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I like listening to classical music to remember my father.  It was the one detail I had not divulged to anyone else.  In the years of bitterness, anger, and deception that had slowly built a calloused wall between us, I still had that stream of pureness that effortlessly floated out as notes from Beethoven, Mozart or Brahms (his favorite) were played.  I’d find myself sitting in the quiet intimacy of my car listening to the music playing loudly and softly thinking of Sunday mornings long ago when the air was thick with youth and carelessness as the bacon gently sizzled and life was good, safe and sweet.

Mom was alive and very beautiful, wrapped in her mocha-colored terry cloth robe, always an odd shade in my young mind, yet, soothing in the way it contrasted the gentle blush of her soft cheeks and opened center-stage to her unwavering blue eyes.  Every Sunday morning I’d find her faithfully by the stovetop, stirring her scrambled eggs with a withheld patience, quietly luring them to a creamy perfection never duplicated by anyone since.  Mom would turn towards me and smile as I approached her those mornings, a twinkle in her eye, the words that I knew would come from her comforted me long before they danced from her lips:

“Breakfast will be ready soon dear,” she’d say with a soft smile and I knew I was well and loved and safe.

Life with filled with a sleepy and thick layer of deliciousness.  In a daze I’d float through the wonderful smells of velvety eggs, followed by the apple tart smokiness of sweet cured bacon, sputtering shamelessly on the back burner.

This was all in perfect synchrony with the music that would be playing.  It would be whatever my father would have selected for that morning amongst his endless collection of classical albums, all stacked close together; the crumpled brown thin papers hugging the shinny vinyl and keeping it from harm.  There were hundreds of records and each Sunday my father would approach them with a studious wrinkle in his brow and decide what mood would begin our day.  Quietly and very carefully he’d pick one and gently caress it clean and place it on the turntable to come to life. 

As the needle’s scratchy touch awoke the symphony our lesson would begin.   Notes would rise and fall as my father pranced around the toasty kitchen all the while describing the music’s journey while wildly waving his arms about orchestrating his musical bliss.  My sisters and I (all under the age of ten) would pretend to be annoyed but in reality we listened to the music and watched him, enthralled at how our father would savor each note with such pure and uncomplicated bliss, just as we’d soon sit to our meal of equal delight.

“Breakfast will be ready in five minutes,” mom would promise and we’d all gather closer to an intimate table of her sour cream slow-cooked scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, hot croissants and freshly squeezed orange juice.  Some Sundays, when mom found she had more time, or energy, or both, she’d make cheddar dill biscuits and tuck them comfortably in an old wicker basket, which lay in the center of the table.  I remember breaking one warm biscuit in two and placing a perfect square of sweet butter on it.  It would slowly melt as I closed my eyes and bit down and there would be a moment where I’d be caught in that lovely circuit of love bound by music, butter and love.

These were our Sunday mornings, our very own moments of quiet and peace, laughter and love, family and food.  It was the one time where the outside world no longer mattered.  The air we breathed was clean and pure and all of father’s impending distractions would, for that instant, remain uninvited.  On those days our family was sealed from such harm.

We played and ran around in our pajamas as mom would work her culinary magic in her remaining five minutes.  The symphony rolled on full throttle as we watched our dad in amazement, not quite understanding the look of complete satisfaction that shone in his hazel eyes, eyes that had not yet begun to tire, but rather burned brightly with youth, hope and love.   As he’d wave his arms wildly in the air imitating the moves the conductor would make to bring this grandiose piece of music together, a chuckle would escape his happy face.  He’d quickly glance at us and realize that his tiny, rambunctious and free family was together for that instant, held close by the notes of love, food, and Brahms. He’d wave his imaginary baton in its final frenzy and declare with a bow, “Let’s eat!” breaking our trance and leading us all giggling and happy to the breakfast table. We were suspended between seconds of music, laughter and food: a perfect and forever ours, Sunday morning.

