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Published: October 20th 2006
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...la bombonera - a 1902 cafeteria on Calle San Francisco in Old San Juan!
You sense a real pride in Puerto Rico's history at La Bombonera - a tradition for more than a hundred years, a repository of memories and dreams about simple and inexpensive Puerto Rican dishes. Dignified waiters serve orange juice squeezed by a man behind the counter who squeezes the oranges in an equally ancient machine. Coffee is brewed from local beans in an ancient Rube Goldberg contraption, and pan de Mallorca, an eggy breakfast bun to die for, dusted with sugar and toasted with butter on the kind of griddle used in Miami to make Cubano sandwiches. You come to La Bombonera like the little old men who sidle up to the counter all day long for their regular pastries and coffees, like the busy business people who get a coffee and quickly move on, like the schmoozers who kill time talking island politics, like other curious tourists who are stuck staring in the window and ultimately like the couples who seem like they have been out all night or who would like to seem to have been.
...and "casa de mr. c" was about
to become a thing of the past...
well, after getting over the initial shock of the first 24 hours in 'paradise', reality was quick to settle in. how were we going to live? some money would be nice. as syncronicity would have it, it seems that the lady of the house with the toilet outside had been doing some massage work down the 'gap' from where they lived at a hotel had recently been purchased by a young british couple who had renovated the hotel and as it turned out, that they were looking for a chef and since mr. c had just arrived back into town, the timing was perfect. he started the following day.
mr. c was now busy working long, hard hours at his new job - changing the menu, dealing with new suppliers, schmoozing his new bosses - leaving little ole me at home in the 'mansion' with mom and pop and the broken down fan. one thing that he forgot to mention before the move south, was that the sea in oistins was a 5 minute walk down but a 30 minute walk back up the steepest hill known to mankind! add to
that the sun that beats down on you, it was next to impossible for me to climb. i did do it just to get out of the house but barely made it back up each time...more reason to sit in front of that damn fan and sob. no son, no man, no air, no job, no friends, no life...what had i done?
well, all my whining paid off and mr. c convinced the proprietors that he needed an assistant in the kitchen so after three weeks in the sweat shop, i moved into the seaside hotel! we were given a room decorated in an abobe style...white stucco walls with red clay floors, louvered wooden shutters and perched just 50 feet from the edge of the caribbean sea! what more could i ask for? well...one thing...one thing that just about every woman i know would also want...hot water! we did not have hot water in our room! cool showers every day! you may think this really doesn't make any difference when you're living in a tropical climate but one the sun goes down, so does your body temperature. every morning...bbbrrrrrr - every evening...growlllll. i never got used to bathing in
cold water.
our days were super busy serving lunch and dinner for 40 hotel guests and drop in visitors. once a week, we held an outdoor buffet under the stars with a sweet sounds of a steel band - what a hit...we were celebrities! mingling with the guests offered us a perfect opportunity to get to know loads of people from around the world and eventually, we started our side business - touring guests around the island on our ONE day off. since i was a newbie in bim, i wanted to see and do as much as i could on that day off. we had found a tiny rum shop deep in the country in st. phillip parish where this little old lady made the best fish cakes we had ever tasted. it became our routine each week to load up the van with anyone who wanted to come, head out of south coast, making a pit stop at the top of st. lawrence gap for a roti then on to st. phillips for our weekly gastronomic experience...
...and thus began my passion for diverse food and exotic locales!
but in 17 days, i'll be in...
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