Nancy in Pátzcuaro

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?

O Possibly, but this is mezcal/tequila country, not rum (unless it's in rompope). Granted, they're both made from sugar cane, so I suppose they are roughly equivalent in the outcome of consumption. Mainly a roaring hangover and a brutal headache. Not my cuppa.

Is it just me or did she pour a whole lot more than 2 oz. of bourbon in that glass? This is made worse by the fact that I don't like bourbon, but yikes-- Drink one of those and you will be over the legal limit!

I guess the only way to get Azufrado (I misspelled it) beans is to go to the coast of Nayarit right now. We have been there at most times of the year (not summer--too hot) and have watched the progression of crops being harvested, the fields cultivated, and then replanted with the next crop. Watermelon was the last crop this spring, and the fields were being prepared for corn and probably after that for beans. Quite the agricultural region. Glad to hear that Steve found them the same way we did! And oh, what watermelons! They were everywhere alongside the roads, piled up for sale, and in trucks being hauled away.

We just returned from the coast of Nayarit, where they sell a yellow bean called Azufado. Anybody heard of it? Nice bean, cooks up creamy and tasty. The harvest had just finished and there were signs all over offering it for sale. I haven't seen it anywhere else.

It has been a while since I made this, so it took some searching. This recipe makes one cup. The recipe is from David Leite. 1/3 c. very cold whole milk 3/4 tsp. fresh lemon juice 1 small garlic clove, peeled and minced 1/8 tsp. freshly ground white pepper about 3/4 c. vegetable oil or 1/2 c. vegetable oil and 1/4 c. olive oil Kosher salt Combine all ingredients except for oil and salt in a glass 2-cup measuring cup (I used a tall plastic container to keep down the splash). Using a hand-held stick blender, buzz on high for about 30 seconds until frothy. With the motor running on high slowly pour in the oil a few drops at a time, increasing this to a fine thread, moving the blender up and down until the mixture thickens and resembles a soft mayo. You may need more or less oil. Season with salt to taste. Keeps in the fridge for about a week. Variations include adding 1 cup of loosely packed cilantro and 1-1/2 inch peeled and grated fresh ginger; omit the garlic. Or add 6 anchovy fillets along with the other ingredients; omit salt. Or add 2 tsp. of curry powder; let sit in the fridge for about an hour so the flavor blooms. Or add 1-1/2 tsp. double-concentrate tomato paste with the oil, and stir in 1 tbs. minced oil-packed sun dried tomatoes. Omit the lemon juice. It makes a very satisfactory mayo-like product without eggs. Because it uses milk it's not vegan, but I wonder how it would work with non-dairy milks. Someone (not me) should try that. I don't think coconut milk would be the right choice, flavor-wise.

Baby water fowl are uniformly adorable little floating fuzzballs. I remember walking along the Arkansas when we lived in Salida (Colorado) and coming upon a mother merganser and her 5 or 6 little ones, bobbing along on the waves. She saw me, apparently said something to the kiddos, and all of them disappeared into the willows along the shore. One moment they were straggling along, and in an instant they'd disappeared. My parents, who were golfers, used to complain about the "goose poop" on the course. They like foraging on golf courses, and the inevitable poop just happens. Better geese than deer, I say. Geese don't eat your roses.

Has anyone worked with milk mayonnaise? It was very popular a while ago, and I admit to trying it and finding it quite acceptable for what it was, which was not really mayonnaise. I came upon the recipe recently which reminded me that I used to do it and haven't for a while.

Mexican cane alcohol is cheap and harsh, made from sugar cane and often used to dilute tequila. It had been used in major brands of tequila in order to avoid using the more acceptable (and expensive) blue agave, though I suspect that now that's no longer the case.. It's the drink of choice for getting drunk as fast and as cheaply as possible and I'm sure the hangover is brutal. I wouldn't drink it. Label looks old as if had some aspirations to quality but I wouldn't trust it. It was made in Torreón, in the middle of the country. Keep it as a curiosity for the label. Any idea why someone would have given it to your dad?

Be sure to click on Mushroom Butts and Seductive Radishes. Shocking that vegetables can get up to such mischief.

