NORMA'S KITCHEN (Note that this entire website is copyrighted. Please send people to this website, www.fallinginlovewithsanmiguel.com, rather than copying and forwarding sections without permission or credit. Thank you.--Carol Schmidt and Norma Hair) October 16, 2006--Replacing a broken pizza stone Finally, I'm back in the kitchen. I have been doing everything else for so long: building websites, fixing websites, inputting to websites, learning about stuff I never wanted to know about. The first problem I had to deal with was a cracked pizza stone. I went to the internet to see what was available. I had decided I wanted two rectangle pizza stones that would fit on two oven shelves with just a couples of inches of space between the oven walls and the stone. I found a nice thick one, but it was $46 apiece, not even considering shipping here. Along the way, I read that unglazed quarry tiles would work just as well. So off we went to one of the tile places on the side of road to Celaya. I bought four thick tiles that fit my measurements, two per shelf. Total cost: 28 pesos, under $2.80 US.  I came home, scrubbed them really good with water only, using a stiff brush. I let them dry a couple of days, placed them in the oven, and turned the oven on to low. I gradually raised the temperature. I opened a couple of windows. As the temperature was raised, more windows were opened, then a fan. Carol was gasping. Soon every window in the house was opened and all fans turned to high. Then we locked the cats in the bathroom and opened all the doors.  Then we left the house. But finally the tiles quit smoking and the household returned to normal. Until the next baking. The second heating with nothing on the tiles was not nearly as bad. But, it was now time to oil the tiles and repeat the process. All I can say is we lived through it. We fully expected that someone would call the fire department because of the smoke pouring out our windows and doors. The next several days we spent recoverering from clogged sinuses. The cats are very cautious when approaching the bathroom in fear they will be locked in again. Then I made pizza.   It was wonderful in taste and texture, but it stuck to the tiles. I broke the news and the solution to Carol as gently as I could. Cats back in the bathroom, us back on the porch while smoke billowed into our courtyard. But when all was done, the tiles made the desired "ping" when tapped, like good china. I have not made pizza since. I have to work up to another test slowly. We brought some wonderful goodies back from an Asian market in Austin, including dark soy, thick soy, black vinegar, chinese wine and a large wok. We now have a very small kaffir lime tree and lemon grass plants. We got the green light at the border. I found rye flour, glutin, semolina, corn starch, and dark and light brown sugar at Bonanza. You never know what you'll find at Bonanza.  And we are still so busy that we are having ham sandwiches and salad for dinner. Soon I'll try pizza again. Carol's book club meets here once a year, her turn coming up in November, and they demand my pizza as the refreshments. July 19, 2006--Disappointingly perfect We had invited several friends for dinner and I wanted to try something new. New is the dreaded word that means, I will fix this until I get it right, which means, we have to eat it until I get it right. My choice for the main dish was chicken fajitas, but I had eight days to get it right. When I work on a recipe, I go after it with the same determination as I did in the old days as an accountant determined to balance. Failure or mediocrity is not an option. An eight day window just added to my determination. After all, in my old life, I worked best with a deadline. The first recipe I tried was from a Penzey's catalogue--okay, but not quite right. Carol knows the routine. Research the cookbooks and internet, pick a recipe, buy the ingredients, cook it, and eat it. Failure, back to the cookbooks and internet, shop, and fix again. Adjust. Not quite right. Cookbooks and internet again, each time making notes as to what was changed, what went right and why we didn't like it. We have a routine. I ask, how is it, knowing that I am already not pleased with the result. She says it's "good," code word for, please don't fix this again. She never complains. I know that when I get the recipe right I don't have to ask, as I will know it is very good. There will be no conversation, we will both be doing heavy breathing as we eat, and the dog will get nothing from either of us. Four tries and I finally had it right. So, in eight days, we had chicken fajitas five times! Four chicken fajita meals in five days, two days reprieve, and then came the guests to enjoy the final recipe. The only change for the dinner party was to reduce the spices a bit. Now, the recipe will be typed with the changes I made, inserted into a plastic sleeve, and filed in my favorites book, ready for the next time we want fajitas...in a few weeks. My next project was ice cream. Friends brought me down a Cusinart ice cream maker from the States that included a recipe book. Knowing that failure in ice cream making is never a bad thing-- merely good is still good in ice cream--I decided to make cookies and cream for my first try. Perfect! This was a disappointment. So I had to try mango the next night. Perfect, too!  