Summer was tourist season, awaited by the whole village because it was the opportunity to earn some money. It was the same story every year. People would say: The tourists will come in November. November came, but brought only a few visitors. They'll come after the elections. They didn't. So it was to be for Christmas. Or New Year. Carnaval, for sure. Soon summer had passed, and people started to wait once again for next season's visitors.    
         
   
For more photos of the restaurant see the Pousada section
 
         
    A great many of the houses located around the quadrado turned their living rooms into tiny temporary restaurants during summer. They sold local food, consisting of the unavoidable staple, rice and beans, with meat, poultry or fish, and a small bowl of farinha. Farinha is rough, locally made manioc flour, in looks and taste akin to sawdust, and is used either as a topping for the beans, or eaten as a dry mix with pieces of fried meat, vegetable or eggs as farofa. Blending it with bigger quantities of liquids, like some spicy sauce, turns it into a rubbery mass called pirão, known to me, though not by this name, from western Africa, where it used to be one of my favorite dishes.    
         
   
 
   
   
Christmas at the restaurant, with Adilson
   
         
    The kitchen was built exactly according to my requirements, with tables the correct height to avoid the backache one gets when working surfaces are too low. I had about 8 m² of working space all around my kitchen, so I just could make a mess (I'm a pretty chaotic cook) and move on. Early morning my helpers would come and clean up. My cooking range had six burners fed from a gas cylinder and an electric oven. The electric workmanship wasn't too sophisticated, I remember once getting hit by a very strong current when touching the stove's surface: A live wire was in contact with the stove's metal body. My blender gave me electric shocks as well, whenever the handcrafted wooden tiles of the kitchen roof got displaced by the heavy rains, water dripped into the appliance.    
         
    Apart from those minor inconveniences, I was only too happy with my big kitchen. Its walls went only halfway up, so it was an open air affair actually, with flowers growing in front and behind. The main passage to the garden and the Pousada building was via the kitchen as well, so I usually had some company. Friends came for a chat, neighbors appeared and the employees consulted with me on construction matters while I prepared the restaurant meals.    
    Even at night my kitchen was a center of attraction: Thieves used to pay visits to steal food from the fridge.    
         
   
   
   
the hard-to-please food tester for Michelin's Restaurant Guide on the job
   
         
    Every day I prepared one different meal, anything from Arabian, Chinese, Indian or Indonesian to Turkish or Tibetan, whatever I felt like doing and could arrange for the necessary ingredients. The day's menu was announced on a blackboard in front of the restaurant. My customers were part Brazilian and foreign tourists and part expatriates living in Trancoso. Whenever possible, background music reflected the cultural background of the food. Inevitably, this led to some complaints by folks used to listen to nothing but Western sounds, but I didn't care. It was my restaurant, after all.    
    I also let it be known that resident devotees of Rajneesh (who later called himself Osho), the infamous Indian sex guru, were not welcome at my place wearing their uniform, the pink to dark-red habits and the mala, the necklace with their leader's photo. I have to mention that one of the first sights on our arrival in Trancoso was a group of those nuts. It made me want to scream, turn round and run.     
    In India, those self-styled "sanyasins" had crossed my path far too often for my liking. They made it impossible for me to wear anything red, a colour I loved, for fear of being taken for a member of their cult. Now my jewellery really doesn't look a bit like those malas, but people just associated the fact that I did wear necklaces and red colours with the followers of that unholy but very clever charlatan. After being mistaken for one of that group a couple of times, I was so disgusted I refrained from wearing red dresses.    
    For a time, there was a rumour about Rajneesh, who had just gotten kicked out of India and was looking for a new place to set up shop, thinking of buying the beach below Trancoso. This would have forced us to nothing less than sell our property and move on. I would never have consented to live in the midst of thousands of brain damaged "sanyasins". We were lucky, Rajneesh moved his ashram, including a few dozen Rolls-Royce limousines and some thousand followers and groupies, to the States. An ideal choice at least for me, as I never have felt any desire to visit the USA myself. For the guru himself, things turned sour after a while and he even spent some time in an US jail.    
         
    My restaurant and pousada's name was the same as my web domain's: Gulab Mahal. Gulab means rose, a Mahal is a palace. In reference to the famous Lale (Tulip) Restaurant in Istanbul's Sultanahmet district, a Sixties' Hippie hangout known world-wide as "Pudding Shop", I added "Restaurant & Pudding Shop" to the sign out front. I love preparing colourful deserts, so the name was apt for that reason as well.    
         
    Many necessary ingredients for Oriental cuisine weren't available in the vicinity. I had to learn how to prepare tofu, paneer, sambal, chutneys and achaar (Indian pickles) myself. From Nepal I had brought all my recipe books along, so I didn't lack directions. Spices were scarce too, so I planted some ginger and curcuma (both of the same plant families) in the garden, and right besides the kitchen I had a big bush growing tiny red and green super hot chilies all year round.    
         
   

In season, we prepared five to seven liters of fresh yoghourt every day. The rich politician who owned miles of the local beach kept a herd of water buffaloes on his property. Knowing from my years in India that the milk of water buffaloes makes for a far superior, richer and creamier yoghourt than cow's milk, I arranged for buffalo milk being bought. This yoghourt, blended with ice, sugar, and some pieces of fruit like mango, resulted in a delicious lassi for both the restaurant guests and ourselves.

   
    During Summer season I offered breakfast as well: Omlettes with herbs, Müesli, yoghourt with fresh fruit and the like.    
         
   
   
   
the Mexican Taco Man
   
         
    For a while we even had a taco stand run by a Mexican in front of the restaurant. I can't remember that fellow's name, our business agreement was that he prepared the tacos, we supplied the infrastructure plus ingredients, profits were shared. This Mexican was a friendly enough dude, but my employees didn't like his habit of treating our fridge as he would his mother's: He ate whatever he fancied, all day long. The kitchen helpers had lunch with us as well, but they wouldn't have thought of raiding the fridge for desserts that might be intended for the restaurant, they'd ask me first. Meanwhile the Mexican got visibly fatter by the day. I couldn't really be angry with him, obviously he felt at home with us, but for justice's sake, I had to reprimand him often.    
         
    A great bonus of life in Trancoso was fish so fresh I was afraid it might still twitch its tail. Early in the mornings the call: "Peeeeeeeeeixe............. peeeeeeeixe" could be heard. Often still in my nightgown, I'd hurry out to the village green, where the fishermen had thrown their catch to be snapped up quickly by housewives and restaurant owners.    
    Fresh fish just isn't comparable to what's on offer in shops and supermarkets. Right after returning to Switzerland with my youngest, who'd loved fish in Brazil, we passed the fish counter at the local mall. The smell was so nauseating to him that he never again, up to this day, ate fish.    
    For Rashid and the kitchen helpers, the most coveted part of the fish usually was the head, often worth a fight and a chase around the kitchen to them.    
         
    I enjoyed running my little restaurant, I could cook to my heart's content, and my efforts were rewarded not only with praise, but with a bit of cash as well.