Month: January 2016

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A Feast On the Beach

I met up with my Wednesday crowd again today, only this time at Pili’s/Rudy’s restaurant. It was a bit of a last minute thing and I didn’t know that the food and booze had all been ordered ahead of time and that whomever was there would split the bill evenly until huge platters of food showed up! What an inspired idea! Lunch ended up being $250 each, and that includes the beer and the tip!

Our event organiser had asked for a variety of foods to be made up so there would be something for everyone. We all got a plate with refried beans, salad, and rice, with access to a bottomless basket of tortillas. To share, we had:

-guacamole (topped with cheese!) and totopos

-garlic shrimp

-coconut shrimp

-BBQed chicken (cut in pieces)

-French fries

-a whole grilled red snapper topped with veggies (I’d never had cooked red snapper before!)

-flan (I declined since I don’t eat eggs)

What a spread! The fish in particular was gorgeous, with lots of caramelised bits. There was more than enough for everyone to gorge themselves.

Most of this crowd is French-Canadian, so it was really nice to break out the joual for a couple of hours. I have to laugh that one couple is from Moose Jaw and another couple was practically neighbours with some of my relatives and know one of my uncles!

The blanket guy did some brisk business with us. I might have come home with a small tablecloth, which will be used to cover my couch… 🙂

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One of Those “Why Do I Bother to Cook in Mexico?” Meals

I’m out of propane (despite being proactive and getting the order in before I ran out) so I can’t really cook much. I was feeling a little off today after yesterday’s carb overload, so all I wanted for dinner was some solid protein. Therefore, I went to Miguel’s and had a sit down dinner there of an “orden de carne asada” (order of grilled meat, in this case beef). I asked for four tortillas to go with it so I could make tacos out of my meal!

Dinner consisted of a really generous portion of perfectly marinated and grilled thinly sliced beef (including a little gristle to eat around), a ladle of refried beans, salsa mexicana, cucumbers, tomatoes, raw sliced red onion, grilled jalapeños, and, knowing that I like grilled onions, Angela quartered one and threw it on the grill with my meat. So dinner was a little of all of that piled onto a tortilla, then drizzled with freshly squeezed lime juice, guacamole (the runny stuff), a spicy red sauce, and a few pieces of chiles curtidos (pickled jalapeños).

There was enough for me to make four generous tacos with tons of filling leftover. I could have probably made eight tacos if I had wanted to, so this is definitely a meal that could be shared or should have been split in two to take half home if I hadn’t been so ravenous from not having had much to eat today. 🙂 And, really, it wasn’t that heavy of a meal. Four tortillas are about equivalent to a slice of bread, one of the reasons I love them so much.

I usually get takeout from Miguel’s, but there are some meals that are better eaten there because you don’t get all the condiments with takeout and they’re what make the meal truly Mexican and so flavourful.

The cost? A mere 70MXN (5.76CAD or 4USD)! I know from buying that same cut of beef for myself now that it was worth about $40 and the other ingredients are really inexpensive staples. So while they do make a decent profit, I couldn’t have made that meal for myself at that price. Definitely a case of it totally being worth it to eat out.

It’s amazing how much better I feel now after feeling terrible all day. I know my body well and what it needs. It’s too bad I had to wait till 6PM to get this meal when I would have done well to have it earlier in the day, but better late than never!

Debbie, I hope your order of carne asada was as satisfying as mine was! 😉

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Oh, Crap!

I was invited by my friends L&N to attend a tournament of “Crap!” on the beach today with a bunch of other people. Thankfully, I was able to shuffle my schedule around so I could go. It was a great four hours on Chivos Beach, Isla’s best kept secret. It is that because the bay there  is super tranquil for swimming and there’s almost never anyone there. The weather was perfect to be sitting under the sun for the afternoon, just hot enough with a cool breeze. The bright blue water was chilly, though!

My place in relation to Palapa Mirador on Chivos.

My place in relation to Palapa Mirador on Chivos.

What is “Crap!” you may ask? Well, having attended and played, I’m pretty sure the best description is that it’s a beach sport that is rather a cross of curling, darts, shuffleboard, pockets, and the entertainment of watching a jousting tournament. A large target is drawn in the sand and you have to hit it with stones from a certain distance, with the rings of the target determining how many points you get. First one to get to 21 points without going over wins the round.

There was about a dozen of us and N had everything organised very well. Pairs of players would go and the winner would go on to the next round, then repeat that until there were only two champions. I did really well in my first round, but choked on my last turn and lost by a point! So I was just a spectator after.

There is a nice restaurant at Chivos Beach called Palapa Mirador so we had tables with food and beverage service. The server there is a Canadian and she has done a nice write up about the restaurant and the beach, so go to her blog for the pictures I neglected to take. 🙂 I have to laugh at her comment about the bathrooms having real doors when the toilets have no seats!

I had four Pacifico Lights and the coconut shrimp over the course of the afternoon. The meal was excellent although the shrimp were not as coconutty as those at the restaurants on this side (but also much less expensive) and didn’t have a dipping sauce. I wound up making tacos out of my meal and loading on the Valentina “hot” sauce, which isn’t hot at all.

