Borris the Burro: My Finca BFF

"Can I have your peach?"

Upon arrival at the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques, my favorite animal immediately became the seven year old, fuzzy eared, sweet faced round bellied donkey, Borris.  Even his name!  What a perfect donkey name!  And his signature donkey look with his head down, ears pointing up and eyes gazing at you from under his lashes is enough to make anyone fork over the other half of whatever sweet piece of fruit they are eating!  I adored him so much that I figured he warranted his very own blog post!

"Food? Is that for me? Can I have it anyway?"

 After a few days of working on the finca; however, I quickly noticed that Borris didn’t really have a job or specific purpose on the farm.  This is very unusual in a farming area like San Vicente that typically frowns upon keeping (i.e. continuing to feed and waste resources on) animals that have aged beyond productivity, hence such dishes as coq au vin (old cock) and mutton stew (old sheep).  Why, you ask, does this finca have a donkey whose sole purpose is seemingly to eat everything in sight and get in as much donkey trouble as he can?  Well, I’ll tell you!

Donkey Rides on Brighton Beach, 1976 
(photo courtesy of Yvonne Thompson)

The owner of the finca and our hostess, Brin, is originally from Brighton, U.K. and according to her, it the dream of every British child to own a donkey.  This concept seemed strange as truthfully the thought of owning a donkey had never even occurred to me (until the birth of Shrek and his Donkey, the typical American childhood has been relatively limited in donkey exposure, save Winnie the Poo’s buddy Eeyore).  The thought of owning a donkey may have seemed bizarre because a trip to the beach for most American children means sun, sand, waves and sand toys.  For U.K. children, on the other hand, a trip to the beach meant the traditional seaside donkey ride!  Ok, now I get it!  If that was your childhood beach experience, what child wouldn’t want a pet donkey? 

Side bar:  Throughout the 1970’s the popularity of the U.K.’s beach donkeys increased, as did their societal awareness of protecting animals’ rights.  In 1973, Dr Elisabeth Svendsen founded the Donkey Sanctuary in Devon, which now includes eight farms and houses thousands of rescued donkeys.  My previous statement regarding Borris’ curious nature and aptitude for finding trouble seems to be typical donkey characteristics as confirmed by Claire, one of the grooms on Brookfield Farm: "Joseph has got the biggest personality of all the donkeys here at Brookfield. If there is a yard broom he can steal - he will. If there is a pot of paint he can stick his nose in - he will. If there are builders or workmen here that he can follow around and annoy - he will."  Extremely entertaining!

The Donkey Sanctuary has also helped sanction codes that protect the beach donkeys by prohibiting excessively overweight children from riding them as well as requiring that the donkeys are given at least one hour long break per day.  You can find information on how to foster or adopt a donkey from this fascinating charity at http://www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/ (after browsing this site, I searched HelpX to see whether the sanctuary participated in the farm stay exchange and needed a donkey lover and her husband, but, to no avail).

Anyway, back to my darling Borris.  So, like most British children, Brin had always had the fantastical dream of owning a donkey, but now that she and her husband had sold their house in Brighton and bought a finca in San Vicente de Alcántara, Spain, the childhood wish had the potential for reality.  However, being the practical person that every successful farm owner must be, Brin’s financial priorities were focused strictly on essentials (e.g. how to utilize the four wells and set up a finca-wide water system, etc.).

That was until seven years ago, three years into owning the finca, when Brin was approached by a neighbor who said that he had a friend who had a baby donkey and was she interested in owning a donkey?  Concentrating on whatever frustrating project was currently at hand, she briskly brushed him off, “No, I don’t want a donkey!”  The next day, “Are you sure you don’t want a donkey?  He’s a good donkey!”  The next day, “You’re sure, really?”  “No, I can’t afford a donkey.”  “Just make an offer and I will ask my friend.”  In attempts to put him off for good, Brin devised a genius plan: tell the neighbor that all she could afford to pay was €100 when, as anyone knows, the going rate for a donkey was more like €300.  Quite “fluffed up and proud” of herself, she went inside the house thinking, ha, that’s the end of that!

