There is a new restaurant in San Pedro Lorena claims is the best one yet. It is just down the hill from our places and the believe it is better than our previous which is, honestly, very hard to imagine. The name of the place is Tacos Atarantados. That, I am sure, will be my first stop the next time I am in town. The last think I need right now for my current nutrition plan is another place that makes tacos I cannot resist.
Last night, Lorena made me beef stir fry, but replaced the rice (or sometimes noodles) with sauteed cabbage and onions. It was nothing short of spectacular. We are planning to try something similar tonight, but this time with chicken. It makes great sense for my current nutrition goals, too, with not so many carbohydrates and a good bit of protein.
One of my favorite parts of Lorena’s trip to Cambridge to visit Christian was that they went down to a pumpkin patch and the liked it so much they went back again. Christian got a pumpkin and carved it up for Halloween. It came out great. We used to do this every year and we really ought to take it up again. The art of pumpkin carving is way underrated. But that was not all. When Lorena showed me the pictures I remembered how cool he has his apartment set up. It is pretty small, but also pretty amazing in terms of both style and utility. The best part was the end product.
Lorena and Christian are having too much fun in Boston. There is no way I want to miss the next trip.The first thing they did is went further north into New England to pick apples, eat fresh-made donuts, and view the leaves. Supposedly, Lorena went there to give Christian a hand while he prepares for a conference where a paper will be published at the end of October, but it surely looks like they are having too much fun for that. The last thing they sent me was this steak and potatoes picture that certainly did not help my diet very much. Well, the whole crew should be here for Thanksgiving, so at least I have that to look forward to.
We got the good news today that Christian and Kelly are coming home for an entire week for Thanksgiving! Grandma Conchita is planning to be here the whole time, too. In addition to that, several surprise visitors are making plans to try to fly in for just the long weekend part. God willing, it will all work out. Last year, Lorena’s brother Rigo and his family were with us. With Thanksgiving, the more the merrier is always better. This could be one for the record books if the surprise visitors are able to work it out to be here. And the good part is virtually everyone loves to cook. Hope I still get to cook and carve the turkey this year!
Not sure why, but last night I had a dream about Grandpa Milo. I have so many great memories of him, but it seems like everyone of them was when he was operating in one of two modes: 1) Working and organizing and 2) sitting in his BarcaLounger recliner reading his Bible, a novel, or a magazine. There was no other. Even when he came to visit us he worked on the lawn, organized and cooked dinners and parties, or worked on whatever creative project that would make our house better. Lorena loved to work with him. They would plan, shop, and then work together on whatever caught their fancy. It is amazing that Lorena is so much like him in character.
We received a package in our mailbox yesterday with this spectacular gift–a pie server. Our friend Harvey turned the handle on his lathe, put a nice finish on it, and put it in the mail. We LOVE it! Really, really nicely done. Lorena wanted to hang it on the wall as a piece of art. I wanted to use it with as much apple pie as possible. We are probably going to compromise and do both. It was an especially nice gift because it just came out of the blue with zero
A box with three bags of XXTRA Flamin’ Hot Crunchy Cheetos arrived from Christian today. We got some regular Flamin’ Hot Crunchy Cheetos when he was here over he holiday and we loved them. He told us the XXTRA ones were too hot to eat. We wanted to try them, but there were none on any of the shelves, so unbeknownst to us, Christian ordered us some. They were a lot hotter, but we really liked them anyway. Sadly, they are not exactly on our diet, so we need to make them last as long as we can. Lorena is rationing them out in a very miserly fashion.
I really do have the best wife. It is a joy to be sheltering in place with her. Maybe it is the isolation together that I has me reflecting on the gifts that derive from waiting on God. It is something at which I have never been particularly good, but for which I have always been grateful when things happen according to God’s timing. I have to admit that most of the time my waiting has been a function of having no other options, but I believe that is in God’s hands, too. It is nice, at this point in my life, to be reminded of what is good in my life. Lorena made shrimp fried rice today. That is what triggered my thinking about the great gifts I have received. And believe it or not, a wife who makes me shrimp fried rice because she knows I love it is not a small gift.
Everyone really needs a good Easter hat. Lorena found the one Tio Lauro gave to me as a gift and I think it works for the professorial look at which I am aiming. That is a hard look to accomplish for a farm/logger/mill-worker kid so I take anything I can get. We had a party of four for Easter dinner which was, of course, ham, deviled eggs and scalloped potatoes. Very nice. It would have been great to have the kids here with us, but it was not possible so we want to do something extra good next year.
Juquitita, our favorite restaurant in the area formerly had only one restaurant in Chehalis, but has added a second branch in downtown Centralia. When we came here, we were told by some that La Tarasca was authentic and good. In our opinion, La Tarasca is a mere shadow of the goodness and authenticity of Juquilita. Who ever had the idea that chips and salsa are not a real thing at restaurants in Mexico? We spent the last two weeks in Monterrey eating our free chips and salsa appetizers in a wide variety of restaurants in Nuevo Leon. When you get tacos at Juaquilita, make sure to get tortillas a mano (by hand) rather than de paquete. You will thank me later.
Lynn took Conchita, Lorena, and I to breakfast yesterday morning at a “working man’s” restaurant. We all had huevos divorciados. They are like huevos rancheros, but one egg has red salsa and the other egg has green salsa. We are taking our last evening here slowly and fairly quietly–as much as is possible for this family–really not that quiet. Tomorrow morning we have to get up at 4 AM in time to get to the airport in time to fly back to Washington so I can go to work on Thursday morning.
