Category: Initial post

We left the house at 11:35am, recently, a week, or so ago, on our way to our attorney’s home, to pick up the paperwork proving, finally, that we own our condo.

As the crow flies, the trip is about six kilometers- for the rest of us driving-on-mostly-one-way-streets-in-Mexico-City mortals, however, it is closer to ten.

I believe I have mentioned, in a prior post, that going from A to B takes a bit of time, but, more so, distance. Nothing is a straight shot here.

This city is huge, and takes at least an hour to get to any of its borders from where we live, currently, or, where we will be living in the future. So much to explore, for sure.

The traffic that morning was a miracle in itself, so we made the trip in record time. What is normally a fifty to sixty minute trip only took twenty five minutes. Yay.

Then we had to find a parking spot. Sheesh.

Here, there is every type of bus you can imagine. Some are very old buses, that stay within a their “colonies”, (probably subdivisions), but, from all appearances, look to be life threatening. Then, there are the large city buses, most of which are newer, and much more energy efficient.

The right, outer lane, on all of the major thoroughfares, is reserved for the buses, and, there are hundreds of them. Cars and motorcycles can use those lanes, occasionally, but risk being bullied by the bus drivers.

Driving down any street that has buses on it, one always risks having one pull out in front of you. And, when they pull out, look out, because they rarely stop. We have figured out that they must have an odd notion that, since they are bigger than anything else around them, they can do as they like.

Most of the main roads, here, are at least four lanes in each direction, and each lane is usually filled with one and a half cars. So, when a bus pulls out, and you are a hares breath from all of the cars around you, there is no place to go.

Because of this horrid bit of driving experience, I find it very difficult to ride in the front, passenger seat. Actually, it sends my nerves into overload. We pass cars, within an inch, not inches, on my side, which, of course, makes me inhale quickly, and loudly. I told Ivan the other day, that is what keeps us from hitting them- the quick inhalation. It somehow, metaphysically, keeps the two vehicles from touching. He just gives me “the look”.

Some of you must know what I mean by “the look”, right? That look that says “I used to know you when you had brains. Right now, I am, truly, not so sure who you are”. But, then, he chuckles, and says that I might be right, who knows? We procede to our destination, my guts in my chest. Enough said.

I try to equate driving here to, similarly, driving in Chicago, or, say, Houston, perhaps. But, no! There is no equaling this driving experience with any of those cities. This is every person for themselves, yet, they all seem to understand their, and your, boundaries. It is organized chaos, and, completely beyond me.

PLUS, Ivan pointed out to me, just this evening, that I am driving without a license issued here in México!!! What is up with that? I never gave it a thought! In fact, tonight, I said “you don’t think my Iowa license will cut it”? Again, I got “the look”.

He loves me. He tells me so, all of the time. Poor guy. Having to put up with the likes of me, for all of eternity. Ha! (If his mother had her way, it could just as easily have been Ana!!!)

Yolanda, (M-I-L) I was, by far, his best choice. Trust me on this.

Happy New Year everyone. And what a new year this will be! I trust you have come back here for more of the same, because, you know you are safe here! On that you have my assurance.

Beginnings. Everyone starts with a clean slate. Everyone is fresh, clean, new. Forget those things that have stopped your progress to self-fulfillment in the past. Get beyond your, well, you can decide for yourselves what you need to do this year. You do not need me to tell you. (Besides, you probably cannot afford me).

With a new year, as you know, comes new expectations, new disappointments, new challenges, new, well, everything. Do you think so, too?

You can do new things, too, whatever you want. You can start a blog post of your own. Or, you can learn to knit, or, perhaps, make a delicious Beef Wellington for your special someone this Valentines Day. Perhaps you want to perfect an amazing bolognese sauce, because, really, who can honestly say they do not enjoy an amazing bolognese? (If you have never had a bolognese sauce, you are missing out on one of life’s many culinary delights, and marvels.)

Now, if you were smart enough to tell Santa, the hubs, the kids, your grandkids, heck, anyone that would listen, that you wanted an Instant Pot, pretty please, for Christmas, and, they actually listened to you, and, you actually received it, you can make the best bolognese sauce, in it, in a heartbeat.

