Empanadas and other worthy pursuits

So, good news! I am almost finished with the first draft of my thesis. The end of this whole process is in sight, but it is a little overwhelming how much I have to do between now and mid-December. Since I only have class two days a week, I have to work very hard to structure my time. Sometimes, it is exceptionally difficult to concentrate at home. I have been taking the bus to Starbucks about once a week and hanging out there for a few hours in hopes of increased productivity. It actually works really well, but I wish it didn’t have to be Starbucks: it is not my favorite coffee shop, I don’t like the corporate chain vibe, and it’s relatively expensive. So I just order the cheapest drinks and bring granola bars from home. Even though the clientele is sometimes distracting (upper-class businesspeople, upper-class teenagers from the prep school across the street, etc.), there is something about being in a coffee shop that helps me to focus.

Since Paco is also writing his thesis, he is at home most days of the week, too. This has been really nice, especially since we don’t have to wake that early. We are both of the “8+ hours of sleep each night” persuasion. Canelo is thrilled to have his human servants present during the day to attend to his every whim (most of which involve playing, chasing flies and moths, rolling around and meowing, and biting the hands that feed him).

In his more docile moments, Canelo really sleeps like this.

Last week, I realized that I really missed eating empanadas. They have empanadas here in Guadalajara, but they are sweet pastries filled with jam. In fact, here are many kinds of empanadas in Latin America, but the ones I wanted are, as far as I know, the Southern Mexican style. In Chiapas, they serve these fried, breaded treats in cenadurías and in food stands at festivals. There are three kinds: potato, cheese and ground beef. They are served with finely shredded cabbage and a spicy, thin tomato sauce. Since Paco’s mom makes them, Paco called her to ask for the recipe, and we made them for the first time last night.

First, Paco made the dough with Maseca (corn flour), a little wheat flour, and warm water.

At first, it was way too sticky. So we paused and called Paco’s mom for help. Meanwhile, I cooked the tomatoes, peeled the skins off and dropped them in the blender with a little chile habanero and salt to make the salsa.

After adding more Maseca and water, the masa (dough) had reached the appropriate consistency.

If we had a tortilla press, it would have been easier to press small balls of the dough into the thin, round shape we needed. Instead, we used a cutting board and a plastic plate as a makeshift press. While Paco prepared the dough, I stuffed and sealed the empanadas with the smashed potatoes and cheese.

Then, we heated up some oil (ok, a lot of oil) in the pan, and dropped in the first empanadas.

We had a small snag when the cheese empanadas split open, but we learned an important lesson for next time: don’t stuff them too much.

After frying several batches, we sat down to have dinner and try the empanadas.

They turned out really well, especially the potato ones. Although Paco says they didn’t quite measure up to his mom’s empanadas, I think we did a pretty good job considering it was our first attempt.

Americans on the bus, thesis on my brain

I have my own blog bookmarked, ostensibly so that I can click on it and add posts to it. It seems this does not happen very often. I am up to my ears in my thesis, which I have been writing all summer long. I decided to compose it in a single Word document. This means that it loads very slowly. On the positive side, every day the word count goes up, and the page count goes up, and then I realize that only happened because some formatting weirdness created another blank page.

We go back to school on Monday to start our last semester. Paco is also in the final stretch. Soon, we will be Masters of our respective fields. Ha!

We moved here at the end of August 2009, so it’s been almost two years now that we’ve lived in Guadalajara. The more time goes by, the less I have to say about living in Mexico: it’s just living, after all. I feel adjusted to life here.

Yesterday, something unusual happened. Paco and I were heading to the mall on the city bus. Paco noticed that there were two men speaking Italian, and I remarked that I almost never heard anyone speaking a foreign language on the bus. We got off the bus to take the second one. Someone said, “Disculpa,” which means “sorry” or “excuse me” in Spanish. I turned around. “Do you speak English?” the woman asked me, in English. I said yes. She and her friend, both Americans, asked me what I was doing here, etc. I had to get off the bus, so it was a short conversation.

Apparently, yesterday was THE day to encounter foreigners on the buses. Also, it’s a good thing I don’t care anymore about being obviously foreign, because those women only had to look at me to guess (correctly) that I speak English. I had fun talking to them, though. I also marvelled at how outgoing they were to just ask me if I spoke English! I’ve heard people speak English in public places and never once dared to strike up a conversation.

