Darienne

My go-to favorite snack cracker I first tasted as one of those promotional giveaways in our local Costco; Mary's Organic Crackers, Original only please. Delicious. :wub: DH's favorite is Wheat Thins, original only also.

My Mexican garden seems to have shrunk now to the plants which I can purchase at Richter's in a couple of weeks: tomatillos and Mexican oregano. No nursery in this area carries any Mexican chile peppers except for Jalapenos which you can buy any time of the year in any grocery store. If it can be worked in, we'll go to the Humber nursery in Brampton. Thanks for all the help. oh...if Epazote is an herb, could I not grow it indoors anyway???

It's not Canadian customs you register it with - it's american. They will (or should) make up a little green card with the info on it that serves to prove you own it when you are taking it back. Proof of purchase would serve the same purpose. Canadian customs will only be interested in whether you are selling it to a Canadian while you are here. Not sure how you prove that. I can tell you how we do it every year...and we've done it dozens of times...from the Canadian perspective. In our city, Peterborough, we have a Canadian customs outlet and we take the item, in this case your Little Dipper, down there and they issue us with the little green card to prove when we return that we already had it with us. Or, as Kerry says, you can do it at our border. Now, because it is against US law that 'aliens' do any work for remuneration in the US, we also have to prove that we are not working for money in the USA. Which of course, we can't. You can't prove absence of intention. And what we take with us is our gourd tools. So what I do is to print out whatever workshop information I have from online and have this handy. 'Are you intending to work in the USA?' they might ask. 'No, we reply. We are going to this workshop...(shows printed workshop papers)...and that's all.' It's been a long time since we have been challenged ...although we were once and it was not pleasant...and I am always prepared since that time. [Added note: yes, no American official has challenged us since that one horrible episode more than a decade ago.] I hope this helps. If you want any other tidbits of the same kind, just PM me. All best. Yes, I am devastated that once more I've been forced to cancel attending an eG event, but as my youngest is wont to say: Stuff happens. Well, of course, he doesn't say 'stuff'.

DH says they carry cilantro in one of the stores...they were just out. Our Asian markets do not carry Mexican type peppers, just Asian vegetables. I've not even seen any fresh Oriental peppers.

Perola's and a couple of other places whose names I cannot recall, on Augusta, in Kensington Market. Mexican outlets in Toronto a good start.

We lived in Panama for a number of years, and cilantro grew wild everywhere, most certainly including our yard. I figured I'd have no trouble growing it in Central Texas and I planted some when we lived in Austin. But Central Texas in the summer is much hotter than it ever gets in Panama, so none of my cilantro made it through. It all burned up in the heat. I gave up on growing it after that first year. For one thing, it's so easy to find. Obviously, Texas has a huge Mexican influence so our mainstream grocers carry it, but it's also very popular in several Asian cuisines. If you can't find it in Mexican markets up there, you might give Asian markets a try. So Ed tried two grocery chains this morning and neither had cilantro.

Thanks for the encouragement, but we don't have Lowes...yet...and only a very few nurseries...like Richters...would even carry these kinds of plants. We simply don't have a very big Latin population in these h'ar parts.

A friend gave me this mysterious packet today with a stick of cinnamon (cassia) and three chocolates in it. I bit into one of the 'bonbons', only it wasn't soft at all. It was a hard ball of unsweetened chocolate which reminded me of the texture of Mexican chocolate. Much searching later...I came up with some websites which featured these tea chocolate balls and how to use them. http://caribbean-feast.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&products_id=17 http://jamaicanaturally.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/chocolate-tea-from-our-own-cocoa/ But has anyone any experience making this chocolate tea? Thanks.

It does and where is Humbers? I can google it and hope it's not too near Toronto or west of. ps. I cannot believe the heck I just went through to finally find out that Humbers is in Brampton. No way.

Wonderful. A good read and I enjoyed it immensely. Two questions: Mole Dulce / Mole Tlacuitapa: animal crackers? Do you actually mean those kiddy cookies? You mention lots of pork bits like feet and so on, and also suckling pigs. However, unless I missed it, there is no mention of pork butts or larger cuts of pork being used. Thanks again for such a lesson.