I could say if I just look at the slope of her nose (ever so slight with a generous finish) I’d recognize that it is exactly like mine and unmistakably connect us but I know what you are thinking: there is so much more to a face, so many more crevices and cracks to throw you off course. You’d say the eyes, the chin, even the hair. And I’d agree, one cannot gage another by merely the slope of the nose but in this case it really is all it took.  Because when she turned and I saw her profile, I saw myself in her; ten, maybe fifteen years earlier I was there, only with different colored hair and different colored eyes but still me and I knew right then and there, that even though we never crossed paths before, we were indeed sisters.

Of course, the story doesn’t start or end there.  There are many hurdles and heartbreak and mending when one learns one’s father has led a double life and has a whole separate family as a result. It took years to get here and years I was grateful my mother was not alive to live this.  But the slope of the nose is where we met and it was followed by the big-hearted smile and the prominent chin:  all trademarks of my father’s Abbady genes I had thought for the most part of my life I carried alone only to quickly learn those traits where clearly molded on one of my half-sister’s face as well.

We met on a chilly foggy night in the Andean city of Quito, the remote spot my father had picked to form another life that on this memorable night merged with mine.  There was too much past to clutter a future with these two young women, my two half-sisters I never knew about, and so it was time to move forward together. 

And with the reliable mediator of food, we did.  To begin with, there was the fact that I had landed on the equator, which opened up the door to plenty of exotic and delightful Amazonian fruit with equally strange names such as parcha, tomate de arbol, and naranjillo.  There were many I had already encountered growing up in Venezuela such as maracuya (passion fruit) and mora (blackberry), all of which begged to be gobbled up with nothing but impulsiveness and greed.  All my mother’s proper Philadelphia stock was put to shame as I dropped any social etiquette and lost myself in a world of sweetness and flowers and juice which I couldn’t fully experience without fingers, extra drool and a very drippy chin.  To think Eden lost it all for a measly apple?  Oh the damage that could have happened here!

We had the fortune of our visit coinciding with Semana Santa (Holy Week), which, in a country where Roman Catholicism reigns, is taken very seriously, right down to the food.  Large makeshift shacks abound housing sweaty women stirring big pots of fanesca, a traditional hearty soup served during this meat-prohibited time consisting of beans and dried cod and garnished with eggs, fried plantains, heart of palm, and (if you’re fortunate) fried cheese empanadas.  You can pick any crowded intersection in Quito, drag a dirty plastic chair up to the communal table and dig in alongside businessmen in grey Armani suits, families overflowing with children, or curious tourists like me.

 There were other succulent flavors with the indelible stamp of Ecuador: Ceviche de Camaron, plump, marinated shrimp swimming in a bath of citrus, cilantro and red peppers or Encocado, which translates to “in coconut” and is the country’s trademark fish dish of sea bass bathed in fresh coconut sauce served alongside fried green plantains and a big mound of white rice.  Salchipapas, the popular street food consisting of thick slices of fried hotdogs served on a bed of French fries and coated with your choice of pink, yellow or spicy aji sauce easily elevated frankfurters to a whole other level.

Of course, we ate our way through any awkwardness, quietly comparing notes of our parallel lives guided by the same patriarch and by the end of each meal we were fuller and better for it, one step closer to closing the enormous gap of secrecy and time that lay before us.  And then we had our Passover dinner, the ultimate family meal for a group learning to be a family.  There was laughter and prayers and countless glasses of sickly sweet wine, and then, alas, there was food, lots and lots of food.  My sister and half-sisters where all there, the children ran around freely and my father, with his partner Lucia by his side, had a twinkle in his eye I hadn’t seen in years.  And just as this strange trip began to settle into a faint sense of normalcy, something happened that seemed to seal the deal:

                        Dessert was served.

And not just any dessert.  A delicious dessert. A wonderous dessert.  A very Abbady dessert.  Something I could see my aunt Miriam present in her cramped Jerusalem apartment along with a pot of Café Turki.  After all, this was Crème Bavaria, an Israeli favorite.