Our time here has been very good for me. I have had time to reflect without a ton of work. I have some hard decisions on what to do next. With only a little over two years until retirement I have a lot of options with not a whole lot of knowledge about where we should be nor what we should be doing. Some new options have opened up to us since we got here and I will be exploring them over the next few weeks.
Last night, we all got together at Tio Rigo’s (second from right) house to wait for Kelly’s arrival from Baltimore. Rigo prepared an amazing carne asada and everyone helped prepare for our niece Valeria’s (the girl in pink at the left) quinceñera which takes place tomorrow. There was lots of music and talking. It takes an even like this to remind me how noisy are these special Mexican events.
Tios Lauro and Tio Lynn and his family spent Christmas Eve with Lorena, Conchita, Christian, and I. Lauro and Lynn, did all the grilling while the rest of us sat around and talked. Christian downloaded some music he wanted to learn and it was just nice to watch him start to work through that. This was as nice a Christmas Eve as I have had for years. The only thing missing was Kelly, but she will be here later today.
We moved Kelly’s things down to Centralia from Seattle yesterday. The coarse culture and poor planning that are the hallmarks of that city elevated the hassle of the move by a good margin. Nevertheless, we had great help to get the big stuff out of the second floor apartment and into the U-Haul. We got it all unloaded from the truck in about an hour after we got here. It is amazing how much easier it is to move stuff when you do not have to go up or down a narrow set of stairs. Lorena and Kelly made pasta with shrimp and we all went to bed early. Fortunately, when everything settles out, her new company will pay for the move to whatever new digs she finds. That is four or five months from now, so we get to have her here in the state for a little while longer.
Lorena figured out how to cook lemon tarts after she returned from London. Then she decided to cook some cinnamon rolls to go along with them for the end of the year. None of this is helping my diet. I have hit my quota of 240 posts per year with this post. And I am the fatter for it.
Well, the process was quite nice. The end product was just OK, but the planning, baking, constructing and decorating was lots and lots of fun. So the plan is to take a more structured approach next year by starting earlier, then getting Mom, the queen of arts and crafts in this household, involved both for her cooking and her decorating prowess. We (that is the royal we in this case, because I have been relegate to staying out of the way) have all ready started to plan for next year. We WILL make something that is not just edible, but art if we are all still around!
We had a truly amazing Sunday morning meeting this morning. After meeting, Kelly cooked up some foo-foo scrambled eggs with fancy mushrooms and smelly, old cheese. I am not admitting it to anyone, but it was really pretty good. Then the kids went back to work on their gingerbread house project. It looks to be somewhat more complicated than I would have expected. Lots of design work and planning, lots of intricate little pieces, lots of process steps, AND it has to taste good, too. It really did look like a good time doing the thing. I have to admit I was very skeptical, but the stencils worked great and the little pieces, which I thought were impossible were a little bit tedious, but came together just fine. After they finished their intricate English Country Home, the kids made enough walls and roofs for Mom to do her own little cottage on the side.
The bottom picture is of Kelly cutting out the windows and door for the front wall of the house. The little pieces of white paper at the bottom of the image are stencil pieces for the parts that make up the dormer and window shutters and other assorted “gingerbread” for the house. They even made some long slivers of gingerbread to fill in cracks. After this, Kelly made caramel to serve as glue to put the pieces altogether. They are so involved in the process, I don’t want to break their concentration to ask about the different colors they want to put on the house. I assume it will be frosting, but I guess I will just have to wait and see.
This endless refrain has been taking up again that it is time to start the fight against the waistline. Lorena bought me several packages of vegetable mixes compatible with the 1200-ish calorie per day intake I need to take my weight down at a reasonable rate. Jon and I are back in the fight. We opened the spreadsheet back up and are recording our weight, steps, and, for me, calories. Right before Christmas is a really rough time to take up such an enterprise, but “if not now, when?” I cannot believe I am not only saying it, but I actually embrace the fact that I enjoy this kind of a diet and tend to get more exercise and more work-work and project work done when I am on this kind of a program because I have to stay pretty regimented to be able to handle it.
Lorena and Christian told me about a restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona they thought was a favorite in the one true taco shop competition. To be honest, I never though anything north of the Rio Grande would ever get close to the shop we loved in Lewisville, TX. Now, after visiting Los Taquitos in Phoenix (there is another one at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix), I think we might have to relegate Tacos Regio Monterrey into second place. That is NOT to suggest that Tacos Regio is in any sense diminished. I will eat there every time I get the chance and make and effort to make chances. It is just that Los Taquitos has somehow managed to make a taco that would be hard to turn down if I had the choice between the two and that is saying a LOT. The salsa is hot and sabrosa, they are served with two small, soft, corn tortillas along with beans and rice, and the carne asada is a nice cut, cooked to perfection. Christian says they are consistent, too. The strip mall ambiance is definitely a step up from the gas station parking lot ambiance of Tacos Regio, but that is almost a downside for this kind of eating experience–Tacos Regio was 100% Mexican, including the continuous operation of TV’s showing soccer and Mexican soap operas. If these two places were in the same town, it would make me schizophrenic.
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