At the mall, Paco bought some new sneakers, and we got Starbucks, ate Cinnabons, and watched Captain America at the mall movie theater, so that was a pretty intensely American day.

Well, it’s 5 pm, and I haven’t added a single word to my thesis today, so maybe I will try to add a few.

The Glamorous Life of a Graduate Student

Yeah, I know it’s not cool to be a graduate student. Especially when your field is something that most people consider boring: history. But I love it. However, it is a little weird that the only job skills I have are related to being a student: my experience is limited to reading, writing and researching. I can even make pie charts on Excel, so maybe we could count ‘rithmetic as the fourth R in my arsenal.

This is where I do most of my work. And yes, that is my G-mail open and a G-chat window. Very glamorous.

In my brief career as a graduate student, I had an important “first” last week: my first conference. The conference was held in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, near Paco’s hometown of Zinacantán. I stayed with his parents and took a combi (public transportation in a converted VW bus) to the city every morning. At the conference, I presented in a panel with three other speakers. I shared a bit about my thesis research, with the requisite PowerPoint. I was nervous, especially because I did the presentation in Spanish, but people had questions for me about my project and seemed interested at least, so I was satisfied.

Here I am presenting. It was a small auditorium, but the speakers opted not to stand on the stage. I opted not to stand up at all. Obviously, I also opted not to dress professionally.

I met other people who research similar topics, which was exciting. Honestly, it was exciting just to learn that people other than me care about what I study. Sometimes research and writing can be a very solitary endeavor.

Since I was in Chiapas, I made sure to eat a lot of tamales, since the tamales they sell in Guadalajara just aren’t as good. My favorite are tamales de mole steamed in banana leaves…Paco asked me to bring back a dozen, and I did. They freeze well!

In Chiapas, I also enjoyed being spoiled by Paco’s parents, who fed me lots of delicious food all week long. They say I’m their nuera consentida: the daughter-in-law they spoil. This is an extremely agreeable status, let me tell you.

At the moment, I’m back in Guadalajara working on my thesis, studying for the GREs, and spending time with Paco, who left for a conference in Cuba (¡!) before I returned from Chiapas, so we didn’t see each other for two whole weeks.

By the way, I wanted to share my new procrastinating activity with my readers: making “mixtapes” and uploading them to this website called 8tracks. I have mixes for studying, working out, and most relevant to the blog, an “México: From Ranchera to Rock” mix that contains a wide variety of Mexican artists. I wouldn’t want you to think Mexican music is all mariachi! Here’s my homepage if you’re interested in checking out my mixes: isorachel’s 8tracks. Or to go directly to the Mexican music mix: Ranchera to Rock.

By the way, it was two years ago yesterday that I moved to Mexico! Time flies when you’re living life…and having lots of fun.

Nuestra casa, or our apartment is a very very very fine apartment

Often, I feel like I have to take a trip or do something out of the ordinary to have enough material for a blog post. But I spend way more time doing stuff at home, so I thought it was high time to write about home.

We live in an apartment building with six units on three floors. There are three identical buildings like this on our street, all in a row. We are all directly across the street from a junior high. It’s very glamorous.

Because of the way that our apartment is situated, we have neighbors above us and on either side of us. It is noisy. Sources of noise: neighbor baby with a severe case of colic. Neighbor child currently obsessed with saying Mamá, Mamá, Mamá. Neighbor who blasts terrible music. Neighbor who likes The Phantom of the Opera (?). Sometimes, these noises really get on my nerves, like when the crying baby woke me up in the middle of the night. Also, when the baby starts to cry, sometimes the neighbor kid will cry, and then Canelo will start to yowl. “Three babies crying!” we exclaim. Then we tell Canelo to can it. He never listens.

Since our backyard is separated from our neighbors’ yards by a chain-link fence, we see our neighbor when we hang laundry out to dry or work in the garden. She’s pretty nice, and she actually gave us a gardenia cutting to plant. Our other neighbor smokes cigarettes in the backyard and tosses the butts into our garden, which we do not like very much. He also smokes other things in his garden, and the smell wafts into our unit.

