After Two Nights of Rain

Tuesday and Wednesday nights here in Mexico City were chilly and rainy.  Just look at the results of that in this dramatic photo of the snow-covered volcano Iztaccíhuatl which someone sent to Alejandro.

I often post photos of Popocatépetl from the Mexican webcams website, but Iztaccíhuatl (Izta for short) is the other volcano (this one non-active) to the east of Mexico City.  I don't think I have ever seen it with this much snow!

The picture certainly does not match the image of tropical Mexico that most people have.  The last couple days have indeed been dreary and chilly.  As I write this, just before dawn, the temperature is only 47 degrees F.  However, as I look out the window of my office, the sky is once again cloudless, and the afternoon high is forecast to be 74.

Weather Report

I have been in Mexico for nearly a month, and, for the most part, the weather has been perfect with lots of sunshine and high temperatures in the afternoon above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  There were several days where the temperature rose above 80, a bit unusual for the month of November.  

Tuesday night a cold front came through and it rained.  The low went down to 44.  Wednesday morning was chilly and depressingly gray.  I actually felt cold (most Mexican homes do not have heat), and I put on a sweater over a long-sleeve shirt.  The sun eventually came out by the afternoon but the high never hit 70.  Last night it rained once again.  This morning it was cloudy again, and although there is no rain in forecast, we probably will not see the sun today.  The temperature is only predicted to reach 66 F.

A gray November morning in Mexico City

I'm sure that my readers north of the border have no sympathy, but I'm not really complaining. Tomorrow the sun will return, and the mercury will rise again into the 70s.

      

Piñatas!

My favorite small museum in Mexico City is the Museum of Popular Arts.  I have written about it many times on this blog, and I visit it often because there are frequent special exhibitions in addition to its permanent collection.

The museum sponsors a number of contests to promote the continuation of Mexican handicrafts.  On one visit I saw the entries for their kite contest, and, as you well know, if you read this blog, they sponsor the "alebrije" parade each October.  Last week, I returned to see the entries for their 15th annual piñata contest.  

(Just in case you don't know, a piñata is a papier mâché figure colorfully decorated and filled with candy, and it is an iconic element of the celebration of Christmas in Mexico.)

There are more than 230 entries in this year's contest.  The piñatas are hung from the balconies of the courtyard of the art deco building which was originally Mexico City's main fire station.

Here are some of the piñatas...

This figure represents one of the food vendors who sell their wares from canoes on the canals of the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco.

This piñata includes one of Mexico City's best known landmarks, the Palace of Fine Arts.

Here is another Mexico City landmark, the Monument to the Revolution.

This one represents the masked face of Santo, probably the most famous "lucha libre" wrestler.

A few of its "feathers" are drooping, but this one is an Aztec headdress.

Here we have a beehive.

A Mayan noble

A mermaid

An elderly woman

Who would want to smash "granny" with a stick?

The head of the ancient, feathered-serpent god, Quetzalcoatl

An "axolotl", a salamander-like animal that lives in the canals of Xochimilco

A number of the piñatas were "catrinas", skulls and skeletons, more appropriate for Day of the Dead than for Christmas.

One of my favorites was this very traditional piñata.  The piñata was supposedly introduced as a teaching tool by Spanish missionaries.  The figure had seven cones which represented the seven deadly sins.  If you defeated sin and broke the piñata, you were rewarded with treats showering down on you.

If you are in Mexico City and want to see the piñatas at the Museum of Popular Arts, hurry, because they will only be on display until December 12th!

  

Thanksgiving Dinner - Two Days Early

I wrote yesterday that I was going to make a Thanksgiving dinner of sorts for my Mexican family.  Alejandro and I drove to the nearby Chedraui Supermarket hoping to find a pre-cooked turkey breast similar to what we had seen at City Market.  We asked the ladies at the deli counter, and they didn't have anything like that, but one of them brought out something the size of a large ham that was made with pressed turkey meat and stuffed with plums and almonds.  I wasn't exactly what we were looking for, but we had them cut off eight thick slices.

Back at the house, I placed the slices in a large Pyrex baking dish.  I didn't want it to dry out when I heated it in the oven, so I poured the two cans of turkey gravy that we had previously purchased over it.  Alejandro also suggested putting pats of butter on top.  (Sure!  Nobody ever said that Thanksgiving was supposed to be low in calories!)  After about a half hour I took it out of the oven, and it was hot and bubbling.

I also prepared the bag of spaetzle that I had bought at City Market.  This was imported from France and was Alsatian-style spaetzle.  Apparently, in Alsace, that border region where French and German cultures have melded over the centuries, spaetzle is more like noodles than the little dumplings typical of Germany and Switzerland.   After boiling and draining the spaetzle, I added butter, a chopped onion that I had sauteed to the point of caramelization, and lots of grated cheese.  (Lots of butter and cheese!  Again, Thanksgiving dinner is not supposed to be low-cal.)  Probably, Gruyere or Emmenthal cheese would have been more appropriate but, lacking that, I added Manchego cheese.  (Why not make this even more international with some cheese from Spain!)  I tasted the finished product, and it did taste like the "Spaetzle mit Kaese" that I have had at a German restaurant back in Cleveland.

