Nancy in Pátzcuaro

I've always controlled white fly with yellow sticky traps, available from mail-order nurseries (and Amazon, of course). I have one on a tomato plant right now that's almost full and I should replace it with a fresh one. The other 2 tomatoes don't seem to have a problem, or at least a problem yet. It's inevitable, though. The biggest problem I have is leaf miners--the leaves look terrible but it's mostly cosmetic right now, at least until the entire plant is affected. By then the tomatoes will have been harvested. Nice little tomato--Siberian--from Seed Savers. The terminal "n" is important to distinguish it from a variety that is much less flavorful that we cold-climate season gardeners remember as not worth planting. I plant only determinate varieties because I have to grow them in pots under the portal to keep them from rotting from too much rain, although I suppose I could plant tomatoes in the ground during the winter when it rarely rains. Too late to do that this year, but I'll think about it next time around. The rain stops more or less in October, so it would be possible. January is our coldest month but even then it doesn't freeze. I remember that when we traveled from Florida to the Southwest in the '50s when I was a kid, we were surprised to find that there were agricultural controls in Arizona to prevent med fly. I also remember my folks giving up some grapefruit and oranges. Some things never change.

Eckhardt and Butts use volume measures rather than weight because that book was published before most of us found out about weighing flour for more accurate results. I've made notes in the book in recipes that I use a lot. You know, when I'm making bread I don't pay too much attention to measuring flour. I use the scoop method and adjust the moisture/flour consistency in the bread machine as it's kneading. Of course if I'm baking something like banana bread or cookies I'm much more careful about measurements. Generally I figure about 125gr. per cup of all purpose, but I've seen websites that have it at 145gr., which is a big discrepancy. King Arthur says 120gr. Is there one reliable source for that information? Everyone tells us to weigh the flour but no one has the definitive answer, or at least I haven't found it.

Yesterday all over México people were stashing the baby Jesus in their cheeks while eating their slice of rosca (the traditional cake). I think it's a skill that Mexicans have learned through practice, and one that we expats have yet to master. The best we gringos can manage is to not break a tooth! Around here the tradition is to have a tamale party on Feb. 2, but I think having hip replacement surgery is a very good reason to decline.

A book I use all the time is Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine, by Linda West Eckhardt and Diana Collingwood Butts. It's an old book--1995--but the breads are wonderful. I make the Jewish Rye all the time. They have many recipes requiring a sponge/poolish/biga/etc., so it's clearly possible to use a starter of some kind. When I make bread that requires a starter, I mix it in the pan and leave it to do its thing, and then finish the recipe by adding the rest of the ingredients. Works fine. I don't know the availability of a cookbook this old. My machine is a very old Hitachi, HB-201, vintage probably late '80s/early '90s. A real workhorse. I had to replace the bread pan once but otherwise it's been quite reliable. I only use it to mix and raise the dough, baking on a pizza stone in the oven. I never cared for the loaf that bakes in the pan because at 7,000 feet the crumb was inconsistent top to bottom (even after adjusting for altitude), and there wasn't much of a crust.

A follow-up to my earlier post. I just put 35 gallons of turkey stock in my freezer in a gallon ziplock bag. In cubes, of course.

I've just finished the first batch of turkey stock from our not-Thanksgiving-not-Christmas-not-New-Year's-Eve meal for 16, and I want to give you guys a tip. I cook the bones and vegetables down to concentrate the broth and then freeze it in ice-cube trays. Sort of frozen bouillon cubes. I never have enough freezer space, so several years ago I realized that I can add water to these stock ice cubes and save a ton of space. The reduced stock is jelly-like and very intense. The usual suspects--onion, celery, carrot--plus bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, garlic (whole unpeeled cloves) thyme and parsley, but no salt, to make a concentrated neutral stock. Of course you can use this technique with beef or lamb or pork bones. I just happen to have more poultry bones. We don't eat much meat from what a friend calls "the farty animals."

Flatbreads and Flavor is one of my favorite cookbooks. There are many badly stained pages, and a couple of places where the book just falls open to a recipe. Like the recipe for pita, for instance, and mapo tofu.

I just bought the Kindle version.

Yeah, I don't read the magazine so these recipes were new to me. But I take your point.