So it’s not exactly ideal. OK, we would love to have a ranch and not have to listen to other people. But I am really proud of our improvements to the apartment and garden. A photo essay is the best medium for me to show off.

Before: a peachy hellhole. And the previous tenants actually took everything but the kitchen sink! They even removed the toilet seat before leaving. They also left our landlord with unpaid bills when they skipped out of town with their toilet seat.

These pictures are from July 2009.

Fast forward to this year, when we finally “finished” redecorating the apartment. Well, not quite. The grayish mauve I thought I was picking for the second bedroom (office) is actually pastel lavender. If we planned to stay here for a long time, we would paint it another color. By the way, the walls in the picture below are actually pale blue and pale green. Hey, anything is better than the orange!

After: the “credenza”/storage thingy/home bar, dining area, view of the sofa and window, “entertainment center.”

I like how it turned out.

Thoughts on fried plantains

This post includes a recipe here. If you’re new to the blog, check out the recipes tab above for more.

Tonight, I made what Paco calls a “cena típica chiapaneca“: a typical dinner in Chiapas, his home state in southern Mexico. This dinner includes fried plantains with black beans, sour cream, and queso cotija, a crumbly, salty, pungent cheese.

In fact, plantains are used in many Latin American cuisines–I first had them at a Cuban restaurant, and I learned how to fry them at a Nicaraguan cooking demonstration. Plantains look like large bananas, but they are definitely not bananas. They are much starchier and cannot be eaten raw. I made the mistake once of biting into a plantain raw because I thought it was a banana. Bad move.

Frying plantains is really easy. Every time we eat them, I think, “I should really make this more often,” but then I forget to do so, and months pass between plantain dinners. This makes them more special. Tonight, when I dropped the first slices of plantain into the pan, the smell transported me back in time.

When I first set foot in Guadalajara in June 2009, it was about a month after I had graduated college. Paco was in the last week of the “boot camp” for his master’s program. After I arrived, we rented a room by the week in a nice lady’s house. Paco had to leave for school at about 7 am each day and returned at 8 or 9 pm.

Of course, I had absolutely nothing to do, so I tried to be as helpful around the house as possible. This was not very successful. Our kitchen was equipped with stainless steel pans that seemed to stick to everything I tried to cook. Fried eggs were a disaster, and failing at frying eggs is enough to make any recent college graduate feel like a failure as a person.

I spent my days watching a half dozen hummingbirds buzz around the nectar feeder outside the kitchen window. I found the city overwhelming. It was huge. The streets did not follow a grid pattern. And I didn’t even feel like I was really in Mexico: I kept seeing Starbucks, Applebee’s and even Office Depot. I couldn’t start looking for a job or something to do until we knew whether or not we would stay: Paco’s place in the master’s program wasn’t guaranteed unless he could pass boot camp.

At night, when Paco would finally come home, he would have to study, so I would go back to reading the New York Times online.

But at some point during this time, we fried plantains for dinner for the first time. I apologized for burning them on the sticks-to-everything-pan, but Paco said that he liked plantains browned. They are delicious browned, in fact. So even if I couldn’t fry eggs, at least I knew I could fry plantains.

Not long after that, Paco learned that he had been fully admitted to his master’s program, so we knew that we would be staying in Guadalajara. We made several frustrating and exhausting trips looking for an apartment that involved traipsing aimlessly through unfamiliar neighborhoods in the oppressing morning summer heat. Finally, Paco found the apartment we have now, with the perfect location and low rent. Although it used to be hideous, we’ve made it our own, and I think it looks pretty good.

And I felt happy, frying the plantains and remembering all of this, thinking about how good it feels not to feel lost here anymore. Almost two years later, here with Paco and Canelo, this place is unquestionably my home, and at that moment, I was cooking and content, three-quarters of the way done with my master’s program, and everything was good. I looked down at the pan and noticed the plantains, which were now crispy, browned and ready to eat. I heated four tortillas for Paco, and we sat down for our typical Chiapanecan dinner.

Semana Santa in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán

Michoacán is my second-favorite state, after Chiapas, of course. Paco and I have been to the capital city, Morelia, twice. The town where I’m doing research for my thesis is also in Michoacán, and I’ve explored that part of the state a bit. For this trip, we decided to visit Pátzcuaro, a small city near a lake of the same name. It’s an area with a large indigenous population: around the lake, there are many Purépecha communities, each one specializing in a different handicraft or artesanía.

