As I promised on Marie’s blog recently, here are the links to the two grouper interviews, originally published on the Paradise Divers web site: one with Ben and one with Jerry. The bottom line, pardon the pun, is simple. Let’s not eat grouper. They are among the top predators on a reef and as such play a key role in the ecosystem. Decimating groupers means impacting the entire reef, not only the specie, and the consequences could be tragic.

New York City is gigantic, beautiful, ugly, mad and magical all at the same time. Constituting what could very well be the center of the known universe, the city is one of epic proportions and tragic contradictions. Scarred forever by the hand of man, she stands alone at the top of her own pedestal. A visit of New York is like going to the zoo, the museum, the movies, school, and through a badtrip simultaneously. There’s no staying indifferent. One either watches or plays a role, but no one is left to yawn. Every seat is a first row, every part a lead.

Yet on this trip I saw none of that. I wasn’t visiting New York, my date was with destiny. So instead I enjoyed the small things like re-learning to jay walk, looking at urban flowers and trees, playing with a vocal black cat, marvelling at life’s smart coincidences, sweating in subway stations so hot they must channel magma, shopping for groceries in small neighbourhood stores, walking around Brooklyn - Moonstruck, trying to get rid of my French accent - tu parles!, and smiling a lot…

But first and last and always, New York for me will now have amazing green eyes.

The world no longer stretches to infinity. It has suddenly collapsed on itself, like a tortured rubber band still always comes back to its original shape. Time, which stood frozen, has melted and swollen up to epic proportions, focusing its beam like the pupils of a cat’s eye reacting to action. Sounds are harmonious and trickle like a melancholic mountain stream, crystals touching softly and vibrating like bells. The images of life have sharpened and taken on a warm orange glow, and they now flow smoothly in all directions but from a unique center at the heart of all things. The powerful simplicity of love imposes itself as a core and everything else starts gravitating around it. A deep breath is taken twice.

A thick book which had been waiting patiently on a long shelf, squeezed snugly between other volumes, its title written in orange letters along the deep green edge, collecting dust and awaiting its time, has been found. It wanted to be. Magic books are like that. They take their sweet time, years sometimes, driving carefully chosen readers to them, small step after small step.

And now the book has been picked up, its cover dusted and brushed, the leather cleaned. Then it was opened. On the first page, the title repeats itself: The Story of Magic and Victory. But all the remaining pages are blank, to be written along. Soon, the first line appears:

« Once upon a time, across time and distance, there were fireworks... »

It’s slightly after coffee...

... He would probably have written something like this:

« In spring the crabapple exploded into burgundy bloom and the air buzzed with its bees. The dusky sweet smell filled the whole garden. The willow tree turned chartreuse, then yellow with fuzzy lime catkins and even louder bees, until its structure seemed to vibrate. The old, fragile lilac tree at the front door held pale pink, loose, graceful flower clusters, with old-fashioned dark purple violets at its feet. I would crouch with my face near their leaves, picking their long stems one by one to make a posy, oblivious of the romance of it, of the ritual repeated in all countries where violets grow. I loved them - their full fat petals, their fragile white hearts, their scent. That early season was one of fragrance: the cascading bunches of wisteria over the heavy wooden doors in the high white wall; the simple, single white hyacinths growing outside the walls under the ornamental peach trees that lined the street. I wanted to squeeze them to make perfume, and my mother told me that in France there were fields of flowers for just that purpose. When I am big, I will make perfume in France, I said. I could imagine nothing better. »

 [Written some time ago by Marie, who incidentally is now reading Marcel Pagnol.]

« Je venais de surprendre mon père en flagrant délit d’humanité. Je sentis que je l’en aimais davantage. »

Marcel Pagnol - La gloire de mon père

No words. My keyboard has turned into a strange kaleidoscope of symbols that refuse to congregate into the familiar pattern of sentences. There has been this noise, a faint rumour, barely above the whisper of a gentle breeze caressing a tree’s foliage. But then the sound sharpened, its volume raised by the passing of time and amplified by granite walls that always seem to appear on both sides of a path. It became so loud that an echo kicked in. I could no longer ignore the nature of the noise: these were drums, a thousand drums, beating like one, answering to each other, every moment louder than the previous in an overwhelming crescendo of yet unknown destination.

The sound is now deafening, its tempo increasingly mad, aggressive, creative, beautiful.

Then suddenly, the drums will stop. Absolute silence will fall unto a world momentarily deprived of rhythm, and time will stretch. Only for an instant. It will be crossroads. The moment will have come. The countdown will switch to a count-up. And then the wheels of time should start turning again. Only now, they could be different. Changed. Moved. Tuned.

Some fences are made of old planks, others are dashed with barbed wire.

