Month: September 2019

Last night, (actually, on the 11th) I am proud to say, I made birria de res for the family. Paty is out of town for the week so I am learning, quickly, how to cook some wonderful Mexican dishes. Birria has so much flavor, mostly due the different dried chiles used. I also used two different cuts of beef, 1 kilo of chuck roast with the bone, and 1 kilo of beef ribs, cut into 3” pieces. I also included 2 leg bones for the marrow because it adds additional flavor. I browned the meat first then put everything in the Instant Pot.

I made the sauce by first browning the 8 guajillo chiles, while, at the same time, boiling 2 chipotle, and 6 morita chiles. Blended said chiles with 18 large garlic cloves, 1 1/2 tsp. oregano, a pinch of thyme, salt and pepper, then put it through a sieve strainer, on top of the meat, in the Instant Pot. Also into the pot went 4 bay leaves, 1 1/2 cups of apple cider vinegar, and 1 1/2 cups of water. Put the lid on, programmed the pressure setting for 1 hour, and that was that.

One hour later we had quite a feast.

I have not had much experience cooking sauces using the dried chiles but have wanted to try my hand at it for some time. Each combination of chiles creates a different flavor, obviously, but browning them, or boiling them, also changes the flavor.

Tonight we’re having salmon with wine infused butter and herbs, steamed veggies, and smashed potatoes. I made the potatoes last night so I had one less thing to do today. I also had to mash them by hand with one of those hand held mashers with the holes in it. It is no wonder women of my mother’s generation were so strong. Until modern appliances that is. There are still small pieces of potato’s throughout but everyone was fine with that. So, I am going to be fine with it as well.

If you are looking for a really special dinner that does not require hours of cooking, go to YouTube and search Birria de Res. There are hundreds of versions, but there are a few in English you might try. Enjoy.

Now that we are here, living the dream, we need to convert everything– money, weights, volumes, temperature, everything to metric. Easy, no- doable, absolutely!

I am so glad I have the Apple XR phone with me almost all of the time! It converts so many things, so quickly. I am even starting to convert them in my head. (See. I am teachable, still.) MPH vs K/H is still a bit difficult, but as I do a bit of cooking for the family, I have had to convert pounds to kilos frequently, when we go to the grocery store. Pesos to dollars, kilometers to feet, or miles; milliliters to cups, or teaspoonsful, etc.

Yesterday we made 3 tortillas Españolas for the family. It took me 2 solid hours, due to the altitude. When we went to the store to buy the ingredients, everything is in Kg/peso. There are 2.2 pounds per kilo, and 19.78 pesos per dollar. If you buy 1.75 kilos of tomato’s at 4 pesos per kilo, how much are you going to pay, in pesos? We bought 3.4 kilos of tomatoes. Now, how many pounds did we buy, and how much did we pay per pound?

As it is almost 9 pm on a Sunday night, so, I do not care what we paid. If you can do the conversion, let me know in the comments below how much we paid for the tomatoes, will you? Thanks. I am starting to enjoy the exactness of metric.

I know I have said in an earlier post, but bougainvilleas are, bar none, my favorite flowering bush/tree. They grow in some of the most beautiful colors that make you smile reflexively. Here are just a few stock photos I found to illustrate just how magical they are. I hope you enjoy them. I will add my own photos when I can.

Many years ago, we bought a painting by a friend of ours, here in CDMX, Rocio is her name (photo below), and it showcases the beauty of the bougainvillea in a way that made me anxious to move here, and someday, have bougainvilleas of our own.

I hope you enjoy these few examples of the bougainvillea, and, an even larger hope is that they bring a smile to your heart every time you see a bougainvillea.

As I type this post, it is after 2 hours of making 3 of the best tortillas Españoles I have made to date. Some of you are not aware of this amazing dish from Spain; let me explain.

They consist of eggs, potatoes, olive oil, and salt. The optional component is onion. From my research, onion is very controversial, therefore, as I am partial to a bit of controversy, now and then, we use onion. And lots of it.