Much to her surprise, two weeks later, the neighbor came back to tell Brin that his friend had consented and when did she want to pick up her new donkey!  Oops.  Apparently, an unspoken San Vicente pueblo rule is that if you make an offer on something and the offer is accepted, you’ve as good as bought it (i.e. it’s really bad form to change your mind).  Not wanting to create a rift between herself, a foreigner, and her neighbor, a long time Extremaduran finca owner, she resigned herself to the three foot high, three month old baby donkey.  Done and done.

I tell you, one look at Borris' super dooperly cute face with the long ears, of course the first thing you want to do is pet his soft donkey nose.  I think that donkeys are typically pretty shy and Borris was no exception.  Every time I would walk toward him he would back away giving me the cold shoulder.  Here, Borris, can I lure you with some greens?  Nope.  Brin told me not to worry, that he would get used to me being around the finca and even though he may be the "most moody donkey on the planet", he would come around.

Every day I walked from the main house out to the huerta to perform my daily gardening and greens gathering tasks.  After a few days, I suddenly heard this clomp, clomp, clomp sound behind me.  I turned around to find out that I was being followed by a donkey, whose curiosity had finally gotten the better of him and outweighed his shyness.  Well, almost.  As soon as I acknowledged his presence, Borris stopped and averted his eyes, dum dum dee dum…minding my own business.  When I put out my hand to pet him, he took a step back.  Giving him his space and time to trust me, I turned back around and again headed toward the huerta.  Lo and behold, after a few steps, Borris resumed his stalking game and followed me to the huerta!  This went on for about a week until he finally let me pet his soft nose.  That was it…best buds for life!  Don’t get me wrong, as close as we became, he still had his moody days when he didn’t feel like getting his nose pet; that’s right, Borris, just take your blood orange snack and take off.  Fine.  You can’t come to my birthday party.

CHOMP!

Speaking of snacks, for about half the time we were at the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques, Borris and the sheep were penned right next to the huerta, with only a flimsy fence between the ravenous beasts and the vegetables desperately attempting to survive in their overgrown patch.  I already mentioned the innocent donkey face look that would make you give him anything he wants; I’m surprised any of the other animals received their promised sack of greens what with Borris hanging his head over the huerta fence begging for scoobie snacks!

The finca was designed to have several areas in which to rotate the sheep and Borris so that they will always have green grass and plants to nibble on.  A few weeks into our stay, the remaining green grass in their current paddock had been completely gobbled down, which meant that it was time to switch to a different area.  Unfortunately, the next area in the rotation needed some fence repairs because there were a few areas in which the sheep could escape.  With summer rapidly approaching and so as not to let the last bit of grass growing on the finca go to waste, Brin penned Borris in the questionable fence section and the sheep in the next section. 

The following morning we heard a desperate, pitiful donkey bray from Borris’ new pen.  As I had not yet heard one peep out of Borris since we had been living on the finca, I was slightly concerned.  Brin warned me that I should check on him because there is always a possibility that this bray is the cry, “Help!  I tried to escape and now I’m stuck!”  She said that while theoretically he cannot escape, the little fence would not stop the mischievous donkey from nibbling on and potentially creating a hole in the fence.  Apparently, one year, while penned adjacent to the pig domain, Borris managed to free the pigs!  Too funny!  As it turned out, the bray was simply, “Come play with me!  I’m bored without my little sheep friends (even though I try to kick them in the head when they come near my food)!”

One of the highlights of the San Vicente farm stay was the day I finally got to ride Borris!  He had been trained for riders and in fact, Brin had hoped that her daughter would take to riding him which would also serve as a justification for his presence on the finca.  Alas, the little seven year old had no interest unless of course someone else wanted to ride him.  Go figure. 

Anyway, after fitting him with what was actually a pony saddle, thus barely fitting around his big donkey belly, Borris and I took a test lap around the front yard just to make sure he was happy with me on his back and to make sure the saddle felt secure.  Soon we were off down the lane, clomp, clomp, clomp…uh, Borris, you’re going a little fast…uh, did I mention that it had been a while since I had ridden (i.e. at least three years)…oh, boy, just hold on, wait, this in an English saddle (i.e. no horn)!  Don’t worry, I got the hang of it and we ended up having a blast!  Borris was happy to be getting some exercise and I was happy to see more of the countryside.  We saw some big ol' pigs, horses, cows, fruit trees and even more cork trees.  We got barked at by a huge vicious dog.  We were trotting happily along...wait, a fork in the road…do I forge ahead or just turn around now?  As most of you know, my sense of direction is not always the tippy toppest, hence the slight trepidation at the fork in the road.  Luckily, the two finca dogs, Marta and Filly had decided to come along on our ride and I was confident that if I lost my way, they would be able to lead us home.  Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of this lovely countryside jaunt because Jonathan wanted to take a picture of me riding away, but the only problem with that was that I rode away without the camera!  Oops!

