Xmas Pictures 2015

Manuela with chicken & handmade tablecloth!

Godparents!!

Mom & Fall Photos

Thanksgiving 2015

Bolo de Tijolo/Flat Bread from Pico

I wanted to recreate an incredible taste sensation I found in Faial. It was called "Bolo de Pico", but it seems to go by a bunch of different names.

I got the recipe from my Mom's friend, Dona Manuela, who loves to pride herself on knowing everything. But her recipe left out the sweet potatoes!!!

I did some Googling and found this: (you can use Google Translate, but it won't convert the kilograms for you!)
http://pt.petitchef.com/receitas/outro/do-faial-bolo-de-tijolo-fid-137852

This is what they looked like going in:

They got a little more brown & crisp coming out.

Finally I think we used : 

3 cups boiling, salted water (keep 4 on hand bc you want to get the mixture as wet as you need)

4 cups of (white) corn flour

1 cup of white flour

2 sweet potatoes

butter for your hands and to create non-sticky surfaces when rolling the dough

cornmeal for bottom & top

Boil the water, add it to the flours (which you should mix together)

Get it to a good consistency for dough, mash & add the potatoes. 

Roll out onto a board, or if you want less mess, pull out the dough in balls, and make shapes like massa souvada. 

I liked having course corn meal on top & bottom, my mom said she wishes we had made some with ANISE seeds on top (not my favorite!)

Put it into a 400 oven for 45 min or 1 hour, depending how well-cooked you like.

(I was afraid they'd be too dry)

They ended up crunchy (tough?) on the outside & nice and moist on the inside.

The ones I've had have been soft on the outside as well.  Maybe done in a slower, cooler oven?

==

Conversions were a little difficult, but this page helped:
https://www.weekendbakery.com/cooking-conversions/

Bolo de Tijolo

Portuguese American Mom Recipe

portuguese-corn-flour-flatbread-bolo-de-sertao/

http://leitesculinaria.com/10318/portuguese-portuguese-azores-hearty-cuisine.html

Portuguese dictated recipe:

Aqua de fevir 3.5 cup

Teaspoon de sal

Chave na meia of cornflour 2.33

Chave na terce de farina branca 2.33

Add boiling water stir vigorously til smooth

Cool, stir occasionally

Add reg flour

Knead for 5 min

Make round roll

Roll on board with cornflour

Half inch

450 oven

Bake for one hour until golden brown

Death of Monsenhor Júlio da Rosa, age 92, My Grandfather's Cousin

Rui Brum Ávila‎Ilhas do triângulo (S.Jorge, Faial e Pico) - Açores

Faleceu Monsenhor Júlio da Rosa, na noite de sexta feira dia 13 aos 92 anos de idade.
Nasceu a 24 de Maio de 1924 nos Flamengos, concelho da Horta.
Cedo descobriu a sua vocação para o sacerdócio e a sua sede de conhecimento e espírito de partilha que o levaram a formar gerações como pároco das Angústias, professor do Liceu da Horta, colaborador e fundador de alguns periódicos, educador e homem de cultura.
Autor de treze títulos publicados, recolheu e organizou o Museu de Arte Sacra e Etnografia Religiosa, e foi Sócio Fundador do Núcleo Cultural da Horta e seu Presidente durante vinte anos. Era membro do Conselho Internacional dos Monumentos e Sítios, do Instituto de Estudos Genealógicos do Uruguai e foi orador em diversas Conferências e Congressos em Portugal e no Estrangeiro, entre os quais se destacam a da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina no Brasil e a da Brown University, nos Estados Unidos.
Tinha uma vasta obra no campo social, tendo fundado a Casa dos Rapazes, a Conferência Vicentina – Secção Feminina, a Cozinha Paroquial e a Escola Paroquial.
Comendador da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique da República Portuguesa e homenageado com as Insígnias Autonómicas no dia da Região em 2013
Paz à sua alma.

(And Automatically translated from FB)

Passed Away Monsignor Julius the rose, on the evening of Friday morning 13 to 92 years of age.
Was born on 24 may 1924 in the flemish, county of horta.
Soon discovered his vocation to the priesthood and his thirst for knowledge and spirit of sharing that led him to form generations as vicar of woes, professor of high school of horta, collaborator and founder of some periodicals, educator and man of culture.
Author of thirteen titles published, collected and organized the museum of sacred art and ethnography religious, and it was a founder member of the cultural core of horta and its president for twenty years. He was a member of the International Council of monuments and sites, the institute of genealogical studies of Uruguay and he was a speaker in several conferences and conferences in Portugal and abroad, among which are the the federal university of Santa Catarina in Brazil and the brown university , in the United States.
Had a wide work in the social field, and founded the house of the boys, the conference vicentina - women's section, the kitchen and the parish parochial school.
Commander of the order of the infante d. Henry of the Portuguese Republic and honored with the autonomy insignia on the day of the region in 2013
Peace to your soul.

