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We love to eat barbecued food.  When we lived in Canada, there was no “season” for cooking on the barbecue, there were only winter evenings when it was just too darn cold to keep the barbecue hot enough to cook the food.  We even used to keep a car snow brush beside the barbecue to clean off the snow so we could cook.  

Don did most of the barbecuing in Canada but I would also pitch in some nights and cook too.  We had a wonderful propane Broil King that was a dream to cook on and served us quite well (it’s now in storage somewhere in Sarnia) and there are many days when I miss our Broil King. 

Here in Mexico, barbecuing is different.  Real men cook their meat on charcoal–gas grills are for wussies!  We brought down a small charcoal barbecue and Don was doing a great job cooking on the weekends but I had no clue how to make a fire to cook during the week.  My excuse is that I’m too young to remember my dad cooking on charcoal and never learned to make a fire.

One Saturday afternoon, Don showed me how to make a fire so I could barbecue during the week.  It seemed fairly straight forward:

1) put some crumpled newspaper in the bottom of the BBQ

2) put charcoal on top

3) put some fire starter on everything

4) light fire

5) Voila!  With a little fanning and patience you will have fire!

Here’s what really happened the when I tried:

1) put some crumpled newspaper in the bottom of the BBQ

2) put charcoal on top (in a teepee, like it says on the bag of charcoal)

3) put fire starter on everything

4) light fire and pray that I don’t light my hair or eyebrows on fire (WHOOSH!)

5) fan the flames, watch my teepee of charcoal fall away, pray to the fire gods that things will be OK, watch it slowly burn out…

6) walk into the house and turn on the stove

It was really a frustrating process and I was ready to just resign myself to the fact that I would never get this right.   Karma was punishing me for not having paid more attention to Brown Owl when she was making a fire for us at Brownie Camp.

Don gave me a “refresher” lesson and after a few more tries, I started getting a decent fire.  Of course I am entirely superstitious and only use one brand of charcoal (Golden Hills) and I hover over the fire still paranoid that it’s going to burn out on me.  Cooking on charcoal is a lot more difficult than gas and I now cook small thin pork chops and chicken, but there is no way I’m ready to make steak yet.  The locals here can call me a wussy, but I’m still a fan of gas grilling for convenience and a guaranteed fire, but for now, I’ve gotten in touch with my inner caveman and can make fire to cook meat!

We were supposed to go rafting in La Huasteca this weekend, but because it rained for 2 weeks solid, the river was too high to raft and some of the roads are washed out, so we decided to postpone this trip until things dry out.  Our alternate trip was going to be to Zacatecas, but unfortunately they have also suffered from the same rains and the highway has lots of washed out areas and is down to one lane.  Fortunately, we had a backup plan for Sunday.  The Rotary Club was participating in a 5/10 km walk and run to raise funds for “Nuevo Horizonte” which is a centre that helps disabled children gain life skills. 

The walk started at 8AM and the run at 8:15.  Normally I prefer to sleep in on Sundays, but it’s not the first time I have gotten out of bed early for Rotary and it certainly won’t be the last!  Of course Don and I decided we would do the walk rather than the run.  We were expecting it to be a nice, brisk 5km walk and because we walk quickly, we thought we would finish near the front of the group.  Well, it was a quite a surprise when after they yelled “GO” that a bunch of serious competitive speed walkers bolted off the starting line and left us in their dust.  We were walking with another Rotarian and at times, lost the front half of the group so we started doing short bursts of running just to catch up!  We decided to run the last 500m or so of the course and then got scolded by the Club President for running when we were supposed to be walking!!

We didn’t finish last but we were definitely in the second half of the group.  Of course everyone was a winner in the end and we all got hats and t-shirts for participating.  The race is an annual event, so out goal for next year is to do the run rather than the walk.  Don tells me that we should be able to do the 10k, but I’m a little less optimistic and I am thinking the 5k is more realistic.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see for next year!!

When we lived in Salina Cruz, one of the two choices for “ethnic” food was pizza from Kory’s Pizzeria which was the best in town.  They put sesame seeds on the crust so it was really a tasty part of the pizza, plus they sent Valentina and pickled jalapeños for condiments.

When we arrived in SLP, we had troubles finding a good pizza place to order from.  We have Domino’s and Pizza hut, but I’m not a big fan of either so we have been looking for a Kory’s replacement. 

One of the interesting things about Mexico is that you can go down the same street every day and discover a new restaurant or shop.  While we were out walking last weekend, we discovered a wood fired oven pizza place on a section of road that we have driven on hundreds of times.  They offer home delivery so we picked up a take out menu and headed home.

