stealing it softly

Last year, I visited a local doctor about a pain in my left heel. She said it would most likely go away on its own. She prescribed no treatment and no medication.

We then talked a bit about some of her community projects. When our conversation got to that natural ending point, as all conversations do, I asked her how much I owed her for the consultation. She told me, and I paid.

As I was leaving, she took on a very serious face and told me that recently she has experienced something new. Northerners, who have arrived recently, will come into her office to discuss their current health. They inevitably bring a long list of prescriptions. She will often spend a half hour or 45 minutes with them. And then they leave without offering any payment.

That was the first time I had heard of that type of behavior. I told her that people in Canada and the United States may have become so accustomed to someone paying for their health care that they do not think about how medical care works in other countries.

Being gracious, she smiled, and said I might be correct. But it did feel a little bit insulting.

I thought of her last week. I visited my favorite telephone-computer guru here in town. I had experienced trouble resetting my password on one of my multiple Telcel accounts.

When I arrived there was another northerner talking with him about the various ways to buy telephone time in Mexico. The conversation then switched to a series of problems the northerner was having with his telephone. My guru walked him through each of them. The northerner missed a lot of the information because he was intent on arguing that the Mexican telephone system was all wrong.

I do not know how long the full exchange took place, but I waited for twenty minutes. When it was over, the northerner said "thanks," and simply walked off. My guru just stared as he left. Having received what he wanted, the northerner simply walked away without paying -- the technological equivalent of a dine and dash. According to my guru, it happens to him more often these days. Always with northerners.

Because I am a generous sort, I do not ascribe bad intentions. In both cases (the doctor and the telephone guru), I suspect that it never enters some minds that the consultations were exchanges of expertise. That expertise is a commodity that has value.

The same people would never think of picking up a diamond watch in a jewelry store and walking out the door without paying for it. But that is exactly what happens when we seek expert opinion and that opinion is given.

Let me offer a gentle reminder. If you seek out advice from a professional, the coda of your conversation should be: "How much do I owe you?"I can almost guarantee that you will be pleased with how low the price will be.

It is just another blessing of Mexico.    

having betty and phil over for dinner

I have a confession to make.

I love telenovelas.

At least, I think I do. I have never watched a single episode of Mexico's serial television episodes of lust, passion, lust, relationships, lust, class distinctions, and well -- lust. But saying I love telenovelas sounds a little bit classier (and more Mexican) than confessing to having been duped into watching soap opera after soap opera.

What other explanation is there for my choices of Roma, La Casa de Papel, and Downton Abbey? There was nothing in any of those story arcs to keep my attention. It was all about relationships. Only about relationships -- and the worst aspects of celebrity infatuation.

So, I did not surprise myself last night when I sat down to watch the first episode of the third season of The Crown. For those of you who may have escaped its Jupiter-gravity pull, The Crown is a ten-year Netflix project to capture the life of Queen Elizabeth II (Queen Elizabeth I to the Scots amongst us) in the amber of television digits.

The first two seasons have been filmed and aired. The third season premiered yesterday.

The series is the most expensive television production in history. And the lavish sets and costumes leave no doubt the money has been well-spent (other than the occasional obvious clunker where the American White House looks as if it was filmed using Tara as a stand-in).*

But the story is pure soap opera. Lust. Passion. Lust. Relationships. Lust. Class distinctions. Lust. I suspect we viewers think because the characters are not stuck with Mr. and Mrs. in front of their names, but instead are HRM, HRH, and his grace, that we will not notice that the dialog is little more than tittle-tattle lifted from the headlines of The Sun and The Mail. Still, we watch. I watch.

I told you I was going to view only the first episode of the third season. I did. But not "only." I ended up watching seven of the ten episodes. There is something about telenovelas that is binge-worthy.

And that is not the only thing I binged on.  A night at the movies deserves a good dinner.