Here I am cooking 3 medium, peeled, white potatoes, cut to about, 0.5 cm. thick, and 1 whole, white onion, cut very thinly. There is 1 tsp. Olive oil in the pan, and it is on the lowest setting the element can handle. I put 1/2 tsp. salt on the top, added 2 tbs. water, covered, and let cook for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, stir gently, (fold really), so nothing sticks, or darkens, but you do not break up the potatoes. Cover. Cook another 10 minutes, then fold again. Do this until, when pierced with a fork, the potatoes are tender. (Here, it takes almost 30 minutes, because of the altitude; up North, probably 20 minutes). When the potatoes are getting close to tender, beat 5-7 eggs, depending on their size- (here the eggs are small, so we needed to use 7), in a large mixing bowl until frothy. When the potatoes are done, set them aside, uncovered, to cool for several minutes. (Meanwhile, you can clean up the mess you made peeling the potatoes, and slicing the onions. Do the dishes you have dirtied, through out the peels, etc.; you get the idea).

Next, when the potatoes are done, and cool, and the eggs beaten, add the potatoes, and onions, to the beaten eggs, and mix them thoroughly, but gently, covering all of the potatoes with the eggs- no potatoes should be allowed to stick together. Let this sit, for a few minutes, while you reheat the frying pan. Put another teaspoon of Olive oil in the frying pan, and gently add the potato and egg mixture, making sure that all of the potatoes are covered with egg. (Everything is done slowly, and gently. Nothing is rushed in this dish, or it will not turn out well in the end.)

Cover the frying pan, again, and allow the tortilla to cook until the top of the tortilla is almost completely set. Take a silicone spatula and move the whole thing away from the edges. How? Gently!! You want the tortilla to be mobile at this point. If the tortilla moves in the opposite direction when you twist and turn the pan, in opposite directions, you are in good shape. Cover again.

When the tortilla is almost completely set, place a serving plate, somewhat larger than the frying pan, over the frying pan, place an oven mitt over the serving plate, take it over the sink, and flip the daggone thing over. With a bit of luck, then skill, the tortilla will be almost completely cooked, and ready to be placed back in the skillet to finish cooking. So do it. After another 5-7 minutes, depending on how done it was on the first side, slide it onto your serving plate/platter, and put it to the side to cool.

When allowed to cool completely, serve at room temperature with any sides you like. Here we serve it as is, and with chorizo, and salsa, on the side. The top, on the left, have mushroom, and the top right, has spinach. The last one, bottom right, is in the classic form

There are many forms of this “breakfast omelet”, breakfast tortilla, or Tortilla Español. This is how we make it, and enjoy it, a few times a year. Tonight, I made Tortillas Españoles- one with mushrooms, one with chard (here it is more spinach than chard), and one in the classic form. We will enjoy them tomorrow morning with strong coffee. Try it sometime- tortillas Españoles.

Several people have asked me recently, if I am able to speak Spanish yet. The shortest answer I can give you is, yes, more than 6 months ago, but, no, not as much as I will 6 months from now. The nice thing is that everyone, well, most everyone in my arena, speaks English as well as I speak Spanish!! We all get by, by simply helping each other with the language differences.

Verbs, and their tenses. Need I say anything more? They are the downfall of any person learning a different language. Think of how many times you ask someone about something that happened weeks ago, or something that will happen next week, next month, or next year. Each has a completely different verb tense, so, unless you are taking classes to learn these tenses, you have to listen, and retain.

Therein lies the problem for me, really anyone in this situation. You listen to the conversation being spoken in Spanish around you, then, you have to translate what you are hearing into English, formulate a response in Spanish that sounds remotely acceptable, then actually speak that response. All within seconds. Then, the next sentence comes, and you use the above algorithm, repeat, and so on, until the conversation ends. For the first few weeks I was exhausted, mentally, by days end. Now, I am able to speak in a somewhat more confident manner, and am definitely more easily understood.

I understand the bulk of most conversations, so I am able to make some sort of appropriate response. Fortunately, for me, they all, our cousin Pepe, in particular, gently correct me. But Pepe, his wife Paty, and Juan, also explain what I have said incorrectly, and how to say it correctly in the future. Big help.

Then there is their brother, Marco, who speaks 100 MPH, and I rarely understand him. When he notices me giving him the “you have got to be kidding me” look, he laughs, knowing all the while I understood nothing of what just flew by my hearing. After he has had his chuckle, he will either say what I just missed in a much simpler Spanish, or, if he feels like practicing, he will say the whole bit in English. We all come to an understanding, in the end.

The more important thing about learning a different language, for me anyway, is that here, they love me, and are willing to help me, any way they can, to learn this different, but beautiful, new language.