Had to Google three words that time. Needless to say, Richter's doesn't carry the two herbs. We have a very, very small Mexican/Hispanic/Latino population in Canada and thus it's hard to get most things. And furthermore, I have just been informed that I am too late to grow a number of things unless I buy them in plant form. Richter's does carry Mexican oregano and Tomatillos in plant form, but all the rest is seeds. As Sparrowgrass would know, we can't put anything in the ground here until June 1st. Oh well, next year....

Ya got me. Spicy garlicky cashew chicken is on this week's menu!!!

Here is where to look. A very excellent eG topic on the subject.

Well, I am the Mother and we had Mexican food which I made. And I was quite happy at that.

Chile Peppers: Hot Tips and Tasty Picks for Gardeners and Gourmets (Brooklyn Botanic Garden Handbooks)ed. Beth Hanson. Not listed on Amazon. Does anyone know it? Should I buy it? Richter's carries it.

For me, Chris has said it all and clearly. I don't always do it by a long shot, but it works best when I do.

Yes, this has happened to me in a way. My Mother and Father moved to California when I was about 25 and thus I came into all Mother's kitchen and dining room stuff. I hated cooking...as said before...until about 4 years ago now...and so what I did was to give much of it away and generally rid myself of all of it over the years as I gave up on my ever using it. An old stand mixer, a meat grinder, several original Salton trays, crystal, Wedgewood, Royal Doulton, mixing bowls, Pyrex, grill, pots and pans, and on and on and on. Andie would have loved to have a lot of it as it went back to the early 30s. And now I have spent the last four years re-accumulating all the tools I need to cook and bake. Oh, and now I have a deliberately small galley kitchen which means that my stuff is stored in the kitchen, my studio, the breezeway, the cellar, the living room and the garage.

You, sir, have nothing to be humble about. You are a genius and I salute you. Wow! I am so liking what you can do.

I keep dogs for that purpose. Our two year old, Kyra, is johnny on the spot for that one.

The Mexican oregano is a good idea. Mediterranean oregano, Mexican oregano, and marjoram Too bad you can't order from Rancho Gordo up there. He's got a Mexican oregano that's the best I've ever tasted: Rancho Gordo Oregano Indio That stuff is fantastic. Got it. The Mexican oregano. Had forgotten all about it. Thanks.

Thanks for the information. I do have some nice terra cotta pieces that I got at the Cavan Mall (aka the transfer station/ aka the dump) last year and I'll plant the herbs in those.

Am about to put in an Mexican ingredient order for seeds with Richter's, an excellent herb and vegetable greenhouse located in Ontario. Ed is going to rototill a patch of the old gourd patch for me and Ms Black Thumb will see what she can get. My order: Epazote, Anaheim, Poblano, De Arbol, Pasilla, Serrano, and Tomatillo. Have I forgotten anything? (If I can make it there, I'll buy plug paks for the Tomatillo, the only plugs offered of the above list.) They have no beans which are meant to be cooked from dry, only wax beans and such. Can you get beans across the Canadian border with no problems? Can I plant pinto beans which I can buy at the bulk food store? I seem to recall doing just that a couple of decades ago. Thanks.

I/we do mise en place for some things: Ed does the mise ('meezes' as he calls them) when we do Chinese food. Each dish lined up on the counter to the right of the stove and then I basically saunter in and cook them all in a few minutes. And confectionery partner and I do mise for making candies of various sorts. God help you if the needed ingredient is not measured and handy in some candies at just the right moment. Hmmm....I suppose I do the mise when I am cooking or baking toute seule. I have a habit of leaving out the vanilla or forgetting to add things in the correct sequence, and having them all measured ahead of time and in a correct order helps a lot with that. The old steel trap mind of yore is gone forever.

Ours is from Zellers...a sort of K-Mart equivalent and because our kitchen is a galley kitchen, it covers the floor between the work counter and the sink. I would kill for a Gel-Pro or something, but it's out of my snack bracket with so many other things to buy during our 17 year renovation project... Oh...it does make it a bit of a pain to sweep the floor. The floors are wood and I wouldn't have anything else (as discussed in one of FG's other kitchen topics.)

One battery analog clock on the wall. One clock on the microwave never set because DH constantly hits the wrong buttons and 'unsets' the clock anyway.