Like Morning Coffee

I was lucky as a child. The Ecuador that I lived was sun-soaked and epic, full of tall laughing men, German shepherds (magical to me), and bowlfuls of broth and cilantro. The air smelled like smoke –always –and a weedy green plant scent that blew in from the mountains.  And, in 1979, at the age of 7, I spent a summer in Quito with my cousins. This was when Fausto was in his glory.

In those days, my tio Fausto worked as a kind of journalist. He wore sleek blue suits, very respectable. But when he stepped into my grandmother’s house, he threw on brown slacks and a rough shirt. That was when he became Fausto, surveyor of the Earth, recorder of Ecuador and all her miracles.

By nightfall, he wandered. He wandered around the house like he wandered around the garden, and the world outside – like he was searching for something that he had lost a long time ago. We followed him. He upturned rocks, overturned shelves, dug up roots of rose bushes. He presented us – a stone in the shape of an elephant, a yellowed postcard of my 16-year-old grandmother (the flower), reeds that smelled like mint.

On weekends, he’d disappear. Then he found us, breathless, his brilliant green eyes in the grasp of revelation. He may have just caught sight of a UFO darting above the green outlines of the Pichincha, or heard God whispers in his ear, or unraveled some subterranean meaning in an obscure passage of contemplative poetry.

When the sun rose, he sat at the long table with my other uncles and grandfather, and he bowed his head into his morning coffee. He poured tinto into his cup. The coffee from tinto was bitter, and he drank it black. He kept himself apart, always listening, listening.

Afterwards, Fausto darted out of his seat, and he’d come and find us. He walked us into the garden, and dug for herbs and roots. The sunlight slanted onto the green trees. The air had a cool snap. It smelled like the waking earth – open soil, damp lime leaves, and Fausto.

Fausto was prone to terrific bouts of energy. Sometimes, sometimes during our great family meals.

Forty fractious members, and the children ran in hordes. The adults smoked. The food was relentless. Forty consommés, forty heaping plates of fritada, forty (and more!) choclos, ceviche bowls, beet salads, popcorn, boiled mote.

Mama Sarita’s impossibly small kitchen –four feet by three feet –held the women preparing the feast, and their laughter floated in a steam cloud of boiled potatoes. They started cooking very early, almost impossibly early, to get the meal in for lunchtime.

Sometimes, sometimes this sweet buzz of activity would inspire Fausto, and he made my favorite ice cream in the world (still is).

He lined us up to the long table, and brought in cups, bags, and cans. He had every form of milk – the sweetened and condensed, the thickened, the already cooked, the pure cream. He poured it all into a bowl. He added vanilla and sugar. At first the mixture was white like a merengue, and then like eggnog, eggy-looking, but without eggs. Finally, he drizzled in the coffee tinto, and then the mixture looked like cafe con leche.

This he laid into a long enamel pan, and took to the freezer. And then he disappeared.

The ice cream would be ready hours later, well into the night. It was like morning coffee – not like dessert – with the broad creaminess of whole milk.  But the coffee in it tasted dark and bitter. It tasted wild.

Creatures like Fausto are disappearing in this world. He has always been too inside himself to succeed in another person’s plans or to follow social convention. He has too many whims, obsessions, too many shifts of emotions. Schedules flabbergast him – and ordinary people are flabbergasted by him. But he is Don Quixote – he created worlds out of small miracles from the Ecuadorean earth. He helped me that way – he helped shape my mind.

 Morning Coffee Ice Cream

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 can evaporated milk

14 ounces heavy cream

1 cup confectioners sugar

vanilla

5 tablespoons instant coffee melted in hot water

Mix together, freeze overnight.