The Elephant Whisperer and Alfresco

Alfresco isn't a restaurant but a kiosk in downtown Santa Cruz. Walking by on my way to the Del Mar, I smelled something spicy: cinnamon and cloves, slow-cooked vegetables. I stopped walking. As I stood there, deep breathing, the guy waiting in front of the kiosk smiled at me. "Such a big smell from such a small place," he said. The woman inside the kiosk handed him a bowl (biodegradable, of course) filled with chunks of spicy soft eggplant, raisins, chickpeas, and tomatoes on a mound of couscous. I forgot all about my movie and asked for the same thing, the North African Bowl. Then we sat at Parisian cafe tables on the sidewalk taking bites of this earthy, aromatic, completely satisfying sun-drenched food.

This bowl fits in with the book I'm reading, The Elephant Whisperer. (Yes, bad title. I walked past it in the library and thought, "Cheesy.") Okay, maybe it does bear a little resemblance to Born Free but once Lawrence Anthony, the author and owner of the game reserve Thula Thula, begins telling about the elephants who arrived by a fluke at his property, I can't stop reading.

Elephants have had a tough time of it what with humans taking all the land and deciding that it's much more expedient to shoot elephants than to find them appropriate homes. Anthony, who's lived in South Africa for much of his life, is struck by the fact that elephants -- once plentiful here -- haven't lived on this land for over a century. Many of the native Zulu people surrounding Thula Thula have never even seen an elephant. He fights to save his little band of elephants, fights to build a lodge that will help eco-tourism replace poaching, fights to convince the ranch owners that the land could be more viable and lucrative as a reserve than as grazing grounds for cattle. He falls in love with the elephant herd, with the matriarch Nana, inquisitive and stately, the second-in-command female Frankie, who charges first and asks questions later (I feel a curious affinity for Frankie). He tells of the arrival of Mvula and Ilanga, the first elephant babies born on this land in 100 years and how the elephants will not let him near the babies but later, bring them to his house to show them off. Lawrence will take his first grandchild to the elephants (while his daughter-in-law nervously wrings her hands), and the elephants meet the human baby with the most gentle touches of their trunks.

I've been recommending this to people as a beach read but I think it's more: when a book can take you to African lands and let you stay with elephants, let you meet a particular group of elephants with their endearing and not-so-endearing traits, isn't that the reason we read in the first place?

Here's a link if you want to see the very appealing kiosk that is Alfresco.

http://www.alfrescosantacruz.com/

And you can hear (in lovely Brit accents) how Lawrence Anthony saved many of the animals in the Baghdad zoo:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/audio/2009/feb/20/conservation-wildlife-lawrence-anthony

And you can google Thula Thula too.

copyright 2010 Ann Krueger Spivack