By coincidence, I had discovered that my favorite grocer, Alex at Super Hawaii in San Patricio, had stocked some new Italian products. Alex is a smart guy. When the United States started tacking random tariffs on goods, he decided to cover his marketing bets by looking for other sources of goods for his customers. Britain and Germany were his initial sources.

His Italian shelf on Sunday included various sizes of well-crafted pasta. I bought several varieties.

I then saw something I have not seen in years. Jars of  datterino giallo and pomodorino giallo -- the yellow plum and cherry tomatoes that give several Italian dishes their distinctive taste. Mexico may have first cultivated tomatoes and introduced them to the rest of the world, but Italians turned the fruit into a culinary marvel.

The sight of the jars triggered one of those memories that lie dormant in my mental food closet tucked under two unused winter coats. On 10 August 1973, I left Athens to drive to my new assignment at RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. I remember the day because the president had resigned the day before.

I took the ferry from Patras across the Ionian Sea to Brindisi and then spent about a week exploring Italy. Just north of Rome, I stopped in Fiano Romano for lunch. I do not recall the name of the restaurant. It was nothing fancy. And it certainly was not a tourist attraction.

What I do recall is my first taste of spaghetti all'ama amatriciana. It was a simple dish. Yellow tomatoes. Bacon. Pickled pepper. A small sprinkle of grated pecorino romano. Simple, but memorably delicious.

I have attempted to replicate the experience, like some opium addict forever chasing The Dragon. I have never been able to re-live that same experience -- because it is an impossible quest. The memory is in my closet, and it does not want company.

But, I have learned from those experiments. If you have a high-quality pasta, the sauce is simply an adjunct that will bring out the flavors of the pasta. It should be simple, and it can be made of any ingredients that will suit your palate.

Last night, the foundation was an easy choice. I used the jugged Italian tomatoes I had just purchased at Hawaii along with some fresh cherry tomatoes to freshen up the taste. Shallots. Onion, Garlic. Ginger. A serrano. Kalamata olives. Italian green olives. Bacon. And some feta. All of that seasoned with basil, oregano, and thyme -- with a dash of balsamic to finish it off. I then folded the sauce into some fettuccine.

It worked.

I almost added lemon zest. I am glad I did not. It would have taken the taste in an entirely different direction. But, if I try something similar in the future, I will probably add a bit of fish sauce to the balsamic. Without it, the balsamic was just a bit too sweet; it probably augmented the natural sweetness of the tomatoes and onion.

Lord Mountbatten once described the food served at Buckingham palace as having "less flavor than nursery food." I hope that Betty and Phil were not offended with my choice of dinner.



* -- The White House substitute is actually an English manor house in Essex -- Hylands Park -- that makes the White House look like the provincial lodgings of a renegade nation. But the series seems to bear a 250-year grudge about American independence -- including two episodes designed to knock down Jack Kennedy's legacy a dozen pegs or so.
  

o sole mio

My hubris may not be as bad as Niobe's. But it is in the running.

I am sure you remember her. The Theban queen whose boasts before the gods ended up in a list of Homerian tragedies. Six dead sons. Six dead daughters. Eternal weeping. Turned into a rock.

Job thought he had it bad. At least he did not end up stoned.

By that standard, I am just a modest pensioner trying to make some sense of a confusing world. Except when it comes to my electricity bills. Then I Niobe up.

The CFE guy pushed my two electric bills for September-October under my front door this morning. I did not even need to look at them to know what I would need to pay the government-owned electric company in the next few days. 42 pesos on one; 43 pesos on the other. Or, for those of you who still think in those terms, less than $4.50 (US) for two months of electricity.

The amount is what I would pay if CFE supplied all of my electricity and I decided to shut the house down for two months and turned off everything that used power. It is the CFE's connection fee for all customers -- whether or not they use any of the CFE-provided power.

As most of you know, I no longer need to use any of CFE's power because I installed a solar array that has been my sole source of electricity for the past six months.