No changes needed in either. The ice cream freezer has been put away until we have another dinner party, in the interest of good health. I did not have to make changes, no searching for other recipes, and mutual heavy breathing on the first try. Really disappointing! Back to pizza. July 7, 2006--Finding an organic farm with fresh yellow sweet corn We had discovered one organic farm a few weeks ago, described by Carol on her blog, but today we found another one that has freshly picked sweet corn. There are hundreds of varieties of corn, but in Mexico most is big-eared white corn that we would call field corn in the U.S.  To get to this organic farm, take Canal past the immigration offices, past the railroad tracks. Just over the tracks, the new paved road to the right goes to La Cieneguita. Don't take that one, keep going straight ahead on the unpaved road, for more than a mile. When you come to a fork in the road, keep to the right. You will come to a brick wall and wrought iron gate with the name Rancho la Trinidad on the right side of the road. Drive in and check out what they have freshly picked that day. We bought eight ears of corn at three pesos an ear, five small yellow summer squash for a peso each, and two big heads of leafy lettuce for four pesos a head, for a total of about $3.70 US. Tonight we're having corn. May 30, 2006--Chicken Stock, crema, diet salad dressing: Odds and ends have taken my time the past couple of weeks. I need to have some basics in the freezer all the time because they add just that right additional something to many other dishes. Chicken broth is one of these ingredients. I know I can find it canned at Carey's, and a friend said she once found it in a box at Gigante next to the boxes of fruit juices! So every time we go there or any other grocery store I look for it next to the juices as well as in the soups and dried bouillon sections. So far I have only found it at Carey's, and at the quantity we use, canned broth is just too expensive. The bouillon cubes and granules are far too salty, so every couple of months it's time to make chicken broth. I buy a couple of whole or split chickens at the Bachoco chicken shop on Mesones right next to Plaza Civica. I put them in my large crockpot with onions, carrots, celery, salt and pepper. The crockpot does its thing all day, and I then strain the broth and chill it to later skim off the fat. Then it goes into the freezer in one-cup plastic containers. Since we are constantly fighting weight gain, I use the chicken broth to cook with instead of oil, or combined with only a little oil, to cut the calories. Chicken broth is great to cook vegetables, to thin crema for sauces, to make tastier rice, as a soup base, and as a thinning agent when I'm reheating meat and any number of leftovers. It can be used in mashed potatoes instead of cream and butter. We ladle a spoonful over a baked potato once opened, to cut down on the need for butter and sour cream. Carol buys a lot of fresh mushrooms, which she saves before they get old and open up by sauteeing them, not in butter, but in a little chicken broth. She finds that a cup of mushrooms added to many dishes will add a lot of volume and flavor for very few extra calories.  (I find them gritty, no matter how they are cleaned first.) After the broth is in the freezer I then shred the boiled chicken meat. Last week's project was making tortilla soups and my green chille chicken stew that I use in lots of dishes. We go through a lot of green tomatillo salsa and black beans, so preparing these in quantities for the freezer came next. I know we can buy these fairly cheaply but what can I say: Carol writes and paints, I play in the kitchen. She likes my recipes better than the commercial ones anyway. I am trying to develop a low calorie salad dressing we both like. There isn't much variety available here at a reasonable price. We discovered one brand with several variations that looked particularly appealing at Gigante. Then I looked at the price: fifty-six pesos for about 10 ounces. Back to the cookbooks. We eat a lot of salad and we get bored with the same old dressing. I found a couple of recipes on the internet that I have been working with. I use cornstarch and water as the base, rather than the usual three or four to one olive oil to vinegar ratio most recipes call for.  