I just come back from lunch break, and since I still have some free time I though about sharing this with you….
My co-workers (that I totally love!) called me down to have lunch together.
In the patio in front of our office, called the “lanai”, there are 3 big picnic tables and we usually have lunch all together there. Personally, my lunch routine consist in warming up the food prepared the night before, and have a back gammon game with Brian or Brad, 25 cents a game (the advantages to have a ready lunch of confirmed origin and nature are unlimited).
Today lunch turned out to be a big social event. The women went to the store to buy some canned food, the young guys opened the cans with a knife (I swear this is true: once I was in the Trade Winds, the posh hotel of the island. I asked at the reception if there was a can-opener I could borrow, and they send to my room a guy with a machete!!!). About 8 people from the water, land and lab program participated with some food, 2 picnics table were joined together and the lunch started…. Rice, fish, banana in coconut cream, chicken, noodles… but let me tell you about the hit dish… (this all happened in front of my eyes).
Ati (a big man with big hands and feet and a nearly childish face –maybe because it is so spherical) poured the content of a big yellow can on a plate in front of me. It was already cooked ready-to-eat pasta with tomato sauce!!! Now, I saw the can before in the stores, but I never so the content. It did not look appealing to me at all. Plus it was cold. Pasta is good when it is warm (with the exception of few cases, like a pasta salad with olive, tuna, fresh tomato and mozzarella, capers…). “Wow” I though, looking down at my plate and feeling incredibly happy to have the potato cake I made last night.
Then Ati took another can and poured the content in the same plate as the pasta; yes, Pisupo. A big can of pisupo (pisupo is canned meat… it is so bad that it is used as a proof of manhood between palagi).
With a fork he started mixing the two things together, cutting the pasta in smaller pieces, as the rest of the table was looking at the delicate process salivating. I was speechless and thoughtless.
Then he took two pieces of sandwich and he filled them with the pasta-pisupo mixture. He passed the place on and the next person over did the same thing. Josie looked at me, holding up her canned pasta-pisupo sandwich and said “this is good Barbara”. I though “If customs sees a picture of me eating this, they will never let me back to
And when you think it just can’t get worth than that, I glance at the far end of the table and I see the guys putting mayonnaise on their pasta-pisupo sandwich!!!
…no wonder I suffer of island-sickness sometimes… I wish I had a picture…
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