domingo, 29 de septiembre de 2013

Yaga--the marshmallow fruit!

A few months ago, I was at a friend´s house, and she showed me this huge, spiky, ugly fruit that her husband brought home on a whim.  We had no idea what to do with it, but dug into it, just to see how ugly it looked on the inside. 

It just got more and more interesting--but then came the goo!  Sticky, white liquid (rather like Elmer´s glue, without the smell) seeped out of every invisible fruit vein that me must have sliced through. I think we had to hold it over the sink to let it drain, then we were able to explore some more. 

The ¨meat¨ of the fruit started to look more and more like thin flower petals.  We braved it and tasted chunks, anxiously casting each other glances to see if we´d keel over from eating a part that was (unbeknownst to us) unedible.  No problems there.  The fruit was chewy and sweet.  It didn´t have much flavor, but the faint taste of that fake banana ¨flavor¨ (like that found in banana-flavored gum, popscicles, etc).  I know that turned most of you off, but, fortunately for me, I LOVE fake banana flavor. 

A few weeks after I had tried it at my friend´s house, I went to the store and was almost tempted to buy one.  It was pretty intriguing.  Furthermore, HEB must have gotten tired of people passing over their exotic fruits for lack of knowing what to do with them, as there was a full paper attached to the price sign, explaining what these fruits are. 

First of all, they´re called ¨yagas¨.  To me, they looked like pictures I´ve seen of breadfruit.  However, I´ve never seen breadfruit in real life, so I´ll take HEB´s word for it and call it a yaga.  They grow in Nayarit, a small state on the Pacific coast, just north of Puerto Vallarta.  But, given their breadfruit-y looks, I´m willing to bet that they have their roots in Asia.  HEB also informed me that yagas can be eaten while still green, mature, fried, boiled, steamed, mashed (basically any way one could possibly cook a fruit).  The yaga tree, or fruit--I´m not sure which--also provides latex.  So, if you have a latex allergy, do NOT attempt to eat one.

However, the thing is about the size of a hefty six-month-old baby, and when weighing it out for a price check, found out that it priced out at well over 100 pesos.  As intriguing as it was, I wasn´t going to spend that much on a fruit that I may or may not eat. 

Months have now passed, and HEB is continuing to wise up.  Today, I noticed quarter-sections of yaga.  And the price had gone down.  Considerably. 

Yaga, today is your lucky day.

I bought one.  Hacked into it and cut it up into chunks.  Word to the wise, that sticky stuff is a bear to get off one´s hands, knives, cutting board, etc.  Regular dish soap doesn´t do much to unstick anything.  JabonZote proved to be much more useful.  Pretty intense scrubbing was still necessary, but the gunk eventually came off.  Today.

The flower petal-y parts still proved to be intriguing, but still on the bland and chewy side.  But, while hacking up the yaga, I found the real jewel--each rock-sized seed was nestled in an orange bed of meaty fruit!  This must be the part for baking, frying, boiling, and mashing!  This part had flavor!  And texure that doesn´t make me worry about my digestive tract for the next few days!
Yes, it was worth taking a chance on the yaga.

I tried to talk Clara into it, by describing the flavor like a marshmallow--an honest description.  Contrary to her nature, she actually tried it!  And she said she liked it!  However, she did not have a second piece.  Joey tried a wee bit and, unsurprisingly did not seem overly impressed.

I, however, ate probably more than I should have eaten on a first sitting, so a follow-up post may have to do with what the yaga did to me.  Oops.  But here´s hoping that´s not the case.

So, as long as I´m not in the bathroom all night, I´m looking forward to having more yaga tomorrow.


viernes, 20 de septiembre de 2013

Dress Up Days and Independence Musings

I have been excited about Clara starting school for a number of reasons and one of them was for all the dress up days that Mexican preschoolers are expected to participate in.  First of all, there´s Independence Day, where all the children were asked to come wearing some regional costume.  There´s about 8 different regions in Mexico that all sport different ways of traditional dress.  Fortunately for us, Clara´s teacher asked that the girls wear a China Poblana skirt (typical from the state of Puebla).  Clara´s abuela made Clara and her girl cousins china poblana skirts for the bicentinneal three years ago--whew!  (Of course, if we didn´t have one on hand, we could have easily found one at the market downtown.)

The other dress-up days are November 20, where all the kids are supposed to dress like revolutionaries (as it´s the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution).  The boys all sport mustaches.  That´s my favorite.  Then they´ll dress up again on March 21st, for the first day of Spring.  Then they´re expected to dress like animals, butterflies, flowers, etc.  Kind of makes up for the  hardcore-ness of Revolution Day. 