I bring the mixture to a boil until it thickens a bit. To this thickened base I add a vinegar: balsamic, red wine, tarragon, or whatever taste I'm craving at that moment. Then come the garlic, onions and herbs. Then I add a tablespoon of olive oil to each cup of dressing for additional flavor--without at least a tiny amount of oil the recipes fall flat. Two tablespoonsful of these diet dressings are about 30 calories. This diet dressing recipe is not perfect, and it can get boring even with the variations.  So we continue to search for the occasional find at Bonanza or Gigante and something really special at Carey's, to keep salads interesting. If anyone has any other recipes for diet salad dressing, I'd love to have them posted. Last week I worked with variations on crema-based sauces as well. We had guests for dinner last week and I was going to fix burritos, Mexican rice and beans, something simple. The black beans were already made up in quantity in the freezer, needing only a little grated sheese, onion and garlic, and a dollop of crema on top to accent the tastes. I had gotten the standard-sized six-inch flour tortillas at the Tortillas Harina shop on Mesones between Hidalgo and Relox, and they are a bit small to fold into traditional burritos. You have to ask for maxi or tres-maxi to get larger tortillas, made for you on the spot in their back room. So instead, I just put some filling on one half of the flour tortilla and folded the other half over. The Tortillas Harina shop calls that a "burritaco." It was kind of a burrito or taco. With the sauce, it looked kind of like enchiladas. I placed them on the platter, put the platter in the oven to heat for a few minutes. and went to work on the sauce. I took a half cup or so of crema mixed with some chicken broth and added the juice of a couple of small limes, a couple tablespoons of Carol's basic fresh tomato salsa (recipe in the forums), a teaspoon of adobo sauce from a can of chipoltes, and salt and pepper. I heated this mixture for a minute or two, poured it over the burritos/enchiladas/burritacos, and topped the dish off with some crumbled soft cheese and diced tomatoes. It was wonderful. I have used crema thinned with chicken broth and a little blue cheese and bell pepper strips or mushrooms added to make pasta dishes. There is no real recipe, just this and that added to the base of crema and chicken broth. When we buy tamales from the TexTamale cart, I'll brown some crumbled chorizo (we like the chorizo from Costco best, we always know it will be consistent), drain it, and add some of Carol's fresh tomato salsa and lime juice and then stir in crema and chicken broth, with salt and pepper to taste. We use this over scrambled eggs, too. It can go over rice, pasta or veggies, to make a quick meal. My version of Sopa Tarasca (a soup originally developed in the town of Patzcuaro) and Mexican rice will be added to the cooking forum along with a basic recipe for what I consider the perfect white rice. May 6, 2006--Cheeses: After four years in San Miguel, I feel I am just beginning to get a working knowledge of the cheeses. Just like finding anything here, we make lots of memory notes when we are out and about. Since we love to window shop, we go into stores even when we aren't buying and, with time, what and where things are available starts to sink in. And sometimes I'll remember that something is indeed available here but I don't have a clue where I saw it for sale. The primary tiendas where I buy cheese are Bonanza, La Cava, Costco, and the stalls behind Ramirez market (behind Plaza Civica, north on Colegio).  We went into the Wal-Mart affiliated Superama in Queretaro and saw they had a very large selection of fancy bulk imported cheeses, many as much as $20 US a pound or more. We will continue to buy cheeses at the local shops whenever possible. La Cava on Zacateras has a wonderful selection, even if they're a bit pricey. I wanted fontina cheese recently and La Cava was the first place I went. They didn't have any at the time but the owner cut a small piece of another cheese to sample that he thought would make a good substitute. It was fine and I was on my way. When I need fresh mozarella, I go to La Cava. When I need any special cheese, La Cava is my first choice. (Caveat: ask the price before you have something cut or packaged for you. Carol asked for what seemed to be a small amount of imported Greek olives and didn't pay attention, and when she got home and wondered where her money had gone, she figured out she had $20 US worth of olives!) Bonanza has a sign on the wall in their deli section with the cheeses they have available, or have had available at one time or another, maybe not today, but they're on the sign. We buy our fresh cheeses from the women at the stalls behind Ramirez market, queso oaxaca in particular. It is by far the cheese we use most because of the taste, texture and melting qualities. The fresh cheese does not seem to keep as well as the aged cheeses.  