Antonio Inoki, famous pro-wrestler from Japan.

Upon polishing off my lunch with the junior high school third graders by spooning into the rare gelatin cup that served as dessert, the lead homeroom teacher who is also the Physical Education teacher strolled over to me and asked me if I knew a Japanese wrestler named Antonio Inoki (アントニオ猪木).  I, well known as the definitive sports fan, of course knew absolutely nothing of the guy.

Actually, the conversation evolved from school lunch into spicy things and from there to the wrestler in a very unexpected way.

In a rare case, we had tandoori chicken for one of the sides in the school’s lunch, and he asked what tandoori was.  It took a couple minutes to explain the concept of the tandoor oven, and later back down in the staff room I learned that there are special tandoori masala spices as well.

In any case, before that I asked him if he likes spicy food and he said yes, which apparently made him think of Antonio Inoki. He’s an old but still quite famous pro-wrestler who popularised Tabasco sauce and delivery pizza in Japan.  Thank you for making Tabasco big here, Antonio, if nothing else than for that you are awesome. Also, from looking at this video, you look exactly like a Japanese version of Arnold.

Besides sports fame and endorsements, he’s otherwise something of a legend in Japan.  There aren’t that many 6′3″ (1.91 m) tall Japanese, and certainly there weren’t back in the 70s~80s, for one.  His most famous moment in Japan was from a visit he made to a school. So the tale goes: A student came up and punched him twice, so in response he slapped him and the student hit the ground. The guy got up, bowed very low, and thanked him for the slap because the society is so masochistic and he was a fan.  The slap was termed  闘魂ビンタ (Fighting Spirit Slap) for instilling courage. Apparently, all this was captured on camera and replayed on television many times.  Weird people!

Also, he has a giant chin, started a political party called the “Sports and Peace Party” in 1989, was elected to the National Diet (parliament), and served until 1995.

Suddenly I don’t feel quite so bad about Jesse Ventura or the Governator.

When Angela of Spinach Tiger asked us to join her for a December 1st World AIDS Day remembrance event, we were on board right away. She asked us to cook red to remember those affected by AIDS. There were no other rules other than that, so her request to lend a helping hand through this website was easy to fulfill.

There has long been a shame associated with AIDS, and for many different communities in the United States at least, it is the disease that is swept under the rug. As a country, and as a world, perhaps we have come a bit farther in our understanding of how important the AIDS crisis still is, but there is much more work that has to be done. People are infected and affected–every day and everywhere. There is no soapbox here…just two people asking you to remember the past, present and future of this disease. Let’s hope that the next generation will see a change.

If you would like to help or simply educate yourself on the World AIDS Campaign, you’ll find a plethora of information here.

Serve this coulis warm, at room temperature or cold. The distinct, yet smooth flavor of this sauce makes it a great accompaniment for a variety of dishes.

Sage Potato Cakes with Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Coulis – Serves 4
4 large red potatoes, cut into 8ths
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 medium leaves fresh sage, chopped
1/2 small yellow onion, finely minced
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2/3 cup panko crumbs
1 large red pepper
2 vine tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
10 leaves fresh basil, torn
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon Tabasco
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
Grapeseed oil

1. Set a large pot of water to boil with a sprinkling of salt. Once the water begins to boil, add the potatoes and cook until soft. Remove from the water and place in a medium bowl.

2. Slightly mash potatoes to break them up into pieces, then stir in butter, milk, sage, onions and 1/2 tablespoon of the salt. Set aside to cool a bit, then cover and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.

3. Lay the red pepper directly over a gas flame burner, turning throughout to cook all sides evenly. When all the sides have blackened, remove from the burner and place in a bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to cool completely.*

4. Once the pepper has cooled, peel away the skin, remove the seeds and roughly chop the flesh of the pepper. Toss into a food processor. Add the sliced tomatoes. Pulse a bit to break up the larger pieces.

5. Toss in the apple cider vinegar, garlic, brown sugar, Tabasco, basil, olive oil and remaining salt. Blend until smooth. Cover and set aside.

6. Take chilled mashed potatoes and shape into eight patties. Pour the panko crumbs onto a plate and press both sides of the mashed potato cakes into the panko crumbs.

7. Swirl a bit of grapeseed oil in a skillet, and when hot, add the potato cakes. Cook on one side until browned, approximately 2-3 minutes, then flip and cook the other side.

8. Serve the potato cakes with the coulis sauce.

*If you do not have a gas burner, lay a piece of aluminum foil on the bottom rack of your oven. Set the pepper on the top rack and roast for 25-30 minutes, turning occasionally to darken all sides.

Click HERE for the printable recipe.

After my thoroughly informative and enjoyable trek through the world of Tabasco, it was time to head for the main attraction in my book–Jungle Gardens! I was a bit bummed that the sun had not decided to arrive while I was inside, but hey, it wasn’t raining so I decided I couldn’t complain too much.