Yet another kind, the one I’m most familiar with, has none of those restrictive elements. No nails, no warning signs, no sharp edges, no electricity, no height, not even presence. That kind of fence uses, for only defense, immensity. It’s called the ocean - more efficient as a barrier than any obstacle I’ve seen, while even more appealing and inviting because of its very own nature. It’s the ultimate fence, the one that keeps you out until it forever keeps you in. Once the Sea flows in your veins, she will never get out. But until that moment, she is the meanest guardian of everything not here. Trespass, promise, threat.

And orange at times.

Today was a day of celebration.

A giant sword, which had been shining of a cold metal glow across my neck, its razor-sharp edge inches of the flesh and dying to cut in, has finally been lifted. It had been years. I can breathe again.

So I decided to treat myself to a cheese fondue (and some broccoli, which I get by the truckload for a bargain price at Costco, to balance things out and even though they just don’t go together at all.) However, once inside the store’s giant walk-in fridge, my eyes were caught by a once familiar sight - freshly packaged, golden colored chanterelles. I’m probably related to Hobbits for my love of mushrooms. I had to give in.

Now for the record, I can’t cook; nevertheless, I once in a while try and pretend. So I went back to my mentor’s blog and made sure I was up for the challenge. I wasn’t going to cook a ginger ale pig, nor would I be messing with shrimp. No. I was simply going to make myself a mushroom fricassée.

It would seem that a major part of the cooking process involves talking about and taking pictures of said process. I can live with that. It actually makes cooking fun. So I rounded up my ingredients and took a picture of them... After 33 shots of the ingredients, complete with white balance tests and multiple angles, I remembered I had come to cook. So I took a break and developed a few sunset pictures. Then I went back reluctantly to the kitchen.

My fricassée would revolve around 450 gr. of chanterelles, which I decided to combine with 3 diced portobello patties for the illusion of meat and to fill the pan. I added chopped green onions (the closest I had gotten to the chives I originally wanted) and cilantro (with which I usually replace parsley that I never liked), a lot of garlic - vampire ye be warned - and I shed a tear for not having fresh thyme. Somehow my instinct told me to stay away from wasabi. I’ve always wanted to put wasabi in something. Next time. Along with sweetened condensed milk, maybe.

So I browned the garlic while processing a few files, then threw the mushrooms in the pan - wondering why nobody’s ever come up with a pan brand named Peter - eventually followed by the greens as I burned a DVD, then a pinch of salt and pepper. This is hilarious, I almost sound like I knew what I was doing. I took more pictures and tried to send a text message but my phone’s battery was fried.

The smell rising from the pan was a delicious trip through time, back to the south of France, quand on allait aux champignons. Chanterelles and girolles grew in humid areas, under thick tree foliage and as kids, we took the collect as seriously as the role games we played around them.

In the end my experiment came out ok, or at least the food didn’t walk out of the kitchen outraged. I had even bought a cake (!) and pour arroser ça, no Rust en Vrede Estate Blend 2000 but the closest thing available in BC to a Muscat de Provence: a bottle of Pineau des Charentes, sweet wine recommended as an aperitif but perfect for desert if you ask me.

Perfect, it almost was. If only I’d been cooking in Kamieskroon…

I’ve had Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in my head all morning, God knows why. Marc and Danny, sipping on their 12 year old Flor de Caña, would roll in laughter if they knew - Vinny mumbling to himself in the streets of Vancouver, « Don’t know the reason, stayed here all season... » Not sure if I should be ashamed or amused, or both. But after so much water has flowed under foreign bridges, these songs I used to mock have taken place into the brightly colored picture of my Caribbean days. They bring up a sweet nostalgia. Those were the days. Buffet’s song are about nothing serious, about beach bums and the unbearable lightness of being. They speak of the eternal quest for a reason, quenched by a few drinks and re-triggered by a few more. They remind me of a lifestyle without a style, hypnotically regular, lacking shirts and shoes but filled with salty sun, with for only season one of hurricanes, for only calendar one set by the landing of small planes. A life splashed by the hilarious antagonistic stories of outsiders and locals, tourists and residents, them and us...

Back in the Little Cayman days, our two dive boats were called Havana Daydreaming and Banana Wind. Now I finally see why.

It took a friendly comment on this blog, not so anonymously left behind with a silent question mark, to make me realize what was otherwise so obvious it could have poked me in the eye.

Serendipity. That’s the name of the fantastic script powering my blog. The Wikipedia defines it as such:

« Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely. »

I’m floored. It works, then.

The world stretches infinitely, like a long strand of toffee being pulled from both ends, unwilling to break but getting thinner and thinner, losing its color to a dull white. Time stands still as if hypnotized by distance and jammed from within. Sounds are muted, muffled and distorted, occasionally shrieking out of control like hysterical bursts of laughter played by an old phonograph losing speed. Life’s images are blurred and grainy, they collide jerkily one into another without harmony, ignoring their own identity. A few moments lasting many, slow motion of an already frozen track, only questions and possibilities as bones. The flesh is cold. But this is when anything goes, history can be made, all avenues open up after a small last giant step. It’s fusion of the core, melting of cages and warm up of engines. It’s slightly before coffee.