Working and enjoying it. Scary stuff...

So we're still in Granada. We're living in a pitched tent in Kevin's backyard.

We've been spending our time doing a lot of graphic design for a new menu, a flyer for live music, a new drink menu, etc. It's been awhile since I've done some of this work, but the rust is coming off quickly. I'm going to be working with the restaurant's website, completely changing it. It's a much needed update.

It's actually nice to get a project again! We've been so lacksidasical about anything and everything that suddenly being thrown back into the business world is surprisingly a lot of fun. The deadlines, the quickness, the immediacy of the situation. I'm enjoying actually producing something that's getting used. We printed up some new menus, he printed them off and put them right on the tables. Talk about seeing results quickly!

It was actually very random that we are even working with him. He owns a restaurant called Imagine, right off the main square here in Granada. Erin, Ryan and I were passing by and I noticed a brie stuff chicken breast, which clearly caught my eye. Then I noticed that he had Hendricks and Balvenie, which was interesting since you never see those things. So we walked in and started talking, he said that a lot of the things in the restaurant came from his farm, so we started talking about WWOOF, which he hadn't heard of, so we introduced it to him. He seemed interested in the program in general, so I blatently asked if he needed any help around the farm or the restaurant. He said maybe, let's check it out. The next morning, we went to his farm to see if it would work.

It was a mess, but workable. We went with Ryan to Masaya, as described by Erin so wonderfully, then returned to his house and pitched our tent in his backyard. And thus began our current venture.

First, I think a description of the farm is in order. It's not so much a formal farm, per se, but it does have many things growing in it. Mango trees, lime trees, bitter orange, sweet orange, starfruit, passionfruit, plantains, bananas, chiles, basil, green beans, oh my! He's trying to grow corn as well, we'll see how that turns out. But everything is kind of just thrown out there haphazardly, except for the banana trees in their rows. We pitched out tent under an orange tree. The ground is pure volcanic rock gravel, which is not particularly comfortable to sleep on when you only have a thin mat. In addition, the city of Granada is fairly similar in climate to the inside of a turkish steam bath. So, we have the exquisite pleasure of waking in a pool of sweat, back sticking to the foam mat and lines etched in our skin making us look like crazy, sweaty tigers with eye buggers galore. It's fantastic.

The setup is a large patio that is entered from the street through a gate, to which we have no key. There is a security guard during the night who I believe sleeps more than a bit on the shift, which means that we end up at the gate yelling at him to come open it. He always comes pretty quick, but it's just kind of funny. During the day there is a gardener, Antonio, with his two sons, who is master of the garden domain. We also get to yell for him, which is even tougher since half the time he's all the way in the back burning leaves. But they always come. Returning to the description, there is a wonderful tiled side porch with some wicker rocking chairs that we have dubbed the living room, even though it's not really a room in the traditional sense of the word, that is, four walls enclosing an area. We do have a roof and one wall, though, so it's got some of the requirements of a "room". On the same porch, there is a blue worktable that we have termed "the kitchen."

There is a propane tank and a coleman stove the likes of which that I haven't seen since I went camping in Texas in the 80's. He was kind enough to share some of his kitchen gear, so we have a fry pan and a pot and enough utensils to get by. Yesterday we made macaroni and cheese and fried potatoes. Classy stuff, I know. Today is a whole 'nother day of two pot surprises. Moving along the porch, there is a door. This door provides entrance to the shed, the washing and drying machines, the bathroom, the shower, and our bags. There is also a icebox where we currently have a large bag of ice (now half melted), a bottle of Clamata Tomato Juice Drink waiting for consumption, some cut carrots, and a cantalope, which I'm guessing is water logged by now. We do have a key to this door, which is good in case you need to go to the bathroom in the night. That's about the end of the structured area. Beyond that you have the garden and our tent. Whew. We'll get some pictures up of the area soon enough.

The building/farm complex itself is about 1 mile from the restaurant, which means we're getting our walking in just by going back and forth to the house. There's a market not far, so we can take some pretty regular trips to get the things we need. We also found a French Canadian bakery hidden in the market with insanely delicious sourdough bread, wheat bread and, God bless them, brioche. I have yet to try the brioche, but I'm pretty sure it's quality, given the wheat bread. The bread is huge and round and when you cut into it, you can actually feel the knife getting duller. When all you have is white bread forever, something good and heavy is awesome. When we walked into the store, I found that I actually had to speak French to them in order to communicate. I did not wake up yesterday morning thinking that I would be in a French speaking environment. There were, of course, even some other frenchies at the bakery that decided that I could speak well enough for us to all engage in the conversation. I was definitely caught off guard, but held my ground.

We've been getting into the groove, enjoying having a bit of a schedule and relaxing in a routine. I'll keep you up to date about what's going on with the restaurant. We are working on the drink menu and the bar food menu, finished last night. We're working with a girl named Kami, another American. She's trying to figure out if she wants to live in Granada permanentely or not, so she's putting her toes in the water, seeing what's around. It's been a bit of a struggle to work with her, but it works out in the end. She's renting an apartment from a local guy who has an enormous motorcycle I'm dying to spin through the streets. (Last night we saw the Friday night ride of the local bike club. 30) bikes cruising the colonial streets of Granada is quite a sight to see.) We went to her apartment last night, worked to finish the drink menu, and then walked over to the restaurant to print them off, tweak the tex and formatting with Kevin, and then actually make sure. He ran out of ink so the entire restaurant had 4 menus, which in and of itself is pretty funny. So that finished, we headed out to promote. We mozied our way to some of the local hostals and spoke with the people staying there, talking about a live music event happenning that night at the restaurant. People seemed up for it, but you never know. But luckily they came. In droves.

We had more people in the restaurant than I think he'd seen in a long time. Ordering beers, appetizers (New Zealand Green Mussels in White Wine Shallot Broth, served with the French Canadien's hearth bread), drinks and the like. I ended up pulling in (with significant help from my better half) a group of 9 that we had to put in a side room. In other words, the place was packed. Erin ended up working behind the bar, I was serving tables drinks and food, Kevin was in the back cooking up a mussel storm with the other cooks. It was a red hot mess, but it was fun. We got to see our menus work out, see how the bar works when it gets busy (it doesn't really work that well when it's busy), and hang out with Kevin on a more intimate scale. It was a long night, but fun. It was the first time in 12 years I had actually served food. (The last time was the venerable Coney Island Hot Dog Stand, a Fort Wayne tradition since 1912. I was 16 and ready to conquer the hot dog world, and let me tell you, I was king. excepet for the other guys that worked there, but you couldn't really compare yourself to them because, i mean, come on, they were 20 and drank Apple Puckers. So cool.)

So the night was a great success, a couple snags, but nothing major. Today I'm lying in a hammock, recovering from staying up talking to Kevin until the sun came up. What a fun night! Now, I think breakfast is coming, cooked my favorite way, which is anyway at all that I don´t have to be involved.