An Idiot´s Guide to Eating, Praying and Loving

Eat, Pray Love 

Level: Intermediate

Hello fellow Idiots! 

Does this sound familiar... I´m an idiot in my own language and an even bigger idiot in my second language! If, like me, you´ve ever felt like a complete idiot talking in a foreign language then what you need is a guide. ´But where can I find a guide to English for idiots?´you cry. I really don´t know the answer to that one but what I suggest is the following, the world is full of guidebooks for other things you could learn or improve and a lot of them are written in English! Learning how to make Origami swans and therefore learning the word swan and origami is killing two birds with one stone. Not literally, this is an idiom, and like many idioms is actually impossible but should that put us off? In the following article, the author will take you through his personal journey into the Portugese guidebooks that taught him how to eat, how to pray and how to love, translating back into English their recipes, instructions and advice so that you can begin eating, praying and loving in English. 

This way you idiot!

A personal Erlebnis:

What you can´t you must,
What you must you can!

I was walking through a book shop in Brazil when, dizzy with hunger, I walked straight into a bookcase full of self-help books. In the collision, one fell into my hands. It was entitled ´´Desperte o gigante interior´´(Awaken the giant within) by Anthony Robbins. Opening the book randomly I read the quote ´´em que forma eu devo viver o hoje a fim do criar o amanha com o qual estou compremetido´´  (how am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I´m commited to?) 

Suddenly, two mega realisations for the price of one dawned on me. Firstly, that Brazilian people needed guidebooks as much as us and if I could find one to awaken my giant within then I could surely find one for any old bullshit. Secondly, that the tomorrow I´m commited to is speaking better Portugese and that today I needed to live in Portugese right now.  ´I am hungry´ I thought. ´No,´ I corrected myself. ´Eu tenho fome (I am hungry)´ So what was I gonna do about it?

EAT: 

Ah, 200 Recipes of Appetising Curries, what am I going to eat today? Aha, Vindaloo! 

Since moving to Brazil 2 years ago, I´ve yet to find a decent curry house and I think a vindaloo, typically the hottest curry on an Indian menu back in Britain, would likely melt the tongue out of a brazilian head. I was surprised when I found this recipe for a vindaloo in my Portugese curry book. This is the basic recipe for a Goan Chicken Vindaloo, I´ve added my own twist. 

Goan Chicken Vindaloo: Serves 4, Cooking time - 2hrs

Ingredients:

For the paste:
2 teaspoonfuls of cumin
2 teaspoonfuls of red pepper seeds (or half a pack for the authentic Raiders of the Lost Ark feel)
6 cloves of garlic
1 cinnamon stick
Cardamom pods 
a pinch of salt and pepper
Red wine vinegar (2 or 3 shot glasses worth)

For the curry:
Sunflower Oil
1 huge onion
Chicken breast fillets (about 600g)
2 dessert spoonfuls of garam masala curry powder (a difficult ingredient to find in Brazil but not impossible! Check your specialist food shops in posh parts of town)
1 400g tin of tomatoes
3 dessert spoonfuls of Tomato puree
4 big potatos (skinned and cut into smallish chunks)
Chicken stock 

And, of course, Rice!

How to make: 

Start by making your paste: garlic, cumin, pepper, cinnamon, vinegar, and the cardamom pods. You don´t need a blender, just give it all a good whisk with a fork. Then dice the chicken fillets and add to the mix, stirring it up. Voila, you´ve now seasoned your meat and you can leave it to marinate for 24 hours or get straight on with the next part. 

the yellow rice might be achieved
by adding saffron or photoshopping
it in after. 

Get a big non-stick wok or frying pan. Pour in the sunflower oil and fry the chopped onion for a few minutes.  Then add the marinated chicken and the garam masala powder, stirring it up. After approximately 3 minutes, add the potatos, tomato puree, tinned tomatos and the chicken stock. Bring it to boil for a moment, then turn it down to simmer for 1hr30! At this point you can put your feet up, do a crossword, sip some wine, but it´s better to check on it now and again and give it a bit of a stir. 

With half an hour to go, get back on your feet and start making the rice. Hey Presto! It´s done. Serve to the music of Ravi Shankar and with a cold bottle of lovely bubbly Kingfisher or Cobra beer. Pukka!*

*Pukka is hindi for genuine or superior. It´s used by cockneys and Jamie Oliver to express their delight with the food they´re eating. 

The benefits of cooking in English can be exemplified by the madeline eaten at the beginning of the novel ´A Search for Lost Time´. French author Proust dunked a biscuit in tea and remembered 3200pages of material! Blowing your mouth off with an ultrahot vindaloo could provide the synaesthetic stimulus to remember all the new words above!



PRAY:

´We got to Pray just to make it Today´ Wise words from MC Hammer, the rapper who wowed the world in the early nineties before hanging up his baggy trousers for a life of preaching the wiki-wiki-word! Praying is a spiritual wish, a holy begging, to the forces beyond to help our football team win, our lives to change, money to roll in, the world to be at peace. Usually when we pray, we have to do something with our hands too. Whether it´s rubbing our prayer beads, pinching imaginary nipples in buddhist lotus poses or freeze-framed clapping in christianity. Usually we have to humble ourselves before the maker or makers by kneeling or lying flat on our bellies. In the past we´d offer up sacrafices too. 

from the film The Wicker Man (1973)

Before Christianity, Celtic paganism was the religion of the British Isles. Do you remember Merlin from the tales of King Arthur? He was a pagan wizard or druid and his beliefs are pretty much the ancient Celtic ones. Looking up xamanismo.com.br, I´ve found a prayer for the pagan festival of Beltane I´d like to share with you. It seems to me much more fun than grovelling to a  God or Gods and you only have to do it once a year.