Incidentally, the area behind Ramirez recently was remodeled. The women now have a roof overhead and there are more stalls in a more orderly arrangement. Costco, as with everything else at Costco, is catch as catch can, with favorite foods discontinued without notice sometimes.  But we really like their sharp white cheddar cheese and goat cheese. They also have Monterey Jack and fresh mozarella in a larger size. (You can buy 10-pound blocks of some cheeses if you want.) The last time I was there, they had two versions of fresh mozzarella: one with herbs and spices, great for appetizer trays, and a plain one in a smaller package. They have a goat cheese that is wonderful as a substitute for feta. Since we lived most of our adult lives in the Southwest, we were already familiar with the most of the soft Mexican cheeses as they are readily available in much of the U.S.. Queso fresco and queso panela are the most common, and they crumble easily. We had already used both for enchiladas, tacos, and any dish we needed to top with a crumbly cheese. If you see a cheese that still has the imprint of a basket molded into it, it's queso panelo, or queso de canasta (canasta is the Spanish word for basket). It's used like ricotta and will not lose its shape. We were not familiar with queso oaxaca. It is a string cheese that is wound into a ball and has a bit of a tangy taste, especially the less aged cheese from the stalls behind Ramirez. The commercially packaged oaxaca has a firmer texture, seems to keep longer, is less wet but milder. I use oaxaca as a substitute for aged mozarella. It's very good for making quesadillas. Queso asadero is another melting cheese available most everywhere, especially in the small creameries. Often we have asked for oaxaca and gotten asadero. It substitutes well for Monterey Jack, as it is very mild and is definitely a melting cheese.  It's what is often used in quesadillas or melted over nachos. It is very bland. Queso blanco is a skimmed cow milk cheese that does not actually melt, it just gets soft. It's used to stuff burritos and chile rellenos. But I prefer oaxaca for these. The closest Mexican versions of cheddar are called queso chihuahua and queso mennonita. They are available at Bonanza. When the Mennonites immigrated to Mexico, they brought their cheese with them. Neither cheese has the exact texture or quite the taste of the cheddar that we were used to, but both are very good. If a cheese is called queso jalapeno, it simply has some jalapenos in it. When queso fresco ages, it becomes queso anejo, firmer and saltier. When it's got a red spicy ground chili coating it's queso ajejo enchilada, also good on an appetizer tray or for any use where a stronger cheese is desired. I have only touched on the many cheeses available here, including manchego (a buttery cheese in various stages of aging), edam, gruyere, brie, parmesan, romano, gouda, wonderful blue cheese and roquefort, and on and on.  Bulk cheese is the norm at La Cava and Bonanza. We were surprised when we first moved here to see that many restaurant menus specified they used gouda in Mexican recipes. We have found that we eat a much wider selection of cheese here than we did in the States. Maybe there we were just in a rut. I'd like to hear what other cheese you like to use. Post on the forum the cheeses you use and how, the substitutes you have found for cheese you haven't found here, where you found your special cheese, and anything else on the uses and kinds of Mexican cheese. A P.S. added May 8--we went into Kike's supermarket yesterday and noticed that they sell the regular mozarella in bulk, too! April 9, 2006--"Baby" We had leftovers starting to take over the refrigerator. Bits of fresh salsa, some Mexican rice, a little cheese, a half cup of shredded chicken, each taking up precious space. (We bought an extra stand-up freezer and the largest fridge we could afford, but we still have space problems.)So Saturday evening, we went looking for tamales at Civica Plaza. The woman with the TexTamale cart was there and we bought four salsa verde puerco ones (pork in green salsa). Each tamale is 4 pesos, about 40 cents US, a real bargain. On Sunday morning, I made  a sauce of crema (similar to sour cream) thinned with leftover chicken broth. I added a little adobo sauce from a can of chipoltes, then the chicken and fresh salsa. I poured this mixture over the re-steamed tamales. I topped this with a little shredded cheese and added the Mexican rice to the side. Breakfast was wonderful and very quick and easy. I needed the "quick and easy" part, after having had a very exhausting two weeks in the kitchen. I ran across a site on the internet that sold San Francisco sourdough starter. Now I know that we can get great bread at El Maple and many other places in town, but nothing is too complicated for me to tackle. In fact, the more complicated the more likely I'll take an interest. (Footnote below)  