La Ventana November 5, 6, 7 - time for some food

 Saturday, November 5 

was a simple day of paddling in a strong win on the SUP boards, and an easy, 10-km bike ride north.  The northern area we got to had a small grocery store called Oscarito’s.  The mission was to find some Pacifico beer and tequila!  We also topped up with some things like fruit, jam, and fig newtons (today’s price mistake at $14 for the package :0).  Then Graham took us to his favourite pescadero or fish store (actually “fish monger”) where we picked up some white fish:  bass and yellow tail and something else I forget!  Three double filets totalling around $21 or $7 for a very large serving.  Certainly fresh!

I had two goals for the trip:  1) to practice Spanish with native speakers, and 2) organize a cooking class.  The evening we arrived a woman who works here, Asusena, agreed to do a cook class with me.  She randomly was acquainted with me, but I would learn on Monday that she was actually quite the experienced chef!  We had arranged for some meatballs or mole sauce, but at 3 pm when she was due to arrive, she apologized profusely using the google translate app on my iPad saying she was unexpectedly called to her evening job at a local restaurant and she had to “use her wings” and fly.  

The cooking lesson was abruptly cancelled, but we decided on Monday at 11 to reconvene. I heard from my niece, T, that she had a request for more food blogging, so I was looking forward to start collecting culinary tales for this blog and took a picture of some of the food containers I had already collected.

Anything interesting here you might have a question about?

Sunday, November 6

was prearranged to meet up with some people (primarily Canadians!) and Graham’s kiteboarding teacher Daniel at “Kilometre Zero”.  

Bike trips start early so we headed out at 6:30 am and met the group for a coffee.

The nice thing for me on this trip is that people really hardly speak English. I’ve really got to listen carefully and do a lot of guessing!  The barista made me a delicious “cafe descafinado”, a term I learned when I travelled to Chile with work over about 15 years ago.  Easy for me to reminder.

The group members we assembled with were from Port Moody, Yukon, and Chemainus (Vancouver Island).  What a small world, I thought!  We took two vehicles and a trailer and went south about 20 minutes and went up a small mountain with a really great view.  It was a 45 - minute climb, and I was happy to be able to keep up with the gang.  Four of them decided to go a bit further, and I hung out with the butterflies and bees and enjoyed the space.  

Thinking about the food blog I was to write I happened to pass the largest cow pie (caca de vaca) I have ever seen in my life!  My first cow pie was at a cousin’s farm when I was about 10.  I hadn’t known the word for it until then, but it was a reasonable pie-sized disc.  Unlike the HUMONGOUS specimen I HAD to take a picture of seeing that “what goes in, must have to come out” — especially when you’re a cow. 

I don’t know what that cow ate, as most of the vegetation is cacti — some of the largest in the world; 

I’m enjoying using my “Seek” app to identify plants, and my Merlin Bird ID app to listen to the birds in the morning.  This morning I enjoyed listening to red northern cardinals and yellow ruby-crowned kinglets to the list I already compiled!

After taking some group photos, we loaded the bikes, and prepared to return.

With Daniel’s local knowledge, we stopped at a local grocer with the freshest, warmest, puffiest tortillas, and blocks of cheese and freshly made salsa and fresh mango frozen bars, oranges and bananas.  Now we’re getting started!

We were super hot by the time we returned, but I really wanted to go for lunch.  We were super hungry as we didn’t eat that local food, but observed Daniel take it home for lunch.  We knew we had enough food back at the ranch, but I still wanted just a little snack.

Since it was lunch time, I suggested we go try a mom and pop food stand so I could try some locally prepared cuisine.  As I discussed with my son, J, I know it’s a hit and miss food poisoning opportunity, but I thought I’d try one of their tacos, and hope that this wasn’t the day I’d be hit with worms or a food borne illness.  (Spoiler:  we were fine!)

I decided on this trip to take a hiatus from my switch to vegetarianism during COVID.  I thought I would just eat whatever looked good.  We had a choice of fish, prawn, or octopus tacos.  I’m sorry to tell you that we both chose octopus, which came in little deep fried pucks on a heated tortilla.

Behind us, the waitress/owner, Elvira, (in Spanish) invited us to use the veggie buffet to top off the bare tortillas.

 We have noticed that mayonnaise is unrefrigerated here, and seeing all of these amazing looking, unrefrigerated toppings got me thinking about the potential acute gastrointestinal illness about to be had, but the people around us were eating ceviche, and I continued on with my choice to take this risk, and here is the meal we proceeded to fill our tastebuds with and enjoy every single bite.

 Elvira invited us back to try the other things on the menu; I took a picture so I could look them up, but the platters around us were certainly enticing.

I got my first open water swim since Covid in around 5 pm.  The water was warmer than any oceanic water I have swum in.  It felt like a “teach pool” at a swimming pool I’ve given lessons in — very very warm, and interesting seashells, rocks, and fish flexing their bodies and tails back and forth.  I started wondering how hard it would be to learn how to use a spear gun… Another popular thing someone staying in our building has offered to do with us.  The sea water was the saltiest I think I’ve ever experienced, but I didn’t feel especially buoyant like when I swam in the Atlantic in 1992.

We cooked the fish for dinner, and it was fresh and amazing — of course!

Monday, November 7

Mondays are the days I’m regularly scheduled to study Ukrainian, so I started my homework in the morning anticipating my 11 am meeting with Asosena.  I had booked a study buddy appointment with a Displaced Ukrainian I had met at my Fall Fair event the week before, but that wasn’t until 3, so I challenged my brain with Ukrainian before my Spanish lesson started.

Asosena was punctual and recommended we walk the 2.5 km to the “super” to get the items we would need.  After studying a website, “Top 30 Most Popular Mexican Foods - Best Mexican Dishes” I was able to choose some menu items for our class.

