Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:43:06 -0700
Reply-To: Pensioner <al_knoll@PACBELL.NET>
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From: Pensioner <al_knoll@PACBELL.NET>
Subject: Van living and cooking on and off the road.
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Lorena Havens and her cohort the famous Carl Franz wrote and excellent book
some years ago about van camping and expeditions. Cooking on and off the
road Carl Franz.
Note from Amazon they have new and used copies starting at $44. EGAD!
Note from Carl:
12:37 PM PST, March 13, 2006
If you've read The People's Guide To Mexico you almost certainly recall our
dear departed compadre Steve Rogers. I think about Steve often, but
especially at breakfast, which may well have been his favorite meal
(followed closely, of course, by lunch, supper and one or two late-night
snacks).
Some years ago Steve and I were on our way to Guatemala, following the
narrow, much abused highway south from Cuernavaca. We could've taken a far
better tollway from Puebla to Oaxaca, but we were both in a kind of lazy,
nostalgic frame of mind and simply for old time's sake we'd opted for the
old route, potholes, speed bumps and all.
On this particular day we'd been on the road since before dawn, having spent
Saturday night in a particularly grim starvation budget hotel on the
outskirts of Cuautla. Over the years Steve and I had shared many such
rooms, along with many laughs about cement bag pillows and swaybacked beds.
Eventually, however, the humor wears as thin as the sheets in these places.
Steve dubbed this unusually moist and dingy room the "Graham Greene suite"
and correctly predicted that we would face a restless night and an early
departure.
There isn't a lot happening in Cuautla, especially before sunup on Sunday
morning. To our great disappointment the only people stirring were a few
pious Catholics, none of whom seemed inclined to serve us breakfast. As a
result, we had no choice but to hit the road again on empty stomachs,
without our daily blessing of chorizo and caffeine.
As we grumbled out of Cuautla, it only added to my frustration that Steve's
van was equipped with a fully operational camp kitchen, including a small
espresso pot and a four burner propane stove, conveniently mounted behind
the passenger seat. In fact, Steve was a Grand Master of on-the-road
cooking and regularly performed culinary feats that would make Emeril and
his buddies on the Food Network turn green with envy. Among other notable
accomplishments, Steve is probably the only person to have fried, plated and
served a hamburger to a hungry passenger while driving northbound from
Mexico City to Chihuahua. He was showing off for all he was worth, of
course, but when Steve reached out and flipped that sizzling burger at 60
mph and then slipped it onto a toasted and generously buttered bun you had
to be impressed.
I mention this not to expand Steve's already considerable legend but to
explain why we found ourselves driving on from Cuautla that morning, hour
after grumpy hour, half dead with hunger, snarling at each other like a
couple of a rabid coyotes. Although Steve could have easily whipped up
something tasty in 15 minutes or less, this would have seriously violated
his personal road tripping philosophy, which said that while driving in
Mexico the morning was not complete until he'd enjoyed a traditional sitdown
breakfast. In other words, in order to fill our stomachs and restore
balance to the universe, we simply had to find a restaurant.
Those of you who have driven Mex 180 north of Oaxaca may recall that
restaurants are very few and very, very far between. In the middle of a
particularly desolate stretch of country, Steve suddenly began pounding the
heels of his hands on the steering wheel and crying desperately, "I have...
got... to have... something to eat! Or else... or..." Rendered speechless by
hunger, he turned and gave me the kind of angry, self-piteous look one
normally associates with children being exiled to their bedrooms. Before I
could respond, however, and offer soothing visions of huevos rancheros and
pan dulce, Steve's face unexpectedly brightened. "Yes!" He exulted,
pointing to a rickety structure of poles and dusty palm fronds that leaned
precariously close to the highway. As we skidded to a stop, I saw a crudely
lettered sign, "comedor", hanging from one of the poles.
