Making Pizza with Ana

Ana is the maid of my host mom, and while my host mom was gone traveling in the US Ana took care of me – preparing me meals, and conversing while I ate. I consider her a friend, and certainly one of the people I'm closest to in Bogotá.

One day I was sitting at the kitchen table, and pointed out to Ana the pizza oven in the courtyard. She said we could use it – that my host brother often made pizza with his friends when they came over. We date the date for Friday afternoon: here are the results...

On one of the pizza I decide to add tomates de arbol [tree tomatoes] instead of the typical ones. I hadn't tried tomate de arbol before coming to Colombia, and I have yet to see them grow son a tree: hopefully I can do so when I visit my host mom's finca [farm] in late August.

step 1: tomato sauce

step 1: toppings

step 3: oven

Final product: Hawaiian pizza with a mix of tomate and tomate de árbol

We also made some aromática (herb tea) from the mint and lemon verbena in the garden. I poured the aromática over ice and sipped it between slices of pizza – a very relaxing and refreshing end to the week.

As I ate my pizza, I talked to Ana about my research project on Venezuelan immigration. She mentioned that she had some neighbors who were Venezuelan – a large family, or perhaps a few different families, that all shared one house. She said that there were four kids who often came over to her house, and she would sometimes prepare them food. One of them would hug her. When they stopped by she would often ask, "have you eaten?" The would say: "No, I'm hungry," and Ana would prepare them food if she had some left over. She said she would sometimes bring leftovers from my host family's house to give to them, or if not she would buy extra food when she went to the grocery store if she had money to spare.

It saddened me to think of kids being hungry – lacking enough food – while I gorged on a feast of artisanal pizza in such beautiful surroundings of a marble table looking out on a beautiful courtyard. My host family's home has the kind of modern and natural aesthetic that I would want to create if I had the money to choose or design my own home.

My host family's courtyard – top of pizza oven on bottom left

I asked Ana if her Venezuelan neighbors might be willing to be interviewed for my project. I said that maybe we could cook them some pizzas, and serve the kids pizza before or after interviewing their parents. She said it was a good idea, and we decided to make pizza again the next Friday, to bring to the kids on Saturday. I outline that experience in the next post: "Driving from the richest to the poorest neighborhood of Bogotá."