Today is stir fry day.
One aspect of Mexican life I looked forward to when I moved south three years ago was food. Or rather the raw ingredients for food.
Mexican food tends to combine about three different ingredients in varying manners. But they remain the same three ingredients repeated over and over. And, with time, they get rather boring.
But I anticipated the vegetables would be far tastier than in my Salem Safeway -- if for no other reason than they would be fresher. And I have not been disappointed. Freshly-harvested vegetables are available all year in my village.
Before I moved down, whenever I cooked at home (which was seldom), I started using the stir fry method. My goal was to cut down on the amount of meat in my diet and to increase my intake of vegetables.
However, I did not put that plan into full operation until I moved. The combination of a vegetable-intensive diet and a lot of walking resulted in 30 pounds coming off of my short frame in the first two months I lived in Villa Obregon.
Due to my recent travels, it occurred to me that I had cooked very few meals in the last six months. So, yesterday I did my first big vegetable run in a long time.
I have listened to my neighbors complaining about how expensive food has become here. That may be true. But my purchase yesterday seemed like a bargain.
You can see what I bought in the photograph. Two large tomatoes. Two white onions. Five carrots. Four small zucchini. Seven Serrano peppers. One sweet red pepper.
All of that for $33 (MX) or about $2.59 (USD). It is hard to compare those prices with Salem. After all, the cost of transporting the same goods thousands of miles north is not part of our local cost. But it still seems like a pretty good deal to me.
And it will be even a better deal when I stir fry the lot this afternoon with a little bit of left-over grilled chicken and a nice semi-homemade hoisin sauce.
Buen provecho to me.
One aspect of Mexican life I looked forward to when I moved south three years ago was food. Or rather the raw ingredients for food.
Mexican food tends to combine about three different ingredients in varying manners. But they remain the same three ingredients repeated over and over. And, with time, they get rather boring.
But I anticipated the vegetables would be far tastier than in my Salem Safeway -- if for no other reason than they would be fresher. And I have not been disappointed. Freshly-harvested vegetables are available all year in my village.
Before I moved down, whenever I cooked at home (which was seldom), I started using the stir fry method. My goal was to cut down on the amount of meat in my diet and to increase my intake of vegetables.
However, I did not put that plan into full operation until I moved. The combination of a vegetable-intensive diet and a lot of walking resulted in 30 pounds coming off of my short frame in the first two months I lived in Villa Obregon.
Due to my recent travels, it occurred to me that I had cooked very few meals in the last six months. So, yesterday I did my first big vegetable run in a long time.
I have listened to my neighbors complaining about how expensive food has become here. That may be true. But my purchase yesterday seemed like a bargain.
You can see what I bought in the photograph. Two large tomatoes. Two white onions. Five carrots. Four small zucchini. Seven Serrano peppers. One sweet red pepper.
All of that for $33 (MX) or about $2.59 (USD). It is hard to compare those prices with Salem. After all, the cost of transporting the same goods thousands of miles north is not part of our local cost. But it still seems like a pretty good deal to me.
And it will be even a better deal when I stir fry the lot this afternoon with a little bit of left-over grilled chicken and a nice semi-homemade hoisin sauce.
Buen provecho to me.