I haven't bought a cookbook in years, even though I had a large collection. When we moved from Colorado to México I culled the collection down to the absolute faves. So when a friend, whose cooking abilities I respect, recommended a book I bought it. Cookwise: Throw it Together, by Christopher Kimball. I know a lot of people have had "issues" with him, and I admit I've been one of them at times, but this cookbook is worth looking at. The concept is to use a minimum of ingredients (and how many of us are fed up with the "5 ingredients or less" recipes) which are high flavor and contribute intensity to an otherwise simple recipe. Capers, anchovies, fish sauce, garlic (lots), red pepper flakes, oyster sauce, chile garlic sauce--a lot of bang for the buck, the point being that if you're only using a few ingredients they have to pull their weight. The recipes I've made have been tasty and straightforward, well flavored and surprisingly good. Not all of them, of course, but of the ones I've tried only one was underwhelming. The sections, Chicken, Pasta, Seafood, etc., are divided by technique--steamed, charred and boiled (green beans--wonderful), seasoned under the skin (whole chicken), tray bake (aka sheet pan dinner). None of them require long cooking times. I've been impressed. All recipes make 4 servings, except for some of the pastas which serve 4-6. As usual, your mileage may vary. But it works for me. Doesn't mean I also don't want to make more labor-intensive meals, but sometimes I follow the advice of the book--throw it together.

Three years ago I made quince jelly. Quince is readily available here in the summer, when small vendors in the mercado show up with the products of their family trees. This was my first experience with quince and I liked it very much. I poached some and used the rest for this jelly. 6 c. quince, packed, grated with peel 4-1/2 c. water 1 Tbs. lemon or lime zest 1/4 c. lemon or lime juice 4-1/2 to 5 c. sugar (I found the larger amount was better) 1 tsp. vanilla (stir in at end) 1/2 tsp. cardamom (optional) 1/2 tsp. nutmeg (optional) 1/4 tsp. cinnamon (optional) Working around the core, grate the quince until you have 6 cups. Bring the water to boil and add the quince, lemon juice and zest. Reduce heat and simmer until quince is tender, about 10 minutes. Add sugar and bring to boil again, lower heat to medium-high, and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until jam turns pink and is thickened to desired consistency, about 30-50 minutes. Stir in vanilla and add optional ingredients, if desired--choose only one or two. Ladle into jars and process for 30 minutes (this is altitude adjusted for 7,000 feet--check your Blue Book for lower altitudes). 6 jars. This is a little rough at first but matures nicely over time. I am still using the jelly and find that it's more refined than it was at first. Excellent with cheese. (By the way, I almost always add vanilla to my jams and jellies. Especially good with strawberry.) I just realized that I'm out of quince jelly. Rats--I missed the season and will have to wait until next year. However I'm well supplied with fig jam, so it could be worse.

We camped there many years ago and like it. Was the HEB in Eagle Pass? I think we saw one the last time we crossed the border, which was in October. HEBs are amazing stores. I think there's one in Leon, about 3 hours from us. If we ever decide to go shoe shopping in Leon we'll look for it. By the way, Leon, Guanajuato, is the main center of leather good--shoes, purses, jackets, etc.--in this part of México. There's an entire large mall of nothing but shoe stores. Dangerous place.

I have had problems cooking garbanzo beans--they soften but are often kinda chalky and dry. Because I have access to very fresh dry beans I no longer soak them beforehand. Could that be part of the problem? Back in the day, before we moved to México, I used to brine beans, which I found to make a superior product. Should I be doing that again? I do enjoy how easy it is to cook these fresher beans, but I would like them to be creamier, if there is such a thing with dry beans. Thanks for your advice. (Something tells me that you'll tell me to go soak my beans!)

Just received a nifty new cookbook--Aguas Frescas and Paletas--and there's a recipe for persimmon popsicles. 3 c. ripe persimmons, roughly chopped (I assume these are not the pudding type but I'm sure it could be adapted), 2/3 c. coconut milk, 1/3 oat (or other plant-based) milk, 2 Tbs. maple syrup, 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg. The recipe also calls for 1/2 c. puffed amaranth but I'm sure you can leave it out. Combine ingredients (except for amaranth) in a blender and buzz until smooth. Pour into molds, insert stick, and freeze. If you want to use the puffed amaranth, stir it into the mix. I suppose it gives a little crunch.

Some years ago (15? Yikes--) when we were in Ecuador we discovered white pineapple. Sweet flavor, somewhat more subtle than the yellow varieties. I've never seen them either in the US or in México. I think I heard that they are sometimes available in Hawaii.

Oh, dear God. We can end this thread right now--nothing could be worse than this. I think it's the deviled ham that did it for me. Or the Worcestershire sauce. I especially like the way that 18 donuts will serve 6-8, which works out to 2 or 3 donuts per person. Is it possible to eat 3 of these?