The ethereal square of white gently drizzled with rich chocolate and dusted with a bit of chopped walnuts was placed before me.  Lucia sat humbly next to my father, weathering the silence of a group of already tough critics.  Her eyes jumped nervously between my sister and I and our families as she contended with the room’s silence.  But the silence was soon broken by harmonious oohs and ahhs as, one by one, we all fell prey to the smooth and light creaminess of her Crème Bavaria, quickly and gently forgiving the misstep of using leavening during Passover as we bit into the rum-infused sponge cake resting on the bottom. 

It was an instant of wonder and hope where I realized that as painful and real as many of the circumstances that created this group where, there was a chance that through such delicious moments, things could and should get better.  My half-sister and I were sitting across each other.  Half way through our dessert, among the buzz of contentment, our eyes met and we grinned the same grin.  We were both blissfully stuffing ourselves with Crème Bavaria, making a start in the right direction guided by a happy, full stomach.

In the abyss of a quiet night, when children have succumbed to their struggle of sleep and the spouse snores lazily on the stained blue sofa, I eat mayonnaise from the jar.  We’re not talking a light lick of the knife to cleanse it of its miniscule residue of spread, but rather a flat out, flagrant finger-scooping of the delightfully forbidden stuff. 

I readily swallow in big gulps of happiness.  It’s the same glee with which children gobble their chocolate pudding and in these moments of silence, with the glow of the refrigerator lighting my way my joy is complete, my crime only witnessed by Goldie, the obese hyperactive goldfish that would no doubt join in the fun if she could figure a way out of her cloudy fish tank and into the white delicacy of my family value size jar of mayonnaise.

I know this is a horrible thing, to eat mayonnaise out of a jar.  Particularly from someone so versed in the nuances of artisanal butters, Iberico ham, Himalayan salts, and other fine culinary things.  I know that when I scoff at folks who dare house plastic bottles of minced garlic, instead of using fresh, or who sport blank looks at the thought of making homemade icing (i.e., not from a can) with fresh strawberries (i.e., not dehydrated, frozen ones), that I am nurturing my own dirty little secret with the big bottle of Hellmann’s tucked away behind my homemade yogurt (white on white, who will know?)   Which is why I do it only when no one is watching me.  Like the  clueless, bland husband played by Richard Bowens in the “The Big Chill”, I find a quiet solace in the secret midnight ritual of eating mayonnaise.

There shouldn’t be any shame to such a ritual, really.  My life is anything but bland.  It brims with passion, lust and good food, which is why it wouldn’t feel complete without a unabashful celebration of mayonnaise.  And not the homemade stuff whipped with fresh garlic, olive oil and organic eggs but the proudly processed jugs of soybean oil, water, whole eggs and egg yolks, vinegar, salt, sugar, lemon juice, natural flavors, calcium disodium and EDTA, respectfully.

On a Freudian approach, I could blame this all on my childhood.  In Venezuela, 5-gallon jugs of Kraft Mayonnaise seemed a prerequisite, where they sat alongside the 2-gallon tubs of margarine.  Savoring the salty creamy spread was a daily excursion.  Breakfast easily began with a basketful of arepas, the Venezuelan solution to all life’s evils.  These delicious round cornmeal cakes made a cameo appearance in every meal, but come morning time, they were readily available with wavy layers of mayonnaise and thick slices of pineapple-glazed ham.  For lunch, as kids in the U.S. turned their noses up horrified at the prospect of ingesting a vegetable, eager Venezuelan children lined up for seconds simply because their produce arrived slathered in mayonnaise.  Some days it was boiled beets with thin slices of red onion, a squeeze of fresh lime juice and immeasurable amounts of creamy whiteness, leaving the final dish in a pink glaze of sweet, salty and sour delight.  Cucumbers also made their debut swimming in a river of mayonnaise, tickled by finely minced parsley and scallions.  Ensalada Rusa embraced boiled carrots, potatoes and whatever other abandoned vegetable wanted to join in the fun into a disco party of mayonnaise.  Pretty much anything that was cuddled by the stuff won my heart over and in such fashion I grew up nourished and blessed by mayonnaise.