Beltane in a nutshell: Nowadays Beltane is a celebration of human sensuality but to the ancient Celts it was a day to focus the fertilization of the Earth. It´s the opposite day to Samhain (31st October) and was traditionally held on the 1st of May. In the southern hemisphere, it´s held on the 31st of October. Beltane means Bright Fire and as the male and female energies intermingle, allegorised by certain rituals, the pagans pray to the God Bellenos for energy and light to aid the earth´s fertilisation. 

Pagan lessons on the Summer Isles

How to celebrate Beltane: First and most importantly, you need a May Pole. This is the great phallic symbol of Beltane. Around this you sing and dance in couples, wrapping the pole in the coloured ribbons (red and white) attached to its top. If you can´t organise an authentic May Pole then you may use a telephone pole or street lamp. The best male dancer and the prettiest female dancer are then chosen to be king and queen of the festivities. 

Second you need to make a totem like the Wicker Man pictured, to burn as an offering. Fire is an important part of Beltane, and you can leap over burning totems, incense sticks, candles or churrascos to absorb some of this energy. Be careful not to use loose or flammable clothing or you´ll absorb too much fire energy. In the Summer Isles, north of Scotland, they used to sacrafice nosey and pious Christians at sunset but for your Beltane why not eat an abundance of fresh fruit and decorate yourself with flowers.

Burn the Christian!

A prayer for Beltane from the book Bruxeria para Iniciantes (Witchcraft for beginners)

Earth, fire, wind, water, heart (repeat 10 times, spinning on one leg, one eye closed)
Mother Earth, get it on, Mother Earth, get it on,
Mother Earth, get it on. Don´t be shy, get it on tonight.
Everything´s going to be all right. 
Lord of Fire, you got the milk and honey, 
Sow your wild oats, Cast your seed into the wind
Get it on tonight.
With your powers magnified
In the earth´s mantle on the moon tide
Get it on, tonight - blood sugar sex magic
Earth, fire, wind, water, heart (repeat 10 times)

So Gaia and Fire are in the mood, vindaloo is coursing through your veins and your digestive track, ´What could be hotter?´ I hear you ask....



LOVE: 

Sting - tantric sex practitioner

Or Sex by definition is all around us so why not embrace it as a means to practice your English. Perhaps you´ve already slept with a native speaker? Perhaps you have as a life goal the wish to make love to a famous native speaker? Where sex is communication, a basic flaw in your grammatical construction, wrong intonation or a wrong word choice can have explosive consequences. Example, if your English lover asks to be spanked, slapping them full on the face would be the wrong thing to do. Spanking is to smack someone lightly but punitively on the bottom. In the heat of passion, don´t ask for your partner to do it more difficult when you mean harder, and if they ask you for harder, don´t test them on their algebra. I´ll always remember in a packed class discussing friendship, an Italian student telling me how he´d fisted his friend. He meant punched and if he´d learnt the dirty English meaning of to fist from the Gay Kama Sutra, then he´d have avoided this embarrassment. A shelf full of dirty books in foreign language editions from the Lover´s Guide to Cosmopolitan magazine to Lady Chatterley´s Lover and Fifty Shades of Grey can take pride of place on the top shelf of any learner´s bookcase because they are instantly camouflaged by their foreigness. No brown paper bags are necessary.

Tantric love-making in English adapted from the book ´´O Guia Completa de Sexo Tantrico´´

1. Time and synchronicity: Synchronise watches with your partner. Check your diaries and book at least one day of tantric sex. You need to synch your sex drives so that you want to have sex as soon as you wake up in the morning.

2. Explore each other: You don´t need a compass and torches for this, just a lot of olive oil and a loving touch. The woman begins by messaging the man. As women take longer to reach stimulation peak or orgasm height, they should massage their man for about 70% longer than being massaged themselves.

3. Don´t rush: This is all about the journey not the destination. You must learn to enjoy the experience with out pressuring each other for the outcome. A man needs to learn to enjoy being touched without jizzing prematurely, hence their need for longer massaging.

4. Different sensations: Use your nails, hair and silk cloth to stimulate the senses. Hot candle wax over the scrotum or ice cubes up the butthole will cause sensory shockwaves.

5. Reverse the roles: Using circular strokes, massage your woman. One hand should work each corresponding body part: the shoulder and arse, the back and the abdomen, the belly and the holiest of holies. 

Tantric Position for the Advanced Practitioner

6.Inhale and exhale: If you´ve got this far without breathing then you´re likely feeling very dizzy. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of breathing throughout the whole process from step 1 to step 10. Inhale. Exhale. 

7.Look at each other: Turn off the television, put down that book (even if it´s this guide), you need to look each other in the eyes. This is key to tantricity. Before having sex, spend some time looking at a candle flame to train the eye, then look at each other slowly at first and then more quickly.

Tantric Underwear

8.Create loving rituals: Lingerie, a thong, leiderhosen, a nice perfume or a potent aftershave that you use only when having a tantric episode. Share a bath together or clean the house in the nude. All surfaces of the love making environment should be dust and germ free. Surround your bedding with symbols of the elements, a leaf for the air, a flower for the earth, a beer for water and a candle for fire. 

9.Understand tantric philosophy: Sorry to disappoint you but this is not all about your genitals. Tantric sex is about affection. The idea behind tantric practice is to become aware of your own being, to expand your consciousness and welcome intimacy into your life. 

10. Find a serious tantric master: There are many classes and workshops you can join but make sure you choose a professional to guide you. Touch is an essential part of these classes but intercourse is not. A sure sign that you´ve joined the wrong ´class´ is if you´re asked to drop your house keys into a big glass jar.