So we’re tackling “Operación Roger Aprende Español”. Every morning, with Malena’s guidance (and copious coffee) we tackle a page from a dictionary (it has pictures!!) that is split into topical sections. So far covered the calendar, numbers, and dates. Roger is incredibly confused.
Intestinal Fortitude
We got munchy at the mercado while picking up some veggies and decided to try out a couple stalls. There’s no shortage of food on hand inside and out. Fritada, cevichocho, breads, higo sandwiches, the list of nibbles on site is a long one. Roger randomly chose a stall with a large pot of unidentified yummy somethings and as it turns out those yummy somethings were potatoes cooked with intestines. Served with mote and beans topped by a heavy dose of curtido. It was a huge bowlful for $1.25 and delicious. Although incredibly salty. There was so much intestine and it was so filling Roger actually couldn’t finish it all. He ended up bagging the last of it off for stray dogs on the way home.
So yah sometimes when you just point at a dish, you kind of have to just go with what they hand you. And it can be surprisingly delicious.
Washer Fully Operationalish
Since our container arrived we’ve been trying to get setup with our limited space. Huge bonus is having our rather heavy duty monster of a front-loading washing machine up and running finally. Although sadly it wasn’t a plug and play setup. Roger was hooking it up and just before running a test load, discovered that a screw had come loose on the front panel, causing the entire front panel to bend outward every time the door was opened. So when dismantling the panels to re-attach, he discovered there was not only 4 shock holders in place but a heavy duty shipping bracket bolted inside. The bracket is beastly. A heavy angled hunk of steel that looks as though it could be a boomerang from the Thunderdome.
These are to protect it’s internal components from rattling around too much during shipping which is honestly kind of awesome. All of them have to be removed before operation. Can’t imagine what would have happened if we’d fired it up with them still inside. As first time washer owners it would have been great if, you know…..anyone at the store had told us. It was kind of a blessing in disguise the panel was loose, or we might have found out about them the hard way.
After getting all that sorted out and running a test load, he also discovered the drain hose had a few gazillion holes in it, as well as the PVC pipe it drained into. After an emergency ferreteria (hardware store) run for caulking we patched it all up. 24 hours to cure properly and not a leak in sight.
Except a dribble running from the front door.
&$^#@$^&^@*&$@^#(#%(^&*@*(&^%$#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cook, Cook, Boom
So we finally broke down and replaced our little underpowered 2-element electric stove top. The little thing served it’s purpose but rarely could we use it without having the power drop off for a bit and leaving our food semi-warmish and half-done rather than cooking.
We now have a little countertop 2-element gas burner. It’s normal here but Roger just has to get used to having a 30lbs explosive under the counter.
Leche to the Max
Since getting our little fridge hooked up we dove straight into cereal-land. Nothing like cold milk and we’ve been experimenting with different kinds here to see what’s good. So Roger being Roger, on the hunt for milk and not knowing what to look for on the label grabbed a couple random bags at the store. Discovered that one was whole milk. Ok no problem. The other was a milk and whey “drink” concoction from Ta’Riko. Or at least something resembling milk-like. Supposedly.
Maybe. It was kinda hard to tell but at least the word “leche” was there.
Took a while to build up the nerve to try it and the verdict: damn tasty. Tastes and feels like whole milk with the added bonus of driving Max insane with the smell. Max loves dairy, some more than others. Something about the smell of it drove him absolutely bonkers which is always a fun sight to see.
Storagerator
We are actually using our large fridge as a cupboard. Until the hostel is built there’s no place to put anything and it’s been raining too much for Roger to build any shelving. Good to have most of the boxes gone at least. And now we have a crisper drawer full of canning jars.
Brewing Update
So have contacts for brew supplies. At some point we’ll actually get the right type of gas tank regulator and finally get brewing!
Chilli-ing
So one of the fun parts of shopping at the mercado is just how inexpensive fresh vegetables are. We could walk out with bags full for under $5. So when we asked for 25 cents worth of chilli peppers the vendor filled a small bag with handfulls of peppers. Peppers here aren’t super spicy and we go through a fair bit but not that many, there had to be 20 or more in the bag.
To use them up before they go bad, Roger whipped together a sauce with what we had on hand. The results were a yummy surprise. The flavours are mellowing nicely and it goes great on rice with soy sauce.
Recipe:
- “Boatload” of chillies
- 5-6 small limes
- 8-10 cloves of garlic
- 1 large carrot
- 1 medium purple onion
- 1 large green onion
- 100-150ml of white vinegar (guessing, just sorta free-poured)
- 2-3 sprigs of baby celery leaves
Blend it, boil it for a few minutes, let cool and blend some more if it needs it. Due to the size of our tiny blender we had to blend half at first then cooked it all together before cooling and blending the rest of the solid veggies. Finally mixing it all together and bottling. Made just over 500ml of yummy sauce.
And Tali happened …
