Musings…

We end the Essence of Cuisine cooking season after this coming Monday evening with a small class focusing on the traditional national dish of Chiles en Nagado. Our classes start at 6:30 PM so there’s approximately an hour and a quarter of good outside light. During the last class with a dozen student guests the area power failed. Since we’re cooking with gas, literally, Dolores didn’t even slow down, obviously expecting the power to return momentarily (normal 15 – 30 seconds). When it passed one minute we began to be concerned since the kitchen is at the back of the house and looks out on a blank wall, thereby, needing light to prevent the area from becoming very dark. Dolores continued to adlib while I dug out and turned on a small powerful flashlight and held it so the stove/oven top was illuminated. This chore was quickly taken over by a student who was closer to Dolores while she continued on teaching and preparing the “Seared Shrimp with Roasted Jalapeño-Cilantro Cream‏ Sauce” dish. The blackout lasted 18 minutes before power was restored; however, nothing was lost and some more adventure had been added to the class agenda…however, that’s not a new feature to be added in the future. I’m now on the lookout for some emergency battery backup lights.

While in Cuba we had just stepped off the tour bus to have a good look at Havana’s Main Capitol Building and the surrounding historical square. I had been one of the first person’s to dismount and was standing waiting for Dolores and others to join me. I noticed a young man standing close and drawing a caricature of me on a small 8X6 drawing pad. I stood profiled and still while he completed his task thinking it might be a nice personal souvenir of the trip. Within moments he presented to me. It wasn’t what I would have hoped for; however we settled on a price and he wandered off leaving me with the 8X6 drawing. Dolores caught up, I proudly showed it to her, and after choking back her laughter, then shock when she realized I had paid $$$ for it, I huffily returned to the bus and placed it safely in my seat to prevent it being marred as we walked about. When we all had re-boarded the bus, three other persons were displaying their caricatures and laughing about the great similarities between the drawings. There were three, two men and a woman - the guys drawings essentially looked identical (twins), while the gal looked like a sister – when I added mine I looked like a member of the same family – so much for a personalized souvenir. At least its inscribed Havana and “personally” dated.

Mexico City International Airport also called Benito Juárez International Airport has two physically separate terminals – International Terminal 2 is connected to the Domestic Building of Terminal 1 by the Aerotrén Air Tram monorail system, in which travel between both terminals can be done in less than 7 minutes. That means once you have located the Air Tram its less than 7 minutes. Upon return from Cuba into Terminal 2 a small group of us set out to locate Terminal 1. Occasionally we’d see signage pointing the way to Terminal 1 or the Air Tram, then we would plough on until we felt the need to asked someone “where are we?” After what seemed like 20-30 sharp turns/reversal to the right or left we’d see another sign that gave us reborn hope that we were still on the right planet. After I’d almost given up we saw a sign that pointed “thisaway” to the Air Tram. Three flights of stairs with both left/right turns we finally found the boarding platform for the monorail system and were safely transported to Terminal 1. Add 20-25 minutes of wandering to the 7 minutes of monorail travel. Thank god we had checked our luggage through to PV. I’ll never complain about Los Angeles International again! Oh…and how many security checks do you think we encountered?

And finally the yellow flowering tree named for the season (spring) the Primavera, is in full bloom throughout Puerto Vallarta. Feast your eyes!