So I headed back down the secondary gravel path to the main gravel path and hung a left, pulled in to the visitors center to pay my entrance fee and get my map to this 250-acre garden paradise. And not only did I not just get handed a map, I got a full blow-by-blow description of what awaited me around each bend by the most lovely and informative park attendant you could ask for. When I mentioned that this was my first trip to the island, Nonny grabbed her red pen and started circling and x-ing and drawing arrows to every little “must see” spot complete with reports on the wildlife she’d seen earlier that morning.  I haven’t seen that many red marks on a piece of paper since I got the first draft of my senior thesis paper back from Dr. Sipher at SUNY, Cortland. But while I wasn’t too excited about those red marks, I was practically drooling over these.

So armed with my map, I headed for the car and vowed to stop back with my report. I barely made it to the first corner before I had to pull over and grab the camera. I mean, could you ask for a more inviting path?

E.A. McIlhenny, son of the famed Tabasco genius Edmund McIlhenny, was the visionary behind this one of a kind treasure. An ardent naturalist and conservationist, McIlhenny was dismayed that the snowy egret had been driven almost to the brink of extinction by plume hunters supplying the feathered hat industry in the late 1800s. In an effort to save these graceful creatures, he gathered up the remaining seven left on the island, and built them a large cage over a pond. He also once built a cage for some nutria that he imported to the island, but that’s a whole different story that maybe we’ll save for another day.

Anyway, at the beginning of the next migratory season, he destroyed the cages, let them head south, and hoped for their return in the spring. And return they did, with friends in tow.

Now this guy really probably shouldn’t be here at this time of year, but Nonny seems to think he probably lost his mate round these parts and is waiting for her return. Oh, just break my heart why don’t you. But he was good for a bit of comic relief to cheer me up from that sad thought.

Another of my egret friends dropped by for a spell. He was a bit shy at first…

…but soon decided I was just another harmless Yankee with a camera.

You know, these guys are so graceful in profile, but pretty darn hard to take seriously when you meet them face to face.

Geez, I could have hung out in this spot all day, but I’d barely made it a half mile on the four mile path and I was itching to see what was waiting for me around the next bend. Oh man, doesn’t that look like an inviting spot for a picnic on a lazy summer day? Well, as long as no uninvited guests stop by.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, but ah yes, I had to take this one.

And I suspect that road is the one more traveled since it brought me to this.

I mean, are you kidding me? How did this get here?

And what a view.

Ok, must come back on a sunny spring day when the azaleas and the camellias and the irises are in all their glory and the 100,000 birds have returned from their winter vacation to enjoy this amazing Louisiana treasure. I guess we’ll just have to see if I can wait that long, but sure enjoyed a sneak peek. Hmmmm…where to next? So many choices. So little time.

Buddah Speaks
Peacefully I rest
Upon this lagoon’s bank
As pale green bamboo’s
Sway above my throne.
Clouds of blossoms
Soften the sifted light
Falling golden and misty
through the boughs above.
Long days of travel
Brought me from my home,
Yet I have known no hour of calmer rest
My thoughts are like
The swaying bamboos’ crest
waved to and fro
Above the rippling stream
Clear and blue
As from a glorious dream
–EA McIlhenny

Hope y’all had a great T-Day. I certainly did. And yes, there was a bottle of Tabasco on the table. And yes, I splashed a good dose of it on my perfectly cooked turkey.

Alright, where were we? Ah yes, our lovely tour guide arrived right on schedule and in we went. We learned that Avery Island sits atop an enormous monolith of one of the three-count ‘em, three-basic ingredients used by Edmund McIlhenny to make his first batch of pepper sauce in 1866. As any good Tabasco-loving fool can tell ya, you’re not going to find anything in that famous little bottle but red pepper, salt and vinegar. Can’t get more pure than that.

So as you might have guessed, that enormous monolith is a massive salt dome. And when I say massive, I mean massive. This thing is taller than Mount Everest my friends, but only about 152 feet of it rises above sea level which accounts for about the only hill I think I’ve driven up during my tour of duty in south Louisiana. The rest of it descends for some eight miles underground. Holy moly! Talk about a journey to the center of the earth.

Alright, so how do you make three simple ingredients so tasty? Well, pick a peck of perfect peppers by paw first. And be sure to use the “la petit baton rouge” (aka “the little red stick” painted the precise color of the perfect pepper) to determine which peck of perfect peppers to pick or the fruits of your labor will be rejected by the designated McIlhenny descendant in charge of the metal cash box.

Next, get you some of that perfect Avery Island salt and toss it on that perfect peck of peppers and start mixing and mashing. Store the mash in a white oak barrel recycled from the Jack Daniels Distillery. But be sure to drill a hole in the top so the thing doesn’t explode and throw some more of that Avery Island salt on top of the lid and watch it harden like cement.

After a quick three years, pop the lid. Dump the mash in to a blending vat. Add some stong, distilled, all natural white vinegar. Stir it for five minutes each hour. Strain off the seeds. And viola, a recipe for success.

