Christmas Tamales

My sister emailed that she was listening to an NPR program on Christmas posadas in Mexico so I visited their site.    Didn't find anything on posadas but did find this tamales article on their food blog.   Got my mouth watering for tamales tonight.

NPR article by Maria Godoy

It's Christmas Eve, and many Latinos will celebrate the holiday tonight by unwrapping a delicious little present: tamales.

At its essence, a tamale consists of masa (a type of starchy corn dough) that's been wrapped in leaves, then steamed or boiled. Some come bundled in corn husks, others in plantain, banana or mashan leaves. Some are sweetened with molasses, others spiced with mole. Some are plain, others filled with meats or vegetables.

Indeed, Latin America has hundreds of interpretations of the tamale — these vary not just by country but often by region. In Mexico alone, "we have over 200 tamales," says Iliana de la Vega, a chef-instructor at the Culinary Institute of America, San Antonio, who is documenting Latin American foodways.

So whose version is best? That's a question likely to elicit a fiercely partisan response.

Full NPR article

Night of our neighborhood posada

Tonight is the night for our neighborhood posada and altho it may start a little earlier, the pinatas are scheduled for around 7pm. It's getting dark here by 7 so I took these fotos of the two pinatas I bought in case I get none of the party. There should be two more, possibly hand made by neighbors.

I bought these two in a little shop across from Cruz Roja in Cihuatlan, $130 pesos for the star and $110 pesos for the horse. The horse was filled with newspaper and no space for candy so I had to cut his back open and stuff the best I could. The star has a ceramic pot that was easy to fill.  Hopefully will add a few more fotos tomorrow if there is a little light tonight.

Pinatas for neighborhood posada in Pinal Villa, Melaque

Ava just brought over her hand made pinata and I filled it with candy. They then took it over to the party site and hung it ready to be beaten to death. I guess hers is going to be first. I'm empessed with the quality.

Well it was too dark to get any pinata breaking fotos but it was lots of fun. This is an IPhone foto of the line up for 'ponche' (punch). My old Sony camera was not working in low light at all.

Stove made of clay or barro

One of the benefits of hurricane Jova (I guess) was all the mud like clay it brought down from the hills. Eventually the mud must break down and become decent soil because this is a very fertile valley. I wasn't nearly so happy with the mud/clay that filled every space in my car.

However my neighbor knew the value when he built this stove of brick covered with clay. The clay hardens like in a kiln near the fire and the rest hardens in the sun. I was over looking at his hammocks and thought the stove very ingenious

Clay stove in Pinal Villa near Melaque Mexico

Trying my IPhone camera

Tried my IPhone camera yesterday while at the open mic at Sirenitas. There are no adjustments so you get pretty much what you see. This one is a little darker than reality and a different angle might have helped. Keeping it steady is the most difficult part .... practice and more practice. You can switch from still foto to video and my few video trys looked pretty good. Still not ready to edit videos or uploading to YouTube over Telcel WiFi.   The fotos are quite large so have been reduced a lot for the web.

IPhone foto of Melaque beach

This IPhone has GPS and uses Google Maps. I was wondering if fotos from the camera were automatically embedded with the location GPS data. I found this site GPS Visualizer that allows you to upload a foto and it will create a map if the foto contains GPS info. The map above shows what I got when I uploaded the beach foto on top and it's right on. So far this is just interesting as I haven't found a way to easily connect a map to a foto. Right now the location maps for Blogger are not working and it doesn't seem to be a Google priority.

Escape raft seen off the south Jalisco coast

At least that's what we surmise. Almost 3 weeks ago prisoners from the Penal Coloney on Islas Marias were picked up by the Mexican Navy on a raft off the coast from Puerto Vallarta (a bit of the story below). This foto was taken by a fisherman off the southern coast of Jalisco near Bahia de Navidad.   The raft had the name "Liberti" written on the front.

Raft called "Liberti"

Six inmates from the last island penal colony in the Americas were recaptured at sea after using buoyant containers and planks of wood in an attempt to float and swim to freedom.

The Mexican navy said the inmates used empty plastic gas or water tanks to help them stay afloat as they swam about 60 miles south of the Islas Marias, a Mexican penal colony in which prisoners live in small houses and are normally not locked up. Inmates are allowed to tend small gardens and grow food.

The six men were around 58 miles off the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta when they were seen by people on a passing boat early on Thursday.

Complete article