Tacos Don Felix Restaurante

I've been planning to write about Tacos Don Felix for several weeks but I wanted to get some photographs to go with the entry. I was going to tell you about the wonderful restaurant in a white tent with crystal chandeliers and paintings on the wall and of course about the great food. But before I got the pictures, Don Felix moved "uptown." Actually he moved into a house and expanded the restaurant and his menu.

The menu now includes soups, salads and steaks as well as the tacos and enchiladas. Ned tried the sopa medula (bone marrow soup) and we had the enchiladas verdes. Both were excellent and the heat wasn't watered down for wimpy gringos which is my problem with a lot of the restaurants in San Miguel. The food was coming out of the kitchen just fine but the wait staff is a little overwhelmed with the new volume of customers. Don Felix was there to greet everyone and to smooth over any rough spots with the new location.

Now finding the new Restaurante in Colonia San Rafael is a little tricky but Don Felix has stationed some boys at the location for the old restaurant and when someone stops, they rushed out with a business card with the new address and tell you where to find the restaurante. If you are coming from the centro on Independencia turn left at Ignacio Cruces (the corner where the tent was) and go three blocks to Fray Juan de San Miguel and turn left again. The restaurante is at #15. This may look like easy directions but none of the streets are marked and the street numbers are more random than usual on Fray Juan de San Miguel.

Tacos Don Felix is only open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is a great addition to our restaurant scene in San Miguel de Allende.

The Hot Season

It has turned HOT. That is the way it is here. April and May are the hottest months. Yesterday about 4:30 PM it was 88 degrees. And it will get even hotter before the rains start in June. In just two weeks time, we went from sleeping under the warming blanket to sleeping with the ceiling fan whirling away overhead.

The year we moved into our house, the temperatures climbed up to 100 degrees a few days in May. Remember we don't have air-conditioned houses here in San Miguel and during the afternoons it was hot. Don't tell me that it was a dry heat so that it isn't as bad. It WAS hot.

Lots of the ex-pats who live here full time take vacations during January when it is cold here....not really cold, but again, the houses do not have central heat either. Or they take vacations during May to escape the heat. Right now the countryside is covered with dried grasses and it looks so barren but the rains will start in June and by July everything will start to turn green. Flowers will begin to bloom in August. The seasons here are marked by the dry and the wet. The brown and the green. Fortunately we have about two months of cold, two months of hot and the rest of the year is glorious.

And speaking of glorious.....The Jacarandas are in full bloom. But there is a downside to the Jacaranda blooms.....allergies. When you see someone with red watery eyes, sniffling and sneezing, it is the pollen from the Jacarandas.

I think the Jacarandas are more beautiful this year than I've ever seen them. They are the most luscious color of purple against the blue, blue San Miguel skies. They are beautiful seen individually but what a thrill to see them from our terrace across the hillsides of the town. Splotches of purple nestled in the green trees and colorful houses. It is also breathtaking when you drive down the hill from the Caracol and look out over the town. I've tried taking pictures of these views but it just doesn't do the Jacaranda justice. You need to be here to see for yourself. Oh, and bring your antihistamine.

Cooking for a Crowd

This week we had some people over for dinner. This was a Flickr Feast.....you know Flickr the photo sharing site. Some of us Flickrites live in San Miguel and some were visiting along with spouses and friends, so I thought it would be fun to get us all in one place.

And it was fun but it was more people than the usual dinner party. I use to be the hostess with the mostest dinner guests. I cooked family holiday dinners....and the family isn't small. I cooked for our gourmet group of 16. And everyday I cooked for three teenage boys....that is no small feat. The point I'm making is that I could cook big quantities and not even think about it. When we finally got an empty nest, it took a while to figure out how to cook for two. I've passed the holiday dinners on to the daughters-in-law and they are doing a fine job so I don't have to worry about that anymore.

Here in San Miguel, if we have guests it is never more than eight for dinner. I was challenged to figure out how much to cook for the crowd. I decided to keep it simple. Ned would grill Aracherra and I'd make a large pasta salad....heavy on the raw veggies....and a big fruit salad. Then key lime pie for dessert. They ate it all except for about one cup of fruit salad and a couple of slices of key lime pie. Most of them went back for seconds and I think a few even went back for thirds but the chef son says you should never run out of food. I hope no one went away hungry but I ran out of food!