Alrighty then. There you have it. Be sure to make a stop at the Country Store after your informative tour for anything and everything Tabasco including a free sample of Tabasco ice cream. And no, I’m sad to say that I did not partake. It was ten in the morning and well, no kind of ice cream sounds appetizing to me at that time of day although I’m sure it’s an interesting experience.

Next stop…Jungle Gardens! AMAZING!!! Stay tuned to read about my adventures with the birds, the bees, the flowers and Buddha. What the what? How did this end up in southern Louisiana?

As I saw the sign for LA-329 and headed south, I started to get excited at the prospect of visiting an island and happy that I was not going to be planting marsh grass upon it. Yes, folks, if you haven’t guessed by now, my destination was the famed Avery Island–home of a Louisiana concoction that has graced tables around the world since 1868. Tabasco that is, red gold, Louisiana tea.

Yep, it was my day to be a tourist, although, honestly, I kind of feel like a tourist everyday in Louisiana. And truth be told, I like it that way. I really don’t know what the future holds, or how long I’ll be a resident of this Sportsman Paradise, but I sincerely hope I never lose my sense of wonder and appreciation for the treasures my adopted home so graciously and generously offers up to us around each bend in the bayou and each curve in the river and each fork in the road.

Relieved that the persistent mist had given up on trying to dampen my day, it was still pretty downright gray, so when I saw this sign I decided to hang a left and spend a little time indoors hoping the sun would decide to arrive in the interim.

The first tour of day was about 20 minutes out, so I decided to take a quick stroll around the grounds and got a chuckle out of this piece of artwork. Legend has it that when the reds are a-swarming and a-schooling, they’ll bite on just about anything you throw at ‘em, including jalapeno peppers as Captain Todd Casey demonstrated in an infamous YouTube video that made the rounds to the in-boxes of most Gulf Coast fisherman a while back. Check it out.  Some say it’s a hoax, but looks real enough to me and I’ve been on a few of those fishing trips when every cast either nets you a red, loses you a red or snaps your line. Talk about some fun!

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I learned that Tabasco is the official pepper sauce to royalty and if you’ve ever sampled English fare, it’s not hard to imagine that they probably forego the standard two ounce bottles and opt for gallon jugs with which to stock their pantry.

And check out that crock! Wouldn’t mind having me one of those in the kitchen filled to the brim with that mouth-watering delight, the smell of which was in the air and most assuredly making my mouth water. Hey, is anyone looking? Maybe I could nonchalantly back the car up here and pop the trunk. Darn, how come I didn’t bring the truck?

Alright, let’s avoid temptation and a sure-fire way to land myself in the Iberia Parish Correctional Facility and head inside to learn a bit of history and the culinary genius behind this masterpiece.

As I waited for our guide to arrive, I met a lovely couple from down my way. They had made the trip from Lafourche Parish with two of their young grandchildren in tow to learn, to appreciate, and to savor all that Louisiana has to offer. While the young grand-daughter tried diligently to wrap her arms around an eight foot bottle of McIlhenny’s best which just wasn’t going to happen unless she spontaneously turned in to Stretch Armstrong, the young grandson explored an interactive map designating the some 130 countries to which Tabasco is shipped. I learned that the wife was originally from my beloved home state of Michigan. And I stumbled around for something pleasant to say when she responded to my question of “Oh, really. What part?” “Oh, yeah, Flint. Well, um, Flint is ni.., I mean, Flint, yeah, it’s pret…Really, Flint. No kidding. How long you been in Louisiana?” Hoping she’d say that she’d been here long enough to have escaped the devastation that has besieged the hardworking citizens of the town that General Motors forgot.

And just in time to save me from my mouth, our lovely guide appeared right on schedule. And unfortunately my scheduled blog time has come to an end for this morning. But y’all come back tomorrow so I can continue to share the oh so many treasures of Avery Island with you.

I decided to get a bit cheeky for this campaign and have a little fun.

As any fans of the sauce will tell you, eating Tabasco is a lot like indulging in those slightly less savory activities (pun not intended). They’re more than a little fun, but, in the end, you’re going to get burned.

John Tebeau is an artist and blogger from New York that has been on a quest for the month of November. He has been doing a food themed painting each day. Puting an emphasis on foods that have a strong regional or “homey” connotation like the “Comfort Lunch: Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup” or “Taylor Ham,” the pride of Jersey. Some of the others are pop corn, Tabasco, apple pie a la mode and even the Chicago hot dog (fully loaded of course).

All of his paintings can be purchased through his Etsy store. (He also has some painting of a few of my favorite artists, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix & Janis Joplin!)

John Teabeau's Double Pepperoni Pizza

Our James Beard dish for tonight should more properly be called “Spaghetti with Tomato-Shrimp Sauce,” because that’s really what it is. We’re using spaghetti instead of linguine for our pasta. It begins with a light sauce of tomatoes in puree, onions, salt, pepper, basil and butter. Shrimp, sautéed in garlic, parsley, olive oil, and Tabasco or red-pepper flakes are added to that. The whole thing is served atop the pasta, which in our case will be spaghetti. A spicy seafood excitement for the senses!

