Joaquina

So we’re all sitting at the breakfast table with David Lee Roth—Van Halen II era—trying to explain the concept of changua. Well, there’s also Eddie, Alex (shy Alex) and Michael sitting here with us, but they’re being so quiet they barely exist in the conversation. Besides, when David is in a room, he just fills it, as if he were the only person there.

Here I am, dying to ask David to tell the story of how he broke his right foot making the leap that appears in the picture on the back cover of their last album; but he’s quicker than me and everybody else in the room, so he just looks straight at Joaquina and asks her:

“Sweetheart, what’s in the soup?”

And Joaquina starts speaking Spanish, obviously, just because that’s what we all do around the house, all the time, especially when it comes to great food; so she says:

“Sencillito don David: Dos de leche y dos de agua con sal. Cuando hierven, les echa los huevitos y tapa la olla. Ahí la deja otro ratico… hasta contar a cien. Al servir, se le pone cebollita larga y cilantro. El pan yo lo desgajo y lo pongo aparte. Es que a la doña, por ejemplo, no le gusta su changua con pan, entonces por eso el panecito es al gusto.”

Joaquina finishes her explanation and smiles at David. What she said might sound obvious to her, but not to him… not that I really need to mention that.

I imagine David, traveling around the world filling up stadiums with his presence, meeting women of all flavors (and probably taking it all for granted), until he meets Joaquina, who takes him to a whole new level of taste.

So David smiles and nods, as if he understood the name of every ingredient, as if he could stand up right now and make another changua himself. He looks down at the bowl in front of him, inhales the aroma, and nonchalantly fills his spoon. I follow the trajectory of the changua from the bowl to his mouth, and as the flavors hit his tongue, I can see by the way his eyes pop that his palate is going as crazy as one of his fans in the first row. I smile because I know exactly how he’s feeling; the first time I heard Van Halen, my ears reacted to the music the way his taste buds were now experiencing the soup. I consider the best way to explain that to him, so he’ll know I can relate to the way he’s feeling… but then I decide it’ll just take too long, and I can’t wait to attack my changua.

So we’re all there: sipping, slurping, savoring. It occurs to me that I should translate the ingredients and the preparation for David, but then I decide to just enjoy the moment, and I smile at him, looking for his approval, and he smiles back and proceeds to mix the bread on top of the changua, just like he saw me doing a second before.

When we finish with the changua, Joaquina gives us hot chocolate, made with cinnamon and cloves, and along with it, a cheese we call campesino, which is sweet and spongy, harder than mozzarella burrata but softer than a pecorino. Almost like a ricotta salata. It has the particular characteristic of absorbing just the right amount of hot chocolate, creating probably the most perfect bite in the whole world.

Subsequently come the freshly baked arepas, with melted butter and doble crema cheese on top, and just a pinch of salt; juicy almojábanas and still-hot pan francés (the Colombian version of a mini-baguette), which she had personally selected from the bakery just minutes before.

And suddenly, in unison, the rest of the guys in the band break the silence to say a quick combination of something that sounds like: delicious, amazing, aniquilador…

And then we are all done, and we sit for some time, reflecting on the food we’ve just enjoyed, until Eddie stands up and says:

“Guys, let’s go roller skating.”

We all look at him in disbelief, but then everyone seems to realize that you can’t disagree with Eddie Van Halen, so we immediately stand up and follow him; even David, with his astonishing presence, and his “fill up the stadium” looks.

And then it hits me: Yes, David has the looks and the charm, but Eddie makes the decisions, and everyone seems to understand that their role is to support him, just so he can come up with the crazy, unexpected ideas.

So here we are now… Probably the dorkiest scene I’ve ever seen… We’re all wearing roller skates—except for Joaquina—going down a hill, about to turn on a gigantic curve, and trying so hard to keep our balance, relax our hips and ankles, and dreaming of making the roller skates an extension of ourselves, even though that seems next to impossible because this is the first time any of us have done this.

And suddenly, the concept of riding roller skates seems less dorky, more natural; and the idea of having Van Halen, the real Van Halen, around the house, doesn’t seem so crazy after all.