Well, we managed to find our way back to the finca without incident and I found that I had made a friend for life!  Clearly Borris loved the ride because after I removed his saddle and got us some water, we parked in the shade to cool off where he repeatedly nuzzled and cuddled me with his big white nose.  You see why I call him my finca BFF?  Borris, I miss you already!

Borris & Baby Bird

Where is the PigWizard on this blog?!

Notice: there are some really good lines in here, but for the most part, it's pretty crammed together in ways that may not immediately make sense.  Apologies....but this one is kinda for me.  If I took the time to explain how everything in here is related in my head, I would never finish it.  I promise to be a little more succinct in future posts.

If you've been following this blog at all, you will have noticed a distinct absence of anything from yours truly, the PigWizard.  Part of this, is because we only brought one computer with us, and most of my time on it has been researching the next phase of our journey, contacting farms and couch surfing hosts, finding the best flights, trains, and buses to get us around to unfamiliar places. Before we even started the trip, Nicole and I had a discussion or twenty, about the nature of the blog, what it's purpose was, and how we we´re going to share it. For the most part, I just wanted to write when I felt like writing, to be artsy about it, and she felt it was more accessible to readers as a chronological journal.  I've never been a good journal keeper (I have written and rewritten this post at least eight twelve times already) and so as yet she has been the only source of posts.  To paraphrase Thoreau, if I write the life I'm living, I wouldn't have time to live it.

But the main reason I haven't written is that I didn't know what to write about, and how to organize it.

For me, the food oriented aspect of this trip is about ideas and inspiration.  As a high school drop out, and a largely self taught cook and butcher, I've never had anything but my own ideas about what I should learn, and there has never been a focus or a specialty (despite what you may think of me if you only have known me as the PigWizard), I have just always wanted to keep learning, and not just about food.  While I will never stop learning, at some point you have to put what you've learned into action, stop fucking around, and make a living.  Having said that, it's kind of a sickening idea to me, owing a business.

It's a great idea in a lot of ways, but looking at the reality of scares the shit out of me.  Borrowing a few hundred thousand dollars, being responsible for hiring and maintaining employees, dealing with the myriad of regulatory institutions, writing schedules (ugh), surviving the winter months in Monterey as a food business, fixing machinery; where is the time for making cool new stuff and still learning?  Why can't I just keep doing what I've been doing for the last 19 years, hopping around wherever my curiosity takes me, making just enough to live on, and continue to follow my passion?

Ego, that's why.

I think I'm pretty awesome (no sense beating around the bush since I'm being brutally honest here), and  I think it's time to share as much of that awesomeness as possible.  This makes me a little crazy, 'cause I want as many outlets as possible to get that awesomeness out.  Being mostly self taught, with no scholastic culinary training, my resume looks like I put a list of jobs and hobbies painted on the side of a barn, and threw darts at it while blindfolded and drunk; and I'm not just talking food jobs (metal sculptor, warehouse worker, wrought iron, cabinet and furniture maker).  It seems random, but it's not. The idea of career is usually relatively linear in our society. I think that sucks.  I want my story to have some quantifiable success in order to inspire others that want to kick the American educational system in the teeth and go there own way, rather than through the excessively bureaucratic, neurotic, comatose public school system inspired by the Prussian model that incidentally lead to Hitler and the rise of Nazism.   That is to me the freedom that we fight for, the freedom to follow our curiosity to the limits of our imagination.

Let's be even more honest. While I think that cooking is largely a craft and almost never art, I, personally, am still an artist in temperament and desire.  I want to cook food that I like and want to eat, inspired by my view of the world and the food I have tasted and loved and share it to make a decent living. 

