Un gran almuerzo con amigos

Domingo 08- Sábado 14 Diciembre   When shopping this past friday, we had purchased for the first time a vacuum-sealed package of big white corn grains used for making pozole. This is large-kernel cacahuazintle maiz which has been subjected to a special tenderization process.  Having never used it before except when purchased cooked and canned as hominy in the US, Carmen had boiled some to see what it was like. Hmm, it smelled and tasted pretty sour, almost vinegary, to her. Actually the 'nixtamalization' process to which the corn had been subjected is a treatment with strong alkali, not an acid at all.  She dumped the water off and did this three more times, to finally end up with a delicious product!  The idea was to use some in the chicken stew we had that Saturday.  About two pounds of it was left over, which went into the freezer. But, what do do with it, short of saving for a later stew?

Sunday is always a good day for a special breakfast, and any day, it seems, is a good day for experimenting with a new food for us.  We started our morning with a desayuno of a scramble of bacon, onion, panela (a soft, low-fat cheese), egg and a good amount of the pozole-corn kernels. Plus toast, grapefruit and coffee. A hardy meal for the gray morning we were experiencing.  Turns out it's a great staple and carbohydrate that will be useful in many meals.  For tuesday's dinner she browned some with onion in butter and olive oil with a dash of garlic salt, and then at the last moment she added chopped fresh tomato and fresh home grown oregano. A quick stir, sprinkle with parmesano cheese, and yumm. Always fun to try new foods and make whatever seems right! Not every experiment turns out perfectly (it's still a learning process to deal with new foods), but most of the time, delicious!  Our Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (Flaming Katy) is right in season, bursting with blossoms, which is why is sometimes called a Christmas Kalanchoe.

By mid-morning the sun appeared, but the air was still a bit cool, so mostly we kept the doors closed.  About 10:30 we heard a tiny quiet "miau" coming from out back. Went to check on it and low and behold, Gardi cat was on the outside of the gate asking to come back in. Fortunately non of the neighborhood dogs were about, as he would have no escape options back to safety in the yard.  We do not know when he exited from the house, nor how he got outside the fence!  Dan suggested that perhaps we feed Gardi more so that he cannot fit through whatever spot he found. If it can be done, Gardi will do it!  Sunday afternoon our electricity was out for a couple hours. Not a problem, we read. It happened again on monday, probably due to repairs going on. This time we played mexican train with our new double-domino set, an enjoyable time.

One evening while Carmen was standing on the terraza watching for birds with the binoculars at her eyes, Dan saw a yellow bird (probably a chat) fly a foot over her head, swoop down beside her, then up and away! Carmen never knew it was there.  Last week we had hoped to buy spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), which is sold at this time of year for seasonal decorating purposes) at the local grocery store, but the big bin was empty. Tuesday, a man stopped at our door selling mosses out of two large bags. We bought all the spanish moss he had. We need it for potting up our orchids, as it's a good substitute for fibrous spaghnum. Wonder if the man was happy with his big sale, or disappointed to only have a bit of the green musgo (moss) to peddle yet.  One of the most unusual native plants we've come across is Dorstenia contrajerva.  A member of the fig family, what appears to be a fleshy green "flower" is actually a fruiting body, like a fig but turned inside out, with the seeds exposed on the surface.

While many of the trees seem to be be green all year, there is some evidence of seasonal change with some of them, as dried leaves seemed to be building up on some of the roadsides in the past few weeks.  We need to go out and bag some up for later flower-potting use, before they're all gone.  The leaves are growing back already -- as there is no long dormant winter season here.  We are fussy. We do not want the really large leaves. The two trees we used to get them from have been cut down. Carmen planted all our newest plants we purchased from Carmelo. Only nine this week! She also moved some to new spots. Carmelo forgot to bring us the one Ania ordered, this morning. Dan told him that we really do not want any more until January. It would be good to have our patch of grass gone and the new pasarela (walkway) installed in the front yard before buying more plants to fill in around the pavers.  Any plants we are not able to pass up will just have to sit in their little starter containers until the front yard is eworked in January.

Wednesday morning it was arranged that we go up to Coscomatepec with the Shattucks -- this would be their first visit to the properties there since returning from vacation. We connected there with Tim & Tamara who are living at Shattuck's avocado farm house, while theirs, next door down the road, is being re-built. We walkedf over to the construction site for a tour.  Old walls have been torn down and the house is being totally reconstructed on a larger plan, including a commercial kitchen for preparing their jams & other food products.

Dan had called our foreman, José Luís, early that morning, arranging to meet him at home, to pay aguinaldo bonuses due for the year.  Carmen came along on this side trip, since she had not visited Frank's hilltop kiosko (hexagon cabin) there in Huapalco in a long time. Our crew lives right in that little hillside community, and it was good to see Luís after all this time -- he has a 10-person crew working on three houses, all due to be turned over to the owners by Noche Buena (Christmas Eve).  A busy man!  Dan told him that we had some work for the crew in January. Carmen has traveled a great deal around the US, thru lots of back country rural areas, and no place has she seen countryside and roads as rough and rugged as this area where our crew calls home. It is hard to believe that they willingly make the Huapalco-Fortín-Huapalco trip six days a week to work!  At the kiosko cabin we dug up some loose soil under the trees for Ania to use in her garden at home, and harvested some very mature chayote from the vine growing over the carport, before heading back east into Cosco, where we picked a couple of pollos rostizados from a stand where the roast chicken is cooked over a wood-fueled fire.

our crew the

Back at the house, all six of us dined together.  The gran almuerzo (big lunch) felt like thanksgiving with the variety of foods and friends.  It was a day with glorious weather, but by the time we got back home in the late afternoon, cooler temps and clouds were rolling in. On the hour-long trip back towards home, we met bumper to bumper traffic coming the other direction, with highly decorated vehicles full of people, on their way to Xalapa, where there is a shrine to the Virgin de Guadelupe. Also there was frequently a person running beside the decorated vehicle, carrying a lighted torch. The folk here take honoring Mexico's patron Saint very seriously.  From Shattucks properties we returned with mature chayotes and aguacates. 

Ania and Frank gave us a beautiful Delftware coaster which was created by the master craftsmen of Royal Goedewaagen, Holland, a souvenir from their Holland-America cruise around the southern tip of south america. They said inspite of being the summer down there, it was cold!  This week we purchased white with pink alstroemeria (Peruvian lily) from our fresh flower man. A different man came by with fresh cut glads to sell. We think that one of the plants Carmelo sold us this week is a small, but well filled out gardenia plant. Also we bought a chenille plant, and Dan arranged a hanger for it along the west backyard wall, where it will get morning sun but be protected from the hot afternoon rays. It is very hard to turn down new and different plants.  Seems like there's always a spot to wedge in another, at least while they are small.  Surely the collection will change over time as we lose some and some are crowded out, but the garden-gone-wild look it one we both like.  We have never had luck with roses so we have kept away from them here, except for our thornless miniature pink rose in a pot on the terraza, which is blooming away, quite happy with it's surroundings.