As an adult desperate to break free and create my own culinary identity I temporarily moved away from the soybean oil and calcium disodium and took a radically different approach.  Suddenly my evenings where filled with lentils, curry and tofu, all of which I concocted into strange and wonderful dishes my palate readily consumed.  But still, something was missing and I couldn’t help imagine how perfectly satisfying a dollop of mayonnaise would nourish my crispy zucchini pancake.  Eventually, I came around.   

Mayonnaise has once again been invited into my fridge.  It does not play the hyperactive role of my youth, where it danced in nearly everything I ate, but its presence is carefully felt, whether it be alongside a tender chunk of herb-infused chicken schnitzel (yes, organic), or comforting a lonely crab cake (add lime zest, lime juice, shallots and basil for a party), or simply doing the tango with ketchup and hot sauce while waiting to be dipped by creamy hardboiled huevitos de Codorniz, another Venezuelan favorite.  And on those late nights with only Goldie as my witness, when it is quiet and there are no distractions and I find myself in a moment of delicious weakness it takes center stage for me, my memories and my palate in a delicious, finger-scooping swallow.

“Ma’am, do you want the cheese to melt or do you want it warm?”

I looked at her inquisitively and she returned the stare with utter impatience.  She was a petite woman with wavy black hair swept up in a hurried ponytail, a white shirt and apron emblazoned with the store’s cheery logo and a big pin that said “Hi, my name is Lucinda.”

Lucinda quickly categorized me as an incompetent culinary idiot for not knowing the immediate response to her apparently obvious query, but all I was thinking was how I’ve never before been asked what degree of warmth I wanted my Panini sandwich and leave it to some wanna-be quasi-gourmet food market in South Florida to be the first to pop the question.

“Won’t the cheese automatically melt once you heat it up?” I ventured.  I couldn’t help myself.  I had to be smart, even though I’ve been warned  by friends to never ever be smart with food servers before you’ve been served your food: they can do all sorts of things to your food when you aren’t looking: use stale ingredients, toss it on the floor, spit or sneeze on it and then serve it up with a smile all in the name of revenge.  Okay, so I have real paranoid friends.  In any case, I really couldn’t help myself.

Lucinda re-filed me under “Complete Moron” and slid off her smirk long enough to reply, this time speaking Oh-So-Slowly: 

“…some…people…just…want…it…warm (pause, two, three, four)  …don’t …like…the…cheese…all…heated up.”

What’s the point of a panini, I felt like offering up as a cheap rebuttal, but was distracted by my momentary lapse of self-pity for being stuck in a culinary wasteland that offered few good options and even less gastronomic understanding, let alone customer service.  Lucinda could have worked here or at Borders or at Chevron.  It really didn’t matter.

It was her annoyed breathing that snapped me back to life and I arrogantly informed her that My Panini would have the cheese melted, of course.  She sighed and warned me this would take a good fifteen to twenty minutes and I called her bluff and said that would be fine.  It felt more like a round at a boxing ring than a sandwich order at a food market, but, I was determined to win this fight, and so I stood there, leaning up against the display counter, blocking the view of the stuffed cabbage, quiche lorraine, and roasted Tuscany vegetables.  They had nothing to do with this skirmish but lended way to me being as obtrusive as possible for the duration of my wait. 

My experience with Lucinda had most definitely deflated any craving I had originally had for a Panini and I began wondering if I would have been better served going to the local sushi bar  for some hot tuna crunch rolls instead.  At least there they always smile at me.

I received a phone call from a long-time friend while I waited and my aggressive stance melted as quickly as I hoped my panini’s cheese would.  Before I knew it, Lucinda was facing me with my wrapped sandwich.  As I ended my phone call, I paid for my lunch and  headed out to the car.  As I headed home, I unwrapped my Panini to find that the inside was stone cold and the outside was charred beyond recognition.  The cheese, whose loyalty was obviously torn, had spots that were solid and spots that where melted.   Suddenly, my neurotic friends didn’t seem so ludicrous.  God knows what else had happened to this thing while I chatted away oblivious to Lucinda’s revenge streak.  As hungry as I was, I carefully wrapped up my battle-scarred sandwich (and ego) and put it away.  No knockout punch and no lunch for me today.