Oh this picture has nothing to do with the Flickr Feast except it is food and it is colorful. This was a fruit stand in Uruapan on Palm Sunday.

Patzcuaro Pineapple Truck

This is a typical well-equipped business truck. Instead of signage, he uses his wares on top of the truck to announce to anyone walking by that he has beautiful fresh pineapples. There is a tarp if the sun gets too intense. Inside the cab, all the necessary paperwork including a roll of toilet paper. This is a prepared businessman. Although you might not be able to see it very well in the shadow, in the upper left hand corner of the windshield he has the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe for his business insurance.

But seriously, one of the things that so impressed Cortez and his men when they arrived in Mexico was the variety of goods they found in the markets and the beauty of the way they were displayed. Mexicans are still great at merchandising even the smallest of things they have to sell.

Styling

This beautiful little girl was sitting on her Father's foot in a dusty plaza waiting for the festivities to begin. How could I resist photographing her with her fuchsia boots and the stylish tilt to her hat.

Countryside at Dusk

While in Patzcuaro we went out in the countryside one evening to see a small church but along the way the sky became streaked with the sunset and we stopped at a cemetery. I had the Holga with me holding a partially used roll of film. Across the road from the cemetery was a field. I walked across the road and sat the Holga on a wall/fence to stabilize the camera and guessed on how long to hold the shutter open.

I've been planning for quite some time to do some night shooting with a Holga. I even had Randy at Holgamods modify a Holga with a cable release for me about a year ago. I don't know why I haven't used it at night before now. But one of the things that I know about the way my creative spirit works is that I'll have an idea and it just has to sit around for a while fermenting. Then suddenly something will trigger heading down an interesting path. I think I've found an interesting path.

Vacation

We were gone for about a week, traveling to Uruapan and Patzcuaro. Son #2 called to check on us after we returned.

Hi, Mom. How was your trip?
Oh, hi Son #2. I'm glad to hear from you. It was a wonderful vacation.
Laughter............Mom, you all are on vacation all the time.
Hump! We are not. We have lots of work to do around here and it is nice to get away.
More laughter!

Children should be more respectful to their parents!!!

Third Anniversary

I'm running a little late with this announcement but March 17th was the third anniversary of this blog. Yes indeed, 970 blog posts later and I'm still writing. If this were a wedding anniversary I'd give myself something made from leather for a traditional gift or if I wanted to be more modern, it would be something made of crystal/glass. But I guess a blog anniversary isn't the same thing so I'll just count the Social Club folk art piece that we bought in the Uruapan Folk Art market as a reward for keeping on with keeping on writing the blog.

At times I've wondered if I should continue to blog because the initial reason that I started the blog was to keep family updated on what was happening with us in Mexico. I guess they read it but I think that because they know what we are doing, they aren't nearly as careful about letting us know what they are doing.

The Sitemeter tells me that my readership has gradually grown. This is good but I sometimes wonder who the heck that readership is. Very few people comment so most of my readers are mystery readers. And I wonder why people I don't know read Billieblog. It is a smorgasbord of topics. Do they read because of an interest in Mexico, an interest in photography, or something else?

Right now I have a backlog of topics to write about but in another week I could be searching and wondering if I shouldn't close the blog down. However, for today, Happy Belated Anniversary, Billieblog.

Mexican Lenten Bread Pudding

In a plaza in Uruapan that was set up with tables and women cooking on charcoal fires, this lady was selling this interesting dish. When she saw me photographing it, she offered me a sample. It was delicious....a kind of sweet bread pudding sprinkled with just a bit of cheese. With my bad Spanish I could not understand all that she said but I understood her to tell me that is was made with a special bread from the Easter season.

For lack of a better term, I was calling it a bread pudding. I was thinking that the sweetening was made from a syrup of honey and fruits and spices and that the bread was soaked in the liquid. So I went looking for a recipe. What I found were variations on Lenten recipes called Capirotada. The Capirotada recipes all called for a syrup made from the Mexican piloncillo which is a dark brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, cloves, anise and rum.

