My Luxuriant Jacaranda

The eponymous jacaranda tree at Villa La Jacaranda is laden with lavender-colored blossoms, and rains its petals in the front yard. I have never seen it so luxuriant. Soon, I hope, the jacarandita in back will also grace us with a plethora of blooms.

Villa La Jacaranda, Patzcuaro

Exhibit of Embroidery Work

Teófila Servín of Santa Cruz

On Wednesday, May 19 there will be an exhibit and contest of the well-known embroidery work of Santa Cruz. Prizes are awarded at 2:00 PM and then the items entered in the contest can be purchased. I am told that things sell quickly and the exhibit is not open long after the awards. It is suggested that one get there early, by 1:30. From Patzcuaro, take the road to Tzintzuntzan. At Sanabria turn right to Santa Cruz. The exhibit should be near or at the church. If you have questions, go to the Santa Cruz embroidery shop that is just a few doors South from the Plaza Grande on Dr. Coss, on the left hand side.

Patzcuaro is great.

Wifi at the Biblioteca

Sitting in the Biblioteca Federal Pública Gertrudis Bocanegra, I am using my laptop to post this with the library's wifi connection. Many will be happy to know that the Patzcuaro public library now offers this convenience(free).

Paean to Mexico Living

As a corollary to Andres Oppenheimer's recent article "Mexico's Big Hope: Get 5 Million U.S. Retirees" in the Miami Herald, Chris B. recently posted the following commentary in a Yahoo group. Quoted with Chris's permission:
Mexican banks are already making it easier to deposit your pension or social security checks.

I think many more Americans will look for refuge in Mexico as health care will not be resolved anytime soon.
I am currently in San Antonio, Tx and am shocked at prices in the supermarket, apartment rentals, and the cost of utilities. If I were a retiree it would drive me to move to Mexico.

I can't seem to spend more than 700 dollars a month for expenses including; three vehicle insurance policies (two cars and one rv), cable, electric, gas, internet, telephone, gym, exterminator, club campestre dues, and private healthcare insurance. This doesn't include gasoline or groceries. My house is paid for but I couldn't survive in the U.S. with this budget.

Most of my friends in the U.S. are retirees who didn't plan well for their retirement. They barely scrape by month to month. Utilities and healthcare are eating them alive.

Imagine all the foreigners who live fulltime in Mexico. If there are 1.5 million Americans, what about Canadians and Europeans?

Apart from lower living expenses you can't beat the variety of foods, fresh produce, sunshine, culture and language.

chris b.
monterrey, nuevo leon

"Mexico's Big Hope: Get 5 Million U.S. Retirees"
Chris B's Blog
Stretch your dollars in Patzcuaro

Got Electricity

This caught my eye.

Hugo Valencia, Birder

Hugo with one of his two daughters

Hugo Valencia has diverse talents, from small appliance repair to master tile-setter to keen-eyed birder. He has received a scholarship to train at the well-known Long Point Bird Observatory in Ontario, Canada. That's a long way from Lake Patzcuaro. He is one of only three people chosen from Latin America. See story.

Lamb Barbacoa

It must seem like we spent all of our time eating. Well, almost all. Good friends in Pátzcuaro invited us for a mouth-watering lamb barbacoa, accompanied by a variety of botanas and many other sides dishes. What a feast we had.

Bonjour à la famille en France. L'agneau doit vous faire penser au méchoui de Tunisie.

Patzcuaro is the place.

Uruapan

With our cousins, when we went to Paricutín, we started the day with the Sunday brunch of traditional Michoacán foods at the lovely Mansión del Cupatitzio, next to Parque Nacional Barrancas del Cupatitzio. The sun was out, illuminating the lovely flowered garden and we sat outside, as we always do.

After we were replete with wonderfully ripe fruit, exotic juices, and a variety of specialty dishes which included what I have dubbed Corn Truffles (huitlacoche), we walked through the park which is like a tropical forest, where we enjoyed the sound of the clear, running, spring-fed water.

