Nuestra Comida

Lo siento (sorry) for the long stint in between posts. We've found ourselves swamped in school life...and the World Series just began, so Colin's been glued to the screen (it's in ENGLISH! Yey!).

We've managed to take on a couple challenging colds in that last week. It's an interesting pantomime spectacle to watch when I go to the "farmacia." The nice pharmacists listen to my broken Spanish and watch my expressive motions, and then I walk away with some kind of medicine that's written in Spanish that hopefully addresses my issues. In this process, I discovered that Hondurans consider cough drops candy, so you can find them next to the Snicker bars. In the farmacia, they give you menthol drops called "Medicada." They're strong, sweet, and to the point. But they mostly taste like cheap Certs. I still like my Halls (or those Swiss cough drops that I can't remember the name of right now). So, I'll hopefully find those at the next stop, without the pantomime.

Colin encouraged me to take a sick day today because I haven't been sleeping much since the cold has taken over my body. I was zapped yesterday after school. I'm glad he knows when to help me say "no" to work. It's hard for me not to go. Planning for a sub is a much more work than just going...and I have control issues when it comes to letting someone else guide my classes.  And at this school, instead of subs, they just ask teachers to take care of your classes when they have a free block. It puts everyone out, I think. I don't quite understand the logic, but I'll just throw it into the pile of "It's Latin America!" So, not going to school today helped  me work through both my physical and psychological issues. :) And I got to make a rice pizza...my last one for a while because I'm out of my favorite crust mix: Namaste Pizza Crust.

Speaking of food, I wanted to give you a little glimpse into my new refrigerator wardrobe. I'm trying my hand at cooking "plato tipicos" of Honduras. They make lots of dishes from platanos (plantains) and yucca (which is like a potato, but a little different in taste). I fried up some "tostones" with the plantains the other day, and served them with some salsa. Mmmmm....The yucca I didn't know what to do with, so thank goodness we've got the internet! I cooked the yucca, and then made a delicious garlic/onion/fresh lime sauce. The sauce made the top ten list. However, the yucca? Well, its taste is a bit dry and pasty. We worked through it, appreciated it like "God made it" as Colin said, and then discarded most of it (Ok...confession: I have a hard time throwing away food--even food I don't like. For example, the fish tacos I tried to make within one of the first weeks we got here? Well, they were rough, but I froze the fish mixture thinking I'd use it again later. I just threw it away a few days ago....it was difficult. There's a bit more of "Crazy Frances"--that's my grandma-- in me).

These are "verde" plantains. They make non-sweet fried food. If you buy the "amarillo" plantains, then they'll be sweet. They're not too bad, but I like verde mas.

I chopped the yucca into squares. If you saw it before I peeled it, it was covered in dark, brown, leathery skin, and its shape looked like that of a long, disgusting terd. Maybe that's one reason we had a hard time really liking this new food.

Last, but not least, on today's "Food Features by Elisa" we have the Honduran style eggs. They do not refrigerate their eggs here. They have them wrapped in plastic wrap and then keep them out on the countertops. I haven't become that Honduran yet, so I still put 'em in the 'frig.