Mazatlan

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My Kitchen On Isla

My kitchen on Isla is proving to be just adequate. I know that I’m spoiled by my just about perfect for me kitchen in Miranda so my standards are high, but there are serious issues with this kitchen. I’m not a fussy cook who needs a ton of equipment, but if I’m going to be living somewhere for a few months, I’m a little more particular.

First, the good stuff about this kitchen. The fridge is huge, newish, and runs cold. The stove has four burners and an oven and, most importantly, runs on gas. The microwave is super powerful and may actually get me hooked on making some things in the microwave. There’s more counter space than I’m used to having. There are some nice pots and pans and all the absolute basics, like plates, cups, utensils, and serving bowls.

But… considering the size of this house, the amount of storage in the kitchen is absolutely ridiculous and inadequate (and, yes, I know that it apparently has more storage than the average Mexican home). Unfortunately, the unit between the fridge and stove was left out in the damp and smells absolutely mildewy. I would not feel comfortable storing anything in it.

So much potential for storage, but the smell is terrible. :(

So much potential for storage, but the smell is terrible. 🙁

Same thing with the cavernous under sink storage area. I’m fine with storing empty totes and my water bottle there, but forget using it for food storage.

The cabinet above the counter is adequate for storing food prep items, but there’s a serious lack of pantry space.

I've filled this cabinet to the brim!

I’ve filled this cabinet to the brim!

The pots and pans are nice (I LOVE the wok-type pan), but there’s no lids for the smaller pots. The plates and bowls are plastic, which is already staining. I am going to pick up a single setting in china because there’s no way I’m going to make it through the winter without ruining those plates. I also need a decent sized mixing bowl and I’d like something other than my cast iron pan as ovenware.

I also dislike that there’s only a single bowl sink, but at least it’s big and deep.

But my biggest complaint is that the kitchen is so far from the water heater that I can let the water run for a half hour and it never gets hotter than tepid. I’ve been heating a bowl of water in the microwave to do my dishes. It’s a pain when I’m washing up a lot of things, like I did tonight.

When I was packing back home, I made the decision to bring quite a bit of kitchen stuff, including my beloved cast iron pan, a lot of my cooking utensils like tongs and serving spoons (the ones here are plastic, which I dislike, so good call!), and my food processor.

I wish I had known to bring a colander (bought one), a cheese grater (for shredding veggies), a chopping knife, china place settings, a mixing bowl, a Pyrex dish for oven cooking, and my pots.

A pantry would make the single biggest difference to this kitchen. I am thinking of suggesting to the landlady that I could pick up a pantry cabinet at Walmart or Home Depot and seeing if she’d be willing to take that off my rent. There’s plenty of room for one.

Even though this kitchen is far from ideal, I’m making it work! I took advantage of being able to cook again by making quite a spread for dinner.

Haven't had to use the four burners yet. I rarely use all three burners at home; not enough space on my stove! :)

Haven’t had to use the four burners at the same time yet. I rarely use three burners at home; not enough space on my stove for that many pots and pans! 🙂

The veggies are carrots, chayote, and white onion, with some spices. There’s also rice cooked in chicken broth. Finally, there’s the chicken that I purchased today. I cubed it with my kitchen shears (which I brought!) and marinated it in soy sauce, lime juice, a bit of sugar, and a roughly chopped red onion, adding a bit more soy sauce at the end.

Fun fact about chicken in Mexico: it’s corn fed, so the meat is kind of pale orangey and the fat is bright yellow! I’m glad I knew that or I would have been quite concerned about my chicken today! At any rate, it was very flavourful and moist!

Yummy dinner. I was getting a little tired of 'Mexicany' flavours.

Yummy dinner. I was getting a little tired of ‘Mexicany’ flavours.

All whining aside, I’m really glad to have a kitchen I can use here, remembering all too clearly the dingy kitchen in the apartment I rented in Lethbridge for the ’11 to ’12 winter. I can tell that this place wasn’t designed or set up for someone who does a lot of cooking. I’ll make do this year and if I come back, I’ll know what to pack!

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Buying Meat on Isla

I haven’t cooked any meat on Isla, beyond reheating chicken. Buying meat at the City Deli was intimidating (you can’t see what you’re buying), I only just started going to Maz and so I haven’t explored meat buying options there too closely, and I’ve been out of propane for ages and unable to cook.

Well, those of you on Facebook know that my propane was refilled last night, so I can cook! AND Isla has a brand new sparkling clean butcher shop right by the basketball court. I headed over there first thing this morning to check out what they have.

I’m still fairly new to the world of meat purchasing outside of nice neat supermarket packages, or, rather, I haven’t done it in about twenty years, since I was cooking and shopping for my dad regularly. So all that to say, I had no idea what I was looking at in the display case. I therefore said that I wanted pork and chicken breasts and was told to come back around 2:00.