In an article titled Lenten Foods: From Fasting to Fabulous Inez Caldwell writes:

Although most Mexican dishes differ from household to household, capirotada is the most diverse of all. One recipe calls for dipping toasted bolillo or French bread slices in an egg batter and frying until golden brown. The bread is drenched with syrup made from piloncillo (dark brown sugar), cinnamon sticks, clove anise and rum. Then this combination is covered with raisins, peanuts and almonds and sprinkled with grated cheese.

Another recipe for this Lenten bread pudding starts with toasted bread torn into a small pieces and layered in a baking dish. On top of the bread layer are spread peanuts, raisins and grated cheddar cheese. Additional layers are added depending on the number of portion desired. The final layer is a bread layer topped with more grated cheese and colored sugar balls (grajea) for decoration.

A syrup of piloncillo and water, plus cinnamon, cloves and anise to taste, is boiled until thickened and then poured over the entire dish to flavor and soak the bread. The capirotada is then baked in a medium oven with an additional dish of water placed on the rack beneath so that the pudding will steam. Once cooked it is moist and sweet with a surprising variety of flavorful surprises.

Although the recipe may vary from household to household, Wikipedia states that the ingredients are identical to those used in the 1640's in New Spain and that the recipes have been recorded by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and saved to this day in the archives.

The basic ingredients carry a rich symbolism to the Passion of Christ, and the dish is viewed by many Mexican and Mexican-American families as a reminder of the suffering of Christ on Good Friday. The bread is for the Body of Christ, the syrup is his blood, the cloves are the nails of the cross, and the whole cinnamon sticks are the wood of the cross. The melted cheese stands for the Holy Shroud.

The Capirotada I tasted from this vendor was delicious and I'm on a hunt for the perfect recipe so if you are a guest at my house don't be surprised to find yourself trying out my latest attempt to find the perfect Capirotada recipe.

Uruapan Folk Art Market

Welcome to the Social Club, Las Curvas......my newest folk art purchase at this year's Folk Art Market in Uruapan. I wish you could see the Folk Art Market that covers about three city blocks in the big plaza in Uruapan. You can find anything there....all handmade....from the most utilitarian of things like wood spoons to huge ceramic pineapples, painted masks, catrinas, and wonderful clay figures. The problem is that there are so many choices that your vision is overwhelmed. Most of the clay figures and painted masks are in one long row that is packed solid with pieces.....colors and shapes so close together that it is hard to focus on one item. Your eye wants to take it all in while your brain is saying overload.

This piece is from the same folk artists that I purchased a piece from last year, Narciso Lucas Rafael and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Diego Margarito. They are from Ocumicho in Michocan. I love their color palette and I love the whimsy in their pieces. Last year I purchased a procession coming from the church but this year.....The Social Club. There is so much going on in the piece that I can't capture it all in a photograph without spending hours on the setup and lighting and even then I'm not sure that one image would get it all. Just in case you can't see it, there is a barefoot dancer and a pole dancer, a cowboy with a gun, another cowboy crying in his red handkerchief, everyone drinking beer, a record player with speakers on the walls. And there are the wonderful Coconut palms. I didn't know that there were coconut palms when I said I would buy the piece but Narciso said that they were a part of the piece. I was shocked and delighted when we unpacked the work. They are delightful and add so much to the piece.

While we were looking at the piece, Narciso and Maria were both there. We asked Narciso if he had made the piece from someplace he had been. Maria's sharp glance prompted the reply from Narciso that, no, he had never been there but he had dreamed it.

Although I have bought several ceramic pieces over the years that we have traveled in Mexico, I've never been drawn to the folk art clay pieces until the last few years. And honestly most of them are interesting but Narciso and Maria's pieces are the first ones I've really been compelled to buy. Now I have a problem.......I don't have good spaces to display them and Ned says we aren't going to buy another house!

Good Friday

We are back in San Miguel from a trip to Uruapan and Patzcuaro where I met this yellow, four-legged fellow. I have lots of stuff to tell you about but no time to do it today. More to see and do closer to home. But if you want to know what Good Friday looks like here in San Miguel de Allende take a look at this blog entry from last year and these pictures from another year.