Tonight is also a great chance to catch up on some James Beard dishes you may have wanted to try earlier but missed out on: the Veal Chops Niçoise and Salmon Provençal are both back on the specials menu. And we’ve still got some of those Cream Puffs with Chocolate Sauce, filled with our vanilla-bean ice cream!

RUTH PITCHES FOR ONE OF OUR SUPPLIERS: If you haven’t yet seen Ruth’s new commercial for Dean Supply, check it out:

Like Ruth says, Dean Supply definitely helps keep us going! If you’re in the market for items to outfit your kitchen or bar at home, or searching for that perfect gift for someone who loves to cook or bake, stop by and see their selection. You just might find what you’re looking for!

Hans Bolleurs is working as an art-director here at Publicis, during the day. At night he’s drawing obscene, weird, dirty, gooey characters as Karoshi.

My transfer from working with Autodesk Combustion to Adobe After Effects asks for alot of artwork that needs animating, so we combined forces and started on Karoshi’s creatures.

Here are some early screenshots:

Haz romper los límites de mi piel;
como la gran ceiba:
desborda con furia tus espinas.
Y hazme sufrir lo que tu sufres.

Un simple te amo no me alcanzará para nada.
Solo mi sacrificio, mi sangre, mi dolor.
Valen lo que en vida me diste:
tus abrazos,tu cariño… Tus besos.

Cualidad de triste.
Morgan

Finally cracked mine open yesterday: finished today.Unfortunatley my oven was durtyyyyand got all smokey halfway through my first trial so I was left to other devices (micro and skillet).  Telling y’all I’m classy and fiesty! Finished off my b-squash with tabasco and ketchup.

Two days ago.

chopped up all pretty

I also had a healthy flax smoothie to fight off all sickness and oatmeal:

oh! and  more b-nut microwaved and spiced w/ ketchup and Tabasco!

oh! and lastly pumpkin pie ice cream (although it was much too sweet)

Then yesterday I took to other skillet and micro squash/ketchup/Tabasco accompaniments.

And another sugary pumpkin pie scoop!

As far as today goes…..only 8 oz of mango kombucha and the last bit of mac!

mozz and chipotle Tabasco to rev up my metabolism!

Ingredientes:

• 5 limões
• 1 kg de gelo triturado
• 12 ostras frescas

Molho:

• 1 colher (chá) de cebola bem picada
• Sal e pimenta do reino
• 1 colher (sopa) de salsão picado
• 1 colher (sopa) de pasta de raiz forte
• 1/2 colher (chá) de tabasco
• 1/2 xícara (chá) de suco de tomate
• 1 colher (sopa) de molho inglês
• 2 colheres (sopa) de suco de limão

Modo de Preparar:

• Misture muito bem todos os ingredientes e coloque-os em pecinhas de porcelana, reserve
• Para abrir as ostras coloque uma a uma sobre um pano limpo, colocando o lado mais arredondado da ostra para baixo
• Introduza uma faca pequena no meio da concha para separar as metades, torça a faca para fazer pressão na concha e assim que sentir que a pressão aliviou, passe a faca em torno da concha para cortar o músculo da ostra
• Retire a parte superior da concha preservando o líquido da ostra na concha inferior
• Arrume as ostras na meia concha sobre uma camada de gelo triturado
• Sirva as ostras no gelo, com as loucinhas de porcelana (molho) e os 5 limões cortados

Fonte: http://www.listadereceitas.com.br

Más de 200 mil personas fueron afectadas, y 33 mil de ellas refugiadas, por las fuertes tormentas que sufre el estado mexicano de Tabasco y que se cobraron la vida de cuatro personas en los últimos días, informaron este viernes autoridades locales.

“Hoy (viernes) son más de 200 mil tabasqueños que están en situación desesperada. Y claro que estoy preocupado de ver a miles de niños, mujeres y hombres que están en los albergues y de los que no quieren salir de sus casas”, dijo a los medios el gobernador de Tabasco, Andrés Granier.

En total son 33.032 las personas refugiadas en 78 albergues de la entidad y también hay 235 escuelas inundadas, detalló.

Siguen en marcha amplios operativos de vigilancia y rescate de personas, sostuvo el mandatario.

Las fuertes lluvias que han caído en la última semana en la región de La Chontalpa, en los límites con el estado de Veracruz, provocaron la tarde del jueves el naufragio de una lancha con cuatro pescadores a bordo en aguas cercanas al municipio costero de Centla.

Un hombre de 60 años murió ahogado mientras que los otros “lograron sobrevivir gracias a que un barco que entraba al puerto logró rescatarlos de las aguas del Golfo de México”, reportó este viernes David Córdova Arias, presidente municipal de la comunidad Carlos Rovirosa, próxima a Centla.

El desbordamiento de un río había causado el martes la muerte de tres campesinos que intentaban cruzarlo.

Fuente: Diario La Verdad

I absolutely love hot sauce. As a small and stubborn child, my parents tried weaning me from my baby bottle by adding Tabasco sauce to my milk. [Not enough to count for abuse, I don't think.]

