other random thoughts...
With help from Gayle, I've been exploring tequila. The most important thing I've learned: Jose Cuervo is NOT the one. And, the anjeo of any brand is better than the reposado, but costs much more. You also want to look for 100% agave. Surprisingly, not all tequila is 100% agave, and the cheap ones fall into the diluted category. So, with the bottle of Jose Cuervo I bought before 'school' started, a bottle of Herradura reposado, and a bottle of 1800 anjeo, we did a taste test. WOW! The rest of the bottle of Jose Curervo went down the drain. The Herradura was smooth, and little smoky. The 1800 was even smoother, a tad sweeter, but not enough to call it sweet. I could drink either one neat. So, we mixed our margueritas from the Herradura. Then, we bought a bottle of Sauza reposado. The Herradura was better, and about the same price. The most recent bottle (hey, there are 4 of us drinking these margueritas!) we bought is Cristeros reposado. It is also good, but we're still voting for the Herradura reposado as the best in that price range. But, given any of the ones we've tasted so far, I'd be happy. The 1800 is definately a sipping tequila. I'm sure there are more options, and we'll continue to expand our tequila education.
Today is Christmas day, and the city is remarkably quiet. There are a few buses running, but a precious few. Things began to be quiet yesterday about noon. When Stuart and I went for a walk about 4pm, there was almost no one on the streets, except for people sitting in their doorways, visiting and drinking. The smell of food was everywhere!
Speaking of food (my fav topic!): we bought banana leaves yesterday at the Santana mercado. For baking pork, chicken, etc in. Last night, I marinated a piece of pork of unknown cut in the juice of a bitter orange, then rubbed it with recado colorado, a paste made from achiote seeds, garlic, cumin, oregano and vinegar. I cooked three pieces of the pork without wrapping, and the fourth one was wrapped in a banana leaf. The meat was tough, but that was the cut. The flavor was good, and with a little of the sauce spooned over it, was tasty. Gayle made roasted potatoes and rajas: poblano and onion strips sauteed, which are delicious on anything. Of course, we had tortillas and tomatoes and radishes and lime juice. Thank goodness limes are as cheap as the grains of rice at home, we sure do go through a lot of them!
A couple of days ago, Stuart and I walked around to the Galeria Tatayana. There are two sculptures in our apartments that came from that gallery, and we wanted to see what else they had. Owned by a frenchman who has lived here for 15 years, and speaks beautiful spanish and english, it is a gallery for local and Chiapas contemporary artwork. We are checking into the price of a small metal sculpture, a sun for our dining room collection.
The same day we walked to Galeria Tatayana, I brought home a street find. In the gutter, there was a pile of small metal 'tags', dumped by a trash bin. Sort of rusty, and all with eyelets of a sort, I brought home a hand full. The next day, Stuart was in the same neighborhood, and brought home the rest! Don't know what I'll do with them, but something fun will happen.
I'm reading three books right now. Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us; Thomas Friedman, Hot, Flat and Crowded; and Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade. I had begun the Eisler book several months ago, and got distracted, so I'm back to it. If you have a thought at all about our world, and where we are driving it, you should read Hot, Flat and Crowded.
Last night I was determined to sleep outside in the hammock. Just as i was settling in, the stars in my shutting eyes, thinking about what a lovely day it had been, the dang pump came on. The water for our upstairs apartment is pumped up to a huge tank on the roof, and is fed down to us by gravity when called for. The tank lasts about 3-4 days, and the pump comes on for about 20 very noisy minutes to refill. While it's loud for us upstairs, it's even worse downstairs. Knowing that it would only run about 20 minutes, I just stayed in my hammock, waiting for the tank to fill. Pretty soon, there was a waterfall from the roof, which splashed on the concrete patio, and began to soak me in my hammock. Rats! There is something wrong here, but the solution is not in my hands. The tank was overflowing. So, I took up my blanket, took down the hammock from it's hook (to keep it from getting soaked), and stomped inside to the bed. The noise from the pump was so obnoxious, and who knew when it was going to shut off, that I closed the back door and kitchen window, then the door to the kitchen, and the door to the bedroom. Poor Gayle and Dale downstairs couldn't escape the noise, though.
It eventually shut itself off, but came back on again later. Gayle got out of bed in total frustration and turned it off downstairs, where Augustin had showed her the other plumbing stuff. We tried turning it on this morning, and it overflowed again, so the pump is off until Augustin can get the plumber back here. At least the water will last us several days, so it's OK to not have it refill, and overflow, automatically. I'll try the hammock again tonight.
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