woman chopping away in my kitchen when he brought the afternoon mail and asked, hopefully, if she was making coucou. They chatted a bit and he went on his way.

Vida brought me new dishtowels - one of them is all of her homeland's recipes and she insisted that I never use it as a dishtowel. I promised with all my heart that I would never - washing it might fade the recipes she warned. But she wasn't happy until she made me put it in a zip bag to preserve it. And she made me promise to follow the coucou recipe to make for the mailman.

She brought flying fish too - frozen all those hours and a week. When I was incredulous that she got it through customs she told me she had a suitcase full of frozen fish. She brought tuna too - the prices have gone up. It's $5 a pound now.
She had bought 100 flying fish and she and her husband cleaned all of them, wrapped them in packs of 5 and froze them for her friends here.

My mom came to dinner and Oldest arrived with his girlfriend. Oldest is her favorite and they spent a long time hugging and laughing.
She has great insight into each of my boys and was pleased to see that Middle has opened up and talks a little more than he used to.
I don't think she cared much for K's chicken with tarragon cream, one of his special dishes but she ate quietly. She would have appreciated chicken and rice with peas, I think, but he wanted to cook his food for her.

At about 8:00, I packed up an apple pie I bought her, her favorite, and drove her back to her friend's house.
I wrestled with her to take money for the fish. I told her buy chocolate with it (chocolate is very expensive where she lives)and she relented.

It was a happy day and, as I stare off into the kitchen I can see the hunk of pumpkin she made my buy. I wouldn't let her grate it or make the batter for the fritters we love last night, so I know what I'll be doing later.
Even though it will be hard work I'll be smiling - and laughing while I think of her.