October 29, 2011

Archive

My first cleansing fast

This is my first ever cleansing fast, and today is day 12. I have learned so much about myself doing this – I heartily recommend a fast for getting control over your eating and cleaning the toxins out of your body. (Although some people shouldn’t fast – for example those who take Coumadin or blood pressure medication) I read the book Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself and got further inspired to give...

Salitre and the tropical household

Salitre is a fact of life in the tropics.  When we moved here we had very little idea what it takes to deal with salitre in a climate like ours. What is it?  It is the powdery stain that leaches through the paint – basically salts moving out of the mortar and concrete through moisture.  Sometimes the moisture is coming from a leak – and sometimes it is from the humidity, rain, or groundwater seeping up.   This patch isn’t...

What’s going on in Mazatlán?

It is late October and that means that snowbirds and folks who like to get out of the heat for part of the summer are returning. (I was going to say returning in droves but to use it with snowbirds seemed wrong… I would have to use flock…. oh, forget it!) Anyway, on many aisles at the grocery store – every time I walk on the malecón – pretty much everywhere – I am greeting someone who has been away....

Tour Mazatlan’s Centro Historico – The Pino Suárez Mercado

This post, about Mazatlán’s Pino Suárez Mercado (market) is the third in the tour of Mazatlán’s Centro Historico. Of course the market would be included on my tour of Centro Historico… but there are several special reasons why I decided to do this post today. Let’s go to the market! At the top of this post is a picture of the exterior of Mazatlán’s Pino Suárez Mercado.  This 1899 structure was built of iron and steel in the art nouveau...

Kitchen Tips: Slicing Jalapeños and Limes the Sinaloa way

  • October 12, 2011
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  • Food

I’ve got bad hands.  Well, actually, I have sensitive skin.  But I like my peppers – serrano and jalapeño being my favorites.  I don’t like to wear gloves, so my strategy is to cut peppers quickly and without having to have my hands on them for very long. I thought I’d show you how I handle peppers to get most of the meat and save my hands, too. 1.  This is the way I use most often. (See above)  Slice...

ToniCol… Sinaloa’s local cream soda cola

  • October 10, 2011
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  • Food

I like cream soda. I like root beer. I like cola. I don’t know how they did it, but ToniCol is like all three rolled into one. What is ToniCol? It is a local vanilla flavored soda invented by Antonio Espinosa de los Montero from Rosario, Sinaloa, around 1870. Rosario is a town about 30 miles South of Mazatlán, and is also the hometown of the singer Lola Beltrán, and a pleasant afternoon outing. But even if Rosario is the...

Tour Mazatlan’s Centro Historico – SoFlo area

In planning this blog post I had a bit of a puzzle – what to call the area in Centro that is West of the Plazuela Machado but South of Angel Flores? Paul had a great idea, taking off from SOHO in New York (for South of Houston), SOMA in San Francisco (South of Market) and SODO in Seattle (South of Downtown.)  So, we hereby christen this area SOFLO for South of Angel Flores (or, perhaps in Spanish SUFLO?) Do...