Almost

I'm posting this image for me. I know it probably isn't going to cut the mustard for most of you but for me living here in Mexico, it is reminding me of life here in Mexico for most of the Mexicans. They live in rural areas. The older children take care of the younger children. Jeans are the uniform for the younger generation. There are always festivals and the festivals are more a less a repeat from one to another....costumed dancers, food stands, and a few beat up rides for the children. I like the shadows of the three children holding hands. I like the distant views over the fields and the mountains in the background. And I wonder what life will be like for these little girls out in the campo. Will they get to go to school beyond the fifth grade? Will they marry a good man? Will they have to raise the children alone while the husband is working in the USA? Or will one of them spread their wings and be able to get more education? I know that you don't see all of that in this photograph. Maybe one day I can make an image so that you can see these things too.

It may be a few days before I'm back with a blog entry, but I'll be back.

Holga Frame of Mind

Sunday we went out in the country to San Miguel Viejo. I say out in the country but it is probably 3 miles out of town but it is out in the country. The community was having a festival.

I took the Holga for an outing. This is the first time I've used it this year, probably the first time I've used it for four months. The Holga is a different camera. It takes a while to get into the Holga frame of mind in looking for subject matter and for reconnecting with the mechanics of using it. Then there is film to scan and right now the enemy of film scanning is everywhere....DUST. I think that even when I changed film, dust managed to settle inside the camera. But still, sometimes the Holga will give you some magic. On Sunday it only gave me a peek or two at the potential magic it has inside but it was enough that I'm carrying it out again really soon.

Another Five Years as a Rentista

The Mexican Government has issued me another FM-3 that can be renewed each year for five years. Yea! I can't believe that the first one was already five years old and so I had to reapply.

In spite of all the problems that we hear and read about on getting the paperwork turned in or the length of time the process takes, this was easy as can be. On February 25th we went to the man across the street from Immigration who types up the paperwork for you. While he was typing everything, he gave us the paper we needed to pay the fees at the bank and told us we could go do that and when we returned he would have the papers ready to turn in to Immigration. Unfortunately, we had other appointments that day and would not be able to return so we just waited until he finished our paperwork.

The next morning Ned went to the bank and paid the fees and then he went to Immigration to turn in the papers. But the agent told him that I needed to sign some papers or that Ned would have to get what is basically a "Power of Attorney" to sign them for me. When Ned told him that I had a broken ankle but maybe I could make it up and down the stairs in the Immigration office. The Agent told him that if I couldn't come into the building, he would come out to the car for me to sign the papers. Ned came back home after me and off we went. I was able to hobble into the Immigration office and signed the papers. They told us that the new FM3 would be ready on March 12. We went today, March 12, and the FM3 was there. A finger print or two later and I had the document from the Mexican Government allowing me to be here for another year.

I don't know why some people have so many problems or why they hire someone to do the paperwork for them. I don't know.....maybe we are just lucky.

Sabor - Food and Wine Festival

San Miguel has music festivals, film festivals, writer's festivals and now we have an International Food and Wine Festival, a weekend dedicated to wine and gastronomy, discovering new flavors and honoring those of the past. I hope you will go take a look at the website because there isn't anyway that I can cover all of the activities that were offered this past weekend but I've heard from several people about the Diane Kennedy cooking class, the chef's lectures, the food and wine tasting and I can personally write about one of the Chef's and vintner's dinners.

At 10 restaurants in San Miguel de Allende, there were special dinners prepared by well known chefs in Mexico. We chose to go to the dinner prepared by "Titita" or Carmen Ramirez Degollado. She is the owner and Chef of the original "El Bajio" restaurant in Mexico City. We have been wanting to go to her restaurant in Mexico City so what better opportunity to meet her and her food than this special dinner. We were not disappointed. We had heard that she is a warm, charming woman besides being a great chef and her visit to our table left us feeling like we were her special guests.

Her list of accomplishments is long and I hope that you will go to this website to find out more about Titita and Restaurante El Bajio. We sat on the terrace of La Capilla Restaurant under the shadow of the Parroquia and the lights of fireworks bursting overhead. That alone was magical but the real magic was Titita's food.

