Les Salt

Oh, that's right! duh!!! Thanks for the reminder.

That lawyer connection IS a strange one. And here is another weird lead. I found an old bottle of Lizano that I had brought back from CA and the name Productos Agroindustriales del Caribe, S.A was listed on the label. When I Googled that it brought up this link http://www.bruncas.com/crexport/emp0670.htm Isn’t area code 506 in New Brunswick? Hmmm...the case continues. One thing I have had better luck with is ordering Costa Rican coffee beans via the Internet. I get it from a coffee plantation called Doka Estate http://www.dokaestate.com and I usually order the “Estate Peabody” beans. It makes the best cup of coffee going. Or you can phone the farm at 1-877-789-DOKA No kidding about those monkeys. The room I stayed in (on the west coast) had open windows and they used to run in and out and make total pests of themselves. But did you ever hear the SOUND that they make when they are asserting their “I’m the top banana” claim. The first time I heard it, it scared the shit out me! I’m serious. I thought King Kong himself was just outside my window. Then in pops this tiny little monkey the size of a chihuahua. Go figure. Hey, New Orleans is terrific. I was there for the jazz fest last year. Had a great time listening to music until dawn and then started the morning with a Hurricane Slurpee for breakfast. Doesn’t get more civilized than that. edited to fix link

Thanks Mayhaw Man. Let me know what you find out. The only place I even came close to finding Lizano in NYC was in a little place in Chelsea - somewhere near 7th and 22? 23? - sorry forget the name. It was a small Mexican restaurant that had a take-out section and Latin dry goods store next door. When I asked if they had Lizano, the proprietor said: "Oh yeah, we get a few bottles now and then but it sells in like, five minutes. We had to keep the bottles under the counter for our regular customers who were on a waiting list. Last time we brought in a case so it would last longer and the first guy who walks in, sees a bottle on the shelf and demands that we sell the whole case to him." I tell you this stuff is like drugs. Of course the store owner had no idea when they would get more, if at all. Seems to me like a typical example of what we used to call in our pre-PC days, "Polish Marketing". As in: Find out what the people want and don't let them have it. Myself, I've always enjoyed Costa Rican cooking. But in the days when I used to hang out there I didn't have to look for restaurants. I stayed with a friend who employed a woman from a nearby town as a housekeeper and she cooked like a dream.

Chiquitalinda mentions Lizano - the ubiquitous salsa product of Costa Rica. I have to admit I'm addicted to the stuff - especially now that BBQ weather is coming up but I'm having trouble finding any in New York. I used to pick it up (in the tall plastic containers) when I went to CR on treks and I knew a number of stores in LA that always stocked a few bottles. However, even though I've checked a number of places in NYC that carry food items from Mexico and Latin America, I haven't been lucky. Does anyone have a good source? Or know of a similar product? The last I heard, the Lizano had been taken over by Unilever. I don't know if that changed the formula or packaging at all.

Thinking back about the cheap pair of thongs, I mean tongs....do they ever come in singular, as in “tong”....my most indispensable item is a little bamboo version that I picked up in Chinatown for about 49 cents. I think of it as a life saver, or actually, my Dad trained me to think of it as such. Dad was an electrical engineer and he used to have a fit whenever he’d see us kids fishing around in the toaster trying to dislodge a stuck piece of cinnamon toast from the jaws of the heating coils with a metal butter knife. This was usually after we had just tripped over the dog and spilled our water or juice or whatever all over our bare feet, the kitchen floor, and the dog. “You want to turn into a human french fry? Use the wooden tongs!", he’d shout at us. These days I’m still coming home late, tripping over large snoring objects on the floor, knocking over beer bottles and then trying to make toasted grill cheese sandwiches in the pop-up toaster -- sometimes even remembering to remove the plastic wrap from the cheese first. So I figure that bamboo tong thing has saved my life at least more than once. I don't think the toaster is long for this world though.

That sounds like the time my sister deglazed the Thanksgiving turkey pan with the entire bottle of my Dad's Courvoisier.

Well, umami is a term that gets used quite a bit in the wine world. But I have a Japanese friend who says the old word for "umami" used to be MSG.