I asked her if we could make tamales and mole sauce instead of meatballs because we ended up eating them the night she had to cancel.  I thought she would be driving, so I hadn’t put on sunscreen, and I worried I’d get sunburnt, but in an hour, I ended up being ok. Talking with Asosena without google translate was a challenge, but it was fun, and we got to know each other; I found out Asosena is 41 has a son the age of my sons and quickly became a kindred spirit.

In the store, we discussed what to buy, and she got beef “castles” and chicken from the stand-up freezer.

Asosena skilfully chose the bags of random proteins, and we chose regular things like onions, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, but three kinds of dried peppers: pasilla chile, calfornia rojo chile, and chile verde. 

After deseeding the chiles, Asosena soaked them to rehydrate;

 she assured me were not hot — I trusted her, and was pleasantly surprised at how flavourful the recipe turned out without pretty much any heat!  While she boiled the proteins because they were frozen (adding spices she brought from her kitchen: pepper, cumin, garlic, onion and oregano to the stock),

she also soaked the corn husks for the tamales.

Next she prepped the chicken broth with water, onion, consomme and let it simmer.

You can see how fast she was working in the blurry photos.  Reminded me of the time my sister took pictures of my grandmother making bread.  She worked so quickly that the photos my sister took  of her hands were blurry as well.  I praised Asosena about the rapidity of her work, and she told me she used to run the high school meal programs solo.  Solo in Spanish means alone, but I wondered if I had missed something in our conversation because I couldn’t imagine how anyone would be able to produce so many meals for so many people — especially when she recited the long list of dishes she prepared each day for the students.  I actually started to realize how serendipitous it was that I met her, asked her to cook with me, and got to work in her productive and rich smelling kitchen (her expression: “rich smells” or “huele rico”). 

BLENDER TIME Number 1

Asosena chopped an onion, tomatoes, and threw them into a blender with some stock and the hydrated chillies creating a beautiful red sauce.

Time for the tamale masa dough

Asosena’s order of operations was impressive.  Onto the tamale dough.  I laughed as she confidently shook about a half bag of “MASECA” (corn flour), a quarter of a tube of lard, and some of the red sauce and expertly kneaded the dough into an orb she covered with a plastic bag to sit and rest while she moved onto the next phase.  “Esta lista,” she taught me:  “She is done!”  Onto the next task.

It was funny to watch her invent vessels with the minimal supplies I have in this kitchen. She was so inventive, finding a plastic bin for her dough bowl, for example.

Prepping the chicken stock, it was time to take out the pieces of chicken from the stock and set them aside:

Consecutively, She had placed the chopped  selection of vegetables, potatoes, and a couple of tablespoons of lard,

lightly heated them in a frying pan and let them sit.

BLENDER TIME Number 2

It occurred to me that every Mexican kitchen needed to have a blender for more than margaritas.  As Asosena prepared the jar of mole sauce I bought during my very first shop (she originally told me she would never use a “pot” of mole — it was only proper to make your own — and promised me she’d teach me about the mole sauce next lesson…she spooned the contents into the blender and added some of the red blender sauce she had waiting on the side AND some chicken stock

moving back and forth to add all of the chicken stock so it blended into the prepared mole sauce, and finally putting the chicken pieces back in.  “Esta lista,” she repeated — again, “She is done.”

TAMALE FILLING

After removing the beef “castles” out of the pot, Asosena cut the meat off the bones and put into the frying pan of veggies and transferred the panful back into the beef stock pot adding the last of the red sauce.

TIME TO FILL AND TIE THE TAMALES!

The softened husks were the housing for the dough and filling.  I watched Asosena deftly spread the dough adding spoonfuls of sauce to thin the batter, then fold up the tamales, make shredded leaves for the ties, and put them to steam in a big pot! If you want to see a video of how she tied them shut, please ask!  She let me help, and I was grateful of years of rolling cabbage rolls, so my learning curve was not so steep.  I could tell she appreciated my beginners efforts!

Mixing the dough and adding in some sauce from the “carne”.

Spreading the dough onto the husk.

Adding the filling.

Closing the pouches.

And more slowly: 

Uno, dos, tres, y listo!

Cleverly without a steamer, Asosena put about three inches of water in the bottom of the pot, threw in a pot lid to keep the tamales getting boiled, and covered the lid with extra husks.  They steamed for about 45 minutes, and had such an amazing flavour I can hardly begin to describe.  And, as promised, not “pica” or spicy — just right!

Delicioso!

BLENDER TIME Number 3

Just because there wasn’t enough to do, I had bought a cucumber, and she offered to make some cucumber lime juice:  “Agua Fresco de Pepina.”  Of course everything went into the blender with some sugar packages I had brought along, and some freshly hand squeezed limes.  You’ve got to try it!

Adding sugar - ended up being five packages; also squeezed in three or so mini limes.  Presto!

It was approaching 3 pm (we met at 11 am), the time Asosena had to leave to go to her night job, but she had just enough time to sit down and enjoy the fruits of her labour.  She even made time to plate the chicken mole with a sprig of cilantro and some rice I had pre-prepared.

I told her how lucky I felt that I had met her, and recalled seeing a Tweet that morning about how practicing gratefulness is so good for one’s well being.  I should be very well because of this exchange with Asosena.  At the end she asked when she would be coming back next, and we exchanged some WhatsApp texts later where I sent my thanks and appreciation, and Asosena gave gratitude for me saying, “I have no words to thank you for this opportunity to meet you and live with you; you are a great lady — a thousand thanks [sic]”…”It is a pleasure for me to teach you.”

Well I guess I met my goal on only Day 5 of the trip and learned a lot of Spanish today; I also participated in some pretty awesome Mexican food prep with an incredible person.  I am so grateful.