Titita is from the VeraCruz area and her food reflects the cuisine from that area as well as the variety of cuisines from all the States of Mexico. Our Menu at this special dinner included:

Taquita de Jaiba estilo Xico
Huatape Rojo de Hongos
Vino: Silvana de Pijoan
Filete de Huachinango con Salsa de Acuyo
Vino: Mare de Pijoan
Pechuga de Pato con Mole Blanco
Vino: Jojaa de Tres Valles
Postre de Vainilla de Papantla

Besides having Titita Carmen as our chef, we also had her daughter, Maria Teresa Ramirez, who is a very talented and acclaimed pastry chef to prepare the dessert. And we had the owner of the vineyard who was very gracious and came to the tables to tell us about his wines.

The evening was a special dining experience. I just hope that all of this interaction between the restaurants in San Miguel and the Master Chefs in Mexico, will move our dining experiences in San Miguel up another notch.

My Computer and Daylight Savings Time

My HP computer was made in Mexico, shipped to the USA where I bought it for less than I would have had to pay for it in Mexico. This doesn't make sense to me. How could the computer be made in Mexico, shipped to the USA and sold for less than it sells for in Mexico. But that is another story about NAFTA and globalization.

At any rate, this computer was returned to the land of its birth three years ago but it has not re-adjusted. This morning it sprang forward with the USA time change. For God's sake. It is a Mexican computer, it should be proudly waiting for Mexico's change to daylight savings time on April 6.

I'm going to gently correct the time but I'll have a long talk with it about its Mexican heritage.

Viva Mexico! Viva Mexican Daylight Savings Time!

Something to Talk About

I've mentioned before that we have some great views of what is happening on our street and this past week gave us something to talk about as we try to understand more of the Mexican culture. Mexicans definitely handle many things differently than we do in the USA. One of the major differences is their laws, which of course we don't understand except on a rudimentary level. And of course, we have the same rudimentary level of understanding with their interaction with each other. I don't know if we'll ever really understand but we certainly love observing and trying to figure it out.

The first thing that happened was a delivery truck broke down coming the wrong way up our street. The back end of the truck had broken away from the front end. When I first noticed it a transito police on a motorcycle was pulling up beside him. My thought was, oh no....he is busted for going the wrong way on the one way street.

Ned had been out and when he returned about 30 minutes had past and I had watched the driver making cell phone calls, the transito walking around the truck with a note pad of some kind and of course, since there was nothing blocking the street, cars and trucks would start down the street until they got to the broken truck and then they would have to back up because they could not get around the broken truck. Backing up wasn't so bad for the cars but the big trucks do not have much clearance on either side so we watched with fascination, as we always do, the driving skill of the drivers. We wondered why someone, the transito or the truck driver had not put cones in the street to give the other drivers some warning. Of course the answer was probably neither of them had any cones.
Several other cars and a transito truck and a police truck arrived on the scene. Several people seem to have cameras and they were going around the broken truck taking pictures. Apparently the people in the transito truck told the motorcycle driver to come up the street and stop the traffic from coming down the street. He pulled his motorcycle about half way up the street and sat there until the cars and trucks got to him and then he would tell them to back up and go the other way. Soon he must have gotten some more instructions so he came to the corner and put his motorcycle across the street to block the traffic and went and stood in the shade but at least it got the attention of the drivers before they started down the street.

After an hour of this, a wrecker came and in another 15 minutes or so a flatbed wrecker came. The first wrecker lifted the back end of the truck and the flatbed pulled the whole thing up on the flatbed. Almost an hour and half after I noticed the broken truck on our street, all was cleared away and life was back to normal.

The next thing that happened was yesterday afternoon. We heard some loud voices in the street. We couldn't see anything from the dining room so we headed up to the terrace. By the time we were on the terrace we could see that some of the teenage boys were exchanging the loud words and some of them were taking off their shirts and getting ready to fight if necessary.
Moms and Dads, Grandmothers and Grandfathers, girlfriends and wives were coming out and trying to calm the boys down. One bunch of boys started walking away down the street but then the police arrived. First one truck and then another and another. There must have been three or four policemen in each truck. The boys who were walking off came back wanting to be sure that the police got the whole story.

Now we have these clusters of people gathered around several of the policemen. From our vantage point it looked like the policemen were going from one group to another brokering a peace. Some of the boys and relatives would break up in groups and talk and then come back to a policeman. Ned went down to try to find out what was going on. One of the neighbors told him that two of the boys didn't like each other.