Upon arrival of my San Francisco Sourdough Starter package, I opened the envelope feeling the excitement of a new project. There could not have been more than a dozen flakes in the very small plastic bag inside the pamphlet of instructions and recipes. I soon realized that nurturing a starter is something like caring for a newborn baby. I followed the instructions carefully, adding water between 70 and 80 degrees Farenheit plus the flour. This mixture had to be maintained at between 70 and 85 degrees. Death occurred at 90 degrees. Bubbles were supposed to appear between 8 to 12 hours later. So into the oven this mixture went. I put the digital themometer on the towel covering the bowl and turned on the light in the oven. With considerable door adjustment and tinkering, I finally tucked baby in for the night. For the first time in many years I was up at the crack of dawn to check on baby. Did she have bubbles? No bubbles. I was sure I had killed baby. But only 8 hours had passed . Baby could be a late riser just like her mama. At 10 hours, I panicked and e-mailed the internet contact for the starter company. She promptly wrote back and told me to stir baby; there had to be bubbles. So, I gave baby a gentle stir . She was thick and gooey but still no bubbles. I went back to the instructions and then back to the bowl. Finally--there was one bubble, but it was a very beautiful bubble indeed. I fed baby flour and water per the instructions, thrilled that baby was alive. Every four hours baby had to be fed. Each feeding consisted of a cup of flour and a cup of water between 70 and 80 degrees. So every four hours, I measured out a cup of starter, threw out the remaining starter so the house wouldn't be overrun by starter, heated the water, measured the flour, stirred, and regulated temps. And then I cleaned up. The gooey remains stuck to everything. I remembered making paste out of flour when I was a kid. I could have made a fortune on this stuff, it put rubber cement to shame. Every four hours for 72 hours in total I nurtured baby.  I did double feed at midnight to avoid doing a 4 a.m. feeding. I began to count the hours and minutes. My life revolved around caring for baby. I was increasingly cranky. I was tired. Finally, 72 hours passed. I measured out two cups of the final starter and into the refrigerator baby went. Then we ate what was left of baby. (Note from Carol--Baby first went into sourdough pancakes,the best I've ever had, and Norma even made sourdough English muffins as her next project with the baby. We get to try sourdough pizza crust this week--yum. I can vouch that she always starts with the most complicated project she can find.  Back in rural Michigan, where we had the spaciousness of an old country church to fill with our crafts, she bought everything to start us on stained glass. I began with simple sun catcher designs to hang in windows and sold dozens of them immediately. Norma bought all the glass for a five-foot picture of three nearly life-sized geese tiptoeing through a field of tulips. She never finished it before we sold all our stained glass materials as we left Michigan and hit the road RVing.) March 15, 2006--Trying out Cuban Pork and Lebanese Chicken I have been trying out new recipes this past week. Even though we eat many different dishes, it's so easy to get into a groove of relying on the same favorites. We were invited to new friends for dinner recently and they served Indian curried chicken with rice and fried water bread. It was wonderful! So that spurred me on to dig out some recipes I'd been wanting to try.  The first recipe was Cuban Pork. Carol got it off the MSNBC internet site. I don't have a clue if it is authentic and at first I couldn't quite decide if I liked it. The pork marinates for 6 to 24 hours in a mixture that includes lime juice and grapefruit juice. Grapefruit juice has never been my thing, but I followed the recipe exactly, which I always do the first time before experimenting. We had all the ingredients on hand--thanks to Bonanza's spice department. Then the pork goes into the crockpot for 12 hours on low setting. When I took the lid off the next morning, the pork was still in its oval shape, but when I stuck a fork into it, we had instant pulled pork.  