The first diploma I ever got hung proudly in the one place I felt people would truly contemplate it: my bathroom wall. I had worked hard to get it and wanted it fully appreciated. The space was small and with few distractions, so I imagined that as folks would go about their business they’d be happy to meet face to face with my diploma and indivertibly contemplate its scholarly script. Plus, the diploma always got a response from the bathroom-goer. Nine times out of ten, any newcomer to my bathroom would exit with a surprised look and say, ‘Really? Columbia University? Bartending?’ and I would slowly smile and gloat (each time) filling with pride and a sense of endless accomplishment because I had snagged a coveted Ivy League education, even if only in the unscholarly art of mixing the perfect orgasm.

I didn’t have stories of all-nighters and brilliant professors to back up that piece of paper. No enlightening moments where the world was reshaped through relentless academic efforts. Here, there was nothing groundbreaking, just a lot of drinking.

It seemed too curious a juxtaposition to ignore: nestled among one of the most prestigious and rigorous universities was a formal class on the making of drinks, and this was before mixology was in vogue. There was even a syllabus. I am not sure what drove me to take the class more: the free drinks, the promise of making great money, or the coveted Columbia degree. It has been almost twenty years since then, but I recall fondly many nights of madras sunsets and ruptured ducks and sex on the beach. The lecture hall would be cramped with eager students watching and feverishly scribbling recipes and concoctions they would later try on all their frat brothers. I brought my own guinea pig with me when I snuck in my boyfriend, whom I ended up marrying several years later. “I’ll just act like I belong” he promised, insisting that attitude and appearance where all that mattered.

The teacher (a slightly drunk older graduate student) would prepare each drink and then offer it up to be tasted. Invariably (and I assume in his efforts to “belong”) my boyfriend’s hand went up every time and the instructor must have appreciated his enthusiasm because he got the drinks most of the time.

As he slurped toxic mixes of vodka, triple sec and lime juice I’d quiz him on his experience. Was it too strong? Too sweet? Refreshing? How many could one enjoy? Ice or no ice? I’d zealously jot down his answers on my yellow bartending notepad, absorbing the drink through his palate. Occasionally I would venture and take a sip of the hard liquor, but my taste buds where always angered by those attempts, craving much more the soft touch of a cool Friuli wine.

The class was a good three hours long and by the end of it my source of information, whose standard bar order was Diet Coke, was a complete waste of slurred speech and mixed messages. My biggest challenge was always balancing his 6′2″ 200-pound frame to get him out of the classroom and on to the subway for the ride home. To his credit he was a happy drunk, always compliant and did little more than fall into a heavy sleep and wake up with a bad headache. Still, he was always game for more: insisting I needed to know if a Mexican Mudslide was sweeter than a Blind Russian (it’s not), insisting I’d have to understand each drink to learn them well, and he, graciously enough, would be willing to comply. It’s all in the name of education, and an Ivy League one at that.

In the end it all came down to one recipe. In front of the entire class and a panel of five judges, I would have to pick one card with one drink and mix it properly. This was my ticket to a coveted Columbia degree. It had been weeks of flashcards and a very hung over boyfriend. I couldn’t falter now because I knew we both would not survive another ten weeks of this. When it was my turn, I walked up to the judges and valiantly waited for their order.  It was a Raging Bull. I smiled and couldn’t help but think of Robert De Niro’s beat up face as the young boxer he portrayed in the movie of that same name years ago. I didn’t share any of De Niro’s demons, though. I knew what I was doing and quickly assembled the drink as if I had made it every night: Kahlua, sambuca, and tequila layered in a shot glass in that order. Attitude and appearance is key, I learned that from my drunk boyfriend.

It is with great secrecy that I pull the tiny foil cube out of its box.  I admit to being temporarily riddled by a wave of guilt, no doubt hordes of culinary experts would immediately disregard me as a cook not worthy of gastronomic attention if they knew I housed these in my closet, let alone used them.

