FIESTA EN LA CASA

On Friday morning, Gerardo came down a little after 10:00 a.m., to show us the piece of lamb he thawed. Gerardo and Bob unwrapped it in the kitchen; Gerardo hadn’t seen the meat when he bought it because it was frozen. Well, the meat was very interesting; it was all bones with only a little meat.

Now we needed to make a plan. Gerardo said he needed to go to Sam’s Club. He wanted to look at their lamb and also possibly purchase a live Christmas tree. We left around 10:30 a.m. If we told you that the traffic and the drivers in Oaxaca are loco (crazy), it would be an understatement. We will never again complain about traffic in Michigan. One must be a very aggressive driver; nice people don’t get anywhere.

Well, back to Sam’s Club. First we had to go pick up Marielena’s sister, Maricela. She has the Sam’s Club membership. Gerardo also invited her to dinner and she accepted. When we got to Sam’s Club, the lamb was in thin slices. Here the style is called Chuletas or chops, like pork chop style. We think it was a shoulder cut. That’s all they had so we purchased two packages. Gerardo really wanted lamb chops with our special marinade for the BBQ grill. Going down the main aisle, Bob spotted Franzia box wine…he is now in heaven! It doesn’t take much to make him happy. Costco didn’t have any real trees.

Now, we were off to Soriana’s, it’s a grocery store. We bought several items; however, the produce didn’t look as good as at the Mercado. We looked and looked for arborio rice to make risotto. Sam finally spotted it. It’s not easy to find the ingredients we are used to in the US. We dropped Maricela off at her jugoeria or juice store. She has a small tienda that sells fresh juices and sandwiches. We maneuvered our way through all the traffic and finally found a parking spot at Mercado Hidalgo. We introduced Gerardo to Dora and Roberto and also to Lucy, Carmen, Orlando, and Isaias. We bought the rest of our produce. Bob spotted a fresh Christmas tree for Gerardo. Gerardo spoke to the young man; however, he wanted 900 pesos. Instead, he purchased a small manager.

By the time we got home, it was 1:40 p.m. It’s an all day affair just to do a little grocery shopping. We had a little lunch and Bob wanted to take a nap before we started preparing all of the food. About 3:30 p.m., we got started. Marielena came down and helped us. Gerardo was feeding Mateo lunch and came down later.

Here’s the menu:

Lamb bones with little meat – we placed them in the oven with some spices and onions, and about half a can of beer. Covered it with foil and cooked it for about 2 ½ hours. Afterwards, we put it on the grill with Bob’s homemade BBQ sauce. The best part was the BBQ sauce.

Lamb chuletas – marinated with garlic, rosemary, thyme, mint, and olive oil. Cooked on the grill…dry...not like our juicy lamb chops.

Oven risotto with mushrooms, asparagus, and spinach…very tasty.

Salad – tender lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, red onion, celery, cucumber carrot, and blue cheese with a homemade balsamic dressing…delicious.

Grilled veggies:  onions and red and yellow peppers…very good.

Dessert – Hagan Daz ice cream with caramel sauce. We also had roasted chestnuts on the open fire. They were delicious. This is the first time Sam has had them. Gerardo had purchased them at the Mercado.

Believe it or not…it took us about 5 hours (four of us) to prepare this dinner. We had a lot of fun spending time with our new friends. The funniest part was the comments Bob made when the lamb with bones was on the grill. He said, “Huesos sin carne”, “Huesos sin carne”…”Bones without meat”, “Bones without meat”. Mateo thought that was very funny and he kept singing it over and over.

All in all we had a great day. It was busy but very memorable. Remember, the night before we didn’t get any sleep. We collapsed in our bed and hoped for a good night’s sleep.