Waters of Cupatitzio
Restaurant La Mansión del Cupatitzio
Play in Patzcuaro

Paricutin

With our cousins we went to visit Paricutín, where between 1943 and 1952 the lava from the volcano buried two villages. (Reference links for information in English and en français are given below). We decided that to cram seven people into the Nissan to travel on the autopista would be uncomfortable and unsafe. We hired Nacho Vega of Patzcuaro to take us out for the day by van. It was a luxury and we had fun. Nacho is both reliable and nice.

We walked from Angauan through pine-oak forest to see the buried village, where the top of the church spikes up through the jagged lava rock.
Angauan is a very Purhépecha town. The women and girls wear colorful dress. They flee cameras that come anywhere near, but this was taken with a good telephoto lens.

After clambering around buried Paricutín we went to the trout restaurant just across the callejón from Mansión del Cupatitzio at Parque Eduardo Ruiz in Uruapan. The trout are raised in fresh water from the spring just a few hundred meters away. They are fresh and delicious. The restaurant overlooks the verdant park--I recommend it.

Paricutin in English.
Paricutin en français.
Patzcuaro.

Pozole Verde and Cactus Leaves

Green Gastronomy

French cousins could not leave Mexico without having eaten pozole (hominy) and nopalitos (nopal cactus leaves). Very little corn is eaten in France except, perhaps, for a few kernels scattered in a salad. Corn is for chickens and cows. So we started today's comida at La Jacaranda with nopalitos on tostadas and then had bowls full of delicious Pozole Verde. Given the quantities consumed, I would say both were much appreciated, although the cousins will probably be quite happy to return to their fine French gastronomy.

Pozole Verde

I had eaten an upscale Pozole Verde with seafood in a restaurant with some Mexican friends and subsequently was able to reproduce it to my (and their) reasonable satisfaction. I now make it with either chicken, pork or seafood.

By request, here is a list of the ingredients I use (not in recipe format) :
- A vegetable or seafood broth for liquid
- Pozole (I like the pre-cooked refrigerated pozole, and still use a pressure cooker.
It turns out super tender.)
- Liquify green ingredients in blender: tomatillos, poblano, cilantro, green onions or onion, garlic
- When cooked, add diced green summer squash and cook al dente
- Add scallops or shrimp last and do not overcook the seafood.

Variation: cook with pork or chicken; vegetable broth is not needed. Do NOT use a seafood broth in this case.

Condiments: chopped raw onion, serrano or other green hot chile, fresh cilantro, finely shredded cabbage or lettuce, lime wedges


Nopalitos

When I make a nopalito salad to eat on tostadas, I buy the conveniently cooked and diced nopalitos at the market. Two issues are the bava (the viscous "drool" of the nopal leaf) and hygiene. At home I bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil. Stir in the nopalitos and let boil for approximately 2 minutes. Drain in a colander. This accomplishes two things. The dish will have little of the viscous bava left, which some people do not like, and the nopalitos are pasteurized for consumption .

You, too, can enjoy these dishes in Patzcuaro.

Yunuén via Ucazanástacua

The last time Glen and I went to Yunuén, we were ferried in a canoe, a little bigger than the one pictured here.

For this visit there were seven of us, so we got the Big Boat Treatment. We told our cousins that they could not return to France until they could say they had gone to "Yunuén via Ucazanástacua".

Approaching Yunuén. (There had been a lot of rain, so the lake waters were muddy.)

We walked around the island, and stopped here for a cool drink. This was definitely not a commercial venue. There are only five resident Purhépecha families, all related, and we saw one lone visitor other than ourselves. It was a big day for visitors! Yunuén is a tranquil place and represents traditional life on one of the small islands of Lake Pátzcuaro. Orchids and egrets abound.

More on Yunuén.

The Legend of the Egret - Yunuén

Come to Patzcuaro

The Megacable Blues

In February and March I had the Megacable Blues. My upload speed was so slow that I could hardly post any photos. Over years in Patzcuaro, I have never had such a problem. Since a post without graphics no tiene chiste (is no fun), I did not publish the log I had planned of activities with my cousins. Text languished in "draft" form with nowhere to go. I have recently been playing catch up. Some posts have been uploaded with their original, older date.