I have an album of pictures on Picasa, with captions, that is meant to accompany this post. If you want the full, illustrated story, the album is your best bet.

Traveling in Mexico without a car is actually pretty easy: first-class and luxury buses that take you from one large-ish city to another are not at all expensive compared to air travel. Paco and I even benefit from a 50% student discount when we travel during vacation time. However, if you want to visit smaller towns, you have to be a little more intrepid. To get to Pátzcuaro, for example, we realized that the first-class bus from Morelia (essential layover) wasn’t leaving for several hours. The ticket agent told us that there were second-class buses every 15 minutes in the other terminal. We thought we found the other terminal, so I asked the security guard, “is this terminal for departures to Pátzcuaro?” He said, “yes, but they don’t leave until 3 pm.” I told him that we knew, and in fact, we were looking for the second-class bus. He smiled broadly and said to me, “you want to go in the second-class bus?” Of course I did! But I guess most travelers with an accent and my complexion probably don’t.

Paco and I stayed in a posada (inn) very near the center of town. We had the cheapest room, as usual, but it was clean and a good deal. After asking the owner to recommend a restaurant for lunch, we landed at La Surtidora, where we ended up eating three lunches, three breakfasts and one dessert over the next four days. That is to say, we really liked it! It was pretty inexpensive, the food was good, and it was pretty inside and had a nice view of the plaza outside.

As you know, one of my passions is ice cream. Ice cream is abundant in Mexico, and I love trying new flavors. During this trip, I had fig ice cream and guava ice cream. Both were delicious.

Pátzcuaro was teeming with tourists, mostly Mexican but some European and U.S. folks, too. Semana Santa (Easter Week) is actually the most intense travel period of the year. Because our trip started on Holy Thursday and lasted until Easter Sunday, we got to see some interesting processions organized by local churches, complete with costumes, candles and some reenactments. In the many churches we visited during the trip, all of the saints were concealed from view by purple curtains. Many buildings had purple ribbons adorning doors, windows and balconies.

Pátzcuaro is a good “base” or jumping off point to visit many smaller towns and interesting places in the surrounding area. Our first visit was to Tzintzuntzan (tseen-TSOON-tsahn), a Purépecha town just 15 or 20 minutes away. The center of town was very crowded for a Good Friday reenactment, which we heard but did not see. But our goal in Tzintzuntzan was to visit the archaeological site.

Although I actually studied archaeology for a few months in my Master’s program, I really don’t know anything about the meaning of  the buildings (pyramids and round structures called yácatas) at Tzintzuntzan. But they were impressive: slab walls with the stones arranged to stay put without cement, and big volcanic rocks. I tried to capture the precision of the pyramids and the yácatas in my photos. Of course, Lake Pátzcuaro in the background and the blooming jacaranda trees made the scene all the more lovely. It would be interesting to visit during the rainy season–everything brown would be bright green.

On our third day, Paco and I ventured to Lake Zirahuén, about 3o minutes from Pátzcuaro. At the dock, we bought tickets for a boat trip on the lake. Three guitarists played songs as we enjoyed the breeze and the scenery. We then headed to nearby Santa Clara del Cobre, a pretty town famous for its copperware. In the plaza, an open-air market had been set up for artisans to sell their work. We bought quite a few copper objects, and really had to stop ourselves from buying more!

Our last adventure was the strangest. Probably the most famous thing to do in Pátzcuaro is to visit the island of Janitzio (hah-NEET-see-o) in the middle of the lake. People actually live on this small bump, and there is a statue on the top. My friend had warned me that the island of Janitzio is “probably one of the worst, most touristy places in Mexico,” so Paco and I planned to skip it and visit another island in the lake called Yunuén, where a small Purépecha community makes its home.

The water in Lake Pátzcuaro is nowhere near as clean as the water in Lake Zirahuén, but it was still nice to feel the lake breeze.

When we arrived at Yunuén, a young boy tied the boat to the dock and offered to show us some “ecotourism cabins” that the community offered to visitors to their small island. We accepted, and as we walked, we asked him about his community–he told us that there were all of 16 kids in the elementary school on the island. The cabins were nice, and the island was pretty. It would be a nice place to return to stay for a day or two and just relax.

