I made this while dad was here visiting and he wanted the recipe:
1 c. sliced kalamata olives
1/2 clove of garlic
1 t. fresh thyme (approx.)
1/2 t. fresh ground pepper
2 anchovies
1 T. olive oil (extra virgin)
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process to the desired consistency.
We ate this on toast while Dad was here, but yesterday I made it again and spread on some pizza with onions and it was pretty good.
Well, many things have been happening and not much writing has been done.
I have been stalking the dried fava beans at the abastos market and I finally got up the nerve and bought about two cups. Tonight, I made soup from my Diana Kennedy book and I think it turned out really good. Sadly, I also found out that Adolfo detests dried fava bean soup and would not even try a bite.
My job has been kind of nuts lately, but mostly in a good way. Hopefully, I will soon be planning a trip to Xalapa.
I went for the first round of wedding dress shopping, which was kind of horrible. The first shop was comically horrible. First, when the shop ladies found out I was shopping for a wedding dress, there were yelps and squeals of fake congratulations. Then, I tried to explain that it would be a casual affair and I was not interested in dresses with sequins, rinestones, or other plastic crap. She responded excitedly that it was “my day” and as the bride, no matter how casual, I was supposed to “shine” (with rinestones, apparently).
Also, a friend is beginning to study for the GRE and this morning we met to work on vocabulary. We are thinking good thoughts about a Fulbright grant to the New School in NYC.
While all this is going on, I’ve managed to kill off a tomato plant and encouraged an aphid invasion. So, the garden is not in tip top shape.
There are many more plans in the works.
I’ve been working on the other blog and haven’t had time to think about posting here. I’ll be back soon!
Well, the new year has started as a hectic, whirl-wind of events. We hosted some friends from San Francisco for a few days, attended a very nice wedding in Mexico City and I then received word that my grandfather was very sick.
I left Mexico City for Missouri, and landed in a shocking cold front. My grandfather passed away on January 13th and all of his grandchildren were able to attend the visitation and funeral. I am sad, but it felt good to be with family. I was also reminded by a friend today to be thankful for my current job (which I am) and had I been still with my previous job I would have had to fight to leave for a week (I would have quit on the spot).
I was able to spend a good amount of time with my grandma and we worked on a particularly frustrating jigsaw puzzle. I wanted to have more time to look through the recipe box she showed me, but this visit wasn’t particularly conducive to reading recipes.
There was a lot of good food, stories and photos. And, I am thankful for all of them.
I have been seeing these things in the food stalls around town and I just haven’t been able to figure them out. The food stalls here are very seasonal and I remember these things from last year.
They are green and steaming, appear to be a pod of some sort and sold in little bags. Usually the stand is also selling roasted peanuts. My first thought is fava beans, but I know that favas are called habas here. I asked Adolfo several times if they are habas and he always says no, but can’t tell me what they are – except that he doesn’t really like them… not unusual.
So, we recently had some visitors in town for a day and a half and they were also commenting on these things. And, finally, I was motivated to the dictionaries. First up, the International Gastronomic Dictionary in Spanish – no dice. Second, the Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary (Spanish and English) – nothing. Finally, I looked in the Diccionario de Mexico. Jackpot!
Guasanas: Toasted green garbanzo beans that are sold in the streets of Jalisco.
Of course Adolfo doesn’t like them, he HATES garbanzo beans!
Now I’ve got to get my hands on some before the season ends.
The family came and went and we ate and ate and ate. There was turkey and bacalao and romeritos with shrimp cakes and escargot and panela and sopes and on and on and on. Adolfo and I are trying to radically shift our eating habits back into the norm, but we have so many leftovers in the fridge that we are still eating lots of meat and very few vegetables.
Yesterday a friend invited me over to her house to help make tamales for New Year’s Eve. I grabbed a box of picadillo out of the freezer and headed over for the afternoon. She did a couple things with the dough that I don’t remember seeing before, but that make a lot of sense. The first is the addition of some baking powder. I think this makes the dough steam up a little lighter. And the second is the addition of some rice flour. I’m not sure exactly what the rice flour does, but I like the end results. She also added a few ice cubes to the mix while we were beating the lard and masa (dough) together. Keeping the dough cold is probably good for the lard and makes for a slow addition of icewater, which was also needed.