The Coral Castle

My 5 American cousins, who spoke perfect schoolroom Portuguese, grew up in a giant house with tiny rooms. 

I see this as an adult, one of the rooms is the size of my Brooklyn studio, and that's small for me (and my stuff).

In Rhode Island, it was actually the room where I was conceived. Where 3 boys grew at one time, 2 girls in the room next door.

Visiting the three family house was always an experiment in time travel.  

The first floor was now. But it was oddly, 1960. In the Azores, in America. A Disneyland version of dolls in grim reaper costumes. They dwarfed working windmills. Working until we broke the threads that represented their sails.

When the eldest got married, she moved upstairs. My prototype for how far away daughters were really allowed to live. Once they grew up.

My mom had plans for an expansion of the attic, if my father had stayed alive. As if I would be grown, living there. If he were alive, I would have been more responsible sooner. And on my own.

The second floor was modern, as of 1980. No telltale Portuguese anything, except cooking smells. That had been left downstairs.

The third floor was more rare to visit. Almost designed for tomorrow. A floor of wedding shower gifts and hifi and electronic equalizers. It was always too transient, which also meant it was the cleanest and most up to date. All the mistakes quickly ripped out.A floor of the brothers and their failing marriages. All the cousins (except the last daughter and me) have been married at least twice.

The stairwell was a square spiral staircase, wooden, rubber mats on each step. You always know when people are coming or going, and everyone knew everyone's business.

Except me. I lived in a house of everything layered on itself. A collection of yard sale items from divorced dads of Lincoln. Sunday drives in the country, looking at rich people's houses, imagining how we would live in them. 

My father warned me not to buy books.

But I wanted to steal knowledge, to listen in, to eavesdrop on every family. To see what I was missing. And always, reassure myself that my missing father was different.

The first and most perfect man.

I dismiss my dates if I can't have a decent conversation.  My father was my model for how to stay curious and delighted. My main cheerleader. He loved me unconditionally, and my mind too. 

That's what I miss.

Mom Returns

The biggest news lately is that Fatinha is back!

A cousin was supposed to come (but Vovo tripped her, in front of her own building!) 5 days before the trip.

And so Mom had to step up to the plate.

And now she's visiting everyone.

And going everywhere.

And she'll have a grand 75th bday party! 

One that I could never give her in Boston.

Here she'll have family, lots, to help her celebrate.

(Today she looked at an old ruin by Praia and wanted it. That and an automatic car!)

And I think she would stay!

Mom's Bio : Stepping Back In Time

Fatima’s stories

June 15,2015, Monday (1 week before I go to the Azores)

Tammy has just arrived from NYC (showed off dresses, dinner at Marios, shower-ready for bed)

The below is what we came up with, after exploring the map she drew of the house!!

==

Sitting at the kitchen table, talking about life.  I hear a bird (I feel like I haven’t heard bird since I’ve been in NYC for 2 weeks, all we have are pigeons!!)

But the sound was so sweet and clear

(She gets up at 4 and the Mockingbird is singing his head off!!)

Mom begins telling the story about how she’d interuppt the birds, by running into her backyard.

“There is a bird singing in my house/yard in Waltham.  And its song reminds me of the birds that I used to scare/scatter going up the stairs to the 2nd level of the house/orchard in Horta”

Mom is DRAWING her house

Story of birds

Antonio in backyard

reaching to get the Autumn berries, and tearing off the branches

(Oh my god, I planted one of the branches!)

If he couldn’t reach, he would have a  .. .  thing to grab it

We were very, um

>Resourceful?  Destructive

Resourceful!  Yes,

>She didn’t care about the branches?

SHE DID!

She put up a line of iron spikes along the whole of the roof,

and when there was an earthquake, part of the wall came down

and took it with it.

She made my Mom pay for it

(and she paid it bc she didn’t want to deal with lawyers!!!

NEIGHBORS!!!

>>Also, you cannot make another person feel bad in the way that you want them to (through emotional manipulation, maybe through PAYING or overt control of things in the real world

Installing spikes is getting long term revenge

==

Stepping Back in Time BY Fatinha Freitas Rose

Rua da Sao Paulo #6 (or 3)

The front wall of the house was very thick, 3 feet wide

It was thick enough to fit a caixa de roupa/a chest of clothes (Hope chest)

If we want to run away from my sister (any) we close the door and we lean against the door and stick our foot at the edge of the hope chest so she couldn’t open

There were no locks on those doors, IMAGINE!!