Thanks for that interesting link. It points out that our ancestors, due to necessity, developed techniques to use the wild (and then domesticated) plants in their environment. Not just meat, which in most eras of human existence was a "luxury" item--wonderful when you could get it but not an everyday thing--but everything edible. Most folks were vegetarian most of the time. Must have been a lot of experimentation going on, some of which ended badly. Who was the first person to eat an artichoke, which is after all not much more than a jumped-up thistle? Why would you even consider it as edible? I suspect many things become edible if you're hungry. The other reason it's interesting to me is that my husband's name is the same as another ancient wheat, one with more chromosomes than eikorn. We've always wanted to grow it but have never had the time, resources or property to do that.

Agreed.

When we bought our house, along with a lot of furniture I inherited a full set of Emeril cookwear. Sturdy, heavy as hell, with a thick copper pad sandwiched between the stainless base and the pan body, and entirely satisfactory. My husband prefers non-stick cookwear so he can scrub away to his heart's content, but I think he's remembering the bad old days of nonstick pans. In any case I'm not going to replace the Emerils, even though the high-sided saute pan (I guess you could call it a chicken fryer) is almost too heavy for me to pick up one-handed. Depends on which hand, of course. I also still have some of the old Revereware but I usually don't use them. The only one I use is a tall saucepan that works well for popcorn. And then there's cast iron. Three skillets, a wok (don't ask), a dutch oven, and a comal (griddle) that I use constantly. It lives on the stove.

I buy 3 kilos of oats at a time and have no trouble using them up. Do they go stale? Do they get moldy? We've just started the rainy season, when the humidity is routinely over 60% even when it's not raining, so if there's any place where oats would mold it would be here. Oats don't seem to go off in any way. I always include them in breads, and given that we eat oatmeal for breakfast about once a week we finish the 3 kilos and have to go back for more. (We have a wonderful bulk store in Morelia.) And I also use 2-3 tablespoons in the blender for our smoothies. So if you use oats in that way, in bread and oatmeal breakfasts, I'd say stash them away in a "cool dry place."

When we moved from Florida to Colorado, my father quickly discovered that there's a reason they call them the "rocky" mountains and that the pole hole digger he brought from Florida was useless. When we lived in Salida (7200 feet with 14,000 foot peaks to the west (beautiful views), I used to say when we were (trying to) plant a tree that we were digging up a buried civilization. Big rocks down to China. Now that we live on the top of a hill in Pátzcuaro I've discovered that we must live over a former pyramid, not that we're digging up artifacts or anything like that. Just more big rocks. My sister and brother-in-law used to live in Iowa, and when they wanted to make a rock garden they asked us to bring rocks from Colorado. Yes, there are big rocks to remove when we want to plant something other than a seedling, but we can pretty much garden year-round. It gets a little brisk in December-January, but I've had tomatoes that have lived for a year or more before I pulled them up. Our biggest problem is the rainy season, when we get too much rain. So I can't complain much beyond minor grumbling.

I have a real problem with people who claim an "allergy." In the past I had an "intolerance" to wheat, caffeine and red wine (sad to say), but I never claimed it was an allergy. Over time I became able to eat wheat again (thank goodness) but I still avoid caffeine and I've lost my taste for red wine (though I expect I could drink it without a problem). I still remember a New Yorker cartoon of two women walking, and one of them said, "I don't know what gluten is, but I'm avoiding it." Unless you have celiac disease, you can eat gluten. In my case it made me uncomfortable, but I don't call that an "allergy." True allergies are serious, sometimes life-threatening (peanuts, shrimp in my mom's case), and not a joke. One shrimp would have sent my mom to the hospital. I have to commend you, Patti, for your restraint. I don't think I would have been so generous. Turns out you can live without caffeine. Makes it so much easier to wake up in the morning.

As my late mother-in-law used to say, "Bacon is different."

Aha--that may be the answer. I honestly don't know which subscription level we have--my husband did the ordering several years ago. I'll check it out--thanks for the responses.

Please excuse me if I rant for a second. I am awfully tired of clicking on a New York Times recipe, only to discover it's behind a paywall. We have a digital subscription, and a few years ago I grudgingly paid a separate fee for the crossword puzzle, but I'm annoyed that many (most) of the recipes I'm interested in are unavailable. I wonder if those same recipes are available in the printed version, in which case I feel discriminated against. Digital subscriptions free the company from the costs associated with printing and distributing the print version, not to mention what happens to the paper when it's discarded. Has anyone else bumped up against this annoying problem?