Unfortunately, to get back to the shore, we first had to stop in Janitzio–the tourist trap island. We decided to walk up to the top and see why my friend hated it so much. It was really just as horrible as I had imagined: they try to sell you tchochtkes at every step of the way up to the statue on top of the island. We couldn’t understand what kept visitors coming to the island. We caught a boat back to the dock and returned to our usual restaurant for our last meal in town. After a quick walk around the plaza, we made our way back to Guadalajara.

It’s been summer since February

Hello! After a long absence and a quick check to the blog stats, it seems that most people stumbling upon my blog are looking for cactus smoothies or how to “write good” in Spanish. I have no answers, dear stumblers. Keep googling.

Since I last wrote, it’s become summer. This sounds dramatic, but if “spring” means “transition from winter to summer,” then spring lasts one week in Guadalajara. Since Valentine’s Day, it’s been hot. Now that it’s late April, it’s really hot. The cockroaches are back. Our lawn/weed patch has gotten dry. The chile plants and mint are thriving in the heat, but the basil is not so happy. Canelo has returned to his habit of flopping, that is, dramatically throwing himself on the tile floor where he spreads out as much as possible and whips his tail, in an attempt to cool down. As for me, I’m getting pinker by the day.

As you may know, Mexico has a rainy season and a dry season. Right now, we are in the hottest and driest part of the year. I guess tap water runs out sometimes during these months. This has happened three times in the past ten days. In a way, I don’t want to complain about it, since it’s a good reminder about how much we rely on water and how we might try to use less of it. However, no running water is a problem if you want to, say, take a shower. Thus, it is almost 4 pm and I am still wearing a nightgown because I am still waiting for the water to return so I can work out and take a shower when I finish.

While I wait, I am writing my thesis. This project, along with all of my classes, is why I am not as existential as I might wish to be. As the Pragmatic Migrant, it’s been a lot more reading, writing and planning and a lot less reflecting on culture and life, and not enough exploring.

A few adventures worthy of note, though. First, to the zoo, which has a pretty good aquarium. Then, Paco and I visited the town of Tequila, Jalisco last month, where we toured the José Cuervo distillery. We observed the tequila making process–it all starts with blue agave. It’s a complicated process to understand, though they make it go down easier with tequila samples. The distillery has an enormous mascot, a crow (cuervo means crow) in a very large cage. “The bird is 9 years old,” the tour guide told us. An older gentleman approached the guide and asked, “how old did you say the bird was?” She told him. “And how old are you?” asked the gentleman. “Almost 21,” she said cheerfully. This answer seemed acceptable to the gentleman.

A nine-year-old crow.

Agave “piñas,” which will be cooked and somehow turned into tequila.

I had some tequila ice cream, which was good. We went on a sort of sad tour of the Sauza family home: the Sauzas of Sauza Tequila, that is. They sold the factory and brand some time ago, but they have a new, family owned label and small museum to preserve the posterity of the various Sauzas. My favorite part was a letter from John Wayne to Sr. Sauza, framed and mounted on the wall, in which Mr. Wayne wrote, “your product has become a necessity in our household.”

Other recent adventures have included the search for Angostura bitters, which we found but still haven’t tasted. The journey led us to a delicious lunch where I introduced Paco to spinach dip.

Life is good down here. Paco and I are very happy and very busy. We’re going out of town this week (it’s spring break), so I should have more pictures and stories soon. But don’t hold me to it.

Cocktails and the Sunday Morning Bird Rescue Club

Readers, hello from Guadalajara. It’s been almost two months since I’ve posted. It’s a new year (Happy 2011, everyone), and I’m now in my third semester of my master’s program. In December, I spent two weeks in California to celebrate Christmas and hang out with family and friends, and then in January I went to Michoacán for four days to do fieldwork. Then it was back to the school grind. Another intense semester! Writing thesis chapters!

But it’s not all work and no play. Technically it should be, or at least it could be, but I’m a fierce defender of spending the weekend like a weekend, at least for one day. Since we have a Monday holiday on February 7th, we decided to make the most of this weekend.

