martes, 29 de noviembre de 2011

You Know You've Lived in Mexico Too Long When . . .

I saw this ad on the side of my email inbox.











I immediately thought to myself, "that would make GREAT Independence Day dress for a little girl!"




Oh . . . right.




It's a Christmas dress.




Oops!

jueves, 24 de noviembre de 2011

Destination: Xochimilco (y las chinampas!)

When in Mexico City for Independence Day weekend, Mario's family decided that they wanted to go to Xochimilco to celebrate together.

Xochimilco is on the very south side of the city. Its claim to fame are the canals that still exist there. When the Spanish arrived in Mexico, Mexico City was a floating city, much like Venice. When the region was settled, those living in the area built it, quite literally, from the ground up. They made rafts out of reeds, raked mud out of the lake bottom, put it on top of the rafts, and eventually made thousands of man-made islands. This was Mexico City in its hey-day. The streets were canals.

Then the Spanish arrived, drained the lake, and put their medieval city planning to work (you know, the kind of city planning where people dumped their trash out their window so it could rot on the street). We're still wishing the Spanish had at least listened to Moctezuma's city planners. Sure, go on with your world domination, but for pity's sake, keep the lake!

Anyway, the canals and floating islands (which will now be referred to as chinampas) still exist in Xochimilco. The flat-bottomed boats (which will now be referred to as trajineras) can be rented by the hour and are a huge tourist draw. So much so that the docks, canals, and trajineras at Nativitas are getting a bit icky.

So when my sister-in-law suggested that we take a tour with a company recommended to her by someone at the Waldorf school she works for, leaving from docks a bit farther south from Nativitas, we said, "sign us up!"

And what a tour we had.

First of all, it was a 5-hour tour. Lunch and drinks were provided. The lion's share of the lunch came right from fields grown on chinampas right in Xochimilco. The whole point of this company (www.delachinampa.mx) is to promote the organic products grown on these small farms in Xochimilco. Our tour guide said that only 2% of the fields in Xochimilco are currently being cultivated. If that figure were increased so that a mere 10% of the fields were being used, they claim that the entire population of Mexico City could be fed from products produced on that land. Just imagine the positive environmental impact that could have!

Furthermore, they believe in selling produce at a living wage. Most fruits and vegetables in Mexico are taken to a central de abastos. The central de abastos then sells fruits and vegetables wholesale to those who have fruit/vegetable stores, stalls in markets, corner stores, etc. The central de abastos sets the prices. Even if it costs a farmer 10 pesos to produce a kilo of carrots, the central de abastos can say (and often does), "we're buying these carrots at 3 pesos a kilo--take it or leave it." And farmers have to take it. There isn't much of anywhere else to sell to.

So yes, De La Chinampa's produce is considerably more expensive than other produce found elsewhere in the city. But it's an investment. And if it catches on, it's an investment that would reap huge dividends for everyone.

So if you live in Mexico City, think about getting together with friends, family, and neighbors and having some organic, Mexico City-grown produce delivered right to your house. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that community sponsored agriculture existed in Mexico City.

But if it catches on, wild dreams could come true.

viernes, 11 de noviembre de 2011

Surprise!

As of this posting, it turns out we are not moving. Overall, I'm grateful that I get to stay in the neighborhood, not have to bother about packing up everything and then turn around and unpack it. However, a teeny little bit of me is lamenting not living in that beautiful house across the street from the playground. But so it goes.

Even though I was not looking forward to the packing aspect of moving, I was looking forward to seriously cleaning out the house and throwing out crap that we don't need to drag with us. So on Sunday at church, when they mentioned that Caritas is having a big clothing drive this week, I decided that yes, this IS the week. We've got the clothes, I now know of somewhere willing to take boxes and boxes of used clothes, let's get this show on the road!

Yesterday I went through the kids' closet and storage hamper. (OK, since The Boy has yet to grow into most of his clothes, I was going through Clara's storage hamper.) As neared the bottom, gleaning my way to the sweet little 3mo-sized little girl mamelucos and dresses, I was aghast to see THIS on my favorite pair of Baby Clara's pajamas:




UGH! Fortunately it was very, very dead. But, ugh!

I had just been congratulating myself that, despite living in the desert, I have never seen a scorpion here, let alone had to kill one. Now, I don't know what this sucker was and, given the state of its petrification, it may have lost a few body parts (ie, I never saw a stinger), but those front claws do lead me to believe that it was a scorpion.

*shudder*

And it was in the hamper of baby clothes!

AAAAA!!!!

lunes, 7 de noviembre de 2011

Flan Flop . . . again!

I had been wanting to make flan for a few weeks now. But Mario isn't a big fan of eating mine, as he claims they're too sweet. Tomorrow, though, I've got a number of ladies coming over. They can eat my flan!

Or so were my plans this evening, as I made it.

It was rather fun to make. I love watching the carmel sauce bubble and turn from simple sugar and water into that beautiful, glassy, amber boiling, sweet mess. I love the fact that I can use 7 eggs in a single recipe--the decadence just gets me in a good way.

The recipe recommended baking it in a Maria bath, so I cushioned my baking dish inside a larger one filled with water, popped it in the oven, and waited out the hour that the recipe said it would take to bake. At 11pm, the hour was up, and I checked on the flan.

Every bit a soupy as when I poured it in the baking dish!

Now, I'm used to my oven taking a good deal longer to bake things than the average recipe indicates, but this is ridiculous!

I re-read the recipe, and I followed it to the letter. Then I checked out Joy of Cooking's "about custards" section. Apparently the water in the Maria bath was supposed to be scalding hot. Mine was straight from the tap. D'oh!

And hour and a half later, we're still baking.

I sure hope this is worth it.

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Come to think of it, I think I blogged about the last time I made flan, which also ended in disaster. This may be the end of Jill's adventures in flan baking. Grrr . . .

Huh . . . that post was almost exactly two years ago! I guess early November is flan season, at least in my head!


***************************************

UPDATE: This flan was AWESOME. It was soooo worth it. I may even make it again sometime before November 2013!

Like next week, perhaps . . .

miércoles, 2 de noviembre de 2011

Best. Dinner. Ever.

In our family, we don't do much for the Day of the Dead.

We live to far away to visit any loved ones' graves. As Mario never does it, I have a stinking suspicion that it would freak him out if I were to build an altar for our dearly departed. (However, whenever he kicks the bucket, you can bet that I'll be pulling out all the stops on a super-cool homage to him and other deceased that I've known. Don't worry--it's not ancestor worship. And I'm fairly confident that Clara would then be weirded out. *sigh* They're so alike.)

However, we do go to town with Pan de Muerto and this year I finally invested in some sugar skulls (one for me, one for Clara . . . they're too sweet for Mario).

As Clara was finishing her quesadilla and hot chocolate for dinner before bed, I had planned on suprising her by letting her know that we could eat some of the sugar skulls that had been on the table in the hallway for the last week. She was vaguely interested in them when I set them out last Friday. But tonight, surprise of surprises, she was adamantly against eating them. I tried to get a picture of her holding them--no dice. She wouldn't touch them. This is the same kid who has been talking about candy as soon as she wakes up every day since Halloween.

I did leave them sitting on top of the bread box, staring at her while she sipped the last dregs of her chocolate. She talked about them.

But then she decided, "yeah, I'm done. Let's go brush my teeth."

*sigh*