I was not certain I could write that last sentence with the veracity of Sister Teresa. When we installed the array, I purchased enough panels to meet my maximum historical demand. Even with that calculation, I suspected I might need to draw on the energy credits I have been banking with CFE during most of the year.

It turns out the arrays are sufficient to meet my maximum demand. And I did put some demand on the array this summer. As you can see by the usage graphs on the back of the bills. That is not the profile of a green advocate. Especially, since most of the electricity went to power the air conditioner (one of the most-polluting appliances) in my bedroom. Air conditioners make Greta weep. Just like Niobe.

Of course, my power is not free. Certainly not until I recapture my capital investment. By that time, I suspect there will be a sizable tax on recycling dead solar panels -- another of those activities high on the pollution list.

So, the power is not very green, and it is still expensive to produce (until I recapture that rather large capital outlay for installation). But it is still a cool toy.

And I hope by falling back on a fatuous argument like it-is-cool will be an excuse good enough to keep me from being turned into the weeping cliff Algodón. We already have too much of that.

going a bit fruity

You are probably thinking the same thing I did when I saw that photograph.

It could be the cover of the November Bon Appétit -- under a headline: "6 Holiday Soups You Can Make Without A Bit of Arugula."

But, it isn't. It is simply my daily produce purchase from Hawaii. This time, fruit only. And that is unusual.

I am not a fan of fruit. Sweet foods hold little interest for me. The big exception is limes. We go through two dozen in about three days. If the house were not an alcohol-free zone, I would think someone was making a killing in daiquiris.

Even though I do not care for fruit, Omar is quite partial to it. The apples and the mandarins were for his school lunch and snacks.

But the oranges were for me, not him. I had purchased what I thought was an excellent piece of pork loin that called out for Cuban treatment. By that, I do not mean beaten and then tossed into jail. I was thinking of pork marinated in sour orange.

Unfortunately, sour oranges are very difficult to find here. But we do have oranges and limes, and they make a passable substitute. Combined with rice and black beans (along with an appropriate measure of the aptly-named habanera), it would be a dish that had it been offered to Hernán Cortés, he may never have set sail from Havana, and Moctezuma XXIII's signature would appear on the visas of tourists driving down from Huron, South Dakota.

Pork is my favorite meat to work with in Mexico. It has a porky taste that I remember from my childhood. But pork loin (or lomo) is a tricky piece of meat. My butcher always grimaces when I request it because he knows that even when cooked perfectly, it can easily turn tough as shoe leather.

To retain its tenderness, it needs to be cooked for a very brief period at a high temperature -- and without liquids. That is why it is a perfect candidate for stir-frying.

I skipped that method yesterday. Instead, I decided to cook it under pressure for three minutes in the Instant Pot.

There are as many marinades for Cuban pork as there are recipes for carne adobada. I alter mine each time I make the dish. Sour orange juice and zest (or or a combination of lime and orange). Fresh oregano. Garlic. Cumin. Habanero (of course, with its capital-inspired name). Salt. Pepper. And one or two other things that I do not recall this morning.

I should have realized I had a problem when I cut the loin into three pieces. My freshly-sharpened knife labored to slice through it. I was successful only by cleavering it.

And I was correct. When it came out of the Instant Pot, it was cooked perfectly with a nice rosy hue in the center, but it was just as tough to eat as it was to slice.

My original plan was to serve it sliced atop the rice and black bean dish I had just made. Without bragging (but I will), it was one of the best rice dishes I have concocted. But the disparity in texture with pork would not have been a good combination. So, I diced a few slices of the pork, mixed it in with the rice, and then topped it off with a cabernet au jus from the freezer. It was palatable.

This morning, I tried an experiment. In the past, I have noticed that if a piece of meat is tough while hot, sometimes it will become tender when cold. To test that theory, I made a bowl of cold pork and rice for breakfast. It was superb. The meat was still a little chewy, but it had somehow turned tender in the refrigerator. And, while cold, I could taste each layer of the marinade on the pork.