Contrary to the intended effect, I drained my bottle and demanded more. Thus, incurring a particular vice (hot sauce fanaticism) that I probably will not shake until I’m buried six feet under after deliberately registering off the Scoville scale.

With that in mind, I’m going to share with you a Caribbean recipe that I came across, one in a list of honorable mentions listed to kickstart your appetite for the destruction of your taste buds.

Jamaican Jerk Rub

Ingredients:

2 limes, juice only
2 tablespoon of dried basil
2 tablespoon of dried thyme
3 scallions, finely chopped
2 tablespoon of orange juice
2 tablespoon of white vinegar
2 tablespoon of mustard seeds
2 tablespoon of dried rosemary
2 tablespoon of chopped parsley
1/4 cup of cheap yellow mustard
1 teaspoon each salt and black pepper
1/4 cup inner beauty or other caribbean
10 pureed Habaneros or 15
Chile peppers, pureed

Instructions:

1. First, in food processor or a blender, combine all ingredients, blend them in a paste making sure all the ingredients are fully integrated.

Note: The paste should be the consistency of a thick tomato sauce. If it’s too thick, thin it out with a little more white vinegar.

2. Next cover the paste and let it sit into the refrigerator for at least 2 hours for the flavors to blend together. Overnight is the right amount of time to give the paste time to really blend together for a fuller and tasty flavor.

Note: If you want to avoid making fresh batch everytime you make this dish, you can multiply
the amount of paste easily.

3. Finally, rub paste on the meat and grill.

The yield for this recipe is 1 batch.

Jamaican Jerk Rub dishes courtesy of Barbara Fisher.

ปาร์ตี้สุดมันส์ เพื่อแฟนเพลง สื่อมวลชน และผู้นิยมชมชอบ ผลงานของ “Arctic Monkeys” ในเมืองไทยโดยเฉพาะ ที่ ร้าน Whow ซอยเอกมัย ในงาน “Rocking Party with ARCTIC MONKEYS” กับ 4 วงจาก 3 ค่ายอินดี้ฮ็อตฮิตที่จะร่วมแจมในงานนี้ได้แก่ Musketeers (มัสเก็ตเทียร์ส) จากบีลีฟ เรคอร์ดส บริตป็อปหน้าใหม่ที่กำลังจะออกอัลบัมเต็มชุดแรกพร้อมตารางทัวร์แน่นเอี้ยด PLOT (พล็อต) โปรเกรสซีฟพังก์จากค่ายโซออน ดราย ฟลาเวอร์ส ที่จะทำคุณอึ้งไปกับดนตรีและเนื้อร้องที่ฉีกแนวไม่เหมือนใคร

นอกจากนั้นยังมีอีกสองศิลปินจากมาย เดอะ แก๊ป ที่ส่ง Class A Cigarettes (คลาส เอ ซิกาแรตส์) และปิดท้ายด้วย Tabasco (ทาบาสโก้) ดิสโก้พังก์เจนเวทีที่อุ่นเครื่องในงานนี้ก่อนขึ้นงานใหญ่ในเทศกาลดนตรีบิ๊กเมาน์เทน (Big Mountain Music Festival) ต้นปีหน้าที่เขาใหญ่

คลิกดู Gallery

I left Tenosique on Monday, November 2nd – the day of the dead.  (It’s a Mexican holiday.)  Bad omen, huh?  To make matters worse, just outside the town, I saw a dog stagger to its feet in the middle of the road, take two steps toward the shoulder and collapse.  Pretty sure it had just been hit by a car.

Aside from the collapse of a dead dog, I made it to the border at El Ceibo without incident … to find that the customs office that I had to visit to terminate the permit for my motorcycle was closed… because it was a Monday.   One guy asked if I could hang around for a bit, and he’d call the only employee of that particular office to see if he could come down to take care of me.  And I waited for about 40 minutes.  A crowd gathered around the bike, and I went over to talk to them for a bit.  Then I went back to the customs office, and sat some more.  A nice Guatemalan man (a Chapin … the nickname for Guatemalans) came over and started talking about how much he loves bikes.  It turns out that it’s true … Guatemalans are MUCH friendlier than Mexicans … if you can imagine such a thing.

Eventually the customs guys came back and said that because it was a holiday, and the guy lived all the way in Tenosique, that he wasn’t going to make it down to the border.  So I talked to the immigration guys, and they said I could head into Guatemala, stay at El Naranjo, and come back the next day.   So I crossed the border without pulling out my passport  (the border is a chain link fence by the way,) and stopped at the little hut on the other side to talk to Guatemalan immigration.  I explained to the officer that I was just going to El Naranjo and that I had to come back the next day to talk to customs.  He said that there was no problem, but I needed to get my passport out to be processed into Guatemala.  Sure, no sweat.  I dug my passport out, and got stamped, and then headed back outside.  The officer followed me, and started chatting away about motorcycles with me and the 5 or so guys that had surrounded my bike.  (Seriously, the thing draws a crowd everywhere I go.)   He had one piece of advice for me … he said that if I was stopped by police, that I should tell them he let me in, even though there isn’t a Guatemalan customs office to get a permit for the bike.  Somehow, that’s not entirely comforting.

