Frijoles...

When I was growing up, we always ate beans from a can. Both of my parents worked, so who had time to soak beans over night and then cook them? Since we have been here I have learned the wonderful art of cooking beans. My favorite beans are pinto beans. There are so many things that you can use them in. We love them as a side dish, with quesadillas, and I also put them in chili. They are so much better fresh than out of the can. I have a batch cooking right now. I wonder what I will do with them tonight? :-) Side note: I steer clear of doing refried beans because they aren't the greatest for your health.


Another thing that I love fresh is tortillas! In true Mexican fashion, I love corn tortillas waaaaaay better than flour tortillas. And the only way to have your tortillas is fresh off of the stove. I haven't attempted making tortillas yet; mainly because it's just so easy to walk to the corner store and get them. I'm sure that if I ever try them it will be interesting. When we lived here in 2000, a fellow missionary tried to make them for us and she had a hard time...and she was MEXICAN/American!!! For now I'll just stick to the tortilleria.


Speaking of fresh, we have learned that things don't last as long here because they are fresher. It doesn't matter if we freeze our steaks or not. If we do not eat them within a week, they will ruin. Chicken isn't exactly the same because we can buy the bags of Tyson chicken at Costco. Fruits & veggies are the same...eat them within a couple of days or they are wasted, especially bananas. You know, we get some strange looks when we go to the grocery store here. Because we are still in our American mindset, we buy groceries that will, for the most part, last us for a couple of weeks. Most of the Mexicans go every day, or every other day, to the market to buy their produce, meats, bread & tortillas fresh. So when they see us with our cart piled high, we get some strange looks. Will we ever get used to the stares? I hope so because we get stared at all of time, like no one in Mexico has ever seen a Gringo before.


Here's a picture of a funny sign that we saw last week...

You can't really read what the sign says that well, but it says, "This place is yours. Take care of it!" How appropriate that there's trash & cut off branches behind it. Plus all of the graffiti even further back.