Cocktails. Until yesterday, I only knew how to make mojitos and gin & tonics. However, my dad gave Paco a cocktail recipe book and set of glasses for Christmas, and I pitched in with a cocktail shaker. So of course, we had to try out the recipes! I had a bit of a challenge finding some ingredients, like maraschino cherries. But the results were…intense. Tasty, but I think I’m going to stick to drinks that have tonic water, club soda or something to tone down the liquor.

Paco contemplates his martini (not in a martini glass).

A whiskey sour, made with lime juice instead of lemon. And extra maraschino cherries, just because.

It is pretty fun to hunt for ingredients, carefully combine them and shake them in a cocktail shaker. However, I would not recommend trying four different recipes in the same night.

Paco and I had a hankering to get out into nature, and we were hoping to explore one of the nearby nature reserves outside the Guadalajara Metro Area. But in the end, we opted for Parque Colomos, an urban park fairly close to our apartment. It has trails, lots of eucalyptus trees, horseback riding, and playgrounds. The plan was to walk around, take pictures, enjoy the park, and head to nearby downtown Zapopan for a late brunch.

However, as we walked, Paco spotted a bird on the ground on the edge of the path. It was alive, but injured. He picked it up and cradled the bird in his hand. We saw that the bird’s leg was broken, but it was fine otherwise. The poor creature looked pretty peaked at first, but after Paco gave it drops of water from his finger, it perked up.

We decided to name it Mut, which means “bird” in Tsotsil, the language spoken in Paco’s hometown. We continued walking, with Mut in Paco’s hand, while we tried to figure out what to do. Taking the bird home to nurse it back to health was not an option: our demon-cat Canelo would make Mut an appetizer in two smacks of a feline’s jaws.

Mut had a touch of yellow on his throat, and a yellow back underneath his brown wings.

Eventually, we found someone who worked for the park, and she told us to talk to the man in charge of the Japanese garden. So Mut’s journey continued as we looked for the guy.

Did Mut enjoy watching the koi swim? We’ll never know.

The man in charge of the Japanese garden was not at all interested in helping us and sent us off to the duck pond to find someone else who worked for the park. We never found any other employees. It was an interesting social experiment to see how many people noticed that Paco was carrying a small bird in his hand. I enjoyed watching all the double takes. But after wandering around for an hour searching for someone to help us, Mut was starting to lurch about in Paco’s hand, trying to stand up and launch into flight. Unfortunately, his bum leg prevented him from doing so.

Eventually, seeing that Mut seemed to have a lot more energy and was trying to escape, we decided to find a safe place to set him down and let him work up the strength to fly again. We gave him some more water, watching as he attempted to stand up and fell over time and time again. It was hard to walk away and leave him there, but I think he’d had enough of an adventure being carried around the park. His bird instincts had kicked in, and he was making the effort to get back in the air. We hope that he is recovering and will be flying again in no time.

The Elixir of Life, Part I

For those of you who have lived with me, you know that I am pretty obsessed with coffee. We might also use the word “addicted.” My gateway drink was at age 11 or 12, when Mom let me have a “decaf, nonfat vanilla latte” at Starbucks. From there, I moved onto non-caffeinated lattes. Then, in the summer of 2006, I scored a job at Peet’s Coffee. While at Peet’s, I learned to appreciate black coffee, to differentiate between beans of different origins, and how to work the espresso machine. I never got to become a true Espresso Machine Artist because I had to go back to school, but I learned enough about coffee that drinking sub-par coffee no longer seemed bearable (this is also called “being a snob”). Around this time, I started calling coffee “The Elixir of Life”: at first, just to myself, then whispering the phrase aloud, not unlike Gollum lusting after “my precious.”

So now that I’ve made my coffee background known (I’m addicted and I’m picky), I’d like to take on the topic of Coffee in Mexico. This is a two-part story: today’s post will cover coffee consumption at home, while Part II will deal with cafés and prepared coffee to be purchased.

As you may know, Mexico is a coffee-producing country, but only certain states have the right climate (tropical weather and high altitude) to grow coffee. Chiapas–Paco’s home state–might be the most famous coffee region here in Mexico.

I took a picture of this coffee plant (the green fruit eventually become the red coffee berries with the precious raw bean inside) in 2007, in a field near by dear friend Tere’s home village.