In addition to the picadillo tamales, we made some of beans and cheese, pinapple and strawberry. I haven’t tried the pinapple or strawberry, yet, but I’ve been promised a couple. The dough turned out better than many tamales I have tried. And, my friend’s son (14 mo. old) whipped through half a picadillo tamale before getting fussy and needing a nap. I think that was an endorsement.
The other exciting thing that happened recently was that Adolfo and I happened upon an abandoned nursery with a crew of guys hauling stuff away. We stopped and asked if we could take some of the left over pots and they said no problem as they were headed for the dump anyway. So, I came home with seven new clay pots of various sizes and shapes. I’ve already planted lettuce, radishes and onions and I’m making plans for the rest of them.
Happy New Year to you all.
Well, it’s Christmas time here. How can you tell? Well, aside from the regular stuff like trees on top of cars going down the street, stores selling twinkly lights and the like, yesterday I saw salt cod in the supermarket.
Salt cod is traditionally made into a dish called Bacalao. And, like turkey is assigned a holiday. I’ve never had Bacalao at any other time of year. I’ve never made Bacalao before and in fact have never made anything with salt cod. However, I quite like the Bacalao that Adolfo’s mother makes for Christmas. So, when she asked if my family liked Bacalao for Christmas, I said, I don’t know, but I like Bacalao for Christmas.
We tried a new taco spot last night and it was excellent. We have been casing this place for a while now. The puesto (term for a non-permanent place for something like tacos) is on the corner of a street we pass occasionally on our way to the center of town. Also, a friend once told us they were her favorite tacos in Guadalajara. We were warned that they often ran out of the best fillings early in the evening.
We arrived, after attending a reception at one of the schools where Adolfo teaches, at about 10:30. Which, I think, is prime taco-eating time. At this point, they were already out of cheek, but still had al pastor, asada, head, mixed (which could be anything), stomach and lips. (They use every part of the animal here.) Cheek is really good, so I was disappointed that they were out, but I ordered two asadas and two head tacos and Adolfo (who claimed to not be very hungry) ordered two mixed.
They were REALLY good. These tacos were better than our regular taco puesto. Although, the specialty of our favorite place is tongue and we didn’t see any tongue at the new place.
The puesto can be found at the intersection of Paseo de la Arboleda and El Sol in Colonia Jardines del Bosque an area of town designed by Luis Barragán.
We got back from Mexico City last night and everything went well with the whirl-wind tour. It is a little bit difficult to show students a city of more than 20 million people in two and a half days.
My students and Adolfo’s students came on the trip and by strange coincidence Adolfo’s brother was in town on business.
We were able to eat some good tacos and by accident we had some surprisingly good hamburgers, but I wasn’t very impressed by the rest of our food choices. Part of the problems was that we had to go to restaurants where we could walk in a say “party of 14″ and they wouldn’t pass out.
While we were walking toward the center of Coyoacan in the south of the city we passed a truck selling products from Oaxaca. Adolfo’s brother bought some really good Oaxacan cheese and one of Adolfo’s students bought a small bag of fried crickets. One of my students had the courage to try them and I was impressed. I passed on the crickets.
A couple weeks ago I was in Xalapa again for work. It was lovely as always and every time I go, I try to do or see at least one new thing. This time I was in town for Day of the Dead and there were lots of alters and invitations to tamales and hot chocolate. (and I didn’t get one single tamal!)
I was able to go see the Symphony. The Orquestra Sinfonica de Xalapa is one of the best symphony orchestras in the country. About 90% of the performers are of foreign origin, which is amazing for such a small town (Pop. 500,000 is a small town when compared to Mexico City). We heard a Bassoon solo played by a guy from Illinois! The concert hall was packed with a wide variety of concert goers. The price for tickets is $70 pesos and I believe there must be a student discount based on the number of student-aged audience members. The audience was also musically educated and there was no clapping between movements and people were very enthusiastic and polite at the same time.
That night I prepared to return to Guadalajara and laid all my clothes out for my 4am alarm, in order to catch my 5am bus. When I woke up I started brushing my teeth and getting dressed. I went to put on my pants and sort-of shook them out in front of me and as I started to put my leg in my pants…. a scorpion crawled out of my pant leg and went directly under the bed!!! I had never seen a scorpion live and in person and this one was about 4 inches long and black. I was immediately wide awake.
As, I had packed all my clothes and had no other clean pants, I had no choice but to put on the pants that had housed a scorpion all night and head out to the front desk for my taxi. It was quite a send off.
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| Barbara on tourism at home |
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