Matzo Brei

How the mighty have fallen: I am hosting a "take out" seder. What a shanda. I was ready to bag Passover completely this year. The kids are in Jamaica, the Pignataro in Rome, other usual participants scattered elsewhere. But at the last minute, Steve felt the urge to "do something". Actually, he felt the urge to eat matzo balls, gefilte fish and brisket. Like the truly observant Jew he is, he marched over to Famous and bought the whole shebang, including a large container of chopped liver. Tell me, where is chopped liver in the service? Oh, now remember, Josie used to make chopped liver every Passover to eat before the Solms seder. Of course, how could I forget.

Max William Beck

Today is my brother’s birthday. He would be 60 years old. He died almost eight years ago of cancer, a fact that even now leaves me stunned and disbelieving. For a long time, I felt guilty that I was still here enjoying life, having so many experiences while he was gone. It seemed unfair, unjust, threatening. I don’t feel that way so much any more. I just miss him with an intensity that hasn’t diminished over the last 8 and 1/2 years. There are still moments when, without warning, I am suddenly overcome with an incredible longing just to see him one more time, healthy and whole and laughing, to know that he is happy and safe—a peaceful soul.

Losing a sibling is like losing a treasured cache of memories and knowing that you can never get them back. My childhood, my parents, all those years of growing up beside each other in our house in Yeadon seem vaguer to me now that Max isn’t here to help me remember them. Who knows what stories and people I’ve forgotten or misplaced from that past. Max is the only one who could help me get them back.

I’m lucky to be a mother, a wife, an aunt and a friend, surrounded by love, but it still feels very lonely to be an only child without my brother.

Happy Birthday, Max.

Jamaica, Jamaica

It's what you've been waiting for...my photos from Jamaica

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Liz's Mom

I've gone to foreign. In other words, I've left Jamaica and am back home in Philadelphia. I'm back to being Ellen Solms and not "Liz's mom," as I am known in Treasure Beach. I think it's an honorable appellation.

Now that I'm home, I can truly appreciate how special was the gift of my month in Treasure Beach with Elizabeth and Giuliano. Imagine...I spent 30 straight days with my daughter and her husband. We ate dinner together every night. We traveled together. We chilled out on the beach or at their house. And I, at least, never tired of their company. I used to think how lucky I was to live in the same apartment building as my mom and dad--to visit was as easy as taking the elevator or running down the stairs of the fire tower. I took that proximity for granted, not realizing til now how special that was for both me and my mom.

Well, in Treasure Beach Liz and I could share our lives in the same way--being together was as easy as a walk down the beach and up the lane. I loved it because I got to be part of her daily life. But just as importantly, my time with Liz made me remember being a daughter to my mom and I could sense the joy she must have felt in having me close.

Home Cooking

Another day of excursions with Liz. First off to Junction, the nearest big town to run errands. It's hot and sunny and bright in Treasure Beach when we leave but ten minutes later when we drive up into the hills, there's a cool, wet fog blanketing the landscape and blotting out the usual view of shimmering blue sky and blue sea. What a strange sensation to be sweltering in the tropics in one minute and then in a few short miles to be transported to a Jamaican version of the English countryside.

Back in Treasure Beach and the heat, we head off the the home of Don Don and Miss Dell who live surrounded by farmland in the hills above the sea. I love the colors of the landscape up here--a bright blue sky arches over the deep red earth and in between is every shade of green.

Miss Dell, a cheerful, plump woman with delightfully round cheeks, has insisted on cooking me a batch of bammy to bring back with me to the states. Bammy is a kind of pancake made from cassava flour that is customarily served here with fish. And St. Elizabeth, the parish in which Treasure Beach is located, is known for the excellence of its bammy, made the traditional, incredibly labor intensive way. So we stand in Miss Dell's hot kitchen while she explains the multi-step process of making bammy--digging up the cassava, a highly nutritious root vegetable ubiquitous here, grating it by hand, placing it in a special basket to squeeze out all the liquid and then sifting out all the lumps with a reed sieve. I am daunted by the amount of time, energy and brute strength it takes to transform cassava into flour but this is clearly a labor of love for Miss Dell, a gift to her large family.

The final step is for Miss Dell to heat a flat iron pan on the stove, sprinkle a few handfuls of cassava within a circular iron mold and then pat it and smooth it with a special wooden paddle. The pancake is flipped and browned on the other side and then it is ready to be eaten, piping hot and redolent of the cassava. Truthfully, I am not a big fan of the commercially prepared bammy served in local restaurants but Miss Dell's bammy is special in taste and spirit.

When we leave with our two packages of bammy she tells me, "Now we are no longer strangers." So true, so true.