In San Cristóbal de las Casas, the largest city in the highlands of Chiapas where many Mexican and international tourists descend every summer and winter, local cafés proudly advertise that they use Chiapas beans. But perhaps you’re scratching your head–have you ever seen a Chiapas blend on sale in a fancy American coffee shop? Probably not. I talked about this once with one of the owners of JoJo’s Coffee, my favorite coffee shop in New Haven, Connecticut. Essentially, when you line up Mexican beans with those from other parts of Latin America, the Pacific or Africa, they just don’t stand out. The flavor isn’t as complex. After having consumed a LOT of Mexican coffee, I have to say that I agree.

However, I still buy Mexican beans. Why? Until recently, a kilo (2.2 lbs) of beans cost about 100 pesos, or about 8 dollars. The only place to really find coffee from other countries is Starbucks, where a pound or less can cost more than 100 pesos. So while in Mexico, we drink Mexican coffee. And you can bet I drink Sulawesi, Ethiopian and Central American coffee with great gusto as soon as I touch down in the States.

It’s actually not that easy to buy coffee beans in Guadalajara, especially if you want to have options. There are a few small chains here in Guadalajara that roast and sell their own beans. But rather than different varietals from different parts of the world, they have totally different choices available: you can pick between caracolillo (peaberry) and planchuela (normal flat-sided bean), or torrificado (roasted with sugar), and then there are usually several blends that mix these different types of coffee in different proportions, and then give them confusing names like “europeo,” “americano,” or “espresso,” which don’t give much clue as to the flavor one should expect. Recently, the price of coffee increased by 65% at the nearest coffee outlet, which makes for rather staggering sticker shock.

I make coffee with a French press, which is, in my opinion the best way to make brewed coffee. We buy whole beans and grind them as needed. This is not the usual way to make coffee here. Paco had never seen a French press or a mini grinder when I pulled them out of my bag when I first moved here.

What is the most common way of making coffee in Mexico? Apparently, it’s the easiest: instant coffee (known here universally as Nescafé). I had literally never tried instant coffee before going to Mexico, and I didn’t know anyone who drank it in the States. But if you visit any upper middle/middle class family in Mexico, they’ll offer you coffee, which means a cup of hot water and the jar of Nescafé.

I found this practice quite perplexing. I duly tried the Nescafé, and it’s not good. If I make it strong enough to be able to taste some flavor approximating coffee, I get so jittery that I wonder what other substances go into those fiendish “coffee” granules. So here’s my confusion: Even if Mexico doesn’t have the greatest coffee beans in the world, why would anyone drink instant instead of real brewed coffee? I don’t have the answer. But I have some ideas.

I think that perhaps here, coffee isn’t supposed to be strong: it’s supposed to have a mild “coffee flavor” and taste sweet. I haven’t met a single person here in Mexico who takes their coffee without sugar or at least artificial sweetener. People are usually surprised that I don’t want sugar. And as is widely known, sugar masks lots of deficiencies. As an interesting side note, people don’t usually take their coffee with milk or cream, though.

Not everyone drinks instant coffee, of course. I know of at least one family here in Guadalajara who also uses a French press. They really saved us last year when the glass carafe for our French press broke, kindly giving us a spare that they didn’t need. Buying a replacement glass for a Bodum French press is not easy to do here.

Back in Chiapas, Paco’s mom makes coffee in a pot on the stove. She heats the water, and then adds a small amount of ground coffee that comes in small plastic packets. She stirs it into the water, and it eventually settles on the bottom of the pot. She then adds a generous amount of sugar. The ratio of coffee to water is pretty low, so it’s very mild.

Paco tells me that he has been drinking coffee this way for as long as he can remember. (He actually claimed that he drank coffee from a baby bottle, but this turned out to be a joke). But even as a preschooler, he anxiously awaited his cafecito in the morning, complemented with a few small pieces of sweet bread. This is amazing to me, since coffee is not a “kid beverage” in the United States. But since everyone drinks it so weak and so sweet, it’s not surprising that kids would like it.