Off we went to buy a package of wonderful flour tortillas at Tortillas Harina on Mesones and we had a feast of pork, tortillas, fresh salsa, fruit and salad. Carol liked the pork from the very beginning, and by the the end of the meal, so did I. The other new recipe I tried this week was Lebanese Chicken. We went to El Bacha, a Lebanese restaurant which has since closed, for Carol's bithday last year. They had a chicken dish on the buffet and it was so good! In our previous lives in the old country (the States), I was not a fan of middle eastern food, except for greek salads. Something has happened to my food tastes since moving to San Miguel  but that's another story for another time. We asked the waiter what the chicken dish was called and he said it was Beirut chicken. I searched the internet and finally gave up on finding Beirut chicken but then I typed in Lebanese chicken, which took me to Recipe Source. (There is a link to that site on our link page.) This dish was love at first bite. The Cuban pork is not spicy at all and the Lebanese chicken is mild for our tastes but very, very good the way it is. For us we will add a little more cayenne the next time. Both of these recipes are going on the forum cooking site under recipes. February 28, 2006--Where do I shop? Someone asked me the other day, "Where do you shop?" since there isn't a huge supermarket every other block as in the States. I remembered when we first arrived how overwhelmed we were trying to find anything. Carol at the time remarked that it used to be much easier just to push a cart down an aisle. The hardest part about shopping in the States was deciding among the 10 kinds of peanut butter or trying to decide which cat snack would our cats want that week. Of course in those days, we rarely walked farther than from the car to the store and from the car back into the house. So suddenly we were in a world of walking, carrying bolsas (usually a strong plastic woven plaid shopping bag with handles, though a bolsa can be anything from a purse to a grocery sack) down the street, popping in and out of tiny stores all of which carry something different. My first shopping trip was to find my favorite food group, flour tortillas and peanut butter. We had to go to Costco to find Skippy peanut butter, though other brands are sold in most Mexican grocery stores. I soon discovered that corn tortilla stores were easy to find, in fact they were all over the place. The flour ones were not so easy. And since my mind can only absorb just so much at a time, I found Bonanza had them in plastic packages. But they were like the ones in the States, not the fresh, pliable tortillas I remembered from my trips to Baja. Yes, authentic Mexican flour tortillas are made with lard. That's what makes them taste so good.  Weeks later, I was walking down Mesones between Hidalgo and Reloj, and I saw someone coming out of a doorway with a package of flour tortillas. There it was, a tiny hidden doorway with a small yellow sign, "Tortillas de harina," the tortillas being made fresh in the rear of the store and sold for about 40 cents for ten, and that was the end of my search for flour tortillas. This was was one of those awakening moments of my shopping safaris. From that moment on, every walk became an adventure. Even if I wasn't looking for anything in particular, I was window shopping. It took two years to find waxed paper, but one day there it was, in a tiny store filled to the brim with far too many items for its size. Now I find it in many stores. Of course the brand I've found is waxed on only one side, but that's the kind of thing you learn to live with in Mexico. At first, I shopped a lot at the expensive import stores, aimed at gringas, but with time I learned many substitutes. Brown sugar has been replaced by the hard brown sugar cones called polincillo (you have to break them up at home with a hammer), Gold Medal flour by the bulk flour at Bonanza. I learned not to believe those who said you could only make U.S. baked goods in Mexico using imported Gold Medal. Only recently did I discover that Bonanza has a card hanging in the spice section with the English to Spanish translations for the many bulk spices they sell. Until then I would stand before their wall of maybe 50 bins and jars of bulk spices and herbs and try to figure out some of the items. "Coco" was obviously shredded coconut, "cacahuete" was the label on the peanuts.  But what dried green herb was 'albahaca"? (It's basil, and now I also have some herbs growing in my kitchen window.) So now I buy fresh chicken cut into pieces while I watch at the chicken store on Mesones next to Plaza Civica, and fruits and vegetables at Ramirez Market from a guy in a stall in the rear who always throws in an extra orange, avocacado, mango or whatever is handy as our "regalo," gift.  