YUMMY

WHAT'S COOKING

 

While we have been working on another commentary for your pleasure, we have been delayed by the fun of eating.  Last Tuesday evening we celebrated Luis's birthday with most in the compound attending together with some local friends of the man of honor.  Yours truly and Mrs. T made a banana/ strawberry cake.  (The pictures on the website are from last year when Luis turned 60.)   Friday most of the condo folks gathered again for a potluck buffet of hors d'oeuvres / appetizers that was essentially dinner.  Then on Saturday the Plaza downtown was the site for Rhythm and Ribs, a fundraiser of La Asociacion Manos de Amor por Bahia for construction of La Casa Hogar de Bucerias.  Finally, tomorrow, Tuesday, at noon the International Festival will be having a ceviche contest.   All in all it has been a 'heavy' week full of goodies of all sorts.

 

Dan and Rebecca

 

http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/index.html

 

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Kung Hei Fat Choi!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

What you say? Our calendar is off. Not at all. This weekend is the new moon that marks the beginning of the lunar/Chinese/Asian New Year. It is will be the year of the boar, hog, or pig depending on the translation

Wikipedia has the following entry about those born in the upcoming year:

The Boar type is usually an honest, straightforward and patient person. They are a modest, shy character who prefers to work quietly behind the scenes. When others despair, they are often there to offer support. This type of person is reserved with those they do not know too well, but as time passes and they gain confidence, those around them may discover a lively and warm-hearted person behind that mask of aloofness. Despite those born in the year of pig having a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, they have few close friends who understand them and share their inner thoughts and feelings. It is easy to put trust in pig type; they won't let you down and will never even attempt to do so. Such people simply want to do everything right according to social norms.

It is important to remember that these people are not vengeful creatures. If someone tries to take advantage of them, the pig type tend to withdraw to reflect on the problem and protect themselves. All they need in such situations is a little time to find a constructive way to respond. The people of the pig type are conservative creatures of habit. They dislike being made to travel too far from familiar surroundings, unless it is a trip to the countryside. They love nature and are never happier than when they are out somewhere, far from the city.

There is a tolerant and peaceful side to their character. Such people are never afraid to allow others their freedom of expression; they do not want to cause arguments and if there is any way to avoid arguing, they will probably take this option. They are not weak, however, and if the situation forces them to fight these people will rise to the occasion, whether it is to defend themselves or those close to them. People of the Boar type are the most admired by others. For much more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_%28zodiac%29

(If you have not used Wikipedia, we highly recommend it as one of the first places to look for information on any topic.)

May the Year of the Boar bring you prosperity and good health.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Dan and Rebecca

Las Plantas

Las Plantas

We have been interested in some of the different foods that are grown here. One of the strangest looking is the breadfruit. It looks sort of like a osage orange on steroids. These things are huge! The big ones we saw in the market were a foot and a half long. We have not eaten any yet as we have not gotten specific cooking instructions but you can bake it, boil it, pickle it or make it into a paste. Breadfruit grows on trees. This is the plant they were trying to keep watered when the Mutiny on the Bounty occurred.

One of the local favorites we have tried and like is jamaica. This is a cold red drink made as a tea from the petals of a local flower. We have been drinking jamaica here for several years. A few weeks ago I was taking pictures of a pretty red flower. I asked a passing gentleman if he knew what kind of flower it was and he told me it was jamaica.

Another local food we have tried is jicama. This is a root vegetable. It is like zucchini in that it does not have much taste of its own but absorbs seasoning it is cooked with. One odd thing about jicama is that you can peel the skin off it almost like peeling a orange. My favorite jicama recipe involved soaking in it lime juice for about an hour and then sprinkling it with salt and paprika and eating it in raw sticks. This is a very tasty low calorie snack.

Passionflowers grow wild down here. After the flowers die there is a gourd looking thing. I had heard that these were poisonous. But the other day I saw two teenagers climbing up a fence to get them, which they promptly ate. When I asked them they said that these fruits were delicious, although I did not try them and have no plans to unless I can get more information.

Bananas are growing in people's yards in Bucerias. We have also seen banana plantations. The banana plant did not surprise me but I did not know that there was a big red flower and the bananas grew what seemed to me to be upside-down above the flower.

Prickly pear cacti grow all over this area. I knew the fruit was edible. What I did not know was you can eat the leaves and they are delicious. You can buy them at the market after someone has cut off the spines and cut them is strips. These taste a little bit like bell peppers. We use them in salads.

Coconut palms grow everywhere in Bucerias. Many local people consider them as sort of a nuisance because they need to be harvested regularly lest they bonk someone on the head. I tried a taste of coconut milk when I saw someone cutting them down but I really did not care for it.

We can not find catnip in Bucerias. I thought I would get a little as a treat for Sherlock the condo cat. I looked up the word for it and asked a local herb man. He knew what I wanted but he did not have any and suggested I ask the local veterinarian. By the time I got around to the vet's I had forgotten the word. After a rather energetic pantomime of a cat who was high on catnip I got the idea across. Oh yes, he said the plant that makes little kitties crazy, I don't have any.

(Si, la planta por gatitos hace loco! No tengo.)

Speaking of crazy a scruffy looking old man tried to sell me what he said was peyote the other day. He must have felt instinctively that I was a child of the sixties. It looked a lot like moldy mushrooms to me, but I will never know for sure as I declined to purchase any. Is that stuff legal down here? Tomorrow we plan to visit the botanical garden where we can learn more about the plants of Mexico.