I guess my bottom line is that even though I am not fond of fruit, it can often make a great adjunct to salvaging a meal almost-gone-bad.

As Julia would say: "Bon Appétit!"

thrilling me softly

I am not a sentimental guy. Or, so I say.

But my periodic ramblings on things nostalgic belie that claim.

It happened again last night.

Our weather pattern here on the Mexican Pacific coast has been a bit akilter. November is a tad warmer than usual. By mid-October, I usually turn off the air conditioner in my bedroom at night, throw open the door to the patio, and live beneath the breeze of my ceiling fan until mid-December when even the fan rests until late in the spring.

Not this year. I have tried turning off the air conditioner three different nights during the past two weeks, but only for about ten minutes. Then, it goes back on.

Last night may have been a turning point. We had had drops of rain during the afternoon yesterday. Just enough to barely dampen the sidewalks enough to raise the memory-inducing petrichor. It is better than the smell of oranges at Christmas. But it was just a rain tease.

By November, our rains are usually at an end. But we were treated to one in the evening. Not a tropical sewer-washer. Just a soft pattering that would have felt at home with a brogue.

And that is where the nostalgia part of this tale kicked in. I do not know if it was the mist or the imagined accent or just one of those moments where memories intrude on the present. But, for a moment, I felt as if I was back in my seventeenth century cottage in the foothills of the Cotswolds, where I learned the rejuvenating nature of tea.

So, I brewed up a pot of ginger green and sipped it while eating a cookie or two while watching the rain fall on the surface of the patio pool. Sitting quietly. Just listening.

Until I had had enough of that. I ran down the list of my DVDs and decided I would sponsor an eccentric double feature film festival just for me. The Darkest Hour (Gary Oldman's take on Churchill during Britain's -- well, darkest hour) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (with the badly-drawn Jessica Rabbit).

The Churchill choice was obvious. Rain. Tea. Memories of the sceptered isle. But, Roger Rabbit? I told you my choices are eccentric.

It turned out to be a pleasant evening. And it is the answer to those people who ask me: "If you do not drink alcohol and have not been on the beach in years, what can you possibly do in Mexico?"

A lot. All I need is a little rain, and to then stir it gently into an essay.
  

red=stop, green=go, yellow=go real fast

It is an old joke. But it is no less true because of it age.

And it appears to be a universal rule of driving. No matter the country in which I have driven, traffic control devices only partly control what drivers choose to do. Mexico is no exception.

As far as I know, the flow of traffic through Melaque on highway 200 has not been impeded by electronic signals since the highway was laid out. That all changed last year when two intersections entered the era of nanny government.

The signals are quite sophisticated. They have to be. They manage the control of traffic coming from eight lanes at one intersection and six at the other.

This summer I discovered, almost to my cost, that it is dangerous to assume that because a driver has a green light, drivers coming from other directions will comply with red lights. Not true.

I was driving Ed and Roxane over to La Manzanilla for dinner. We stopped at the intersection where Calle Alvaro Obregon meets Highway 200. I waited for the light to change and then started to turn left onto the highway.

I am not certain what made me take my foot off the accelerator. Intuition. Pilot instinct. Movement out of the corner of my right eye. Whatever it was, it was the right choice.

A white delivery truck barreled through the intersection, barely missing us. Followed by a second one. Had I not paused, someone else would have been writing on Facebook about the terrible accident on the highway.

About a month ago, I was waiting at the other controlled intersection behind an SUV with northern plates stopped at a red light. The driver noticed that the traffic to her right had started moving. So she did, as well. And ran into another SUV that was turning right. She failed to notice that she still had a red light. The traffic on her right was legally turning left on a green arrow.

With those two personal experiences in my memory backpack, I decided to do an informal survey at one of the intersections -- just to see how drivers were complying with the signals. I was going to stand there for an hour.

The hour stand did not happen. After about 12 minutes, I had had enough of the sun. But that experience gave me a better appreciation of the jugglers, windshield washers, vendors, and beggars who spend most of their day out in the heat.

