The Weekend

We decided to go out to eat Friday night. I'd been thinking pasta might be nice since we had not eaten pasta in a while. And to add to the niceness one of our favorite pasta restaurants has moved and advertised that they have air conditioning. We could see the new space and be COOL. With all our trips back to Houston we had not eaten there for a long time but when they opened the original restaurant their pasta was really good and good pasta doesn't happen all the time in San Miguel. I should have taken pause when someone we were with on Thursday night asked if we thought there were any good pasta places in San Miguel. I said this restaurant. He indicated that he didn't like their pasta.

The new place was lovely although including us there were only two tables occupied. Tablecloths and cloth napkins, nice glassware AND the AC was working. The wine was a nice Malbec. The salad was crisp and well plated. The pastas....not so good. I had a fusilli and sausage that was very over salted. Ned had a  pomodoro sauce that was so watered down that it was a watery red/orange liquid with nary a sign of a tomato piece floating around. Not as thick or red as tomato soup, more like a tomato water. And unfortunately his spaghetti was overcooked as well.  We did enjoy the ambience, each other's company and the AC but the food was overpriced for what it was. If they had delivered good pasta fine but they did not.

When we left the restaurant we walked around a bit. Every restaurant that we peeked into was empty or had only one or two tables occupied. Gringo tourist territory and they are few and far between in town. But the centro was alive and well. The Mexicans love their town. There is some International/Cultural program going on in the town and on stage in front of the Parroquia was a folk dance troupe from Russia or some Slavic country. There was a wedding about to emerge from the church. The benches in the Jardin were loaded with people and of course, the young people were parading around, talking with their friends or watching the break/robot dancing in the gazebo. Little children were pulling toys or holding balloons. The marachis were gathering. The food stands were set up and people were lining up to buy corn, hotdogs, hamburguesa or ice cream. The Mexicans were going to eat under the trees in the cooling evening light and a lot more cheaply than we had. It was a busy Friday night.

Saturday, I decided that it had been too long since I had an Artist Date. It is one of the suggestions from the book The Artist's Way. Take yourself on a date and do something to replenish your creative well. I went to the Fabrica out on Calzada de Aurora. The Fabrica was originally a factory. It is a huge building and back in 2004 they were remodeling it for shops. It has ended up being something of a design center with a lot art galleries and studios. But while it was being remodeled I went a couple of times to photograph the space. I called them my "Green Shoots" because everything in the place was some shade of green from a dreary gray green to a turquoise. Both of the images in this blog were part of the Green Shoots.

I walked back to the centro and stopped at the carnicería and bought a filete de res for our dinner. Another stop at the vegetable stand outside of Espinos and I had fresh corn for boiling and a cucumber to add to a tomato salad and then back home. The first beef we have had in a while. I cooked it at a high heat for about 30 minutes and then let it stand tented for about the same amount of time for the juices to settle back into the meat. It was medium-to-medium-rare, tender and delicious. A nice dinner.

Today a little clothes washing and a lot of laziness. Pretty good weekend.