chewing the chicken

Enough with the wildlife.  It is time to talk food.

During the past year, I have been away from Melaque so often that I have become accustomed to to restaurant plates.  And I have the girth to prove it.

I can count the number of meals I have cooked at home during the past three months on one hand.  Actually, one finger.

That is too bad.  Because I love to cook.  And I am quite good at it.  Even when my mother and brother visited me in April, I did not cook.  That was a missed opportunity because my brother is quite accomplished around the stove.

I finally decided enough was enough.  I would enjoy a bit of home cooking. 

I visited the new butcher shop I featured in what's your sign?  He had plenty of specials.  Beef and pork feet.  Pork loin.  Minced beef.

But it was the chicken breasts that caught my eye.  If you have never eaten chicken in Mexico, you do not know how good chicken can taste.  My grandmother would kill chickens from her coop for dinner.  I had almost forgotten that taste.

Chicken is considered a special treat here because it is relatively expensive.  But it seems a bargain to me.  Those two fat breasts (boneless, skinless) cost me 45 pesos.  Or about $3.60 (USD).  I doubt there is any supermarket in The States that sells this quality of chicken at that price.  I probably could have put the period after "chicken."

With vegetables fresh from the field (onions, baby zucchini, yellow and red bell peppers, carrots, a poblano chili, a jalapeño, garlic, ginger, and tomatoes), I whipped up a chicken hoisin that could have fed an army.  And the soldiers would have been pleased.  I now have a freezer full of my own Stouffer's meals.

I eat out in Melaque primarily to do my part to help the local economy.  But I am going to start taking more of my meals in.  After all, it is hard to find a restaurant to compare with my own table.