Mean Streets Granola

There are many places in Bogotá that I can't go, and I find this enormously frustrating. Of course every city has it's bad neighbourhoods, but rarely are these neighbourhoods the only places to find nuts and dried fruit at affordable prices.

For some reason, these two foods are crazily expensive here in Colombia. Everywhere that is, except the San Andresito market. This huge maze of shops and stalls covering several blocks in Bogotá's centre is divided into dozens of areas, each containing thousands of stores all selling exactly the same products. There's the liquor and wine hall, the paper and plastic bags plaza, the car stereo sector and the crappy clothing quarter.  And, of course, there's the nuts and dried fruit district, a happy happy place with giant containers of macadamia nuts, hazlenuts, peanuts and pine nuts, to name but a few.  

Fortunately, whilst San Andresito is a place I can't go to alone, it's not completely out-of-bounds. I simply need a companion, one who doesn't carry a giant neon sign on their head that screams "gringa". 

Enter La Mamita de Latino Man. With her five-foot-nothing stature, smart slacks, Chanel-style jacket and stylishly coordinated scarf, her every step says "I know this city and how it works. Don't bother trying to mess with me because you will fail." As my guide to San Andresito, she managed not only to find the fruit and nuts I was searching for, and help me buy them at local prices, she also found some potential wholesale dairy and packaging suppliers for Choco Q. 

This loot was intended for future experiments in chocolate bars, but delays in equipment delivery left them sitting in the chocolate workshop, uneaten and lonely. This is too sad a fate for affordable nuts and dried fruit, so I broke open a few packets and made some granola.

I wasn't a granola-eater until a bit over a year ago, when my Parma-housemate Emily made some after a class on health and diet, that heavily emphasised the benefits of whole grains. Emily's granola, loaded with said health-giving whole grains, was absolutely heavenly: crunchy, nutty, toasty and just ever so slightly sweet. Those breakfasts were some of the tastiest meals I ate that year in Italy, that's how good Emily's granola was. Now, realising how delicious whole grains can be, I put my faith in them to stave off a long list of diet-related diseases. That makes a bowl of granola for breakfast like going for a run first thing in the morning: you've done your day's worth of good deeds for your health before 9am! 

There are thousands of recipes for granola, and I've posted mine below, but you can just as easily make your own with whatever appeals most to you. Granola is basically a bunch of whole grain flakes, be they oat, quinoa or wheat, plus nuts and/or seeds. This is mixed with some honey and vegetable oil before being baked. Emily's special method was to then leave the granola uncovered for several hours, drying it out even further, before adding some dried fruit and other extras and putting the whole thing in a container. This way the oven doesn't have to do all the work, and you won't risk overcooking the mix!

Mean Streets Granola

2 cups of whole rolled oats
2 cups of quinoa flakes
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup linseeds
1/2 cup hazlenuts
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
1/2 cup peanuts
1/3 cup of honey
1/4 cup of sunflower oil

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees celcius. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Warm the honey slightly to make it more viscous, mix in the oil and toss through the dry mix. Spread the mixture on two trays and bake for 45 minutes, turning regularly to prevent it from burning. 

When this mixture has cooled, add the following:
1 cup of dried cranberries
1 cup popped barley
1 cup popped amaranth
1 cup of popped rice 

Store in an airtight container. 

Eat this with a big dollop of yoghurt and some fresh fruit, and feel self-righteous for the rest of the day! 

The launch of Choco Q

I was born a planner. I don’t mean the advertising kind, although I was that for a few years too, I mean the general life kind. I organise. It’s not something I like to do so much as something I have to do — I can't function without a plan. The very atoms of my being must have a plan.

At night before I go to bed I plot out my following day, down to the half hour. Upon waking, I check-in with said plan and only then can I get out of bed. I use iCal on my MacBook which syncs with my iPhone so I have a calendar of events wherever I go, and the very handy teuxdeux.com plots my actionable items by day, week and even “Someday”. These digital plans are supplemented with hand-written shopping lists, city maps, and addresses just to keep my day, and therefore my sanity, on track. 

My two greatest fears are being cold and being hungry, and my third by a narrow margin is existing without a plan. My whole body trembles imagining the horror of lost productivity, missed deadlines, chaos, mayhem and an all-encompassing black void, where instead there could be the immense satisfaction of crossing something off a to-do list!   

I hear you loyal reader, you’re asking, “Q, if you absolutely must organise your life this way, why-oh-why did you move to Colombia?” 

Yes, well, that wasn’t part of the plan. And for deviating from the plan I am being punished, harshly. So far from the plan is this outcome, that I find my worst fears have been realised: I am incapable of planning! 

Despite rigorous organisation and to-do-list-ing, I'm unable to schedule even a coffee date in Bogotá. Not only does this city simply refuse to be planned, it actively thwarts all attempts at organisation. “Think you’re getting to the hardware store AND the market today?” it jeers. "Think again." Then it throws a lake of rain on the city just as I’m trying to find a cab. “You dare imagine you will get your delivery of couverture on time?” it bellows. Then it seizes the city in gridlock so tight, my chocolate delivery guy moves a mere three metres in three days.  