There.  That’s part one of crossing the border.  If you made it through that long hard slog, then here’s where the story gets interesting.  In El Naranjo, I found 1 bank, 2 cyber cafes, and about 5 hotels … none of which were appealing.  The bank didn’t have an ATM and wouldn’t change pesos, so I went across the street to the Western Union/cyber cafe and they did change money for me.  (Convenient for me since I kept forgetting to check the exchange rate in Tenosique … but they did actually offer me a decent exchange rate.)   I stopped at the hotel that was closest to the entrance to town (which turned out to be the nicest anyway) and got a room.  Then I walked into town looking for something to eat … that wouldn’t upset my stomach which was still somewhat delicate after a little bout of Montezuma’s revenge the day before.  (The reason I was crossing the border on Monday instead of Sunday when the office WAS actually open.)

I made it almost all the way through town when this guy stopped me.  He said, ‘You were the guy who drove the motorcycle up and down the street a little while ago, aren’t you?’  I told him I was, and he said that he had tried to flag me down to stay in his hotel.   I told him that I didn’t see him, but that I was actually looking for a bank at the time instead of a hotel.  He said that there were money changers right there, and I told him that I had already changed some money.  He asked what exchange rate I got, and I told him, and he said that I got a good price.  At that point a couple of girls walked by, and he commented about how pretty they were.  Then he told me he was from El Salvador, and that he was a rebel for a couple of years before leaving the country.  He wandered through the USA and Canada for a while, decided it was too cold, and came back south.  Then he said, ‘If you need anything, weed, girls, ANYTHING, I can get it for you.’  I said thanks, and he repeated ‘ANYTHING.’  So I told him I was looking for potato chips.  All of the stores I passed had little bags, but I couldn’t find a big bag of potato chips.  He took me across the street, to the store I would have checked next anyway, and we struck out.  (Again.)  And he gave up and went back to his hotel.  I’m not sure that I’d trust my drug purchase to a guy that gets stymied by potato chips.

Anyway.  After lights out at 8 PM, (not joking, the electricity went off at 8,) and sleeping through the night, I got up and headed back to the border.  I took care of Mexican customs, and immigration, and came back to Guatemala.  Funny thing.  The Guatemalans didn’t check my passport either direction.  So I crossed from Mexico into Guatemala without a passport check on EITHER side of the border, and went BACK into Mexico without a passport check.  That has to be the most relaxed border ANYWHERE!

Many students on campus complain that there are not enough food options.  I disagree.  We have McDonalds, Mercado Italiano, Cinnabon, Jared’s Bagels, el-Omda, Ben’s Cookies, and the student union, which serves sandwiches and small meals.  Ah, but it is Tabasco that holds a special place in this guy’s heart.  Tabasco is the main restaurant on campus and serves a wide variety of food; everything from eggs, pancakes, pasta, chicken, beef, to the very exotic sounding escalope, and the very popular pizzas.  They also serve many different drinks; coffee (turkish, espresso, American, “house”), tea, fake-beer, soda (Pepsi brand only, please), juice mixes (with great names like Love Juice), and water.  They also carry an assortment of deserts.

Tabasco is more expensive than some of the other options on campus.  A vegetable and cheese omelet with 3 slices of toast and jam will run you 15 LE (Egyptian pounds).  That comes to just under $3 US dollars.  For the hungry, the fantastic grilled chicken meal, which comes with your choice of two sides (I recommend the rice and vegetables) will set you back a cool 30 LE, a little under $6 US.

The restaurant is staffed by a rotating shift of male workers.  They wear different uniforms, which indicates  what their role is.  Those wearing the white smocks and chef’s hat work the kitchen and take orders from customers.  Men in orange shirts serve customers at the drink bar.  They also service the dining area, bringing meals to customers if he or she does not wait at the counter.  There are also men in brown shirts, who serve as the janitorial staff.  They continuously keep the dining area tidy, which is not an easy job.  Students here tend to leave their trash at their tables when finished.  Orders are taken by the clerk at the register.  Orders can be placed in English, and once it is paid for the customer receives a receipt and takes it to one of the three areas; Drink Bar, Food bar, or Pizza bar.  Then, the customer hands the receipt to one of the attendants.  Usually, the attendant will confirm your order and then take it to the kitchen.

That’s when the waiting begins.  Wait times for food at Tabasco can sometimes take awhile.  Admittedly, I have not seen the kitchen and don’t know how many chefs operate.  As an early riser, I have gone to Tabasco on a weekend morning (they are open 24 hours) when there were no other customers, and still found myself waiting about 20 minutes for a vegetable omelet.

