The Restaurants

Jesús Guadalupe Castro

The Office, chef

I was only seven or eight years old when one day I joined my cousins to hunt doves for dinner. Once back at home I began to pluck and clean the doves, but while doing so my uncles from La Paz arrived. Greeting me warmly, they offered me some fresh fruit they bought along the way. Hungry after a long day in the woods, I became distracted from my task and could not resist the juicy mangos and papayas. Before joining my uncles on the patio, I made sure to leave the doves on a shelf in the kitchen. Happy to see my relatives, I enjoyed their company, laughing and reminiscing, when suddenly I noticed the dogs exiting the house with their mouths full of feathers. It was a good thing my uncles brought the fresh fruit since we no longer had dinner that night; my carelessness fed our meal to the dogs. That day I learned that nothing should be finished half-heartedly because the risk associated with such negligence might just leave me hungry.