So that’s what I did and there was more stuff in the display case. I bought 1/4 kilo of chicken breasts (0.5 pounds, which turned out to be two BIG breasts, enough for four meals at least). I was offered some choice for the pork, but the only cut that I know is chuleta (chop) so that’s what I asked for, also 1/4 kilo, which netted me a frozen giant bone-in chop.

The chop’s in my freezer and I’m going to cook up all the chicken today because it already has a bit of an odour I’m not used to. I’m sure it’s fine, but I don’t want to delay cooking it.

Total cost? 40 pesos for the chicken, 50 for the pork, for a grand total of 7.25CAD or 6.38USD… I’m going to have a heart attack at my first grocery bill back in Canada.

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Mazatlán Suits Me

One of the biggest compromises I made when I purchased my property was that I can’t walk to anything, like a bar, food store, or coffee shop. I was really hoping to find something on the outskirts of a town about the size of Assiniboia, but still within walking distance, but Haven was just too good of a deal with big investment potential.

Isla de la Piedra, early morning noise notwithstanding, is pretty dang close to what I was hoping to find in Canada, but even better because there is also a very large full service city right at my door step. I have life in a small vibrant village with most of the basic services I need, but I can also walk and take public transportation to everything that I’m missing on Isla.

I work at a desk all day and try to get out to walk several times if I can. At Haven, that means a walk to the post office or around the block or perhaps mowing the lawn when I have grass. It’s very limiting and not particularly fun. Isla has miles of beach, tons of small streets to explore, and if I have time for a longer break, Maz is less than 15 minutes away. I don’t really bother stocking up on anything because stores are so close that a 10-minute break from my desk can mean picking up tortillas or a block of cheese at the store.

Maz feels like a very approachable city for its size. The downtown core is very walkable and there is tons of inexpensive public transportation. I think pulmonias would be great when I’m carrying heavy groceries to the panga, but I plan to learn the bus route to go to Walmart, Soriana, and the cinema. The city is clean and the parts I have visited do not have many panhandlers or homeless people. There are some sellers who will approach you, but it’s not at all a gauntlet like the ones you have to pass in border towns.

I doubt I would like Maz in summer (too hot and humid!), but the winter climate is wonderful. Today was really hot, but the nights are cool and comfortable for sleeping. My house does not retain heat, so it’s always cooler inside than out.

A lot of people told me that I would not like Maz because it is such a gringo destination, but living in the village next to Mexicans, shopping as they do, and speaking Spanish really makes we wonder how much more real Mexico can get. I have no regrets about my winter destination and am pretty sure I’ll end up spending another winter here…

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Grocery Prices in Mazatlán

My friend Grant met me this morning to take me to Maz to show me where the Ley grocery store is. We left around 8:30, it’s 11:30 now (feels so late!), and we walked around for a bit looking for an ATM, so, really, getting groceries isn’t even a half-day thing.

We took the village panga and he showed me the most direct main street to take. It’s the street I took last time, but I turned too soon. So I really was very close, pretty much skirting around the store. If we had gone straight there, it would have taken about 15 minutes to get to the store.

But we both needed an ATM. He had done research ahead of time and thought he knew where there was a ScotiaBank, but we struck out. We thought we might have better luck around the Mercado and found a bank that wouldn’t accept our debit cards. I asked someone in uniform for another option and he said, I was pretty sure, ‘go a block that way, turn left, and there’s a bank a block or two down.’

That’s what we did and by the second block, we hadn’t seen a bank. I figured that I hadn’t understood correctly when Grant noticed that the building we were standing in front of was an under renovation bank, so little signage, but it was open! I understood the directions just fine!

My card once again got refused and I was getting a little nervous, but I decided to try one more time and instead of requesting a specific amount, I chose their highest pre-selected amount, 2,000 pesos. Success!

The Ley was just a couple of blocks away and, dang, there’s a Banamex ATM right there! I wouldn’t want to take out a large withdrawal there (rent), but it would be good for a smaller amount.

The store was wonderful! It’s just a small ‘express’ Ley and I know that stores like Soriana, Mega, and Walmart would have a lot more choice, but this was a million times better than what I’m used to back home with our crappy Co-Op grocery! I was able to get some brands that I’m more particular about (I don’t eat a lot of pasta, but when I do I favour Barilla), prices were cheap, and the produce was so fresh and more varied than what I can get on Isla. I will want at some point to take a pulmonia to a larger store to get more variety, but I am thrilled to have this Ley within walking distance!

Now that I have a proper receipt, I can give some exact prices for those who are curious about such things. I prefer to buy things on sale when possible, so the following are discounted prices unless I put an F in front of the price for full price. Prices are in pesos/CAD/USD.

