In anticipation of Tamales

Tomorrow my friend Rosa is going to teach me how to make Tamales, I am so excited a few days ago I asked her for a list of ingredients that I should buy. It was a very interesting list, some of the amounts were in pesos. Everything here comes down to the peso, she knows exactly what this will cost her, right down to the exact peso. Which makes me sad when I hear that the price of tomatoes are going to go up soon ( 7 pesos a kilo now) since a lot of the crops in the state of Sinaloa froze during the cold spell a month ago. Will she still just buy 4 pesos of tomatoes for her Tamales making them less tomatoey or will she have the extra pesos to stick with her recipe?   When you cook a pot of soup, chili or stew do you know what the cost of it is and would you notice if  the price of tomatoes went up 2 cents? Most likely not, I know I wouldn't. I also do not know what the of a pot of chili is, mainly because when I buy the ingrientent I wouldn't buy just buy enough for the one pot, I used to buy a bag of beans that lasts a long time, a whole bunch of celery (half of it would rot in my crisper) and dried spices and herbs that come in a big box and are not fresh. Plus I most likely would have bought a bunch of other stuff at the same time and would always make sure the checkout girl put my recipe in the bag but would never look at it. But, Mexico has changed me, although I am not as conscience of my pennies as my friends here are I do stick to a grocery budget very faithfully and I do keep my recipes now and I try as much as possible to only shop for the day....no more hoarding as if the great famine is coming. It's amazing how much space that opens up in your kitchen cupboards and buying fresh tastes so much better.....and the health benefits..well, you all know all that. Any way....the list went like this;

2 pesos cilantro

2 pesos chilis Serrano

4 pesos tomatoes

1 garlic

6 chili para tenir (dried chilis)

oil

1 kilo carne de rez (beef)

I just bought the vegetables of the produce truck and the total came to 27 pesos..... unbelievable. First thing tomorrow I go to the meat market to buy the meat fresh, all she told me was a kilo of meat, that meat man better not ask me a whole lot of questions....should be interesting. I will take my camera with me tomorrow...promise.

27 pesos worth of vegetables

I have a funny story, I just went to find the produce truck to buy avocados for my lunch and we had a bit of excitement on the road behind my house. There was a guy that had about 8 small palm trees in pots (they were about 5 feet tall) that he was taking somewhere, he put them down to stop and talk to a buddy that was parked on a quad at the corner, they are standing there chatting away and 5 people on horseback come by, one Mexican guide taking 4 tourist on a trail ride. Two of the horses see the green palms and each snatch one, dragging the palm in their mouth...pot and all. Hilarious...when the guy goes after them to try and snatch them back one horse bolts and starts running with it, pot bouncing on the ground and dirt flying out, the other horse gave his up. Meanwhile the frightened rider cannot control her horse and is slowly sliding off the saddle....hilarious, myself and the dude sitting on the quad are laughing our heads off. Just in time the guy chases down the horse and gets the palm out of his mouth and he stops running  and all is well again. These are the funny moments that you just never catch on camera.