In the brief time I stood there, I saw a good sampling of what I expected to see. Almost everyone complies with the signals. But a large portion do not.

The most common violation is driving through red lights. On each signal change, at least three cars in succession drove through the intersection immediately after the light turned red. But that behavior is common throughout the world.

The more dangerous maneuvers are the motorcyclists who will pass stopped cars and zoom through the intersection weaving between the cars entering the highway. Or the cars that ignore the red lights on the lateral streets and nearly collide with cars entering the lateral legally.

I did not include the several cars that stopped on a red, cleared for other traffic, and proceeded through the intersection. As if the light were a stop sign. I have done that myself. The trick is adequately clearing. Common sense trumps the law. I suspect that is exactly what the motorcyclists are thinking when they violate the red wall. Despite all of my tut-tut-ing.

Today's essay does have a moral. If you come from a culture where everyone complies with traffic signals (I assume that place would be on some planet far, far away), you may make assumptions that could lead to harm.

If you have a green light at those two intersections, carefully assess the offensive array that may be aimed at you before you enter the intersection. Right of way is a very tenuous argument when talking to the surgeons in ICU.

Similarly, do not assume that moving traffic next to you means you can also move. Left-turn lanes here are usually to the right of the main traffic flow. Moving at the wrong time is a good way to test out just how responsive your insurance agent is.

I love driving in Mexico. I moved here because I wanted to live in a place where, when I got up in the morning, I have no idea how I would get through the day. Driving here has perfectly met that criteria.

One of the first driving lessons I received from my father came with a moment of philosophy: "The moment you put your tires on the road, you are a dead man. If you return alive, it was a good day."

Here's driving with you, dad.  

wait a minute, mr. postman

This is not the photograph I wanted to show you this morning.

Today is one of my favorite worker holidays -- Mexican postal workers to be exact. This is the day we recipients of everything mailed get to recognize the people who bring us the wanted and unwanted, and send off our letters and packages to people who often may as well be living in another geological era.

The mail has long been my favorite government service. I suspect it started when I was about six. I had shipped off some box tops and a dime to receive some now-long-forgotten doodad. Whatever it was took three to four weeks to arrive in a large envelope addressed to "Master Steven Cotton" -- and thus was I introduced to the Emily Post of Post Toasties.

I was hooked like a prostitute on crack. People, whether friends or strangers, would send me letters or cards or birthday gifts directly to my parents' postal box in Powers.

The post office lobby had a gum ball machine that was managed by my mother's father. I would often make the rounds with him of all the machines owned by the Lions. It never occurred to me how a town of less than 1500 residents could justify all of that over-sweetened chicle. But it was time I could spend with him -- in the post office.

During my five years in the Air Force, the APO system was usually my sole life line to The Other World. And almost daily, there would be letters, magazines, or banana bread from my grandmother. Even when mail workers would go postal in The States and take out their anger on their formerly-living colleagues, I never lost my attraction to the post office.

And it has been just as true here. I have had my current postal box for almost a decade now. If you are an occasional or regular reader, you know how often I tout its virtues.

So, when 12 November rolls around, I am ready to swoop down on the post office to distribute peso-stuffed envelopes to the men who work there in thanks for their faithful service.

I happened to be in the post office yesterday to mail birthday cards. Rather than wait for today, I left one envelope with the new postmaster -- whose name just slipped my memory, and an envelope for long-term postman Julio, who was out on deliveries.

I dropped  by this morning in hopes of shooting them for a portrait that would introduce you to the two of them. But the rather rustic (and admittedly colorful) sign on the door informed me the post office was closed today. As we know, for postman day.

So, the best thing I can offer you is the closed sign -- and a reminder of what day it is. It may not be too late for you today (or tomorrow) to catch up with your local postal workers and give them some tangible appreciation for what they do for you all year.

There may even be something from those three pixie-rascals on the front of the Rice Krispies box waiting for you in your postal box.