Finally the crowd thinned out, the police left and all that was left was a few groups of neighbors talking in their doorways. We hear that the Mexican people don't trust the police but they call the police to come whenever something is going on in the street. So it would seem on some level they do trust them.

We have talked about why did they do this or that or why didn't they do such and such. I'm not saying that the way either of these situations would have been handled in the United States is right and their way is wrong. I'm just saying that trying to figure out the why is a fascinating study in our cultural differences. And it certainly is a topic of conversation at our dinner table.

Are the Skies Really that Blue?

Sometimes people who see some of my photographs in San Miguel ask me if the skies really are that blue. The answer is, yes, the skies are that blue most of the time in San Miguel.

When I walked by this house, I stopped in amazement at the colors. I stood there for several minutes and then took a few pictures. There were some workmen near by and they looked at me and then looked at the casa probably wondering what in the world I saw that was interesting enough to stop me in my tracks and then to make some photographs.

By the way, this photograph is how the image came from the camera. Nothing was done to it except to straighten some lines and add some sharpening. The color is as the color was. Simply amazing.

Oliver's - The New Kid on the Block

Oliver's Burger House opened recently at 67 Zacateros, near Pila Seca and across from La Cava for those of you who live in SMA. We had tried to go once before but they are closed on Mondays. So we headed back this week. It is definitely a Burger House with about 10 burgers listed on the menu that are variations on the cheese and condiments but all of them have hamburger, 100% ground sirloin hamburger. Now that might not seem like such a big deal to the out-of-towners but here where most places make hamburger patties with some kind of filler, it means GOOD.

I had the Swiss burger with guess what? Yes, Swiss cheese....and mayonnaise, mustard, grilled onion, lettuce and a big slice of tomato. That comes with very good fries. I think the fries are made from scratch. They had a nice crispy skin but substance inside.

I know we live in Mexico and I love the foods we have here but sometimes you just want to eat something from home. Not a McDonalds or Wendys or Whataburger, but burgers like you had on Friday nights from the backyard grill with family and friends. There is nothing fancy about this burger except it was authentic.

Oliver's also serves a few other items like this Philly Cheese Steak. Everything looked good. They are open from 12 to 8, Tuesday through Sunday. Stop in next time you want a good burger.

Shrimp Alfredo?

Here is how my menus develop in Mexico. When I left to walk to my physical therapy session yesterday I was planning on stopping at the Chicken Lady's tienda. She has moved back to her original spot on Clavel. I didn't know what the rest of the menu would be but I'd start with chicken.

I peeked into the shop on my way, mainly just to check and see if she had chicken because sometimes, especially on a Monday, some tiendas will not have received their chickens for the day. She saw me peek in so I had to stop and talk. She showed me that she now has seafood on Monday. And also said that she would be dancing with her Indian dance troupe in the Jardin all day on Friday. I told her that I would be there with my camera. And that I would return in an hour for some chicken, but as I walked on, I started thinking about what I might do with some shrimp. A shrimp salad, a shrimp creole, shrimp and pasta.......tomato sauce or white sauce? By the time I left physical therapy, I had decided to check out the shrimp and if they looked okay, I'd switch from chicken to shrimp. The shrimp looked okay and I bought a 1/2 kilo.

Now on to Espinos for vegetables. None of the vegetables in front of Espinos seemed to go with my shrimp except for some beautiful red-tip lettuce for a salad. Mmmmm...... I looked at the pastas and decided on the bow-tie pasta. Okay....so now I was headed to a white sauce with the shrimp and bow-tie pasta.

I put the pasta on to cook, cut up onions and garlic and sauteed that in a skillet. Threw in the some crushed red pepper and the shrimp for a few minutes until they were pink. Took them out, added a bit of butter and some flour to make a light roux. Then I added milk and a dollop of crema. I didn't have half and half or whipping cream but did have milk and crema. I figured that the dollop of crema would add enough silkiness to the sauce.

I did not add any salt. I have found that the frozen shrimp that we get here in San Miguel are frozen in a salty solution. In doing some research I find that what is usually added is sodium bisulfate or sodium tripolyphosphate when they are flash frozen. Even though I rinse them in the shell and after shelling, they are still salty and usually they need no salt in the cooking recipe. Sometimes they are just simply too salty regardless.