What's stopping me?!?! And how does shutting down PigWizard and traveling off to Europe for a year square with that??

Well, me of course.  And I haven´t figured out on how to put it all together.

A restaurant seems like the natural choice, but I hate working every night and missing the sunset.  I talk a lot about a butchershop also, but that doesn't allow me to put food on a plate for you very often. It's not like I watch every single sunset or want to, but I hate the idea of not having the choice.  I'm loathe to commit to one thing because I like doing so many different things, which is something I've dealt with my whole life (I might have gone to college for particle physics if I had learned about it before I left high school.) A lot of people have tried to tell me that I have ADHD or some other attention problem, but that diagnosis is a load of malarkey shat by the same Prussian model I mentioned earlier.  I am a creator, not an automaton. 

But that is not really a good enough reason, it's just an example of the kind of thinking that I'm trying to work out on this trip.  And that's why I haven't written much, because I've been in the deep dark recesses of my brain, hauling out some some moldy ideas, and trying to square them up with our future.

Artists, at their core, are philosophers by nature if not by words.  They must look at the world from multiple perspectives, and either frequently or occasionally, vomit up some sort of mish-mash from the experience of life. I say vomit, because it is involuntary most of the time, and my aversion to vomit keeps me from being only occasionally ill, as in writing this lengthy and largely unnecessary explanation of why I haven't written more.  There is also some deeply rooted bitterness that I am working through, but I´m not hauling that out in public, just acknowledging that it´s there.

So there. On to more interesting things.

One of the reasons we went to Extremadura, considered by most everyone in Barcelona to be the grundle or taint of Spain, is because of the pigs.  Loads of them, eating acorns, getting salted and becoming the most sublime of cured hams, Jamon Iberico Bellota.  In the states, a leg of average quality bellota will set you back a minimum of $900, because there is only one producer in all of Spain that is allowed by the USDA to export to the States. In Spain, even trying your hardest, at the most touristy stall of la Boqueria, buying the most grand reserve of reserves is about $480.  I'm sure that the USDA requires them to be shipped refrigerated, because the fact that the salted and cured legs have been shipped around the Mediterranean without refrigeration for thousands of years  is irrelevant.  The American observance of excessive cleanliness is part of what is making us fat and unhealthy, in my well read and educated opinion, but I'll save that for another post.

So we were surrounded by pigs, and pig farms, and of course there were hams everywhere.  Every bar, liquor store, convenience store, and grocery store had jamones from various regions and of various qualities. At Carrefour, the Spanish equivalent of a SuperWalmart, they are treated like babies waiting for adoption by Angelina Jolie, with nursemaids hovering over them, keeping them properly separated, wiping their butts, and changing their little cone diapers when they fill with too much dripping-olive-oil-like-fat.

Then there are the xarcuteria/charcuteria stores, lined floor to ceiling with swaths of swine, veritable temples of worship to products of porcine persuasion.  The most important hire for a wedding is not the bartender or the band, it is the jamon carver, and that's all he/she does.  Trims and slices leg after leg after leg of jamon.  Big weddings will have more than one jamon carver, since in most of Europe you don't go to a wedding unless you can fork out enough cash in an envelope to cover the cost of your meal plus a little extra.  Spain without jamon would be like Japan without rice.

But why is jamon so important?

During the later centuries of Islamic occupation and rule over  most of the Iberian peninsula, eating pork became synonymous with being Spanish, and partly a sort of political and religious rebellion against the Muslim law prohibiting the eating of pork.  Spanish hams were popular long before that though, praised even by the Romans, so giving up pork, and all of it's wonderful parts, was like forced conversion (something the zealots took to heart during the Inquisition), and love of jamon became a poster child of defiance and proof of where your loyalties lie.  That's a couple thousand or more years of acorny pork fat flowing through the hearts and minds of Iberians. 