Will I give you the recipe? Of course not! Now that you have it, you need to be a responsible Instant Pot owner- responsible enough to search the web, (or, for those of you with teens around, they can help with the search), for different meals, or, just individual things to make in said pot. You have only to type in what you want to make, add “instant pot” before, or after your search item, and you will have millions of recipes from which to choose.

I hope you all enjoy the newness of what comes next, every day, during this year, because, it is just for you, and no one can take that from you. It is yours, and, will be whatever you make of it. Make it your best year yet!

Feliz Navidad, y Próspero Año y Felicidad.

(Are you singing along with José Feliciano right about now? Gotcha). Happy New Year, everyone.

Well, tomorrow is New Years Eve, my friends, so, let me just say, albeit a day early, “Happy Birthday”, to my brother in law, Larry, married to my sister, Martha! We hope you have many more birthdays, Larry.

Tomorrow, we will be doing quite a bit of cooking, and celebrating with family, so there will be no post on the thirty first.

See you in the new year. Stay safe, have fun, be responsible.

You know me! Everything I do, and have done for years, is, was, and will probably be, always done “in theory”. Why is that, you ask?

Who can say what outcome will prevail when you are doing a certain task, or are asked to perform some, normally, routine thing? So, as a consequence, and to ward off imminent failure, I have always said, when asked, “can you ….?” My response? In theory.

Yes, I probably have the ability to perform the request, and, I probably have the time to perform said request, but, will it turn out the way you expect it to? Who can say?

Ivan asked me, just tonight, would I “make the salad with the shell noodles that you made in Bettendorf”? Really? Which salad did I make with little shell noodles? Where did I get the recipe? He remembers it was sweet and sour, so it probably came from Allrecipes.com.- my favorite recipe sight.

Will I be able to find said recipe? Sure- in theory.

We have been sitting here, this Christmas Eve, in the living room, for the past five hours, grazing on Ivan’s incredible chicken paté with Ritz crackers, cashews, mixed nuts, Tequilas, and flavored water. Family members are finally arriving.

This is the second Christmas we have spent here, in this house, with this beautiful family. This time, however, we are twenty years older, retired, and, have money in the bank. The last time, we had to request time off, from the twenty third of December, in the year nineteen hundred ninety nine, until the third of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand.

I do not remember much of that Christmas, mostly, because we always had work, and kids, in the back of our minds, not to mention rent, bills, car payments, etc.

Now, we are living here, and have not a care in the world. Our condo is almost finished, and we will be able to move soon. This will be a Christmas we will be able to remember easily as it is our first Christmas that we are both retired, and, at the moment, have nothing but time, and blessings.

Thank you, all, for coming along, with us, for the ride of our lives. There is so much more to come.

Making the dough for the turcos is, I will say up front, a lot of work. Next year, however, we will be using my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and that should help with that. If not, that is a deal breaker for me. The recipe I used belonged to my in-laws, which was lovely, but you-know-who wanted me to double it. All good. Except that is four kilos of flour, one kilo of lard, etc. All had to be mixed, then kneaded by hand. My hands.

The meat was the easy part. Yesterday evening, (actually, the twenty second of December) I boiled 2 kilos of leg of pork, cut into three to four inch pieces, with two large piloncillos, and two large pieces of canela. (Roughly translated, that was brown sugar, and cinnamon). I let that cool overnight, then shredded it this morning.

This afternoon, I fried the above shredded meat in one pound of butter, (I know it sounds like a lot of butter, but that is four and a half pounds of meat), added ground anis, cinnamon, and cloves, then chopped pecans, and raisins. That was the filling for the turcos. I cannot begin to tell ou how wonderful it tastes.

This evening, I got to roll out thirty, four inch diameter balls of dough, fill them with the sweet meat, fold them in half, seal the edges, brush each top with an egg wash, and sprinkle sugar on top. They baked for twenty five minutes, and are, now, ready to give away.

I am thinking, already, to next year. I am also thinking that a puff pasty, bought in the store, would work just fine. Hubs does not agree. He says the dough is supposed to be a little sweet. I also needed to roll the dough out thinner, to which I wholeheartedly agreed. Unfortunately, this is not our home, these are not my kitchen utensils, so I am unable to do some of the things to which I have become accustomed. (Will that excuse work for you)? I works for me. That is really all that matters at the moment.

