Day: December 6, 2014

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My Isla Kitchen, Revisited

I’m someone who needs to cogitate a problem before finding a solution. My Isla kitchen wasn’t working for me and I’d identified a lot of the issues in my post about it, but what to do about them? I thought long and hard about my kitchen in Miranda and what it’s taken to make it just about perfect for me. What lessons there could I apply to the kitchen here?

The first one was a huge duh: PURGE. There was tons of stuff in the cabinets that I don’t use. But I can’t throw anything away… No. But there’s a huge empty space under the sink and I have a couple of empty Rubbermaid totes…

After writing my last post about my day in Maz, I went back to the kitchen and emptied everything that I don’t use, right down to the toaster, into a single tote, which I tucked out of sight. I then arranged everything I do use into the cabinets and, low and behold, there was room for food!

I was able to clear off the top of the microwave and move my food processor to a more logical location. The end result is so much more functional for me and all it took was five minutes! I’m glad I didn’t throw money at the problem, although I will now spend a little to get an extra shelf for the far cabinet (to double the space in it) as well as a basket of some sort for the spices.

I know it's not ideal to store spices and such next to the stove, but this works. I will pick up a nice bucket at Waldo's at some point to store them in to make clean up easier.

I know it’s not ideal to store spices and such next to the stove, but this works. I will pick up a nice basket at Waldo’s at some point to store them in to make clean up easier.

Look at that!

Look at that! Middle bottom shelf, you can see on the far left my big box of powdered milk for the coffee and right next to it is my jar of yummy Isla honey. And then, lots o’ coffee. 🙂

The kitchen looks so much less crowded and cleaner now. I do need to get rid of the duck between the stove and crock (it holds matches).

The kitchen looks so much less crowded and cleaner now. I do need to get rid of the duck between the stove and utensil bucket (it holds matches).

My crock is full of not just the large cooking utensils, but also the eating ones, my can opener (glad I brought one!), and my BBQ lighter. During the purge, I found a large chopping knife that looks pretty sharp.

My utensil bucket is full of not just the large cooking utensils, but also the eating ones, my can opener (glad I brought one!), and my BBQ lighter. During the purge, I found a large chopping knife that looks pretty sharp that should be better than the steak knives for chopping veggies. One thing I forgot to pick up today is a couple of butter knives for spreading things like cream cheese. I can’t believe there isn’t a single one in this kitchen!

One thing I miss is my tiny strainer for collecting the pits from limes and lemons. This set was overkill, but at just 150 pesos, it was worth it just to never have to bit down into another lime pit again this winter! They should be good for jalapeño seeds, too!

One thing I miss from home is my tiny strainer for collecting the pits from limes and lemons. This set was overkill, but at just 15 pesos, it was worth it just to never have to bite down into another lime pit again this winter! They will be good for jalapeño seeds, too, as well as rinsing rice and lentils! I use both a colander and two sizes of strainers at Haven, so these will bring some sense of normalcy to my kitchen. 🙂

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Mazatlán Driving Adventure

Today was the day to pick up my new neighbour at the airport. I decided to take advantage of the fact that I’d be past The Road to go to town with my truck and pick up a computer chair.

I left around 11:00 and it took exactly 40 minutes to drive the 12KM/7.5 miles to pavement. The Road was much better than it was a month ago!

I had written down the instructions to get to Walmart, which should have been an easy off of MX-15, but, of course, there was construction and whatnot and I never saw a sign for the exit I needed to take. I pulled over and asked Siri for directions. For whatever reason, she can’t find the closer Walmart and Google is incapable of routing me anywhere, so I just followed the Siri to the farther out Walmart, where I was pretty close by that point.

Walmart, to my immense surprise, did not have any furniture, only mattresses! 🙁 I was there, so I picked up some glass plates and a few things for the apartment. I wanted some cleaning products and found a really good deal on a bucket full of everything I needed for just 63 pesos!