Fresh flowers can be purchased anytime, but particularly on Thursday, at Ramirez Market. Oaxaca cheese tastes best from the women who normally sell in sidewalk displays behind Ramirez but who are now lined up in front of the market during some construction. Fresh herbs are available from the "weed ladies" sitting among the cheese and gordita sellers. She asks if we want five or ten pesos worth of mint or rosemary or epazole. If we're walking to someplace more to the southwest of us we'll stop at San Juan de Dios, another large covered mercado with hundreds of shops selling everything from produce to bras and boots. I buy from several pork butchers depending on what meat looks best that day. Bacon comes from La Loncha shop on Mesones that also advertises lamb and "Jaime Dean" breakfast sausage. But I still buy ground beef from Costco, and their pastrami, when they have it. I buy other cheeses from Bonanza or La Cava or from a little cheese and lunchmeat store on Insurgentes at Quebrada. Bonanza has a cheddar cheese made by the Mennonites in northern Mexico. Oaxacan string cheese works just as well as mozzarella on pizzas. Just the other day, I was walking up Insurgentes from San Juan Dios market when I passed a store with thin plastic storage containers in the half pint, pint and quart size hanging on the door. I had been looking for something like these since we got here since I often cook two meals at once and freeze the other. I bought some and it turns out they are made in Illinois. Now I am looking for plastic cup-sized containers with lids that they use to sell salsa at the corn tortilla stores. I use regular plastic cups to freeze my homemade chicken broth but it would be handier to have cup-sized containers with lids. Some day as we're walking along I'll spot them. So what used to be a chore in our other life is now an adventure. One new discovery always leads to another. It's never boring. February 1, 2006--First entry in Norma's Kitchen blog How did I become a serious cook in San Miguel? Necessity--we missed many of our favorite dishes and restaurants and I decided to learn how to cook them.  I'd cooked for my family for more than 18 years, and Carol and I split the cooking throughout our first 26 years together, but now I was going to find new recipes, spices, herbs, techniques to expand our usual meals. I also was determined to count every calorie and measure every ingredient and portion to help us keep off the weight we'd lost.  But first I had to deal with an inadequately equipped kitchen in a rental.  Our kitchen in our casa occupies a wonderful, large and open space, but the ancient appliances came with the rental. We requested that it be unfurnished. But our landlord said no, there was no place to store the existing furnishings. We had five black plates, three cups, two saucers, and five bowls, plus silverware that bent when you cut something with it.  No teflon remained on the few scratched pans. The potato masher was in free fall and couldn't mash water.  The knives were no danger to anyone. You get the idea. I quickly discovered that the refrigerator required defrosting every third day. This did not mean that just a bit of ice had formed. Defrosting required boiling water, scrapping chunks and mess. I dreaded this job forty years ago and hated it even more now. The estufa was no better. When I turned on the stove for the first time, the flame shot out sideways. The oven had to be lit by hand. I decided to pass on any baking or roasting.  So when our little house sold in Arizona, we went off to Mosqueta's appliance store in Centro. We got the biggest refrigerator they had at the time and a six-burner stove with a comal and shelves that slid out automatically when the oven door was opened. It was on sale, but it was a Mabe, a top of the line Mexican brand with electronic ignition for both the burners and the oven. I was thrilled. I had never been thrilled about an appliance before. Stoves and refrigerators over my working years were just there,  places to store my diet Pepsi and peanut butter and heat my tortillas. But having to defrost every third day and dodge the flames changed my perspective. The oven dial was in centigrade. No problem. I did the math and made up my little table showing centigrade to farenheit conversions. Then I decided to run a test. Step by step, I turned the oven up a marker in increments, allowing the heat to stabilize. Then I took the temperature of the oven with my digital thermometer. The temps did not correspond to what I had calculated. No problem, I just made another column in my table. So now I had a column with dial temps in centigrade, a column with actual dial temp in centigrade, and a column with farenheit temps. Done! But the next week, I decided to verify my results. New figures. After my third test run and a third set of tables, I threw out the tables. I bought an old fashioned oven thermometer. It hangs from the top rack of the oven. Now, when I use the oven, I turn it up high and then adjust the dial until I finally get the temp I want. The dial is never in the same place twice for the same temp desired. I have now adjusted to this and can regulate the oven without even grumbling. The burners can be adjusted down to nothing as opposed to the old stove's one size fits all. What did we do with the old stove and refrigerator? Just like when we lived in Los Angeles with anything we didn't want:  we put them out on the porch, and they disappeared. We live in a compound that includes the landlord's residence, so we assumed that somehow storage had been found.  And that was the first step in my becoming a serious cook.