Scenes from the Road

I am back in Treasure Beach after four days on the road with my darling daughter, my personal guide to the beauties of Jamaica. The air here is delightfully cool and crisp. (Yes, I am still in Jamaica but we are experiencing what passes as a cold front here. It’s warm not hot and nights require a blanket!) Having finished a typical Jamaican breakfast of salt fish and ackee, freshly squeezed orange juice and assorted tropical fruits courtesy of Audrey, our housekeeper and outstanding Jamaican cook, I am ready to sit back and relax and try to unpack the multitude of impressions and sensations received over the last four days.

Most of the time, it's hot and dry and almost desert-like in Treasure Beach and the sound of the sea is constantly in the background but, as I have discovered, so much of the interior of Jamaica is lush, green jungle rich with fruit trees and all kinds of vegetation climbing and twining up and down and all over and under each other. We drive up and down the hills passing the concrete palaces of returning residents painted in neon colors, shanty settlements, tiny cook shops and bars blaring music always at high volume.

Our first stop is just twenty minutes out of Montego Bay but it seems like we are in the middle of nowhere. We drive deep in the jungle to the farm of Inty, a Rasta farmer who has singlehandedly carved out an acre of cultivated land from the surrounding bush and has planted it with squash and okra, organically of course. His partner is Uncle, a lovely, sweet-natured older farmer with very few teeth but a strong, upbeat spirit and much natural courtesy. We spend the afternoon tramping through the bush to view the farm and Uncle tells me of his years in Florida cutting sugar, his belief in the value of hard work and the land. When we leave, Inty cuts us a bunch of small yellow bananas as a parting gift. They are called honey bananas or Chinamen bananas but whatever their name, they are deliciously sweet tasting. I can’t imagine ever enjoying a store bought banana again. . .even if it is organic and from Whole Foods.

That night we spend at Highland House, an old style luxury villa set in the hills above Montego Bay on beautifully landscaped grounds that include an organic farm, the reason why Liz and I are visiting. The villa also boasts a large, screened-in yoga studio surrounded by foliage and flowers that, as two dedicated yogis, we take advantage of before leaving.

Friday morning we head up to the north coast but not before stopping off for a tasty lunch at Evelyn’s Restaurant, a small hole in the wall restaurant with a veranda right next to the sea. The sea is rough, white waves tossing in a blue and green sea, and the wind is blowing. There are large rocks holding down the corners of our oilcloth tablecloth. We wait and wait for our food since it is only Evelyn, a short, stout Jamaican Indian woman, who takes the orders and then cooks the food. Her specialty is curried conk, so fresh it tastes briny, and served with homemade roti. Definitely worth the wait.

Our goal is not one of the myriad hotels and condo complexes strung along the north coast highway in a sad and characterless procession but Itopia, the longtime home of Sally and Perry Henzell where we’ve been invited to stay by Jason and Laura Henzell. The house is located off the highway and down a series of rocky, bumpy and increasingly isolated roads that wind through the jungle and the ruins of old sugar plantations. The house, built originally in the 1600’s of limestone, its surface now mottled in shades of black and white, probably once served as a residence for a plantation manager and seems as solid now as it must have been long ago.

But how to describe the spirit of the house and the grounds which are totally infused with the spirit of Perry and Sally. Sally has filled the house with an idiosyncratic but magical mix of antique furniture, family momentoes, art work, curios and collections and surrounded it by flowers and fruit trees and wild landscape. Before everyone arrived, Liz took me through the house inside and out to discover all its mysteries and special beauties. Euphemia served us tea in the living room. After dinner we all talked and drank wine while the house glowed in candlelight around us.

I slept in a fourposter bed hung with lace and tattered mosquito netting and woke up early to the sound of the birds. My shower was built out of stone and shells. Our final morning, the sun was shining and the air was warm and fragrant. After breakfast, everyone wandered outside and laid on the grass to listen as one of the guests, Jean Louis Aubert, a French pop star, played the guitar. It seemed as if he was just not serenading us but serenading Itopia itself, this enchanted space. It was truly a privilege to be there.

On My Own in Treasure Beach

Steve has left me but not before transferring his cold to my keeping. So in order to make sure that my last two weeks in Jamaica would not be spent sick in bed, Liz took me to see the local GP whose office is conveniently located next to a gas station. Dr. Elliot, a tall, solemn man of very few words, sat behind his desk in his spartanly furnished office, asked me a few questions in a low voice, examined my throat and ears and then handed me a week's worth of antibiotics, all for just $20.

Today, we are off on a road trip to meet with one of Liz's farmers at his farm deep in the bush and then off to Montego Bay where she will be consulting with a villa manager on how to set up a compost system for an organic garden. It's still amazing to me that she knows all this stuff, having grown up in the city in an apartment where I banned all living things except for husband and children. But here she is talking with confidence and authority about pest management, crop rotation, compost systems, drip irrigation, etc., etc., etc. I am in awe.