We got another one the day before yesterday from our favorite youngest sister, Mayra. Thanks doesn’t cut it. Look at what we received.
First, let me say that she had originally sent all of these in 2 boxes. The folks at Estafeta, the shipping company, decided to put them all into 1 very heavy, 52 lbs. box. That would have been fine except that the night before, we lost our power in certain parts of the apartment, which also included the elevator. You should have seen us lugging this behemoth up 2 flights of stairs. It was pathetic. Golly we’re getting old.
Our 3 favorite pickled veg.
Mind you, we bought all of these things because we can’t get them here; well, certainly not at the cost we can get them from the US. I will have to see if the shipping charge, and her time, is worth the cost of having them shipped here. I hope so.
Yes, there is a plethora of candles, 23 actually. I bought them, actually, to have them for the fall, and winter; even as Christmas presents. Things conspired, however, to delay their shipment, (we kept buying stuff,) so we didn’t get them until just. There’s always Easter.
Bisquick, in the size box you see, costs about $390MXN, or $20USD. Would you want to pay $20 for a small box of Bisquick? Oh. Maybe, with this new administration you are paying that much.
We try not to look, too often, at the cost of the items we need; it can make cooking, then eating said items difficult. The cost of things, here, is getting difficult, as it is said to be in the US. We have to eat, shower, wash our clothes, so we do what we must.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
We went “fishing” the other day, not to catch the fish, but to buy freshly caught fish.
We didn’t have to drive far, either, only 6 kilometers, but it took us almost 30 minutes; it was Sunday afternoon. Duh! We decided midweek would be best next visit. 😉
The place we went to is a wholesale fish market, and let me tell you, they had so many different types of fish that we had never seen, it was amazing.
Here’s one for you. This little guy, (and his friend, we bought 2), has been cleaned, and is ready to cook. Here, he’s called a Mojarra, (mow-HA-rrah), though he’s more commonly known as a
Tilapia.
Pay particular attention now, because this is important; it comes complete with about a gazillion bones. We pan seared this one, wrapped in aluminum foil, having been marinated overnight with citrus juices, onions, and salt. It was delicious, but very difficult to eat with all of the bones. We’ll buy it frozen from Costco next time. His friend is residing in the freezer.
We bought a kilo of head-on shrimp that had been harvested from the Gulf the day before. They are going in the freezer for now as well.
This is just one kiosk, full with its rewards for our drive, but there are over 100 similar kiosks in the marketplace. Each is up against the next, or perhaps, has a two foot space for shoppers like us.
Next time we go, I think we’ll ask them to debone the mojarra, like the fish above, before we bring them home. The above photo is not of mojarra but Nayarit, a fish similar to a red snapper, or Huachinango, hwah-chee-NAN-go. You can see them in the second photo. They are scrumpdeliicious.
As soon as we were within a block of the market, we could smell the fish. It was just like when we went to a bay, East of Houston, TX, I can’t remember the name of it, and bought shrimp at a similar market. Here, however, the smell transported us to the bay, hundreds of kilometers from us.
The fish were fresh, you could tell by the clarity of their eyes, and the few kiosks we went to were quite clean. The fish is kept on ice, and, as the ice melted, it was brushed onto the floor, and fresh ice applied. Also, when the fresh ice was placed, the fish were flipped onto their other sides, keeping them cold throughout.
We have decided to go at least monthly to the market, possibly bimonthly. The prospect of having fresh fish on a monthly basis is exciting.
Now, if we could get beef as easily, and as tasty, we’d be in Heaven. Alas, it’s only Mexico; but it’s close.
Until we get beef like we had in the US, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
PS: happy belated birthday to my favorite S-I-L, Mayra. Thanks, again, for the CARE package.
PSS: it was reported on the local news that another variant of CoVid19 is sweeping through Mexico. We’ll be vigilant.
It has taken some time, but, finally, it is coming to fruition.
I enjoy using that word, and don’t get enough opportunity to use it, so I use it here.
The other day, I took the covers off of the stovetop heating elements, (I use that term because I cannot, for my life, remember what they’re called; where the flame comes out to heat,) and cleaned all of the burned on food, grease, what have you.
I scrubbed with Ajax, with steel wool, with a butter knife. Absolutely nothing touched the stuff. I had half a mind to order one of those foam sprays I keep seeing on the SM sites, where the grime just rinses off.
I didn’t. When the light bulb came on in my head, I went to the pantry, got my handy dandy putty knife, and within 15 minutes, the stovetop looked like new. I’ll show you, only the after though, as the before got away from me.
After that was done, I looked around, and saw, to my horror, the exhaust fan was filthy. The fan is worthless, and doesn’t exhaust to the outside, just blows in further into the kitchen, so I rarely use it; except to draw in air from the laundry area, like a small breeze. Then it works.
Caution required at this point. What you are about to see may shock you. (Shouldn’t really though.)
Wiped my fingers across the top, and this is what it looked like. Yikes. After three of these, with some Ammonia, lovely stuff, it looked likeThis.
I have to wipe it down again with water, but I have temporarily lost the impetus. (Another favorite word 😉
So, this morning, about 1:30am, I was unable to sleep, again, and was tired of just lying there, trying to turn off my mind so
I got up, went into the living room, cleaned off the long, foldable plastic table, and put away as much of the stuff that was cluttering it all up as I could do without waking Ivan, or the condo. Went back to bed at 2:30am, got up at about 10, and finished what I had started. Soooo much nicer, I think. Once I get rid of the totes, and boxes by the folded table, I will have enough space to start exercising.