The conspirators are my tiny bright yellow boxes of bouillon cubes.  I have all flavors attainable:  “cubito de pollo,” “cubito de carne” and “cubito de pescado,” with a haphazard scribble of a chicken, cow and fish to clarify.  I always buy the box in Spanish, no doubt it tastes exactly as salty and processed as its English counterpart, but I believe most things sound and feel better in Spanish: deja de jurungear (stop messing around), dando y dando, pajarito volando (scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours) la guayabera es vino tinto (the shirt is maroon).  Case in point.  So I stick to the lyrical and comforting bounce of “cubitos” instead of a formal, more somber bouillon cube and already I feel better.

When I was growing up in Venezuela our assortment of cubitos was proudly displayed amongst the bottles of imported dried rosemary, thyme and cardamom my mother would smuggle back from our annual trips to the States.  There was no shame to them back then.  Cubitos where just a part of every day meals our Colombian cook, Yolanda made, adding an extra boost of flavor and saltiness to each bite.

I remember watching her plop the tiny squares into vats of boiling soups, simmering shredded beef and pots of bubbling black beans as her final measure in bringing the dish to its appropriate end.  She was never one to mess with spices.  The cylindrical spice stand of imported goodies remained untouched, as much as my mother tried to encourage her to use them, explaining endlessly about the virtues of dried basil, curry powder, and allspice.  Yolanda pegged them as unfamiliar, from their tiny perfect glass bottles to their curly English labels she couldn’t understand, and left them alone, only occasionally wiping down the dust that settled on their tops.  She stuck to the basics:  salt, pepper, garlic and cubitos.

And sticking to this simple formula would produce, time after time after time, incredible meals.  It was an uncomplicated procedure really.  She’d grab the same bruised wooden spoon she used for everything (a large one carved out of Amazon wood with a burnt mark on the tip) and give the dish in question a quick stir or two, then proclaim:
“Ahora si esta”, (now it is done), as if the cubito was what sealed the deal.

Then she’d guide the huge spoon towards my inquisitive face, which seemed poised and ready for action during each meal-making session and allow me to sample the final product, which was always amazing.  The dish was most likely remarkable prior to the bullion’s arrival, but in my young mind, the little dark cubed paste was the magical ingredient that instantly transformed a meal into an experience.

Somewhere along the way my bouillon line got blurred and I began hiding mine and only slipping them into my cooking in the privacy of my kitchen when no one was looking.  I didn’t have a tiny swiveling stand with ten basic spices like my mother had had. I had two entire drawers filled with enough spice to run my own successful trade route and I used them brazenly.  But I still found the need to have my neon cubes nearby, for the soup that needed an extra kick, the meat dish that lacked a salty depth to it, or the paella that yearned for more than just shrimp shell broth. 

Cooking is as much about feeling as form and even though the venerable food institutions would immediately scoff at my random affairs with salty, neon culinary bliss, I confess to continue using them even after I’ve spent hours boiling chicken bones and necks to make a perfect homemade broth.  There’s just something about the occasional plop of neon that makes it all taste better.

My spoon isn’t as big as Yolanda’s but it is from the same weathered Amazon wood.  I stir my soup with it and pull out my yellow box for the final touch.  As if on cue, my ten-year old daughter races up to the stove.  “Now mom, now?” she asks, excitedly.  I haven’t taught her this, but she knows the dropping of the cubito will seal the deal.

I carefully unwrap the foil and let the cube descend to the bottom of the pot where in two seconds it has blended its saltiness with the soup.  Two big stirs follow and as the revised intoxicating aroma reaches me I inevitably find myself taking in a deep breathe and muttering,

“Ahora si esta.”

What she didn’t know is that I dream of being a fish, a dolphin, a whale; anything slick and fast that navigates easily through salty waters, pushing all worries away.  Night after night after night I’d become this aquatic creature and slip through miles upon miles of space with only speed serving as my guide.  Occasionally I stir things up a bit and jump to the surface, sporadically breaking the wall of water for a moment of bright blue sky, hot sun, and prowling birds.  But that is gone in an instant, because once again I dive low and deep and swim, swim, swim, fast and furiously.