(I am amused that the receipt is in alphabetical order, btw!)

Avocado (3 Hass): 8.06/0.65/0.57

Almond milk (one carton, purchased as a gift for Dale): F33.90/2.74/2.40

Red onions (two medium): F7.32/0.59/0.52

Jalapeño pepper (one small): 0.20/0.02/0.01

Crema (Mexican sour cream, medium tub): F21.60/1.75/1.53

Saladitas crackers (big box): F36.70/2.97/2.60

American-style turkey ham (two packages): 39.00/3.15/2.76

Romaine lettuce (small head): F14.90/1.20/1.06

Key limes (about a dozen): 1.65/0.13/0.12

Butter (small stick): 11.00/0.89/0.78

Barilla pasta (two bags): F32.60/2.63/2.31

Bananas (about six): F11.40/0.92/0.81

Oaxaca cheese (2 400g packs): 99.60/8.04/7.06

Philadelphia cheese (one brick): 19.90/1.61/1.41

Ramen noodles (4 packages): 10.00/0.81/0.71

Bacon (small package): 34.90/2.82/2.47

Tomatoes (4 small): F8.82/0.71/0.63

Red grapefruit (2 big): 6.55/0.53/0.46

Yoghurt (large tub): 22.90/1.85/1.62

Beer (8x355mL cans at the Super Deli on Isla): F90.00/7.27/6.38

I think it’s obvious that dairy prices are the best deal in Mexico. I don’t know about meat prices yet (still waiting to be able to cook…) but my biggest luxury item in Canada is a staple item here. Full price, a brick of Philly cream cheese is about four times more expensive in Assiniboia and the tub of yoghurt would have been easily 7 or 8CAD! I’m trying a different brand, one that has fewer ingredients (ie. more natural). It’s coconut pineapple and I’m itching to get into it. 🙂

Bacon was the last thing I picked up. I didn’t go in with a list, not being certain of what I’d be able to find, and I’m glad I did a final sweep of the store and stopped at the deli counter. Bacon is tocino, BTW.

I came to the store with my own bags, including an insulated one that my friend L gave me. I filled one of my Nalgene water bottles about two thirds full last night, stuck it in the freezer, and topped it off this morning. This gave me not only cold water to drink while we walked around, but an ice pack to keep things cold in my insulated bag. I was able to tell the bagger to put the cold things in the insulated bag and the rest in the cloth one and she understood me perfectly. You have to tip baggers, so I gave her 2 pesos plus all the small change (centavos) that I’ve been collecting since it doesn’t seem to be any good for anything else.

Grant was a gentleman and insisted on carrying my heaviest bag all the way back to the panga and then home! It was nice to have a pack mule. 😀 I stopped at the City Deli for beer, we both went next door to get a fresh batch of tortillas, and I met Dale on the way home so I was able to give her the almond milk (the look on her face made me glad I thought to do that for her).

I came home and made wraps from my lovely warm fresh tortillas, Philly cream cheese, wonderful tomatoes, and some ham. Yum!

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Woman Traveling Solo in Mexico

A comment on my post about feeling safe in Mexico made me think that I should write about what it feels like to be a woman traveling solo in Mexico. I’d been warned about the macho culture here and that men are prone to harassment and cat calling.

As a preface, let me just say that as an unattractive woman who has been overweight most of her life, I am unaccustomed to receiving any attention from men unless it’s negative. So I had no concerns about traveling solo to Mexico, believing myself to be fully immune to the kind of sexual harassment I’d been warned about.

Well, within days of the U.S. part of my trip I discovered that the weight loss apparently counts for something because for the first time in my life, I was getting positive comments from random men on the street. I wouldn’t consider any of it threatening or harassing, although I suppose it is inappropriate. It was a little bewildering because I still look and dress the same.

My first experience with Mexican men was walking down the main street in San Carlos every morning to get my coffee. Just about every single man I passed would say hello to me and smile. There was absolutely nothing inappropriate about the comments and so I would smile and sometimes say hi back. That was it. There was no catcalling, no sexual innuendo, nothing.

It’s been much of the same on Isla and in Maz. Yesterday in Maz, a guy on a motorbike actually honked at me, turned back, did a double take, elected to do an illegal U-ey, and came back up along side me and tried to chat me up. I said, “I’m in a hurry and don’t have time to chat,” and off he went. That was as close as I’ve come so far to the harassment I was told to brace myself for…

So all that to say, my experience so far as a single woman traveling in Mexico is positive. I feel respected, but am aware that I’m not invisible. Like anywhere else, I would be careful having too much to drink (and would watch my drinks), but I feel fine walking around Isla or Maz in a sundress.

It will be interesting to see if the situation is any different the day I go deeper into Mexico.