Bogotanos know this of course, which is why they never plan anything. They decide at any given moment, based on traffic conditions, weather, road closures, their location, the location of the friend/colleague/office/restaurant/store/government department, the "minutes" left on their pre-paid mobile SIM and the probability of getting a taxi, whether or not to celebrate a birthday, arrange a business meeting, catch up for drinks or go into labour. Elaborate parties come together in mere moments, complete with band, caterers, wait staff and decorators, who are all available at a minute’s notice, because nobody else dared to book them any earlier.  

Businesses, I discovered, emerge under the same principles. In late November I was a student of Ecole Chocolat, about to graduate from their Professional Chocolatier course. By December 9, the day before Latino Man and I left for Australia, I was the owner of a chocolate business, complete with logo, website, packaging and delivered Christmas orders. Amidst the December rain, holiday craziness, collapsing roads and Latino Man’s ridiculous workload, Bogotá let me start Choco Q. 

Now, if I could just figure out a way to schedule those last-minutes… 

Reunited

My beloved Minty Jr

Let's never part again.

Caramel Fail

Colombia puts Italy to shame when it comes to bureaucracy. In order to rent an apartment in Bogotá for example, we need two guarantors who own property themselves (and are financially on the line if we don't pay our rent), copies of their property deeds, copies of bank statements for the last three months (ours and theirs), letters from our non-existent employers, proof of our income, investments and coins fallen behind the cushions, and promise of a kidney should the landlady ever need it (which we offered instead of the contract-standard first-born — given my age, there may not be a second-born).

It's enough to drive a girl to eat an entire tray of caramel! If only I could make caramel.

Perhaps it was my incredibly frustrated state of mind, perhaps the stove which has only three heat settings, perhaps the pots with their thin bases that can't distribute said heat. Whatever the excuse, the sad reality at the end of that day was that I can't make caramel.

Three times I tried and three times I failed. I used three different recipes from very respected sources and somehow I was defeated by each of them. The first batch were so hard I couldn't cut the caramel slab with a knife, so teeth would have no chance. The second batch turned into a giant crystalised lump. The final batch showed such great potential, but at the last minute I was distracted by the looming need to plan a wedding, and I let the sugar burn. 

But, like the little engine that couldn't bear throwing away so much sugar, cream, butter, glucose syrup and vanilla, I kept trying. I figured if sugar could melt once, it could melt again, so I took Hard As A Rock and put it in a pot of boiling cream. After much stirring and hoping, Hard As A Rock became delicious Salted Butter Caramel Sauce. Then I used half the sauce to fill these chocolates. 

The other half of the sauce is in the fridge, waiting for that rainy day when we have to connect internet, water and electricity. Oh the joys that await! 

Home again?

It has been a long time since I landed in a city that I planned to call home for more than a few months, but that's what I did a couple of Mondays ago when I arrived back in Bogota, this time to live. 

How easy it is to write those words and how hard to actually enact them. My first week here was full of self-doubt and frustration. I mean really, what was I thinking those few months ago when I agreed to make this enormous, sprawling, third-world, Spanish-speaking city our home? Life is hard here, much harder than in countries where I speak the language fluently, have a professional network, can walk most streets without fear and know my way around. I'm all for a bit of adventure in life, but I wondered if this time I had bitten off more than I can chew.

Fortunately I have three things making this transition somewhat easier: 

1. My guide, translator, and Bogota local, Latino Man, and we all know he's worth everything this mammoth city might throw at me.

2. My cheer squad of loving and supportive friends and family members, not one of whom has said "Are you crazy?" even though they're probably thinking it. 

3. Chocolate. A lot of it.

I collected almost a suitcase-full of bars in my few months in Europe, representing some of the most interesting beans and producers from all over the world. The combination of amazing people and amazing chocolate is a guaranteed dispeller of self-doubt and poor spirits, so I organised a chocolate tasting to share some of these gems with new friends in my new hometown. 

Three Colombians, a Frenchman and myself tasted four chocolates to compare Latin American and European styles of chocolate production, including:  

• Casa Luker Huila, made in Colombia (a generous gift from Geert Vercruysse);
• Pacari Los Rios, made in Ecuador;
• Original Beans Piura Porcelana, beans from Peru, made by Felchlin, Switzerland;
• Valrhona Caraibe, beans from various Caribbean countries, made in France.  

Interestingly whilst the Valrhona was declared "easy to eat" the favourite amongst the international panel of tasters was Casa Luker. Everyone agreed that whilst bitter (at 85%, who's not?) and somewhat blunt in its aroma delivery, it was a true reflection of the bean and of the land which produced it. 

This is the land that I will call home, for a while at least. So if ever you hear me complaining, worrying, or wondering why I'm here, please remind me of these two things:

1. I live in a country that grows cacao and makes its own chocolate

2. That after only a few weeks in this place, I already have some great friends with whom to share it.