Pictures can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157600448508273/

Rebecca and Dan

blogging

PUSH-ME-PULL-YOU

Well we are entering the blogosphere or whatever the current name for that part of the Internet. Our occasional electronic epistles will not only be sent to you via email but will also be posted on a blog at: http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/ Thanks to Master N prompting us and for creating this place and posting our most recent efforts.

You may have heard about blogs with reference to the political arena. In that venue blogging appears to be some hybrid of punditry, editorial commentary, muckraking, and investigative reporting with ongoing active audience participation. Blogs seem to spring up virtually instantly after any event, appearance, or pronouncement by elected officials, their staffs, retinues, minions, and other assorted hangeroners. The instaneousness and ongoing banter seems to be the salient points of these blogs.

But another aspect of blogging relates to a different style of obtaining information: pulling vs pushing. In the traditional style of TV and radio, information is pushed to the consumer. That is, the media presents what information when, where and how it wants. The consumer needs to be at a particular place, at a particular time, with a particular device in order to obtain the information. Print media is slightly different, but it has a short shelf life for current events. The first change came with the advent of the tape recorder, but probably not too many people taped radio shows, especially news, for later consumption. A much bigger change came with the videotape recorder. Some of you probably have boxes of tapes of movies and favorite TV shows. (I hope you are not stuck with Beta tapes.) And whereas we may recorded some nature shows or PBS-type special, it is unlikely that you have any news programs unless you recorded the Watergate hearings or an outerspace event. But how many of those tapes have you reviewed lately?

The Internet has created a different dynamic. We the consumer can now choose what information we will consume and when, where, and how. With the advent of the iPod, advances in the cellphone, WiFi access for laptops on every corner, and other technologies, the consumer has significantly turned the 'push' into a 'pull.' Blogs fit into the pull category – emails are essentially in the push group. Unlike many blogs, ours will not be open access to everyone and anyone. The same material, such as this essay, will be there for reading, but only we will be able to easily post to the site. We hope that those of you that are more plugged into the blog universe will be able to enjoy our commentaries.

More about water

One of our European correspondents would like us to note that tap water, at least in northern countries and Scandinavia is generally safe in the big cities. Many folks may prefer the bottled liquid, but that is not a commentary on the potability. Thanks to BN for the info.

On another note, the senior Terribles returned to their casa up north this week. They seemed be none the worse for wear and enjoyed themselves we hope in the warm sunshine. Sorry it is so cold for you at home.

Hope all of you are well and keeping warm as well.

Dan and Rebecca

fauna

Some of the animals in Mexico are quite familiar, for example, our condo compound has a cat named Sherlock. He is an employee in charge of rodent control for the complex. I also wondered if he was a management spy. Whenever you leave the door open Sherlock comes in and looks around. Once he came in and sat down in front of the refrigerator and looked at me meaningfully. I offered him little pieces of bread, meat and cheese all of which he sniffed but did not eat. (Of course Dan came out and started yelling at me, "DO NOT FEED THAT CAT!!") I am still unsure if my offerings were not up to Sherlock's standard or if he was just doing an inventory that day to see what was in everybody's fridge. Yesterday I asked Sherlock if I could take his picture. He immediately sat down and started licking himself in unmentionable locations. I don't know if he was just being rude or if he wanted to look his best in what he considered his most important parts.

But we also see unfamiliar animals. The most excitement recently was a three and half foot iguanain the swimming pool. I thought he just wanted to cool off. The way I figured it, if he wanted to cool off it was fine with me as long as I was not in the pool at the time, in which case I would have probably felt differently. Our neighbors were worried that the chlorine might be bad for him and fished him out with the pole used to get leaves, etc from the pool. I am not sure if the pole was designed to accommodate iguanas but evidently it worked. Luis said that the iguana went in the pool to get away from Sherlock who chases them. I asked Luis if Sherlock (the cat) could actually kill an iguana which is after all bigger than he is. Luis said that Sherlock probably could if he wanted to but he really just enjoys chasing them. Evidently there used to be a couple of iguanas that lived in the compound. Luis said that people liked to look at them but then they would poop on people who walked under the trees which was not a good thing. Well, No!!

There are many weed filled vacant lots in Bucerias. People who own horses and donkeys stake them out for a day to browse. The animals escape quite regularly. Every morning about seven we are awakened by the noisy protests of a little donkey who our neighbors christened Eyeore. Eyeore must not like to be left in the lot next door. Several times he escaped. I tried to shoo him back to his place but he eluded me quite deftly. One day we saw two lady tourists leading Eyeore down the street. I asked them what was up and they explained that they thought he was sad just standing there all day. They asked his owner, and had gotten permission to take him for a walk. The ladies were going to take him down to the market and buy him carrots for a treat. I would guess that gringos are a strange species to the Mexican farmers.

Speaking of which, one day the horse who was staked out down the street escaped. Someone caught her and put another rope on her. I was trying to be helpful and tell the Mexican where the horse came from. “Do you know where she goes?” I was asked. I said I did and before I could protest I had the rope in my hand and was told to take her back. “BE CAREFUL THAT HORSE DOESN’T KICK YOU!!” Dan yelled from a safe distance. I told him that as long as I was in front there was little danger of that. However I did keep a sharp eyeover my shoulder in case the horse decided to nip my rear (I had a rather nasty experience on a previous occasion!). However this horse was very well behaved and when I made a couple of clucks followed me placidly back to the lot and let me tie her to a stake.

One of the families in Bucerias has a coatimundi as apet. The children walk it on a leash and it seems quite docile. However, both the dogs and the cats slink away when they see it coming. It seems to eat insects.

There are a lot of different birds here both familiar and unfamiliar which you can see at:

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/dxterrible/album/576460762387884488.

So long for now from Mexico where the free range chickens range free.

Rebecca and Dan