Between Quinta do Matos (his orchard) and a casa do Senhor Leal

A casa tinha tres quartos grandes

The house had 3 large rooms

2 bedrooms and a dining room, quarto de jantar

Dois quartos de cama

When you come in the house

Entrava-se na casa pelo corredor da porta da frente que dava para o quarto de cama, quarto de jantar e o corredor de traz.

Fugiamos pela janela do quarto do meio, saltando para a rua quando minha mae trancava a porta da rua/frente.

“MJose caio esta janela”, da janela do quarto da mae (the room closest to Quinta do Matos)

(Pai estava na Terceira quando tinha nove anos)

Quarta de jantar tinha a janela

con rede (screen) durante o verano

(Antonio’s house has a metallic cover, the mosquitos could get thru)

All the windows had jaousias/jealousies

Shutters!! Functioning, though!!!

BUt the mosquitoes, again, would come through the shutters, we had to kill the mosquitoes before turning off the lights for the night!

I still dream about it, the windows had double panes-it was so tricky to open it, because you had to pull it all up and twist it so it will hold on a little piece of wood, It was very tricky until I found the way to do it.

Arvora de groselha-

by the end of September, the tree was LOADED with red berries and we looked and we couldn’t reach!! (cry in her voice!)  And the streetlight was shining on them, it was a SIN!

We could hear the birds in the morning, sweeping aroind, eating, having a ball.

But we just couldn’t get it, but my brother Antonio did!!

He climbed on the stone wall and the house (the peak?)

So he could grab some of the branches

so we could eat them!

Later on, I stuck the pieces of the tree all over our yard (like in Waltham, too!)

In the back of the house, there was a long storage corridor, divided in 2.

O corridor de dentro

O corridor da forra (inside and outside, ha!)

Dentro=havia a

(something with shelves, with potatoes on all levels)

We had 3 levels in the backyard and in the very top, my mother used to have potatoes growing

and we’d have potatoes for the rest of the year

5 feet long with 2.5 wide

I remember bc one time my sister said it was a bunk bed, my sister put me there (MJose, she’s the one who played tricks on me) Prob why I have claustrophobia . That’s where the cat slept!

When we had what-you-call a banana bunch, we’d hang it up close to the end of the corridor.

One time, My sister Maria Z, found out the bananas were ready to eat, she didnd;t tell us, we found a bunch of peels outside the window!!!  She was lost!!

bastante comprido por que tinha lugar para a coisa das batatas storage bins, lugar ou bao-hope chest-treasure chest, round on top, and smaller one. That was built with 6 whole pieces of wood. MZ has it!!!!

That’s where I spent my summer days reading the Reader’s Digest, start being published in (Brazilian) Portuguese in 1940!!

There is a story I never forgot, that I read every summer, called How Sweet is My Heart/

A boy brought up in Louisana woods or something

Huckleberry Finn? A boy with a black sheep . . . (You have to read it!!)

Brought up by his grandmother, who had a friend

a country fair, needed money to go to country fair

had to go in wods, find a beehive

followed the bees, found lots of honey

fume out the bees

Went to the fair, entered the contest,

day of the fair, polished the hooves of the sheep

Judge said we have a VERY special prize for sheep, “it’s not the race of the sheep, or the color, it’s the way it was brought up”

Grandma kicked the sheep out of the house

Prize never been given til now

Grandmother got prize for her blueberry jam

“So CLose to My Heart”

My best summer reading (like Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer)

Oh, so you related bc it seemed like the farm life in Portugal.

I’ve never lived with sheep. (dead straight!!!  LAUGH!!)

My grandmother had a farm (father’s mother) Lived in Horta, a farm in Horta

She was in America twice!!

She had pigs that you’d feed with corn to fatten before they died.

Nice thick layer of fat. We didn’t put weight on!!!!

Walked to school 4 times a day.

Story of Mom’s Paternal Grandfather

My grandfather

I think his name was Antonio Freitas

was a very good (not a mechanic??)

in his job

and in Horta, there were 2 companies assisting the ships that needed repair

Faial Co, and the BeneSaude

The rival company came to him and said, we’ll give you a trip to America, and when you come back, we give you a job.

He came to America WITH HIS WIFE, made a lot of money, as a Pipefitter (late 1800’s?  Did they come to America twice??)

in Providence

He had a brother in Providence, BURIED WITH HER FATHER!!!!

(Father was born 1902)

Money enough to buy a farm at the edge of town (Horta)

called “Boa Vista”, it was, it had a BEAUTIFUL view

(fell down with the earthquake)

We visited in 1984/2002!!!

We did!!

