Food

OK, so here's the truth: this trip is not really about anything I've written so far, but is about FOOD. We have spent a portion of everyday buying food, planning meals, looking for food, reading about food, sampling food, cooking food, learning about food. My spanish is pretty bad, but my food vocabulary is great. We planned to go to the main mercado today, to buy a little grill we saw last week. We didn't buy the grill on the trip there last week because our bags were full of food, and we couldn't carry anything else. The list today had the following items on it: tejido, platanitos, parilla, naranja para jugo, pepinos, afiliado (tissues, little bananas, a grill, juice oranges, a cucumber and a knife sharpener). We paid about $9 US for this little grill. Cute, isn't it?!? Now, if we could just figure out how to get the charcoal to burn.... Stuart is looking forward to puerco chuletas.

The tortillas here are small, and golden in color, and delicious! I buy media kilo for 5 pesos, which is enough for the two of us for three days. We're on our second pot of beans already, and the current pot is fresh shelled....they are similiar to field peas. I'm in love with the fresh orange juice Stuart makes each morning, from one of the two kinds of oranges here. The man I bought juice oranges from today gave me one of the other kind, they are called ugly orange. I haven't tasted it yet. There is a locally grown, pretty, tasty cucumber, too. The peel is very light green, and the seeds are not good to eat. I've found the typical avocado, but the local ones are huge! The skin is much like a haas, but the inside is a little lighter in color, and more creamy. Of course, that could be because they are picked at the correct time. There are not so many dried chiles for sale in the market here, but the typical chiles are plentiful. My new cookbook warns against buying ready-made achiote paste, but I figure with my gringo taste buds, it will do until I have time to make some from scratch.

Limes are sold either loose, or in bags of about two dozen for 10 pesos. And they are juicy!! Today, I had papaya, platanitos and cheerios for breakfast, with fresh orange juice. For comida, I had a bowl of black beans, tortillas, aquacate, rabanos , pepino, with lime juice over it all. Tonight, I'm serving chayote rellonos, with leftover puerco cochinita (squash stuffed with cheese and roast port) for dinner. With aquacate, of course.

We're both struggling with a sinus irritation today. There is obviously some dust here our body doesn't know what to do with. All this means we have one more excuse (no energy) to lay in the hammock and read. After we shop for food, of course. We're both grinning from ear to ear at the new-found time for pursuing this stack of reading material we brought with us. Soon, however, we'll get on the bus, and begin touring the area. But, for right now, I'd better get another tissue...