Freshly Stripped Cork Oak

It is also about the relationship between animal and environment. Since slaughter was traditionally a winter time activity before the advent of refrigeration, piglets are born in the early spring,  and acorns fall of the tree in the fall, it is natural that the pigs are healthiest and most plump at the beginning of winter.  The acorns themselves are critical also. The acorns of the two predominant varieties of oak, Holm and Cork, have been eaten by people of the region during times of famine, and are high in oleic acids, similar to olive oil, which is linked to the positive effects of the Mediterranean diet.  This leads to a higher proportion of monounsaturated fats, which is less prone to rancidity by oxidation than polyunsaturated fats (which helps when you are going to hang a ham for 2-4 years), and supposedly better for you, although I personally (as well as a lot of doctors that don't get a lot of headlines) don't buy into the cholesterol theory of heart disease.

(Ok, I have to take a tangent here.  The hardening of the arteries leading to heart attacks is often attributed to by the depositing of saturated fats on the artery walls.  The question that most people don´t bother to ask, is why do these fats start collecting on the artery wall in the first place, considering that our liver produces a large percentage of said fats and that they are essential to health in the right proportion?  Cholesterol on the artery walls is a symptom, and the heart attack is a reaction to that symptom, but cholesterol is not the root cause. The reason you don't know the whole story is because there is a lot of money to be made on your ignorance.  Big Pharma, hospitals, clinics, magazines, insurance, stock holders and pension funds make a LOT of money by convincing Americans to feel good about taking medicine rather than feel bad about not changing unhealthy lifestyles.  ¨Eat all the McDonald's you want, just take these 50 different pills and have octople bypass surgery and you'll be right as rain!¨  Also, web searches are based on advertising, not fact, so much of the data that people see most often is heavily biased.  Use Google Scholar instead.)

So, despite the fact that we are here in Spain in the summer, and no pigs are slaughtered or salted on the farm in the summer, I did get a better understanding about the origin and importance of jamon.  One thing I learned for sure is that there is no way for me to bring it home, either in my suitcase or by making it myself.  The production does not translate across the ocean, because the conditions here are a large part of what makes it great. 

Cooking and eating are very emotionally driven activities, the best return a cook can ask for is joy and gratitude.  I am grateful for the small amount of praise and attention my own work has gotten, but I think I need to appreciate that and many other things more often, and enjoy what I've got with a little more regularity rather than looking for more. Maybe that will clear my head to help me figure out what the next step is. So, I'm going to tip my hat to Mary Schley, and produce a little list, which is in no particular order.  Do not in any way feel like you have to read it all.

Some of the things I am grateful for: my hands and the pleasure I get using them to create things; the chance to travel, the deliciousness and versatility of pork; the internet for keeping in touch and nerding out on research papers; my health; great coffee; my mom, brother, and grandmother; bacon; learning to type in fifth grade; the writing of Frank Herbert and Henry David Thoreau; being born in the US; the work of Isaac Newton; dinners with friends; beach parties; my friendship with Dustin and Karen; the lyrics of Tom Waits; sunsets; beer; gas stoves; big bathrooms where your butt doesn't stick out of the shower when you have to bend over to pick up the soap; toilet paper; BSF&W; mushroom foraging; spearfishing; braised cheeks; PBS cooking shows; hugs; rye whiskey; pickled sardines; Jamaican rooibos tea at Acme; lots of passionate friends that inspire me; pencils and paper; my martial arts training; my many, many mentors, including but not limitied to: Kurt Schmitz, James Campbell, Todd Fisher, Craig von Foerster, Dory Ford, JackieThurman, Ian James; good balance and flexibility; my guitars, even though I can't play them yet; foie gras; Nicolas, for giving me the nickname PigWizard; sodium nitrate and nitrite; ribeye steaks; tools made to last a lifetime; knowing how to use a chainsaw without losing and arm; hot tubs; Dansko clogs; that my brother didn't die when I put him alone, in a canoe, on the swollen-by-snowmelt Colorado River; the Bill of Rights; and cheese, glorious cheese.

The first will go last: My beautiful wife, Baby Bird (Brain) Nicole, for marrying me, and for telling me how much she loves me a thousand times a day, along her gracious and loving family, for treating me like one of their own from the very beginning.

San Vicente de Alcantara: Pueblo Events

Two events marked the cultural high points during our stay at the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques in San Vicente, region of Extremadura, Spain: the city wide celebrations of Corpus Cristi and the victory of España’s fútbol team against Italia in the 2012 Euro Cup (the disco lights, smoke machines and synthesized flamenco was the cultural low point but that’s a whole other story). 