Lord knows I have to do something to help me lose weight. I can’t stand this any longer. It just isn’t me.
I have gotten out my resistance bands, put them into a semblance of order, have printed out a few weeks of 15 minute workouts, and will begin working out
Hopefully soon. I certainly don’t want to rush into anything. 😉
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
I can sit here, typing away on this amazing new convenience; except I have no idea how to do anything with it.
Ok. That was a lie. I figured out how to do the italics symbol, so now, I can do that.
Never mind. I just went to some page from who knows where.
We made an amazing whole chicken, (with Baby Ray’s Barbecue sauce), sopa de fideo, and all of it was soooo tasty, so succulent, so juicy.
We sent some upstairs, to them, then, some to the guards. They all loved what we made.
I spatchcocked the whole chicken, covered it in honey, and vinegar, then sprinkled tons of spices on it before we baked it in the oven. When it was close to done, we put Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce on the whole bird, and let it bake another 20 minutes.
AMAZING.
While we wait to see what Gaby thought of the whole business,
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
I am compelled to tell you that here we no longer use facial masks; employees in stores use them, but the clientele do not.
Last year, we found an agenda book at our local Office Depot, and I used it to keep track of our bills, and payments thereto. It was exceptional.
Why? Because of the colors, the art, the images. They were, and are, amazing.
Last year, obviously. The outside cover.
Here is this years agenda book.
Outside front cover.The first two pages.
Above are the first pages in the agenda book, showing the beauty of the artwork, the bright colors, and the images. You won’t find these in an agenda book in the US I’d bet.
Not looking forward to paying bills this year as things here are using up our income too quickly. But, if I have to do it after looking at this agenda book, so be it. I will do it a bit less hostilely than before.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Marinated jalapeños, or pickled jalapeños in vinegar.
We brought about a dozen jalapeños, 10 carrots, and a dozen spring onions back with us from Los Altos this time. They’ve been in the fridge ever since. Doing the math, that was 8 days ago. Suffice it to say, they were getting a bit, how can I type this accurately, withered, shriveled, old.
What does one do with the above veg?
We made chiles en escabeche, (CHI-less n ess-cah -BEH-cheh). Take a look.
Jalapeños, olive oil, carrots, onions, bay leaves, oregano, marjoram, salt, vinegar, water, black peppercorns, cloves, and sugar.
Normally, we buy them in the can, but decided to make them ourselves since we had bought the veggies home with us for that purpose alone.
So, now we have enough to last us for a few months; Ivan gave a container to Jesús, and Lizbeth. If we run out, voilà, we make more.
I didn’t remove many of the seeds, as it was too time consuming, so it’s a bit spicier than what we are used to. Ivan told me that that’s why we have salt. I chuckled.
As I was cooking this, he came into the kitchen to express helpful suggestions. We were both nearly asphyxiated from the fumes of the chiles. We coughed for about 10 minutes, even when we went back to the bedroom. It was horrible.
I turned on the air circulators in the bedroom for another 10 minutes, and finally the chile fumes were noticeably gone. Breathing easier.
That’s about it for this exciting week.
Side note: We did go to Costco, Sam’s Club, and Soriana this week, to the tune of about $500 USD. What’s a person to do?
The cost of everything here is going through the roof because of the current President’s administration in the US. The cost of growing wheat, corn, oats, etc., costs more. It costs more to raise cows, pigs, and sheep. The rise in gas prices is making it difficult for the farmers to transport their crops/animals to plants for processing. The cost of living has skyrocketed these past two years. Cripes. It’s making it more difficult to buy some of the things we can only get from the US.
That said, we spend our “limited income” on the things we need, paying our bills first, food last. We’ll not go hungry anytime soon as I am learning to make something from little, or less.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
I have been unable to log onto my credit card websites since the end of October.
They keep trying to send me a code to submit to verify I am who I say I am. That would be lovely, but one of them will not allow me to put in our address here in Mexico, much less our phone number. The phone number they have is my old phone number from Iowa. Needless to say, it doesn’t help me a bit.
Ivan told me he thought it was a precaution for the holiday season. As it turns out, it must have been. This morning, I was able to get on all of the websites, except that one. I will try to call them one day this, or next week.
Happily, things are as I wish them to be, and that is what I needed to know to relax. Not sure what I would do without the ability to connect with (fill in the blank), via the internet.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Not much to be done without electricity. We’re still in Los Altos, but back home when you read this.
There’s no internet; no internet, no programs; no programs, or movies, what’s a person supposed to do?
We went back to bed.
He went right back to sleep; me? I didn’t have the use of my CPAP, so I didn’t sleep. I snore too much, so, in being afraid of waking the whole house, I got up, and have been playing my word search games which only require online access to record the scores.
I am also able to listen to my audible books as they are all downloaded, and do not require the internet.
Lord knows I should take a walk, but that will have to wait until I’ve shed a few kilos over the next few days/weeks/months. I’ll get there, however, slowly, but surely.
Until that, and until the electricity is restored, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
That’s all there is to that. I can’t continue to carry these extra pounds on me. My back just can’t take it anymore. So,
I am going to try making some low carb soups from about 50 recipes I found in a search yesterday. They look delicious. I can’t wait.
As we are still in Veracruz, I can’t start until we return home. I took a “before” photo last night that was horrible, and no, I’m not dumb enough to post it. Suffice it to say that it’s an exceptionally good starting point.
I will share whatever progress I make as I make it. My inactivity is the root cause, so that will be the next thing that changes.
Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