Post script: I made the above turcos, in the evening, on Sunday, the twenty second of December. Today, I am writing this PS, and it is Christmas Eve. I am having a quite time using my arms, and back. Suffice it to say, I need to get more exercise. This is a prelude to the “day after moving day”. I suspect I will complain of the same muscle soreness as I am today. All for good reason. Family!

🎶If I were a rich man. Yada dida dida”🎶 😉 Enough. (I hope you were able to recognize the Fiddler on the Roof reference.) Let us get serious a moment. Surely, you did not think that I could go more than a day, or so, without writing, did you? Good, because you were correct.

Well, I trust your Christmas festivities, thus far, have been all you had hoped, and planned? The presents all got wrapped, and, all of the decorations got hung on the tree, and, the awesome meal you planned was, truly, awesome? Great. I am very glad to say the same for the holidays, thus far, here in México.

In México, at the holidays, there are several traditional things that happen. One of them is preparing, and, sharing a delicious fish stew called Bacalao, and, another, is enjoying a Mediterranean bread that is filled with sweet pork, raisins, and nuts.

Now, Bacalao is made, using a goodly amount of salted cod fish (I believe they used six kilos, in this house), six kilos of new potatoes, two kilos of onions, six heads of garlic, two jars of capers, about a dozen Bay Leaves, one cup of thyme, two large bunches of parsley, two kilos of olives (with the pit, as I have been told, by Pepe, it helps maintain the shape of the olive), and, I believe ten kilos of Roma tomatoes.

We bought most of this at a local market, called Mi Mercado Esquadrón, which is close to five kilometers from the house here, but will be much closer once we move. Yay!

Paty, and, Pepe, and, yesterday, our cousin, Glorita, (we call her Glorita, because, like the name José, which is the primary name in this family, Gloria is also very common name in this family), have been working tirelessly on all of the ingredients, for the past two days, because each ingredient requires its own amount of care.

Try to imagine, if you can, dealing with twenty pounds of tomatoes (envision a reusable grocery bag three quarters full), needing to be “burned”, (normally done on a griddle, on the stovetop), according to the recipe.

Always looking for the easier, faster way, (you knew I was going to say that), I suggested to P&P, that, since I was already using the oven to bake the Turcos, (coming up in another post), we could use the oven. Simply put them in the baking pans I was using, and roast them all until they were the desired consistency. It took the male Alpha a few minutes to come around, but, eventually he did. It took only about forty five minutes to roast all twenty pounds of tomatoes, instead of hours, burning them on the comal.

Do you remember, I said that the bacalao is salted cod? It is salted as a means of preservation, so all of the fish has to be desalinated prior to cooking it. That requires a day, or two, to change the water it is soaking in, until it no longer tastes salty. It is not a “heavy” chore, in itself, nor is it time consuming- meaning, no one has to be around to “tend it”. But, if not done properly, it will be the demise of this spectacular dish.

So, for the past twenty, or so, hours, the aroma in this home has, well, it has left this one speechless. That should be testimony on its own. I cannot wait to have some, later this evening, after all of the cousins arrive. Until then, we only get to enjoy the tease.

Post script: The bacalao tasted just as wonderful as it smelled. But, then there were the Romeritos en Mole. That is for another post.

I will be taking tomorrow off after wishing you all a very happy Christmas. I will start up, again, soon. If I do not have anything to write about before the New Year, I hope you all stay safe, and are happy in the coming 2020.

God bless us, everyone.

Did I already post that, being forty pounds overweight, is absolutely nothing here?

Having said that, let me also say, this affliction, though, very uncomfortable, is only temporary.

Never in my life, even through two pregnancies, have I ever weighed as much as I do this minute. I think, last I could face the music, so to speak, I saw eighty two kilograms!! When we get to the condo, with the park just outside, I swear, to all of you, I will lose at least fifteen kilos, maybe a bit more.

I must say that the women, here, carry their weight differently than we Germans. Not only that, but many just do not care if they appear overweight. Good on them. They carry themselves upright and proud. Me, not so much. I do not recognize the reflection in my mirror.

Unfortunately, there is not much that I can do right now. I am not in charge of food preparation here, and to refuse to eat a meal because it is full of carbs would be ungracious to our family. A few more weeks is not going to make that much difference. Patience, while not only being my mothers name, is, as I have been told, a virtue.

And, you can all attest that I am a virtuous person. 🤓