Last night, we decided to give Pizzeria Bella Italia a try and it was so tasty!  We had a “Caribeña” Pizza (hawaiian) and Pizza Parma which has cheese, serrano ham, artichokes and black olives.  The crust was super thing and crispy and the pizza was really tasty.  The best part though was the dipping sauce that was included.  It was this garlicky, spicy, slightly sweet sauce that is totally addictive!  I can’t wait to order from there again!

We’re quite lucky living in the area of this area of the city because there are lots of different restaurants within a 20 minute walk from our house.  We can choose between tacos al pastor, 3 sushi restaurants, Asian, charcoal grilled hamburgers, Yucatecan, pozole & antojitos, roasted chicken, steak tacos or Syrian food–and I’m sure there are more options if we continue looking. When we chose this area, we didn’t realize how close everything was, but we’re really happy we ended up where we are. 

Either I lack a green thumb or I have yet to figure out exactly what “quince dias” means in Spanish.  Normally quince dias (15 days) means 2 weeks and when I bought my pineapple plant, the vendor told me my pineapple would be ready to eat in 2 weeks.  Well, that was 2 months ago and the stupid pineapple is still not ready.   Here’s a picture of it from last week:

I think it has gotten bigger than when I bought it, but the sucker is still really green.  I’m starting to think that they just glued a plastic green pineapple on top of this shrub and it’s just ornamental.  Hopefully it will be ready soon because I would like to enjoy the fruits of my patience (I’d say labour, but there hasn’t really been much labour involved).

On the other side of the garden, my tomato plant has been thriving:

These are my lovely, organic, salmonella-free Mexican plum tomatoes!  We had some on BLTs last week and they were super tasty. 

As a side note, due to the US import ban on Mexican tomatoes, we have been enjoying premium quality tomatoes for about $0.30 a pound.  Why are the tomatoes unsafe to eat in the USA, but OK for the Mexicans to eat?  Well, the big difference is what we do to our veggies before we eat them.  In Canada and the US, most people rinse off their veggies with some water to get the dirt off and then they are ready to eat.  Water doesn’t kill salmonella so when salmonella contaminated veggies are sold in the US and Canada, the risk of being infected is really high.

Here in Mexico, we’re a bit more cautious.  Fruits and veggies tend to have more bacteria and dirt on them than you would find in a grocery store in Canada.  So, most people use either Iodine, Chlorine or a Bactericide to kill all the nasties that are on the outside of the fruit or veggies.  When I clean my vegetables, I use a big plastic container, bottled water and iodine drops to make sure my vegetables are happy and germ free.  Of course I also take some precaution when shopping by avoiding veggies or fruit where the skin has been split as salmonella can get in these splits and my iodine water just won’t do the job. 

You are probably wondering why so many people tell you not to eat fresh vegetables in Mexico.  I eat salads in restaurants all the time here.  Truth be told, there is the risk that you might get sick from a restaurant that didn’t clean their veggies properly.  But think of this, that restaurant is their livelihood.  They are not going to risk their business by cutting corners and not cleaning their food properly.  If they are serving salad, then you can be pretty confident that they are treating their vegetables before they serve them.  Of course you always have to be careful about where and what you eat–but that’s for another post. 

I’m off now to enjoy some premium, Grade A export quality tomatoes now–properly washed of course…

My good friend from SLP is in Canada until the end of the month and Don and I volunteered to dogsit for a few weeks while they are gone.  Fortunately Luna the dog is small and she’s great fun to have around.  We’ve given her a Canadian name “Wiener Dog” and she seems to really like living with us so far.  We decided to call her Wiener Dog for two reasons:  the first reason is pretty obvious, but the second reason needs a little more explanation.  We use “wiener” to refer to anyone that is being silly or stupid and the dog can definitely be a wiener some times, so we call her Wiener Dog.  Every now and again, we call her Luna just to remind her of her roots! 

When Luna first arrived, she spent the afternoon whining and missing her family.  But after one evening with us, she seemed to settle right in and by the next day, she was barking at the neighbours and trying to protect our house–although I’m not certain she can protect us from anything bigger than a small rabbit, but I’ll give her credit for trying!

She likes to stand up on her back legs and beg and she has discovered the glass in the centre of our table so when we eat dinner she sits under the table and stares up at us.  She’s like a shadow too, wherever I go in the house, wiener dog is not too far behind.  Her biggest dilemma is when both of us get home from being out, she’s not sure who she should run to and ask for a belly rub from first!

Of course it’s not all perfect.   When we go out, we leave her in the back yard and she seems to think that if she tries to dig through the screen door that she’ll somehow get into the house.  Yep, she has destroyed the screen door for our patio door in one corner and I’ll have to get the whole thing re-screened, but I’m going to wait until she’s moved on to her next foster family.  Fortunately for her, she’s really cute otherwise I’d be ordering a giant bun from the bake shop and having a weenie roast