Mozambique

My favorite restaurant is usually the one I haven't tried before, but now I've found one that I am willing to repeat. Mozambique Steakhouse in Laguna Beach has delicious, unique food. Last September, Allan and I stayed in one of the Crystal Cove State Park Beach Cottages. Gladys, Erika, Kathy, and Joanie came to spend a day at the beach and eat dinner on the roof top of Mozambique. We had the super spicy Mazavaroo fries, samoosas, penne pasta Mozambique, peri-peri chicken, feta & spinach South African pie, and the Portuguese hot butter pudding made with the owner’s grandmother’s recipe.

Just last month, Allan and I were lucky enough to get another cottage at Crystal Cove. (These cottages are hard to get, so if anyone wants hints on how to do it, just ask.) This time Kaitlin, Andrea, and Matt joined us. For our lunch at Mozambique, I had the South African vegetable soup, which is one of the best vegetable soups I have had (lots of big chunky vegetables in a great broth). Matt had the ahi burger, Kaitlin had the peri-peri chicken (the appetizer is big enough for an entree), and Andrea had the portabello mushroom stack.

The food at the restaurant in Laguna Beach isn’t the only Mozambican food that I like enough to have again. Last Sunday I made a Mozambique avocado salad for my cooking group. Anne apologized that she ate more than her share, Kathryn sent me complements by email, and I made it again Monday just because I wanted more: https://www.internationalcuisine.com/mozambican-avocado-salad/

Yesterday morning, I had a 6 a.m. meeting that I took from home on Zoom. With prep work from the night before, I was able to get this cashew potato cake in the oven and have it for breakfast after the meeting: https://www.internationalcuisine.com/mozambican-bolo-polana/

The food may be surprisingly good, but I’m not surprised that Mozambique restaurant is located in Laguna Beach. Mozambique itself is known for beautiful beaches and world-class diving as shown in the documentary Vamizi: Cradle of Coral: https://therokuchannel.roku.com/watch/c768517ff5725ce1bd8f9a817a95b46d?source=google

Additional beautiful things to see in Mozambique are their national parks and the Zambezi River:

· A series of six PBS episodes on Gorongosa Park can be found on Kanopy and the first episode is here: https://www.pbs.org/video/pbs-gorongosa-new-approaches-documentary/

· A shorter documentary by National Geographic called Last Wild Places: Gorongosa is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6S5JlEIpSY

· Green Paradise: Africa has a Mozambique episode on Amazon Prime

· A documentary on the Zambezi River can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_u5rQkd5ik

Both the San Bernardino County Library and Los Angeles County Library have several of Mia Couto’s books. I appreciate his ideas about diversity and literature playing a role in the construction of peace. I found two of his short stories and a speech online:

· “An Obliging Robber” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/07/magazine/mia-couto-short-story.html

· A story from Sea Loves Me: https://open-book.ca/News/Read-an-Story-from-Sea-Loves-Me-Newly-Translated-Short-Fiction-from-Booker-Prize-Nominated-Writer-Mia-Couto

· 2014 Neustadt Prize Acceptance Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFnRS4UOPC0

Another Mozambican author, Lucílio Manjate, has the story “An Elemental Man” on Words Without Borders: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/an-elemental-man-lucilio-manjate-eric-m-b-becker

Movies set in Mozambique include Redemption and Another Man’s Garden. There are two movies named Redemption on Netflix. It’s easy to pick out the one with African actors as the one set in Mozambique. Another Man’s Garden can be found here: https://tubitv.com/movies/445524/another-man-s-garden-o-jardim-do-outro-homem?start=true

With Mozambican music being largely in Portuguese, I’m getting a chance to see some similarities to Spanish. A series of recent music videos from Mozambique starts here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRlcwG1ZP3I&list=PL7v1FHGMOadAGLeXG2ker4UnLkvBUqwO-

Mozambique is a little different from the other sub-Saharan African countries I’ve covered so far in that there are a number of white people who identify as African. This CNN special on art in Mozambique may look more like what I expected but it also made me question what I expected. I appreciate that the dialogue throughout these resources from Mozambique is expanding my ideas: https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/01/14/spc-inside-africa-mozambique-art-a.cnn

There are lovely places to visit in Mozambique https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-mozambique/#more-19676 and yes, I would love to go! I look forward to that time when we can travel broadly again. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Mozambique and throughout the world.

Photo credit: Wynand Uys https://unsplash.com/photos/0_32AIxy1Hk