What a great afternoon for just $200, plus a very generous tip for our hardworking server! A Monday afternoon on the beach is pretty normal, but a Wednesday is a luxurious treat that reminds me of just how lucky I am to have so much freedom — and how smart I am to be here in paradise instead of freezing my butt off in Saskatchewan!

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A Usually Special Morning Made Extraordinary

I’ve been riding every Monday morning since I got here. It is a cherished couple of hours out of my week. My riding group is wonderful and there’s something to be said about riding down a beautiful palm tree lined beach with a tropical sun beating down on you. Our guide, Daniel, has even let us go out on our own a few times so I have gained more experience and confidence on a horse.

Such was the case today. It was just Sue and me, so Daniel told us to go on and he’d join up with us for the ride back. The weather was just perfect, with a cool breeze and fluffy white clouds. Our horses were chomping at the bit, so we loosed the reins, dug in our heels, and let them fly.

On the trip back, Daniel asked why we didn’t want to go back through the forest and I explained that it’s because of the mosquitoes. I then told him all about the mosquito-borne disease from Africa that has reached North American shores and is causing babies in Brazil to be born with little to no brain. We then talked about the cost of life in Canada and the shock I’m going to experience at produce prices. Sue can follow a little bit and we’d frequently break to have her repeat words and make sure she was following the conversation, and we’d do the same for Daniel with English words.

As we were nearing the end of the ride, we came across a giant green coconut right in the middle of the road. Daniel scooped it up. When we got to our hitching posts on the beach, he set the coconut on a stump he uses to help people mount the horses, pulled his machete out from under his horse’s saddle, and hacked at the coco until there was a drinking hole. Sue and I split it and we both raved at how fresh and cool and flavourful the coconut water was.

But Daniel wasn’t done! He then used the machete to split the coco in two and hacked off a bit of the husk to make a spoon. He then fed us the coco meat! I’ve never had green coconut meat before and it was marvelous. I’ve heard it described as slimy, but it wasn’t unpleasantly gelatinous at all, very cool and smooth and sweet and filling.

Such a special morning deserves a special lunch so I’m off to the beach for a beer and something shrimpy!

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Sunday Morning in JuĂĄrez

I needed produce and wanted more variety than what my veggie has (going into grapefruit withdrawal…), so I decided to do a mercado run this morning, but to the one in JuĂĄrez for a change of scenery.

I was out the door at about 8:00, was disappointed that the bakery wasn’t open so I could grab some pan dulce as an on-the-go breakfast, but was pleased to find the doughnut lady at the embarcadero doing a brisk business.

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High tide this morning!

I’ve had more doughnuts since I got here in November (three!!!) than I’ve had in the past several years. They’re very light and fluffy, with cinnamon sugar. When I was in Durango, I saw doughnut vendors calling them ‘donuts,’, masculine (un donut, el donut), but here in Maz, they are ‘donas,’ so feminine (una dona, la dona). I had just enough time to enjoy it before a bus marked JuĂĄrez pulled up.

It was a very quick ride and, knowing where I was going this time, I hopped off before the bus started its very jerky stop-and-go ride through traffic in the heart of the market area. I decided to start with a tour of the tianguis (flea market). It was much larger than last time. I bought a blouse in the first aisle I passed. The lady wanted $40, I said $30, and we finally settled on $35. Fun. 🙂

The tianguis was very crowded, but I’ve learned ‘con permiso’ to elbow my way politely through a crowd. I felt so comfortable there, with all the wonderful odours and chatter and colourful goods. One man tried to sell me a dog leash and when I told him I didn’t have a dog, he said it would work for my husband. ÂĄJajajajaja!

Feeling a tad parched, I began to scope out the agua fresca vendors and finally conceded that no one had guava today. So I settled on lime, which was predictably very refreshing.

Then, I could no longer ignore the siren call of grilled meat and onions. This was a mystery meat taco ‘con todo,’ to which I added salsa mexicana and guacamole (the thin liquidy stuff). The cook did ask me to confirm that my definition of ‘con todo’ included ‘picante’ (spicy) and I said yes. They weren’t spicy in the least, though! Soooo yummy. 🙂

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I then walked around JuĂĄrez a bit and made a discovery that surprised me. I found an indoor market just like the Pino SuĂĄrez one in Centro! How did I miss it last time?! This market was almost only meat, which looked a lot more appealing than what I see in Centro. I need to go back with a cooler bag and ice! I also found public bathrooms in this market and except for the hand washing facilities being a bucket of soapy water everyone could plunge their hands in (yuck — thank goodness I had wipes!), I was very impressed by how clean and new the facilities were. I tipped the attendant $5.

It was just past 10:00 by then and already getting very hot and uncomfortable. I was ready to go home. So I picked a produce vendor and spent a whopping $36 (do note my sarcastic tone) on this:

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Funny how I never never noticed sweet potatoes last year, and now I have no trouble finding them.

I’d promised myself a pulmonĂ­a ride to the embarcadero, so I flagged one down as I came out of the produce store and was quoted $50, which sounded fair. I saw a lot more from the back seat of the taxi than I do a bus and now I know how to get to JuĂĄrez on foot. It’s only 3.5KM down busy streets, so it’s ridiculous to take a bus there since I walk to Pino SuĂĄrez and back and that’s 3KM round trip.