It was time to serve dinner.  Really the only thing on the plate that was truly typical of a Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. was the can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce.  However, the entire meal was something very different from what the family had ever had before.

 And what was most important was that the entire family liked the meal.  In fact, they are talking about buying some more of that turkey roll for Christmas Eve supper.

May all of my readers from the United States have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A Thanksgiving Feast... of Sorts

Yesterday was Revolution Day, so Alejandro didn't have to work.  In the afternoon we decided to take a long walk.  We didn't have any destination in mind, but as we headed south down Insurgentes Avenue, we decided to go to City Market, a chain of very upscale supermarkets.  The closest one to the apartment is about a thirty-minute walk away in the neighborhood of Colonia del Valle.

We had been to City Market once before, but we decided to take a closer look and see what products they had that were not typically found at other Mexican supermarkets.  Alejandro found cans of pumpkin puree.  He is not likely to make any more pumpkin pies any time soon.  (He just made four of them a couple weeks ago from fresh pumpkin.)  Nevertheless, he bought a can to have on hand.  

Next to it we found cans of cranberry sauce, and that gave me an idea.  Usually after the weekends, I go back to Alejandro's family's house for a couple of nights, and I will cook dinner for the family.  I already had something in mind to fix today, but when I saw the cranberry sauce, it dawned on me that perhaps I could fix a scaled down version of a Thanksgiving dinner.  City Market also had pre-cooked turkey breasts.  I did not want to buy anything perishable since we had a half hour walk on a warm afternoon back to the apartment.  But we are hoping to go to the Chedraui Supermarket close to Alejandro's house today and find something similar.  I also found canned turkey gravy at City Market.  (Yeah, I know... canned gravy... yuck!  But I don't have time to slave all day over this pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner, so canned gravy will have to do.)  For a side dish I am making something that is not typical of Thanksgiving at all.  However, when I saw bags of imported "spaetzel" at City Market, I could not resist.  I am going to sauté some onion, and melt in some Swiss cheese, and make "Spaetzel mit Kaese".

I will let you know how this early Thanksgiving dinner of sorts comes out.  Hopefully, I won't be a flop! 

On the Wall

Over the months when I was bringing smaller things in my suitcases that I wanted here in Mexico, there were a number of items that I needed to get framed.  I figured that framing is much less expensive down here, and they would be easier to pack unframed.

Among those items were two Christmas cards that one of my Swiss cousins had sent me the last two years.  They are examples of the Swiss art of paper-cutting, or "Scherenschnitte".  I definitely wanted to frame them and hang them in my new home in Mexico.

I went to a framing shop that I always pass on my way to the public market in Colonia del Valle.  They put the cards in metallic frames with non-glare glass.  I picked them up last week.  The cost was much less than it would have been in the U.S., but I think they look nice.  They are now hanging on the wall of my office.

 

Getting Into the "Buen Fin" Spirit

When I was downtown on Friday I actually participated a bit in the shopping frenzy that takes place during the "Buen Fin", Mexico's version of Black Friday which occurs each year over the Revolution Day weekend.

Just off of the Zócalo is a department store called "El Nuevo Mundo".  It may not be as well known as the bigger department store chains, but it has a long tradition in Mexico City.  It was originally founded in 1877 as a fabric store, and, although it still has a large fabric department, the four floors of the store today feature men's, women's and children's clothing, shoes, home goods, and furniture.

Because it was the "Buen Fin", everything in the store was discounted up to 40%.

(Of course, you know that most items were not discounted THAT much.)

I went up to the top floor to the home goods department, because I wanted to buy some placemats for the dining table in my apartment.  

It seemed at first as if all of the placemats were made in China, but then I came upon some that were made in Mexico.  They were actually perfect for the glass top table.  They were oval in shape and made from a rubberized material.  I bought four of them in black.  The original cost was only 116 pesos (6.73 U.S. dollars), but they were discounted to 92 pesos ($5.32 U.S.).  I had to smile when the affable gentleman at the cash register insisted on speaking to me in English.

I was getting a little hungry, and I had heard that the restaurant in the department store was quite good.  I order "café con leche" (the Mexican version of "café au lait") and chicken enchiladas in a "poblano" pepper sauce.  The enchiladas were very tasty, and this light lunch cost a whopping 144 pesos ($8.36 U.S.)

Looking toward the Zócalo from a window of the restaurant

Heading downstairs to the men's department I got into the Christmas-shopping mood.  Alejandro's dad is always cold, especially in the winter.  I found a very nice zip-up sweater (it was actually called a "sweater-jacket") that was made in Mexico.  The original price was 1099 pesos ($64 U.S.) but, with the "Buen Fin" discount, it was 879 pesos ($51 U.S.).  If my math is correct, that was about 20% off.

I enjoyed my little shopping expedition at "El Nuevo Mundo".  I like the store, and the employees are extremely friendly and helpful.  I have a start on my Christmas shopping too!