“You’re here practically every day, honey” she noted, slightly amused.  She was an older woman from one of the islands and she’d been working here for years, parked between produce and meats, serving sterile-looking bits of salmon and tilapia to shoppers weary of anything that wasn’t pork or beef.  It seemed I did make a daily stop to visit her and her fish.

She was trapped in this barren environment as I was, forced to sell remnants of the seafood she most definitely enjoyed heartily as a child growing up.  Seeing her brought me back to my childhood trips to Barbados, a sunny island filled with warm salty air, turquoise beaches and beautiful people.  Food was simple and direct in Barbados:  every Tuesday and Thursday morning the local fish market, which consisted of a decaying wooden table and three stumps of wood painted in faded reds and yellows, would come to life with whatever the local fishermen brought in.

I loved coming to the market.  It would always be hot and crowded and very chaotic, with a smell of dirt and fish guts that inevitably brought lots of flies.  There’d be the occasional dog or cat scamming for scraps and plenty of Bajan women dressed in bright colored dresses haggling over the fresh catch still squirming in the buckets.  It was smelly, hot, and teeming with people but it was alive, and I relished being the little blonde kid stuck in the middle of it all.  It didn’t take long; by noon the market was closed, all the fish was gone and the only remnant of any activity would be that happy stray cat licking a paw or two.

Some days it would be baskets upon baskets of flying fish- a tiny meaty fish with unusually large pectoral fins that enable it to take flight with each jump.  This is the  national fish of Barbados and it is a title that is not taken lightly. Flying fish abound, on t-shirts, store signs, and even coins.  In kitchens, they are served up slathered in Bajan spice (a mixture of nutmeg, cloves, and mace, amongst other ingredients ) and fried to a crisp alongside wedges of juicy limes.  If they didn’t end up on your plate you could see them jumping about carelessly through the water, swimming all worries away as I do in my sleep.

On other days the catch was bigger and the fishermen carried orange plastic buckets flapping with snapper or dolphin. The first time my father told me he had bought dolphin my blue eyes welled up with tears and the images of the kind and good man who was raising me was instantly replaced by new visions of a cruel and heartless Flipper killer. A ten-year old’s mind works fast.

“Dolphin?” was all I managed to mutter in my dismay.

My mother’s intuition salvaged the moment preventing further trauma with a casual chuckle and a quick clarification: 

“No, honey, not Flipper dolphin, a fish called dolphin.  It’s also called Mahi-Mahi.”

I liked the lyrical sound of Mahi-Mahi, but of course, now that I knew the truth, I preferred the shock value of telling folks I ate dolphin.   With that thought my eyes dried up and I was suddenly very hungry.

I soon learned it to be a delicious fish:  white and meaty with a firm texture, it too was prepared in the classic Bajan manner, slathered in herbs and pan-fried, enjoyed with a cold Coca-Cola (or a frothy Banks beer for the adults) and barefoot, sandy feet.    

Today I see my fish lady has a fresh batch of dolphin and I am inevitably drawn to it.  I am under neon lights in a large warehouse space, not under the warm and comforting Caribbean skies where I want to be.  This dolphin should be coming off the tiny fisherman’s boat in Barbados, I think to myself.  And, even though I don’t share the thought with her, I watch my fish lady with her graying hair, her sun-kissed smile, and her gold tooth, and I know that she must be thinking the same thing too. 

She weighs the fillets and wraps them for me, handing me my package with her usual grin.  I am thinking of how I will prepare my fish tonight.  Perhaps a dash of spice in a creamy sauce would be nice.  I suddenly have a craving for a cold beer too.

“See you tomorrow” she sings, and she knows it is true.  I always return to the sea, even if under these artificial lights.

Unmistakably tragic, this is one of Schubert’s finest pieces.  Written for four hands, the music is both haunting and exquisite and serves as a wonderful inspiration to equally superb cuisine. 

Make something memorable to this tune.

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