When the white sauce had come together I threw in a handful of graded Parmesan cheese. Parmesan cheese is a staple that I always try to keep in my refrigerator. I added the shrimp back in. The pasta was done and I served the shrimp over the bow-tie pasta. So in a sense we had Bow-tie Pasta Alfredo with Shrimp.

This is another one of those nights that I cooked by the seat of my pants. No recipe. But when I started thinking about it today, I looked at some Alfredo recipes. While I was thinking "white sauce," I guess what I made was a variation on an Alfredo recipe.

Art Fair

This weekend was another art fair at the Instituto. They happen every two or three months. Some of the same people come for all of them. The Oaxacan rug vendors, the man from VeraCruz who makes beautifully bound journals and books, the jewelry makers, and then there are a lot of locals who also set up booths. What caught my eye this time was the hats.


We are headed into the "Hat Season" or you could say the "Hot Season" and you need a hat in the fierce sun. All of my hats are looking ratty. Time for a new sombero. I didn't want any ordinary hat. I wanted color!


And there you have it.......my new hat! I think you'll be able to spot me in a crowd.

Do You Like Green Eggs and Ham?

Do you like
green eggs and ham?

I do not like them
Sam-I-am.
I do not like green eggs and ham.

Well then Dr. Seuss, if you do not like green eggs and ham, how about green chorizo and eggs?


I bet you were expecting a deep reddish color chorizo but in Mexico, especially around Toluca, Mexico, they make a green Chorizo. I've been told that the green color comes from cilantro but I haven't verified that. Nevertheless, it is green.


We like chorizo for breakfast, Chorizo con Huevos, but in Mexico chorizo is also used in tacos, burritos, tortas and in bowls of melted queso served with pipping hot tortillas for rolling your own tacos.

We have had Chorizo verde from Toluca that had almonds and raisins in it and it was delicious. I don't know where this chorizo was made. We found it at Mega but it didn't have almonds or raisins and it seemed just a little tart. Still with some tortillas, frijoles negros refritos and scrambled eggs, it made a mighty fine Sunday breakfast.

Grammar Police

Mrs. Lee was my 6th grade teacher. Steel gray curls framed her face. She had blue eyes that always seemed to be looking at you. Her shirtwaist dresses never wrinkled and she was always cool no matter how much my sweaty hand was sticking to the paper in the heat of the un-air conditioned classroom. Mrs. Lee was the grammar police and I was always scared of leaving out a verb or a subject or missing a comma or period. Oh my, what if I put a phrase in the wrong place or used the wrong tense. There were so many ways to get caught by the grammar police. And God forbid if I should make a spelling mistake too. When she returned graded papers my hand was always shaking when I reached for it. Even before looking at the grade, I looked to see how many red circles and notes were scattered across the page.

Added to that, she also graded on penmanship. We had to actually write our essays with a pen that had ink in it and it could spit and sputter on the page. Even worse, what if you made a mistake and need to correct it. There was no white-out in those days and besides I doubt that Mrs. Lee would have allowed it in the classroom. Needless to say, I hated to have to write even though I dreamed about writing stories or novels.

I became a fairly good business and policy manual writer. Of course, I drove my secretary crazy with edits. With the business writing I needed Mrs. Lee right there on my shoulder, coaching me through the grammar. The secretary was good at spelling and formatting and the Wang Word Processor didn't spit and sputter ink so I did okay but I didn't "enjoy" the writing.

I came to enjoy writing back in the early 90's after I read The Artist's Way and as it suggested, I started keeping a journal. Three pages everyday, no matter what. Julia Cameron, the author, said just....write. Don't worry about grammar or spelling. Just let the words flow. How freeing it was. Most days the pen flew across the page, then another page and another.

Mrs. Lee is still around and just yesterday, she tried to tell me that I wasn't making good sentences. She was really upset with this: All new furniture, new kitchen, dance floor, bar, a new menu and that new menu includes this mixed grill plate for two. I paused and listened to her for a second or two.

"Look Mrs. Lee. I know you are right but this is my blog and I kind of like it being more personal, like my conversation, you know. So I'm going to leave it in."

She hasn't shown up today. I hope I didn't hurt her feelings.