Tamales

We moved here armed with 2 Mexican cookbooks and a great determination to learn to cook the cuisine while we were here.  

And we did get an excellent start on it!!  Those who have been following us from the beginning will remember Kevins' hilarious account of using the washroom right after working with chiles.  Yes, he learned the hard way why men here wash their hands both before and after using the washroom!

The honest truth, though is, I lack motivation.  I can get some of the best tacos in the bay right down the street and  the only effort I have to make is to put one foot in front of the other for about 15 minutes.   A 5 minute drive gets us to Valle Dorado where the options to taste authentic Mexican food are endless.   I'm talkin' GOOD Mexican food.  Not the stuff one often finds in the tourist zone, made by people who know they will never see you again so why try anyway.    Made by cooks who know that their business is only as good as their last service because word in a small town travels fast and even a poorly made tortilla could stop people coming to their spot.  And, it is inexpensive.  So why go thru all the effort in my own kitchen?

After 7 years here, our knowledge of Mexican Cuisine is mostly limited to knowing which restaurant or taco stand has "the good stuff".

There is, however, one Mexican Food challenge I have been working to perfect - Tamales.

Even though, every night, there is a truck at our Oxxo, selling Oxacan-style tamales, we have yet to try one.    Our reluctance to do so stems from our first weeks here, when  we would buy tamales from a vendor who passed by our apartment nearly every day.  They were wonderful.  Until the day Kevin bit into one with a whole, uncleaned shrimp hidden inside of it.  So whole, the antennae and shell were still on it.   Thus ended our love of the tamale lady, and tamales in general.

We don't buy tamales anymore, but the flavour still haunts me.  Plus, I love the concept - Little bundles of corn husks, hiding more corn  and filling inside.  They are tasty snacks that are nice to have on hand, and, they re-heat beautifully in the microwave!

Perfecting this particular Mexican food has become my challenge,  and, for the most part, I have had pretty good reviews.

As a matter of fact, my Ecuadorian girlfriend liked them so much, she set aside a whole afternoon so I could teach her how I make tamales.  (Yes, this the truth!)  We made a fairly large batch and she took half home.    In an uncontrollable fit of generosity, she actually shared our hard work with a Mexican woman in her condo.  A couple of hours later, the woman returned.  Not to thank her for the gift, but simply to tell her that they were dry, period.   Suggestions, tips, insider secrets....????   Sigh.

So, today, another try, at less dry tamales.  Armed with a pot full of leftover braised pork shoulder, I tried again.

For todays version of my tamales, I used Alton Brown's recipe on FoodTV.com as a guide.  The braised pork and liquid were from earlier in the week, and the masa recipe I took from the bag of Tamale Masa.

My results while not entirely authentic, are a very tasty attempt, which at the end of the day, is really all we wanted.

How the system REALLY works - or not.

Something that has always bothered me about Mexico is the number of people standing on street corners and public markets begging for money "for their operation".    Having been born in a country  where health care is a given,  I really did believe that those people begging for medical money had, in fact found a way to use their disabilities as a source of income.   After this mornings conversation with our gardener, I am not so sure.

It seems he and his wife are caught in a loop of red tape which I will try to explain.  You may think you are reading Abbot and Costello's "Who's on First" routine but honestly, no one can make stuff like this up.

You will recall, our first and unsuccessful attempt to give blood was in the Seguro Popular in San Pancho, in the state of Nayarit, which is the home state of our gardener and his wife.

Due to a medical emergency which could not be dealt with in San Pancho, his wife was rushed to the Pitillal branch of Seguro Popular, which is in the state of Jalisco.

At this bright, friendly hospital, which I quite liked, our gentle gardener and his wife were lead to believe that they would perform the operation to remove her tumour once they had donated the allotted blood.  We left the hospital feeling confident that our blood would complete the requirements and the operation would proceed.

OMG, not so fast.!!!  Now that the Jalisco branch of the hospital has our blood, and our gardener and his wife have exhausted ALL avenues for donors, the powers that be have decided that her operation is not urgent enough and she must go back to hr home state and the San Pancho hospital to have her surgery there.  

Uh-oh, a red light.  Had to know it was coming.

One would think that isn't that much of a problem, all the blood has been collected and credited to the patients name, so.... they can just ship it out to the other hospital.   I think most reasonable people would deem this a logical solution to a rather small problem.