Thanks to Clara´s homework the other day--we were supposed to tell our kids about Mexican Independence and then Clara was supposed to draw something about what she heard--this is the first Independence Day that she´s ever been clued into.  As in, she had a bit of a clue about what was going on and why.  I explained about the grito, when at 11pm on the 15th of September every year the Mexican president (and every governor and mayor) stands on the balcony of the National Palace, waves the Mexican flag, and shouts, ¨Viva Mexico!  Viva Mexico!  Viva Mexico!¨  (He also sends some shout-outs to the big-wig leaders of the Independence movement.)  The president does this in rememberence of Miguel Hidalgo doing more or less the same thing 203 years ago, kicking off the War for Independence.  Anyway, even a few days after explaining the grito to Clara, she remembered it, thought that sounded pretty cool, and nearly
stayed up to watch it.  Maybe next year. 

I was kind of sad that she wasn´t able to stay up and see the grito, too.  It´s very ¨pomp and circumstance¨ and would seem very silly except that it is really rather moving.  No matter what we think about the current president (who gets to do the grito), it´s still touching.  No matter how many thing we may complain about what may be wrong with this country, it´s a time that all Mexicans get together and boldly claim that this is THEIR country and they´re still proud to be Mexican.  Like I said, it´s a bit moving. 

And it makes me sad for my country, in a way.  Despite our fireworks and Fourth of July barbecues and Star Spangled Banners before sporting events, we have no one big ceremony to bring us all together like that.  (Then again, given the US´s rampant patriotism, maybe we don´t need that in the same way that Mexico does.)

So, in the end, I´m happy to be a guest in another country and grateful that I get to see the way that people in other countries get to celebrate being an independent nation, too.    

domingo, 8 de septiembre de 2013

We´re Back . . . with a survey, to boot!

After our yearly, month-long hiatus in the US, we´re back!  But with readjusting, getting used to a school schedule, wrapping our heads around friends leaving, I was just out of blogging energy. 
But then I remembered that I was tagged in a *5 Things* survey, and realized that this is a project that I can handle in my current, fragile emotional state.  (Don´t worry, I don´t think it will last long!)

So, because I´m still a sucker for a survey, here goes: 

5 Things I Have a Passion For:
  • my family
  • Mexico (despite that my continued residence in this country is currently driving me nuts)
  • a healthy planet
  • treating others well (or social justice, or just plain ´ol justice, if you prefer)
  • Drawing closer to my Creator, or contentment, or living in the moment, because they all seem to be connected.

5 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
  • Walk across an entire state on the Appalachian Trail
  • Do a cartwheel
  • Do a handstand/headstand
  • Go camping with my family, preferably at the Indiana Dunes
  • Live longer stretches of time in contentment

5 Things I Say a Lot:
  • WHY are you crying?  (I have a two-year-old who has the emotional range of . . . a two-year-old.)
  • chingao (but only when I drive--I swear!)
  • So . . . (I must begin most sentences with this, as my daughter does, too.)
  • 5, 4, 3, 2, 1  (The time frame I give my kids to comply with a request of mine, after I´ve warned them of said change of activity.)
  • So are you going to have ____?  (I´m a social eater, so if I´m craving something but know I´m not really hungry, I´ll wait until the hubs grabs a snack, or egg him on until he does.)

5 Books/Magazines I´ve Read Lately:
  • Yellow Rose by Gilbert Morris
  • Hermit Crab by Eric Carle
  • The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond
  • The Sunday newspaper
  • Managing Mexico by Sarah Babb

5 Favorite Movies:
  • Big Fish
  • V for Vendetta
  • Pride & Prejudice (both the Kiera Knightly and BBC versions . . . they both have their place)
  • The Illusionist
  • The Princess Bride

5 Places I´d Like to Visit:
  • Ravenna, Italy
  • I´d like to float in an innertube in a cenote in the Yucatan
  • Baja California wineries
  • I´d like to walk across at least part of northern Spain on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage
  • La Huasteca region of San Luis Potosi

5 People I´d Like to Tag:
  • Mami from Our Little Life
  • Amanda from Borders Aside
  • Krystal from Love my Husband More Than the USA
  • Linda Lou at Good2Go2Mexico
  • Sarah, the Greenga Girl
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Note:  While I was gone, my computer got a makeover and a new version of Windows was installed.  I´m so excited and this is working soooo much faster.  Awesome. 

          But on the downside, this version of Windows was bought in Mexico and has therefore changed my English keyboard into a Spanish keyboard.  Ugh . . . (On the upside, I can now write in Spanish and include all my ñ´s and accented vowels fairly effortlessly.)  But I do have a wrack my brain a bit to figure out where all the punctuation marks should be, as all the stickers on my keyboard are still those of an English keyboard.

          And, for some reason this will not let me highlight information, so I can´t link the abovementioned blogs.  ¨sigh¨    I´ll be working on this.  And working on figuring out where the star symbol went.

      But YAY for faster internet!