I’m not complaining though.  That’s because the staff at Tabasco are awesome.  With the exception of the cashiers, most of the staff do not speak great English, and for the motivated student it is an excellent opportunity to practice Arabic.  In my experience, just about everyone at Tabasco enjoys speaking with foreign students in English — even though I would imagine it must be pretty painful for them (most of us butcher the language).  The time spent waiting for meals is like a mini-Arabic class.

I eat at Tabasco everyday.  I’m fairly certain I’m their number one customer.  The staff know my name, and they know my order.  They seem a bit disappointed that I eat the same thing each day though — vegetable omelet and grilled chicken.

Thursday, October 29, 2009
Blue Moon Martini

I meant to post this last night but didn’t get to it – the evening kind of got away from me and then there ended up being so much more to write about that, well, it ends up in here.  Tonight’s cocktail was the Blue Moon Martini, a lovely mix of 6 parts gin and 1 part blue curacao, garnished with a lemon twist.  I’ve actually had this before, when I first got this martini recipe book (as a Christmas gift from my kids … hmmm, I think that may be the sign of a problem there, but we’ll discuss that at some other point), this and my next drink were two of the ones I wanted to try because I’ve always liked blue curacao in margaritas.  I don’t bother with the fancy twirl of  a lemon twist for just me, I usually just take half a lemon slice and twist it to put a few drops into the drink and then drop it in. The cool thing is that it turns blue by the time you finish the drink, which makes it interesting when you dump it out to fresh your garbage disposal. Look!  Blue lemons!  What can I say, it’s the simple things that entertain me.

The Blue Moon is a nice drink.   Again, for me, I’m not a huge gin fan, so the curacao softens the gin for me.  Tasty, drinkable – might go well with mild Mexican food or as a post-dinner drink, as it is a little sweeter, but not excessively so.  Good for when you want a sweeter drink but don’t want to go full-on and order a chocolate martini.  Especially if you aren’t a fan of chocolate.  Although if you don’t like chocolate, well … I think that’s just downright un-American or something.  Although my kids aren’t big fans of it.  My ex used to say that I probably ate so much chocolate while they were in utero that they overdosed on it before they’re born, that could explain it.  Plus they’re boys.  To me, chocolate is always more of a chick thing anyway.  Back to the Blue Moon, I digress – respectable 4 stars, maybe even 4.5 if you are a particular fan of blue curacao, which, I have no idea what the origin of that particular liquor is.  Awww, wait, here we go … gotta love Wikipedia:

Curacao is a liqueur flavored with the dried peels of the laraha citrus fruit, grown on the island of Curacao.  It is not naturally blue, the color is added just to make it look exotic.  The fruit itself is apparently quite bitter.  You have to wonder, who thinks of these things?  “Yes, let’s dry the peels of this skanky, bitter fruit and let them soak in alcohol for a few days and see what happens.”  Apparently it used to be a Valencia orange but didn’t do so well in different soil.  Hmmm.  This was actually quite educational:

http://www.curacaoliqueur.com/history.php

My evening didn’t quite end at this point, however.  I recently got back in touch with an old high school friend on Facebook, and after I finally got my kids to bed for the night, we ended up chatting about our various perceptions and misperceptions of one another from high school years, now going back close to (yikes) 30 years ago.  I was enjoying the conversation, so I decided to mix up another martini, one of my two favorite varieties. Left to my own devices, I will either prefer a very dry Ketel One martini, or what I would call a “hot and dirty” martini – Ketel One shaken well with a generous dose of olive brine and a few shakes of Tabasco sauce, three or four sprays from my vermouth mister (yes, I actually own one) into a chilled glass, plus three bleu-cheese stuffed olives.  I prefer pepperjack cheese stuffed olives but BevMo recently stopped carrying them, which I am rather irritated about.  Alas, it’s not like I can boycott the place for that since they sell everything else I use!  So I made the hot and dirty martini and enjoyed that with another good hour of online chatting before heading off to bed.  I had the biggest crush on this guy back in 10th and 11th grade, when I was the stereotypical nerd/awkward dork and he was the stereotypical jock and class president.  Would I be interested in him now, thirty years later?  No idea.  Probably a topic for my other blog, and besides, I’m already seeing someone, not that my current relationship isn’t without its own complications.  Hmmm.  No wonder I drink so much.  At any rate, it was a nice evening …

Now let us get to the following morning.  The same guy I was chatting with online the previous night has been encouraging me to try yoga.  Not just any old yoga, but Bikram Yoga, also known as “hot” yoga.  Basically a class consists of working through multiple reps of 26 different yoga postures over the course of 90 minutes, in a 105 degree rooom.  Okay, the first part of that sounded maybe possibly tolerable, but throw in the last part and I’m starting to think I’m going to end up in some postmortem discussion of an Arizona sweat lodge incident, wondering why I didn’t just leave before I yakked up breakfast or died.  But the last two trips to the orthopedist have both told me I had osteoarthritis in both knees, and I just got an injection of cortisone in the right knee two days ago.  I need to do something to limber myself up before I freeze up like the Tin Woodsman sans oil.  And I don’t mind a nice sauna, although I’ve never stayed in one for an hour and a half doing exercises, either.  But I was determined to try.