We have started shopping for various things for the apartment. We ordered, and received, a new black under mount kitchen sink. It will have a black faucet, and black spigot for the UV filtered water from which we will be able to drink fresh water. You all know the stories about drinking the water here in Mexico. It has not been exaggerated. More about that another time.

We bought handles for the bedroom doors today at Home Depot. Handles instead of knobs. (This was after the harrowing ride through the bad neighborhoods. Reference the post “Driving around”). We have both wanted handles on the doors for, well, forever. Here was our opportunity, at last, and we took it. Looked, again, for a black washer and dryer, but with little luck. Not sure we will be able to find them here in the city. Cannot remember if we saw them at Sam’s or not. Hmmmm. I will let you know how that turns out another day.

So, the countertops will be a dark, almost black, granite, like in the photo below. The kitchen cabinets should, we hope, look quite a bit like the bottom picture, oak, and all the way to the ceiling, with glass inserts. The backsplash and flooring are the same white tile you can see in the pictures of the living room, in an earlier post, so we thought a black sink and faucet duo, with the black granite and white backsplash would be pretty. Then, with the oak cabinets- well, we think it will be rather stunning. The kitchen, at present, is rather compact. We hope that with all of the changes we are making it will open it up some, or at least be easier to cook in than the original layout. I will let you know. For now, we will keep on shopping.

It is official- Ivan, and I, are the King, and Queen, of window film application! We bought window film before we left the States because the windows in the apartment we were buying all looked out into the inner square that is the “back side” of the apartment building behind ours, as well as the other resident of our building. (See the photos at the bottom of this post.) There is absolutely no privacy in this type of arrangement. And, as some of you know, we are not curtain people. This lack of privacy is a common problem here so we started sharing our supply of film with family and friends.

This was our first application, here at our cousin Juan’s house. This door leads to the garage in which, normally, 6 cars are parked. At present, we have taken up the space of 1 1/2 cars with our totes! Now, however, with the window film, they still get the light from the garage but not the sight of all of the stuff in the garage.

The photo above is of Juan’s bedroom, which also faces the garage, then, the photo below is his bathroom. None are visible from the garage any longer.

Until we put up the window film for both of these spaces, Juan, and Enrique’s windows, anyone passing by, or looking out their own windows could look directly into these private living spaces. That, or they had tohave their curtains pulled closed throughout the day. Now, thanks to the window film applications, they can leave their curtains open, enjoy the sunlight coming through, all without worry that someone can see into their homes.

It does take time, and patience in abundance to apply, however. This is not something you want to undertake with a limited time frame. Just getting the film separated from the protective layer is a task in, and of, itself. Then there is the cutting the film to fit your window surface. You first have to decide if your end game is insisting on perfection, or, if providing much-needed privacy is the goal. For us, once it was confirmed, by both home owners, that privacy over perfection were their goals, we were free to make executive decisions about how we filled in the smaller spaces at the top of each window, because, of course, the film did not match the dimensions of the windows. (Because that just would not be right, now would it?!?) Did we try to line up the patterns to each window, or could we fill in the spaces as we had the film to do so? The latter was the case each, and every, time. We did, however, make a concerted effort to keep the areas at eye level, those spaces that would be the looked through the most often, we made them as perfect as we could.

I must say, here and now, that we are getting better, and faster, with each application. By the time it is our turn, on our windows, we should be able to finish in record time, this art of window film application.

For those of you that remember “The Governors” bar on 53rd. St. in Moline, or “The Palace”, by the railroad tracks, in East Moline, well, we have been introduced here, to “El Salon Berlin”. Let me just say that they have amazing food, which changes every day, and is mouthwateringly scrumptious; staff that remember what you ordered the first time they met you, so they know, probably, what you will probably want now, and can recommend whatever the Chef has on the ‘best list’ for today.

We have been to El Salon Berlin probably 6 times in the past 6 weeks, and have not had to order our drinks, or botana, (appetizers), after the first time, in all of these times. Two incredibly nice men of service, (waiters), Benito (Benny) and Alejandro, (Ale), by name, have taken care of us each time we have been there, and we can say, without exception, that this is a place we will go to for years to comes. It reminds us of the tv series “Cheers”, where everyone knows your name, and all the drinks, they stay the same.

I am here to say that, in a city this large, to have strangers, now friends, that know your names, who know who you are, and what you like, and what you will tolerate, (there are many foods here that many abhor, but we enjoy), is a miracle in itself. Thank God we were introduced to El Salon Berlin! Thank you, Enrique. We love you tons. If not for you, we may have never learned of this “Brigadoon”, only blocks from us!! (I tried to type it in Spanish but it came up waaaay wrong.)