I wondered if perhaps there was an economic component to the preference for Nescafé, but Paco says that his mom’s method is probably the same price. In both cases, you avoid the market fluctuations that apparently affect whole bean coffee prices. And obviously, there is a convenience factor with Nescafé. But I’ve also wondered before if it’s somehow perceived as more glamorous than the traditional way of making coffee in Mexico (in a pot on the stove).

Whatever the explanation may be, Nescafé’s dominion is apparent: at the new Walmart down the road, there was about three times as much shelf space dedicated to different varieties of instant coffee as there was to ground coffee. And there was only one brand of coffee available whole bean.

In the next post on my thoughts about The Elixir of Life, I’ll discuss the things I’ve noticed about buying coffee in cafés, 7-Eleven, and Starbucks.

Going where many tapatíos (and gringos) have gone before

Lake Chapala is about an hour south of Guadalajara by bus or car, and it just so happens to be the largest lake in Mexico. There are a number of towns situated along the lake, but Chapala is the biggest, and it’s a popular weekend tourist destination for all of the working drones living in the metropolis. Paco and I are more like studying drones, but after 15 months living in Guadalajara without ever visiting Chapala, it seemed like time to take the trip.

Two city buses and one second class bus later, we arrived in Chapala. It has a concrete path along the lake shore that serves as a boardwalk, and an artificial “beach” with suspiciously industrial looking sand. There are many vendors and tourists.

Paco and I strolled along the pier and saw many happy kids, and also many happy adults getting an early start with their lakeside libations. I quickly located my own substance of choice, ice cream (in this case, raspberry sorbet made with fresh berries).

Although Chapala isn’t the clearest lake I’ve ever seen, the surrounding hills are quite pretty.

We scoped out the possible activities: boat trips on small motorboats to the tiny islands in the lake, and kayak rentals. We couldn’t afford the boat trip, and we weren’t dressed appropriately for the kayaks.

Along the shore, several wooden huts on stilts had been constructed. Of course, I wanted to climb up and have a picture taken inside one.

We decided to go to what looked like the nicest restaurant in town for lunch. We started off with charales, tiny, whole fish that are coated in batter, deep fried, and eaten with chile and lime. They tasted good, although I really had to make an effort not to think about the fact that I was really eating the entire fish. Sticking with the fish theme, Paco had butter and garlic grilled trout, and I had salmon with a creamy chipotle sauce. It was really nice to eat fish, which I’m too lazy to cook myself, and I especially enjoyed the breeze and the lake view.

I haven’t mentioned yet that Lake Chapala is a gringo magnet. That is, there is a fairly sizable community of (mostly retired) Americans and Canadians who own homes in the area. I can understand why: it’s very beautiful, the climate is perfect, and it’s still cheaper than living up north. I saw two such gringa women enter the restaurant, order some margaritas in English, and I happen to see them leave the waiter a very large tip. (I’m a people watcher, ok?). When the waiter collected his tip, he made the sign of the cross. I know that it’s common in Mexico to cross oneself when passing a church, but I had never seen it done upon receiving a tip. I imagined to myself that he was thanking the powers that be for gringo guests who think 20% is the tip standard (in Mexico, it’s 10%). However, Paco later explained to me that he and his family used to cross themselves when they made the first sale of the day, back when his mother ran a small restaurant out of their home. Maybe that applied here in the restaurant in Chapala, too.

After ogling ceramics in a store and remembering again that we can’t afford them, we decided that we’d seen most of what there was to see in Chapala and took a bus to Ajijic, the next town over along the lake shore (Ajijic is pronounced “ah-hee-heek“).

As we drove toward Ajijic, which is where most of the North Americans actually live, the signs that we were no longer in typical Mexico grew stronger. I saw churches advertising that they held services in English, and nearly every store’s sign had both English and Spanish. I saw a fair number of U.S. license plates on the cars, and many American-looking people walking around.

After missing the main Ajijic stop and walking along the highway for a kilometer, we then found the street that led toward Ajijic’s shoreline. We saw a chapel and the main church, which seemed to be built in two completely incongruous styles.

We soon realized that we probably should have just gone straight to Ajijic, since the town is prettier and the lakefront just as nice.

On the way home, we were treated to a very dramatic sunset and clouds edged in fluorescent pink.

My blogging may be somewhat sporadic in the next few weeks since I’m in the final weeks of the semester–wish me luck!