I had no idea where to find a computer chair and struck out on Google searches the other night for Mazatlán office furniture. I decided to go to Home Depot and then Soriana. Of course, both Siri and Google were useless, so I used my own navigational sense and idea of where the Home Depot was in relation to the farther away Walmart (I’ve spent a lot of time looking at maps lately) and made it there by what was very likely the most direct route! And someone said to me recently that I don’t have strong navigational skills!

But right across from the Home Depot I saw an Office Depot! I ‘circled around the block’, which you can’t actually do in Maz, and eventually made it to the store. There, I quickly settled on the cheapest chair I could find that had a decent flexible back and cushioned seat, on sale from 1,400 to 1,200 pesos. A bit more than I wanted to spend, but this is a non-negotiable! (Remember, this is just a chair for the next five months. I gladly paid a lot more than that for the chair I have in Miranda!)

I was once again glad for my language skills because how to get the chair was not obvious. I noticed a yellow ticket behind the price tag and pulled it out. It had instructions to take said ticket to the till and the item would brought out for me. That was fairly uneventful. The (boxed) chair was put into a cart for me and I was left to my own devices to get it to the truck.

Soon as I reached my truck and had the back open, a man materialized and got the box into the truck and was gone with the cart before I even had time to blink! I went to him and offered five pesos and he refused! Wow! How nice of him!

There was a ScotiaBank right next door, so I thought that would be a good place to withdraw cash. HA. It refused my card, as did the HSBC in the Soriana on the other side of the Office Depot. Probably some sort of immature competition thing with CIBC.

It was getting late and I wanted to be at the airport by no later than 3:30, so I headed off in roughly the direction of MX-15 and, again, found it without trouble. And by ‘without trouble’ I mean I still had to grow eyes behind my head and drive super aggressively and whatnot, but there were not wrong turns. Driving in Maz is absolutely no worse than driving in the Montreal area.

I passed a Banamex and pulled in. It was a long wait, but I had no trouble withdrawing what I needed. From now on, Banamex has my business as it’s the only bank that has so far worked for me consistently.

It was then stop and go traffic through and out of Maz. Once I hit the open road, I pulled into a Pemex and put in 400 pesos of gas, which got me about a third of a tank of fuel. Ouch! (I’ve returned home with almost three quarters of a tank.)

The airport was not far at that point and I arrived at 3:15. I circled around to see if perhaps my neighbour was waiting outside, but no. So I pulled into the parking lot, 30 pesos for the first hour, and went in to wait.

The Maz airport is super super tiny. I had hoped to get lunch there once the AC had a chance to rev up my appetite, but there really wasn’t anything. The plane had landed, so I thought it would be a short wait, but no. I was there a full 45 minutes.

Before one more person tells me how nice I was to have gone to pick up my neighbour, I will say that I was very reticent at the thought of doing so, but willing to go if she had no other options, until she said she would pay me the same as she would a taxi. I knew it would be a long drive and a long wait and payment made it worth my while. She was glad to have someone waiting for her.

The drive home seemed a lot faster. We got her luggage out of my truck and she went off to see a friend. I told her I would make supper and if she was hungry later, she was welcome to come over and I would heat up a plate for her.

After a really yummy pasta meal, I attempted to assemble my chair. Of course, it’s the same story as with just about anything you buy these days, shoddy construction. There’s a part that I need to unscrew to fit in the back rest. It will be impossible to do so with hands only, as the instructions say, and I need to find someone with vice grips and a star screw driver. I’m kicking myself for not bringing a tool kit. I have big work job to do tomorrow and pretty close to angry that I won’t be able to use my new chair after all the energy spent getting it. 🙁

The only other thing of note today was that I went into the Soriana and had a bit of a poke around. It sure has a lot more than does the Ley! I didn’t look at prices, so I don’t know how they compare. I could easily walk there (5KM/3 miles) from the panga and take a pulmonía back.

Most of the shoppers at Walmart were Gringos (because we were in the Golden Zone). The only reason I felt compelled to go to Walmart was it was the first logical place to go in search of a computer chair. Otherwise, I have no strong urge to go there and am happy shopping at Ley, Waldo’s, the Mercado, the City Deli, etc.