This was where the two martinis from the previous night kind of became a problem, I would imagine.  Although I did dutifully drink probably a good quart of water before the class started over the course of my morning, and brought water with me, I can’t imagine that all that gin and vodka from the previous night was really the smartest idea in lieu of what I was doing on Friday morning.  To my credit, I did only go out of the room once, about 70 minutes into the session, when I thought I was either going to pass out from heat exhaustion or explode.  I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water all over my face and head, looked up into the mirror, and wondered why on earth someone hadn’t stuffed my head into an octagon-shaped mold and stenciled “STOP” across my face – it was THAT red.  Oy vey.  Some women look really sexy when they work out, they get flushed cheeks and a faintly sweaty glow.  I am not one of those woman. I never have been.  I either look bright red like I have scarlet fever, or I get this pasty white and sweaty look that makes you think you should call the paramedics and check my pulse.  Neither is overly flattering.  My Facebook chat friend told me that after I try the Bikram yoga for awhile I may start to have certain revelations about myself and my change my tastes and cravings for things.  Like giving up martinis?  Good grief, I would just have to give up the yoga first. 

Yes, I’m kidding.  I would honestly give up the martinis for the sake of a healthier body if I had some epiphany that told me I needed to do that.  Friday morning was pretty darn close, or at least it reminded me – stick to one drink!  Especially if I plan on spending the following morning in a sweat lodge.  Live and learn, I say.  Live and learn.

Your hostess, Cathy

Tabasco Crisis Económica: Propuestas y Alternativas el 5 y 6 de noviembre

5 DE NOVIEMBRE

9:00 am. Inauguración del Foro
Lic. Evaristo Hernández Cruz, Presidente Municipal de Centro.
9:30 a.m. Conferencia: La Organización de Huertos Familiares como alternativa para la Producción de Alimentos en el medio rural y suburbano de Tabasco
Dr. Baldemar Hernández Márquez.
10:30 a.m. Conferencia: Política Pública para despetrolizar la Economía de Tabasco
ME Lácides García Detjen
11:30 a.m. Receso.
11:45 a.m. Conferencia: Federalismo Fiscal y Desarrollo Económico
MAP Wilver Méndez Magaña.
12:45 p.m. Conferencia: La Política Económica Agropecuaria, Industrial y de Servicios.
ME Eduardo Estañol Vidal.
1:45 p.m. Receso.
5:00 p.m. Conferencia: Crónica de las Crisis Económicas
ME Mario Alberto De Ygartua y Monteverde.
6:00 p.m. Conferencia: La Economía debe ser social
ME Victor Manuel Barceló Rodríguez.
7:00 p.m. Conferencia: Servicios Financieros y la Competitividad en Tabasco
Lic. Javier Vidaurri Cámara.

6 DE NOVIEMBRE: PONENCIAS

9:00 a.m. La Estrategia de los Eslabonamientos de los Recursos Naturales de Tabasco para organizar empresas productivas
ME. José Juan Paz Reyes.
9:30 a.m. Característivas de las Economías Desarrolladas, Emergentes, en Vías de Desarrollo y Subdesarrolladas
MAP Raúl Pérez Wade.
10:00 a.m. Impacto de la Actividad Petrolera en las Finanzas de Tabasco
Dr. Óscar Priego Hernández.
10:30 a.m. Impacto de la Actividad Ganadera en el Municipio de Centro, Tabasco
MA José Domingo Pérez Pérez.
10:45 a.m. Receso
11:00 a.m. Las Granjas Pecuarias como Productoras de Alimentos
MAP Román De la Rosa Palacios.
11:30 a.m. El Sector Primario como alternativa de generar Valor Agregado
LE José De la Cruz Hipólito.
12:00 m. Clasificación del Sector Empresarial
Dr. Juan José Chablé Sangeado.
12:30 p.m. Capital Humano y Desarrollo
MA Juan Vásquez Aldana.
1:00 p.m. El Turismo en Tabasco
Lic. María del Refugio Velasco.
1:30 p.m. Receso.
5:00 p.m. El Sector Servicios ante la Situación Económica en el Estado de Tabasco
ME Javier Jiménez Tecillo.
5:30 p.m. Reforma Integral de la Educación Media Superior en Tabasco
LE Bolívar Cruz Sánchez.
6:00 p.m. El Valor Económico del Diseño
Lic. Josefina Ramírez Tuero.
6:30 p.m. Las Artes Gráficas
LE José Manuel Granados Martínez.
7:00 p.m. Relatoría Final del Foro.
7:30 p.m. Presentación del libro: “Prensa y Libertad” del Dr. Baldemar Hernández Márquez.
8:00 p.m. Clausura del Foro y Entrega de Constancias.
MAP Julio César Cabrales De la Cruz
Presidente del Colegio de Economistas de Tabasco A.C.
8:30 p.m. Festejo del Día del Licenciado en Economía.
Noche Tabasqueña.