cooking a piston engine

One of my favorite Monty Python blackouts is the "Been shopping?" bit.


Two women sit on a bench. One asks: Been shopping?


The other responds: No, ... I've been shopping.


First woman: What'd you buy?


Second woman: A piston engine.


For some reason, it is one of the funniest lines on television. And I have just been waiting to pull it put during a conversation.


But, as likely as the topic is, today is not that day.


I have been shopping, though.


Like many of you, the most frequent question I am asked is how expensive is it to live in Mexico?


Of course, the real question is: I have heard that an American can live in a beach house with a pool, a maid, and a cook for $800 a month. Does it cost that much?


I usually ask the questioner: How much does it cost to live in the Unites States? And the response is always: "It depends."


The same problem exists with the Mexico question. It depends on how you want to live and where you want to live.


Any more, I simply cut to the chase. I tell my friends that I managed to reduce my monthly living budget in Salem to $2000 a month. In Mexico, I have been able to save about 10% to 20% off of the prices I would pay in Salem.


Most of them get stuck on the first figure.


Let me give an example. I went to the fruit and vegetable stand on Wednesday. I purchased:

• 1 head of red leaf lettuce
  
• 3 bananas
  
• 6 limes
  
• 2 jalapeño peppers
  
• 1 red pepper
  
• 1 yellow pepper
  
• 3 cucumbers
  
• 1 head of garlic

And I paid only 40 pesos for the lot. Currently, one US dollar purchases about 13 pesos. My total was just over $3 US.


When I left Salem, one yellow pepper cost $2.50. I have no idea what the rest would cost.


So, you are probably asking: why am I not saving more than 10% or 20%?


If I became a vegetarian, I could probably save a bundle -- or a bundlette. (My food bill is only about 10% of my budget.)


What is missing from the list is meat. Chicken and beef are generally more expensive than in an American super market. The chicken is better in quality; the beef is terrible -- tough and tasteless.


Pork, on the other hand is a succulent bargain. And that was before the Great Swine Flu Husteria of 2009.


But, before we leave the food basket, I have an opinion to pass on.


Before I came down here, I was told that the fruits and vegetables were better-looking and tastier than anything in my local super market.


That is true for the fruit. The bananas, mangos, and pineapple are almost indecently good -- because they ripen on or near the source of production.


Not so much the vegetables. With the exception of the carrots and onions, vegetables have been a major disappointment. Most of them look like the vegetables you would see in the cart of a hip organic shopper mere moments before the produce would be chucked out the back door.


Looks are not everything. After all, think of how tasteless some good-looking vegetables are.


Well, I am here to tell you that the ugly vegetables here just do not have much taste to them at all. Like the homely girl whose personality is extolled -- these have no personality.


That was a bit disappointing. But I have managed to develop some recipes where liberal amounts of pepper flakes can disguise the blandest potato.


Perhaps, I simply need to learn how to cook a piston engine.