Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

In the words of the great Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, aka Sting, in his If It’s Love song

"Jumped out of bed this morning
With a smile upon my face
It's still there while I shave my chin
But the reason's hard for me to trace
Cook myself some breakfast
Have some coffee while I muse
Where could this smile have come from?
It's a muscle that I rarely use
...."

Well, it was a “beautiful day in the neighborhood” and so I decided to do some shopping.

I bought four very large, ripe, perfect eggplants from the friendly corner store for a buck a piece. The American housewife, who is not very different from the Romanian housewife, saw that I had purchased four eggplants, so she also bought two more, although she only needed one. I also got a black label Texas sweet onion, some Shiner beer, a six-pack of beer flavored beer, and a six pack of grapefruit ginger and other natural flavored beers, just because I was curious. It will turn out that flavored beer tastes like fruit flavored hand cream, but that’s getting ahead of the story!  The onion was for the spread and the beer for hydration, knowing that in Arizona the climate is damn hot and extremely dry.

I turned on the grill and started grilling the unwashed eggplants, but with the labels removed (so that the wife wouldn’t discover that I didn’t wash the eggplants, sneaky lazy husband that I am). I took the Maramures cherry palinca out of the freezer and poured it sparingly into a small ceramic mug, from Horezu. I turned on the radio, really loud, and I continued messing up the food.

Because the grill was already on, and hot, I prepped a steak (or two), so all that gas wouldn’t be wasted only on four sorry-assed eggplants. I poured myself another cup of cherry palinca, because the first one was so very good, still ice cold from the freezer!

The unsupervised eggplants got burned on the outside, and exploded gloriously on the grill, making an impressive mess. As I continued to entertain the neighbors with my extensive repertoire of bilingual curses, I put on the meat. Bruno Mars explains how he catches a grenade, out of love. He should try turning a hot eggplant bare handed on the grill: THAT would be REAL proof of love. I pour myself another cup of cherry palinca and marvel at what a suave and confident voice Bruno Mars has.

I saved the aubergines from getting totally charred, in the twelfth hour, quickly emptied the little ceramic mug (from Horezu), and turned over the meat. Everything in one fluid move, like a well rehearsed ballet. I then started the eggplants draining process and re-filled the mug.

I removed the meat from the grill and I saw that, to my surprise, it had came out nice and unburnt and perfectly juicy, and I moved all the stuff inside, with the cat and everything else, being very careful, though, to leave all the chicks outside. From so much palinca vapors the kitten meows desperately and wobbles a bit. Good thing he has four legs. I swear I didn’t give him anything to drink, only the vapors did the trick!

I topped that little Horezu ceramic mug with a little more palinca, and I started to burn my fingers peeling the eggplants. Two mugs of very high proof distilate later, I could no longer feel the pads of my fingers, but the eggplants were perfectly peeled. On the radio, the Bee Gees were singing Stayin’ Alive as only they could, “two squeezing and one singing” style. I also began to sing, the tone deaf and usually quiet guy that I am, but with so much palinca, I found a new confidence. The chickens hid in their coop – they never heard those screeches before, and so the just-in-case instinct kicked in and they protected themselves as well as they could.

I decided that I’m done with the distillates, and I shed a tear remembering the loved ones with whom I drank many bottles of palinca, brandy, and other elixirs. I switched to beer and I started to chop the eggplants with a big stainless steel knife, because the traditional wood cleaver got lost when we moved. Or it’s in one of the still unopened boxes. I don’t know, only time will tell.

The taste buds, numb from so much palinca, did not transmit the information about the beer to the brain as quickly as they should have. Only by the second beer had I realized what a taste of hand cream the beer has. Fuck it! I bought it, I have to drink it!

Finally, by the third beer, everything was ready for the grand finale: I put in a bowl half a teaspoon of sea salt (at least that’s what it says on the label and that’s what I paid for), a small, but small, cup of olive oil (not extra virgin, ’cause of the smell), and half of that black label Texas sweet onion, finely chopped, the eggplants (also finely chopped), and I mixed everything with an electric super mixer.

To the wife’s question, “Shouldn’t we, dear, let the eggplants cool first?” I pointed to the now half bottle of Maramures cherry palinca and to the three empty beer bottles, I gave her a long look, and I stayed almost silent, just a little grunt, like Leroy Jethro Gibbs does in NCIS. She got the point and, surprisingly, but strategically, withdrew the question and left the battleground, err … the kitchen.

I added two more teaspoons of sour cream, mixed again, put the spread in the fridge, drank another beer and wished good appetite to my son, who woke up at three in the afternoon and casually asked, “What’s for breakfast?”

Originally published July 2012 – Tempe, Arizona
Translated October 2022 – Mesa, Arizona

Because I translated this post 10 years after I initially wrote it, I would like to update it with some observations:

• In supermarkets, the beverage formerly known as beer has less and less shelf space
  • In 2012, the craft beer was in its infancy; in 2022 is all over the shelves
• The wooden clover was found, I don’t remember where, but I still have (and use) it
• The cherry palinca from Maramures was finished, but the stock was quickly replenished and now other bottles with home made palinca and tzuica are in the freezer
  • In any Romanian’s house you can always find plum brandy distilled once, aka tzuica, distilled twice, aka palinca or other home made high proof alcoholic beverages (actually I have no idea how many times a palinca is distilled, I only learned to enjoy and respect it)
• The PG version of the Eggplant Salad recipe that was published in my company’s International Cookbook and on the ARCS Arizona Traditional Cookbook is here.