Sexy carrots? You be the judge-- https://www.sadanduseless.com/funny-carrot-gallery/?fbclid=IwAR1UVZ7RcTBDdf3cy-1qHpMBRBRkVRjvgvj0jxhApkvutVhHsg7LNryugfg

There used to be a guy who walked around town selling churros--you could hear him calling "Churros! Churros!"--from blocks away. I used to hide from him because he knew me and knew I couldn't resist a good churro. I haven't seen him in a long time so I suspect he retired. The best, of course, are freshly made and warm from the oil, but any churro is better than no churros. Ten pesos, a nickel at today's exchange rate. It's a rare location in México that has adequate guard rails. Basically you're on your own, so pay attention and watch your step! Lots of ways to injure yourself, least of which are obstacles in the street or sidewalk that you may or may not notice. I've stopped wearing a hat after running into too many low roofs or signs in the right of way because the brim prevented me from seeing them. My favorite is the eyelet on the ground that used to be part of a guy-wire system. The wire is long gone but the eyelet remains for someone (usually me) to trip over. Don't ask me how many times I've fallen since we moved here 11 years ago.

You know, I thought it was a finger--looked like a thumb--but I said, "Nah."

What is that?

I'm intrigued by this "liverwurst" recipe--could you post it? I'd like to give it a try. Got all the ingredients already.

I can vouch for mujadara as a great use of lentils. Lentils, brown rice, caramelized onions, plain yogurt and chopped mint--deceptively simple but utterly delicious. Another example of how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I'd never thought of eating it for breakfast, but it sounds like a good idea. I've come a long way from when I thought breakfast meant eggs and bacon (though I do like that) but also could mean tamales, for instance.

A great read--thanks for that! I'm sure I read it in the magazine but it was a long time ago and a lot of water has gone over the dam and under the bridge, taking that memory with it.

I love "volunteer" tomatoes, though they are sometimes not very good, taste-wise. Work pretty well for sauce or other cooked applications. If your volunteer has good taste, save the seeds and see how they do in subsequent generations. Find a tomato that's dead ripe but not mushy, scrape out the seeds (that haven't already started to sprout) and gel into a small jar of water. Shake the jar several times a day for a week or so to remove the gel (which will make seeds rot) and then spread the naked seeds on a piece of waxed paper to dry. Next year plant a seed or 2 to see if they taste the way the original one did--ideally better, depending on what the parent variety was. The problem with volunteers is that they may have come from a hybrid and thus won't be the same as the parent. But you never know--your volunteer's seeds might work out. Worth a try. I plant non-hybrid varieties because they just plain taste better, and I can save seeds from one generation to the next. Often they change subtly and sometimes improve based on my growing conditions and climate. Select only good quality fruit, not the discards. Did this volunteer come from fruit that fell off last year's plants? That could give you a clue about what to expect.

A recipe that we enjoy is salmon steaks marinated for 4-6 hours in a mixture of brown sugar and bourbon. I just mix up a loose slurry and make sure to keep turning the salmon so the marinade permeates a little before cooking. Melt butter in a skillet and brown the steaks on each side. Add a little of the marinade if you like, to finish cooking. You can also broil the salmon and cook down the marinade for a sauce with some butter. For me, medium to medium rare is the best, but that's a personal choice.

I'm glad she asked the question that I had--if you can't taste it, why use it? Very interesting indeed.

Thanks, everybody. I admit it pains me to discard so much useful herbage, but I think you're right to suggest that I do so. I'd never do that with basil, of course, but rosemary is a different beast. Do you think it would poison the compost? Maybe I can give some of it away to friends. Too bad we're not going to friends' houses these days--I could take a little bouquet of rosemary as a hostess gift! The problem is that most of our friends also have rosemary bushes because it grows so well here. Oh well--it's the gesture that counts, right? Fat Guy's story reminded me of a meal my now-husband cooked for me when we were dating. Suffice it to say that his theory that if a little is good, a lot is better, proved to be his downfall. I don't even remember what the food was, only that it tasted like the piney woods on steroids. Inedible.