Another day in Paradise

Here I am, the 29^th day of February 2016, or 40% complete with the 2016 season in Puerto Vallarta.  The old saying “Times flies when you’re having fun” has certainly been appropriate this season.

Dolores cooking school, Essence of Cuisine, continues to grow in popularity, we had three classes the past week with max participation and a good schedule ahead of us.  The significant strengthening of the US dollar against the Peso (MXN) has been good for us; however, the continued weakness of the Canadian Dollar has slowed down vacationer participation by visitors from the “Snowy North.”  In total it’s shaping up as a great year.

This past couple of evenings, Karen, one of Dolores Boeing work compadres of several years ago stopped by for a brief visit while on vacation, next week on March 3^rd Dolores brother Jose and his wife Stephanie arrive at the airport for the beginning of a 2 week stay, followed 2 hours later by her daughter Nicole and partner Heather for a return visit of three weeks.  During that time Jose/Steph, Dolores and I will take an 8 day trip to the wonderful Copper Canyon in the heart of the Tarahumara Mountains in the northeast corner of the state Chihuahua, and, then Deborah and friend of Seattle will be here for a week early April.  In the meantime we will try to keep the EOC cooking classes scheduled.  And to think, people question “what do you do to stay busy during retirement”?

Monday evening we met with Mike Hickman at Anejo Limon for a special Rack of Lamb event by Chef Bruce Byng.  Anejo Limon has an outdoor court in the back where the majority of the dining tables are located.  Late afternoon of the beautiful sunny day it started raining – the first rain of the year and completely unexpected-not forecast. Bruce doesn’t have umbrellas readily available to cover this type of eventuality and we wondered what was going to happen.  The rain did stop near 6:00PM (our reservations were for 7:30).  Upon arrival we found everything looking normal, with a few persons commenting about damp seat cushions and table cloths; however, all were taken care of by the attentive staff and we had one of the most delicious and enjoyable dinners of the year.  Chef Bruce joined with us later in the evening of a wonderfully successful affair.

At this moment we’re planning to head out to Costco and several other stores to lay in some supplies for our guests.  Catch you later!