March 25th, 2024
I don’t have a religion but follow certain traditions from Catholic culture. One is eating fanesca during holy week. Fanesca was originally a fish soup, made with potatoes and salted-dry codfish. Over time it evolved to include a variety of grains, corn, peanuts, squash, and pumpkin. It is served with a slice of a hard-boil egg, a quarter of an avocado, and some green onions and cilantro on top. The soup is only prepared in Ecuador and only during holy week, when family and friends get together.
Yesterday, the soup was prepared in Bangkok, courtesy of Natalia and with my technical assistance. It is the second time that she attempts the feat, last we were in Washington DC. Finding the ingredients would be easy in most parts of the world, but for the salted-dry codfish. It is possible to replace it though by fresh codfish without a loss of flavor (this was confirmed by one of the AI chat bots Natalia uses). Instead of soaking the bacalao in water for 24 hours, you fry lightly the fresh cod with olive oil and a lot of coarse salt, and add to the soup towards the end. What takes time in the preparation of fanesca is cooking each of the grains and other ingredients separately, always keeping their broth. Never attempt to prepare fanesca if you are in a hurry and/or do not have access to some form of ethanol. For part of the tradition is enjoying the time you spend at the kitchen with your loved ones cooking, talking, and sipping a drink.
Natalia’s fanesca was served with a bottle of St Emilion 2019. It was succulent. This is the recipe we used: https://www.laylita.com/recipes/fanesca/
I have a friend in mind, a writer and sailor whose wife is a great cook but who himself prefers to stay out of the kitchen. I hope that preparing fanesca will become an inspiration for him to engage in the art of cooking à deux while drinking cava.
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I am above my average level of happiness today. A relaxing weekend and the fanesca might explain the deviation, but the main reason is that Marina arrived a couple of hours. She finished successfully her second semester in the first year of cognitive sciences at UCSD. She was working very hard and has come to Thailand for a well-deserved vacation. At 18:00 we have a reservation for drinks and dinner at one of the roof-tops in town, and exactly 11 hours later the four of us (N, M, W and I ) will start a road trip to Kho Samui. We rented a house there where we’ll spend the next couple of weeks. I won’t be in full vacation mode for I have work to do, but I’ll make sure to find time to enjoy the island with the family.
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From the other side of the world there are some good news as well. The red monster is finally operational. It was tested last week and runs smoothly delivering enough power to keep all systems working, including the 220 outlets, and the batteries charging. The plan now is to move BEHEMOTH to the boat yard after Easter to change the cutlass bearing and check the propeller. In Colombia they are also in celebrations this week, if not with fanesca with other foods from the Andes and the Caribbean.
Sailing to the Pacific 