Trouble is, the hospital in San Pancho does not seem to want to do the operation.   They have even gone so far as to issue a false document stating our gardeners wife had been scheduled for an operation in April for which she failed to show up.  

Our gardener swears there was no appointment in April, and I believe him.  Why would the hospital have scheduled an operation before enough blood had been collected?   Predictably, some administrative dummy in Jalisco has decided to accept this piece of garbage as the truth, which is complicating matters even further.

Needless to say, our conversation with our gardener this morning was not the positive one we had been anticipating and because he was so angry, he was speaking so rapidly it was difficult to follow the whole story.   Lucky for me, our maid was also here and she was able to fill me in on some of the details I was unable to get.

Spiny - how our gardener felt this morning!

She tells me he will go to the Recursos Humanos, which, as I understand it, is a Human Rights commission to see if anything can be done.   Hopefully, they will help him, but I fear things will just drag on so long that it will be faster for us to just wait until we are able to donate blood again!

There are times when Mexico really shines and there are so many things that make this country great, but honestly, Mexico, this time, you have failed miserably.   Shame on a hospital system that treats its patients so poorly, and shame on the government for allowing it to happen.

Strong words for an outsider, but, based on this event, I do feel that my opinion is justified.

Fat Cats looking down on the general population?

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Preparing for travel Getting an International Drivers Licence

In less than a month, we will be flying back to Canada to visit with our families and friends.  This is the first time in several years that we have been able to make the trip together and we very excited to be able to do so.

Of course, we will want to rent a car when we get there, which we cannot do without an International Drivers License.  Oh dear,  this means we have to deal with an office in Spanish again.   Honestly, we do pretty good at the day to day stuff, but office speak is something we are still learning.  So many terms for so many things.

Step One - figure out where we go to get one.  Thanks to Google, this didn't take long.  Once we found the website, it took a bit of effort, but Kevin did a masterful job of translating exactly what we needed to do.

Step Two - That is the one where I call the Mexican Auto Club in Mexico City to confirm Kevin had correctly translated the written instruction and to find out how to make payment.

It isn't difficult for anyone here to tell Spanish is not my first language, but knowing that does not prompt them to speak any more slowly.  As a matter of fact,  it seems to have the opposite effect.

Pen in hand, I scribbled half sentences, key words and pin numbers like a mad woman, trying to keep up with the CSR's rapid fire speech.  Then I reviewed my scribbles with her to fill in the blanks and make sure the information I had written was correct.  This only took 2 or 3 more attempts at the same conversation, but I was pretty sure I had it all down correctly.

So far so good, we thought we were making excellent progress.

Step 3 - This is the one where we take pin number the CSR had given me the day before and  $928 pesos into a specific bank and make our payment to the auto club before we courier the whole thing off to Mexico City.  Just when we thought everything was going smoothly...  

The teller could not find the pin number in their system.  Hmmm.   It is already a hot day, and little snags like this just make it seem hotter.  We left the bank with Kevin steaming ahead of me, in total disbelief that I could not write a number down correctly.

Why did we not think to bring the phone number to the auto club with us!!?????

Not wanting to admit defeat and go home without making the payment, we ended up at a nearby Starbucks where with my iPad and their free internet, we could get the phone number and call them toll free, thanks to the magic of our Telmex "pay as you go" phone.   There were a few more tense moments when Kevin realized how low the battery on my iPad was ( apparently 16% is not good in situations like this), and the length of time it took to get a connection.  By now, people were politely trying not to stare as we nattered at each other about why the connection was taking so long, but eventually, we did connect to the internet and people lost interest and stopped staring.

Finally we connected, found the phone number and very soon, I was chatting with someone at the auto club who verified the number the teller had just declined was, in fact valid.  Resisting the urge to turn around and shout "I WAS RIGHT!!" to you know who..., I requested a new number.

Step 4 - Repeat Step 3, but with a different pin number.  Surprisingly easy and we were in and out of the bank in under 5 minutes!

Step 5 - Take receipt from bank, copies of passport, drivers license, proof of address, and $460 pesos to DHL.  Ship it away and wait.

Step 6 - Give instructions on finding our address over the phone to the DHL driver as he drives through the neighbourhood honking his horn looking for our house.

In all, the whole process took less than a week, and except for the snag at the bank, it went very smoothly.   Alberta roads here we come!!