Food!

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This entry started out as an entry about a ¨typical day¨for me during the week. I started writing it thinking the typical day would eventually materialize after about another week. Funnny that I even thought that. So intead I´ll tell you about a common denominator of every day, which is food.

Everyday my roomate Meghan and I eat lunch at our host mother´s restaurant. We eat lunch after classes, which is usually around 3:00. The restaurant kinda of reminds me of a Mexican Franny´s (those of you SEK people know what I mean). Her food is always very good and she has a variety every day. Lunch is the largest meal of the day and always consists of three courses. The first is usually a soup or dish of pasta of some sort, or sometimes rice. The second is the entree which can be anything from enchiladas, gorditas, taquitos, carnitas, other things that I don´t know the names of... A typical lunch item is called ¨milanesa¨which is a very thin filet of some type of meat that takes up a whole plate. I usually get chicken and it´s kind of like a huge chicken nugget. Then the dessert could be flan, a fruit leather type thing called até, arroz con leche...sometimes she passes us a basket full of candy, but there is always something sweet.

Breakfast is pretty typical, we have cereal, fruit, or yogrut. We also have pre-toasted bread a lot, which comes packaged just like regular bread but is literally pre-toasted. Meghan calls it ¨the best thing since sliced bread.¨ We have a little concoction of pre-toasted bread with a little maple syrup on top that suits us quite nicely.

On our way to school, Meghan and I pass by a ¨pasterleria¨which is kind of like a donut shop, but more with sweet breads and cinnamon rolls. However, it is never open when our little tummy´s are in the mood for breakfast. We found this mysterious at first, but have grown accostumed to the late-rising Mexican way. The shop opens around 4 and we usually hit it up on the way home from school in the evenings, as a little provision to hold us over for late supper. To our surprise, everything we have tried so far has only cost 2 pesos! This is like 18 cents in the US. So, the little pasteleria is know dubbed ¨Two Peso Heaven.¨

The International Office just held a cooking competition for the international students on campus. We were divided into groups in our conversation classes and came up with a traditional dish to prepare and present to the class. My group maximized the benefit of having access to my host mom´s restuarant and we cooked Enchiladas Querétanas! The name comes from the city´s name, Queretaro. These enchilidas are supposedly native to the city and are distinguished because the have vegetables such as carrots and pototatoes on top of them. We made a sauce from dried chilies to dip the tortillas in before frying them and filling them with meat and cheese. I´m planning to try and recreat them when I come back to the states! Our group faired fairly well in the competition, we won in our class and advanced to the final round. I think our downfall was that we focused a lot on the actual food but not so much on the presentation.

It was a blast getting together and trying to find shredded chicken in the market. We also bought the wrong kind of chiles for the sauce not once, but twice!! My host mom ended up having to walk to the market with us the third time to make sure we got the right ones. She had us line the walls and floor with newspaper because they are so messy to prepare and then was quite proud to be keeping our health in mind when she used oil instead of butter to fry the tortillas. She is a very patient and strong woman and we were lucky to have her help!

Something else to get accostumed to here is salsa and lime with every meal. There always little trays of limes and dishes of salsa at every meal to accompany everything! Every main dish gets a spritz of lime juice for a little extra zip and some salsa on the top. Even mayonaise comes flavored with lime.

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Photos

La Pasteleria
after school snack

Bam!
Host mom Marta kicking it up a notch Mexican style.

Cooking Team
The finished product.

Comments

[Dad]

Wanna some food !!!!!
All I have to add to is, I am anticipating 1 good mexican dinner when you get back, with all the food stuff you are doing. luv ya, dad