Right at the top edge of the crater

they have been selling lots and building brand new houses, of course

I don’t know how big it was

ASK MCHICA

We sold it little by little, that’s where Vovo got money to send us to school, high school had to be paid, “My father had no sense of finances”

Then he went to Horta, got a well paid job again

Think he came to America later on

My father had I don’t know how many brothers & sisters,

the only one who survived (past 20??) or kids??

A picture of him and an older brother of his-when they were boys, 6,7?? 8 and 5?

The older brother looks just like Antonio!!!!

Vovo had a house in Angustias, just before she got married, lived there with her father!!!!

Porto Pim.

to go someplace out of town, we had to have a car

he had 3 cars before the war, he sold the cars, bc there was no rubber for the tires

sold them to a guy who made lots of money with a taxi station!!

Dream w/Ruben I was looking at my father’s store-not bookshop/ not newspapers-delivere daily to houses, sold paper goods & pencils and perfume and cigarettes

Fatinha went there when she was 2!!!!

Rua São Paulo #6 (or 3)

I've just gotten back to Waltham and will be leaving for Sao Miguel in a week. 

Since my Mom isn't interested in traveling, I'm still sitting with her & trying to get family history questions down.

She sketched a quick layout of the house on Faial that they all grew up in.

We're trying to describe the layout on the computer as well.  

I might have her sketch it a little bigger to use as an aid and memory trigger when I'm over there!!

Top half

And

Bottom half

Pai Martins and His Family

My great great grandfather was a priest.

On Pico. About 100 years ago.

This is a picture of his daughter's wedding.  He could marry his daughter, (as in "officiate at the wedding of") but not the love of his life. 

Visual Poetry: Pai Martins and Joe's Place on Pico

There are some images which are so lovely and so funny that they make you cry. 

My mother is holding a piece of wood, on which is written in pencil "Pai Martins, 1920"

It belongs to the house which can now be found on the web at:
http://www.joesplaceazores.com/

It is her grandfather who has inscribed his name into a beam of the house.  The man, a priest, and father of two (my grandmother being one) was a delight.

More stories to come.

Ilhas De Bruma (song)

Ilhas De Bruma poem by Dr. Moro Correia is NOT to be confused with the song, lyrics at the link below:

http://almadepoeta.blogspot.com/2011/10/ilhas-de-bruma.html

My mother suddenly remembered a long poem by the principal at her school in Faial, Dr. Moro Correia.  She thinks HE was the first to use the phrase.

Ilhas De Bruma (Islands of Mist)

Here is a recollection from my Mother, a poem from the principal of her High School (Liceu).
This is what she knows by heart.

ILHAS DE BRUMA

Versos do Dr. Morao Coriera

reitor do Liceu National da Horta nos a amos 1953-?

Deixem-me viver e sonhar nas minhas ilhas de bruma

Deixem-me arquitetar nos rochados, junto ao mar

Os meus castelos de espuma e o meu palacio encantado

Feito de amor e tormento onde leio o significado

Do meu proprio sofrimento

E do varandil rendilhado do meu palacio encantafo

No meio da solidao

Por uma noite estrelada

Eu hei-de lancar ao mar

A minha taca encantada

Calice da minha paixao

Eo mar ha-de acolhe-la

No seu seio vagaundo

E ciouso, ho-de sorve-la

Levando atravez do mundo

O segredo do meu amor

Mas o mar ha-de guarda-lo

Porque e meu irmao na doi

… E se o meu corpo embarcar

Para outro mundo distante

A minha alma ha-de sangiar

Presa aos catelos de espuma

Que constui junto ao mar

Nas minhas ilhas de bruma

The note to family:

O filho andou no liceu com a Maria Jose.  Foi ele o primeiro que deu o nome de

“Ilhas de Bruma” nos Acores que agora e usado com frequencia.

Tambem ha um outro poema que e “Eu sou o homem das Ilhas de Bruma. “Tenho o coracao ….ao palpetar febui das ondas do mar …” (written by a different person!)

A Mida talvez saiba (Nao!!)

==

Eng Translation

Islands of Mist

Dr, Morao Coureia

Let me live & dream in my islands of mist

Let me build on the cliffs & lose to the sea

My castles of foam & my enchanted palace

Built on love & torment (suffering)

Where I read/see the meaning of my own suffering

And from the elaborate/lacy blacony

of my enchanted palace

In plain solitude

On a starried night

I will toss into the sea

My enchanted goblet

O chalice of my passion

And the sea is going to receive it

In its vagabond chest

And greedy savoring

Carrying/Taking it across the world

The secret of my love

But the sea is going to keep it

Because he is my brother in pain

And if my body embarks to another distant world (ie Death)

My soul is going to bleed

Like a captive in the castles of foam

That I built next to the sea

in my islands of mist.