Corpus Cristi Procession

The day of Corpus Cristi celebrates the confirmation and first communion of the pueblo’s eligible children.  Spain being a very Catholic country, this day is a momentous event in the lives of both the children and their families.  Dressed in their bridal white and fine suits, the children emerge from the church in a grand procession of musicians and ornate alters and slowly and reverently march through the colorfully decorated streets.  Crowds of people from San Vicente and beyond gather on the sidewalks to watch this breathtakingly emotional procession.  After the children and their entourage complete their city block long circular march, they return to their homes or the homes of their friends for a feast and further celebration.  Unfortunately, as we did not have a friend or family member confirmed into the church that day, I am unable to elaborate on the feasting.  I can, however, elaborate on what constitutes “colorfully decorated streets”.

Months prior to the actual event, the planning begins.  A leader is assigned to each section of the street to be decorated.  The leader collaborates with their fellow decorators to devise a design concept.  Common themes are flowers, the crucifixion of Jesus, doves, variations of INRI, the marriage of wheat aqsn grapes as the body and blood of Christ, etc.  The leader is responsible for ensuring that their team has enough materials in order to complete the whole design.  The day before the event, the design is sketched onto the street with chalk covering the street from sidewalk to sidewalk.  The actual decoration and completion of the artwork starts as early as daybreak on the day of the event.  This is where we came in.

Brin & Elli

Apparently Brin and her daughter, Elli had been volunteering to help with this event for years, and trust me when I say, these folks need all the willing volunteers they can get in order to finish before the 1:00 p.m. procession start time.  Why, you ask?  Well, because those colorful bits lining the streets are large salt crystals, sand, sawdust and wood shavings, dyed and painstakingly placed within the lines of the chalk outline in order to create these amazingly beautiful designs!

We arrived early that Sunday morning, were given a cup of coffee and a pastry and handed a pair of latex gloves to protect our hands from the dye.  Each section was labeled with chalk as to which color went where.  The idea was to make the layer of shavings thick enough to fully cover each section but not so thick as we did not want to run out of any colors.  Oh, and  I hope everyone seasoned their celebration feasts ahead of time because in order to fill all the pure white sections, neighbors hauled out bags and bags of table salt!  It was hard work bending over and kneeling for hours; some ladies even brought pillows or strapped pads to their knees! 

After finally finishing our section of the street, we ventured out along the rest of the circular pathway to check out what the other blocks had done.  The intricate shapes and color grading that could be done with salt and wood shavings were truly amazing!  The patters seemed to go on and on, all that meticulous work for hours and hours to honor the confirmation and first communion of these Catholic children; you could feel the pride radiating through the pueblo.  What an experience!

Really, these were all made of salt, sand, wood shavings and tedious work!

Speaking of pride, I must say that the greatest display of Spanish national pride occur when Spain wins their fútbol (soccer) matches.  I experienced this years ago when I lived in Barcelona.  Every time FC Barca (Fútbol Club Barcelona) played, the bars were packed, and I mean packed like sardine tins, from wall to wall with zealous fans, jumping and shouting at every play. To the left is the bottom of the pool at out friend's beach house: the symbol of FC Barcelona.  I'm telling you, these people are obsessed!

Our last week on the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques, Spain played Italy in the final match of the Euro Cup.  Of course we had to go!  Every time Spain scored, the whole bar erupted in shouts of “¡Yo soy Español!  ¡Yo soy Español! (I am Spanish!  I am Spanish!)”  The energy was contagious, especially since Spain ended up winning 4-0!  After the match we walked through the streets, drinking beer (it’s legal to drink on the streets in Spain) and cheering along with the Spaniards.  Cars full of half-naked people painted the red and yellow of Spain, zoomed around honking.  Others cheered with their bull horns and megaphones.  Even the old abuelas hung over their balconies with their Spanish flags flying high.  High on victory, marijuana and or beer, die-hard fans even jumped in and out of the fountains whooping and splashing with joy. What a night! 

To walk the relatively quiet, very plain and unadorned streets of San Vicente during an average day, one would never expect the vibrancy and beauty that the pueblo exuded on these two momentous occasions and we were most grateful to be a part of it all!