Here are a few photos of our recent visit.

We had a wonderful couple of hours, again, in a place, (our Brigadoon), that makes us feel at home, and accepted, no matter how our days have gone!! Thank you, so much, to Benny, and Alejandro, who always knows what we want, or need, before we even know we want it; and to Chef, (I do not know his name, yet, but I will, the next time I write about them.) They are a group of people that do not , I do not think, even know the services they provide for us!! We come there, looking to relax, and talk to our mates about the times we have had since we last were with them, and they fill in all of the blanks. We will see all of you in the next few days.

Thank you, everyone, at El Salon Berlin.

Mexico has one of the largest, most complex, all-encompassing metro routes of any country in the world. A little known fact I was told was that it was a gift from France. One can go anywhere in the city as long as one knows where, and when, to transfer, if needed, to another line. Did I mention it only costs us 5 pesos, per person, each way? That comes out to about $.25 one way. When I get my residency squared away, we will both apply for AARP-type memberships, which will allow us to ride the Metro for free. Bonus!!

Depending on the day, and, just as important, the time of day, the Metro is either empty, or everyone is packed in like living, breathing sardines. (You can actually tell long-time riders because they either sleep the entire way, or, those that stay awake hardly even move with all of the abrupt stops and starts.)

While riding the Metro, one cannot even consider germs and/or bacteria- not if you want, or need, to use public transportation. You just get in, and hold on, because your life my depend on it. All said, we always use gel hand disinfectant when we get where we are going!

Some of the cars are ornately decorated, like the one below, but most are a simple reddish orange. Here is a photo of the most colorful set of cars I was able to photograph recently. There are approximately 20 cars that travel together. A new set arrives every 30 seconds, or so. They stay only 15 seconds at each station, then, away they go. After 5 seconds of arriving, an alarm sounds letting passengers know the doors are closing. The alarm sounds for 10 seconds, the doors close, and the train takes off. Amazing!!!

Mind you, these cars travel anywhere from 40-70 MPH, which takes about 3-5 minutes between stops. Each time they stop at another station, someone gets on, selling all kinds of different “necessities”, usually asking for 10 pesos, ($.50). And every once in a while someone actually buys that something-that-they-did-not-realize-they-had-to-have-until-that-very-moment thing. And, occasionally, there is someone that will entertain all of us by singing, or praying, or, even, telling a story, in hopes that someone will be touched by their need, and donate money. When the Metro comes to the next stop, the above is repeated, at each station- all the way down the line. Enterprising, to be sure.

Then, last week, when we were changing lines to go a different direction, I turned around to look up the stairs, and saw this. Granted, they are “just steps”, but what an imagination it took to plan this. (I was just told today, Sept. 8, 2019, that they actually play notes as you step on them!!! Incredible!!) It is the only one like it that we have seen thus far. I do so admire people with imagination. They make these otherwise ordinary, and mundane, spaces so much fun to witness. And, no, we do not, at present, use the stairs. In fact, we have only used the steps a few times. It is a goal, however, to ride the rails, and climb the steps at each station. We hope to start said goal once we are settled in the apartment. Between the number of steps, and the altitude, (7380 ft.), it takes a ton of effort just to ride the escalators.

I leave you with this photo of the Metro system, itself, here in CDMX. Ivan and I plan on spending some time adventuring, by riding the rails going around the city. And why not? Heck, for $.50 a trip, it would be stupid not to. Right now, however, we start on the blue line, Linea 2, at the bottom of the diagram, at the station called Tasqueña, because it is closest to the house, and we go from there. The more we travel, here in town, the more we will come to a better understanding of The Metro.

As I sit here, listening to the sound of the dental drill that is shaping the new front teeth for my father in law, it reminds me how much I dislike going to the dentist. This dentist, however, Dr. Priscila Solis, is the exception to the rule.

She is young, thoughtful, and very personable. She puts her patients at ease by her gentle touch, and how she shows them her concern for their comfort and wellbeing. Every few minutes she stops whatever she is doing, and asks if you are alright, do you have any pain, or discomfort? Do you need to rinse your mouth? If you are okay, she resumes her work. She does a wonderful job but charges so very little for it-by US standards, that is. That is why we do not mind coming back to the dentist.

Update- today I am here with Ivan as she starts working on a couple of crowns for him.