"I don't know about this one, Steve." I cautioned. The so-called "diner"
not only looked marginal, it threatened to give new meaning to the term
"bottom feeding". The only furniture beneath the sagging palm frond ramada
was a pair of oilcloth covered wooden tables and several homemade wooden
stools. I saw a battered ice chest and a fly spattered display box of stale
pastries. Other than that the place was empty, with no stove, cook or
anyone to serve us. There was a very rundown house a stone's throw away but
with the exception of the flies clustered on the tables and a few ragged
chickens scratching in the dirt, no visible signs of life . On my personal
restaurant hygiene scale, which ranges from a sanitary and quite healthy
"Zero Pepto-Bismol" to a stomach churning "Five Pepto-Bismol", I didn't
hesitate to rate this dump a deadly 5, with an IV drip thrown in for good
measure. "Oh, man." I groaned. "I know you're hungry, but don't you think
this may be just a little bit too... uuh... folkloric?"
I could have saved my breath. Steve had already pulled up a stool. With
his elbows braced on the table he was staring intently at the house,
focusing all of his psychic food powers on whoever was hidden within. .
Moments later the door of the house opened and a small slender girl
approached us slowly across the barren yard. She was all of 12 or 13 years
old, barefoot, with very Indian features. We didn't need to ask if she'd
ever served two hairy, heavily bearded gringos before; there was obvious
fear in her eyes and a visible tension in her posture. She stood before us
on skinny little legs, poised for flight, like an arrow in a tightly drawn
bow.
Realizing that our breakfast hung in the balance, Steve offered the child
his most benign Santa Claus smile. "Is there food?" He cooed soothingly.
The girl glanced nervously toward the house but remained mute. Her mother
was undoubtedly inside, watching us through a crack in the wall, perhaps
stuffing a cap and ball into the family musket and preparing the last line
of defense. "Food?" Steve insisted gently. Ducking her head shyly to
avoid our eyes, the girl whispered the magic word: "Sí."
Steve's smile broadened voraciously. The first all-important hurdle had
been passed. The next question would decide our fate. "¿Qué hay?" He
continued carefully. "What is there?" She gave another reassuring peek at
the house, and another timid answer: "Eggs."
Steve rubbed his hands together; now we were cooking with gas! Continuing
step-by-patient-step, one simple query after another, he gradually
encouraged the girl to recite the comedor's entire menu.
Eggs.
Beans.
Tortillas.
"I don't know," I interrupted. "I'm kind of torn between having eggs,
beans, and tortillas or maybe I'll go with the beans, tortillas, and eggs."
Steve's eyes telegraphed a brief but very clear message: "screw this up and
you walk to Guatemala!" Waving me to silence, he cranked his smile up to
luminous and turned his attention back to the girl.
"Is there coffee?"
"Only de olla", she replied apologetically. Steve's eyes lit up. Café de
olla is the traditional, heavily sweetened "pot coffee" we so badly craved.
After placing our order I speculated that in such a rustic establishment our
food would be probably be prepared the old-fashioned way, in artery-clogging
manteca, pork lard, instead of with healthy, refined vegetable oil.
"All we can do is hope." Steve replied tersely.
Fifteen minutes later our diminutive waitress emerged from the house bearing
heaping plates of huevos a la mexicana and bowls of frijoles de olla,
followed closely by steaming cafe de olla in thick pottery mugs. Although
we did not formally bow our heads and offer thanks to a Higher Power, there
is no doubt that in the presence of such bounty our mood was appropriately
grateful and reverential. The final blessing, the crowning touch to what is
probably the best breakfast I've ever experienced in Mexico, was a
constantly replenished stack of golden tortillas. Handmade from home-grown
corn, these tortillas were the very essence and soul of Mexico, thick and
chewy, toasted to perfection over a wood fire. They were so good that we
begged for an additional dozen to go.
Later that evening, camped in the shadow of an abandoned monastery, we
fought over the last of those wonderful tortillas, biting and snapping like
dogs. Had I known that this would be our last trip together, I probably
would have yielded that last tortilla to Steve a bit more gracefully. Then
again....
*******************
The quick and easy Mexican breakfast I'm about to describe doesn't measure
up to Steve's highest standards, but I have no doubt that he would eat it
with considerable pleasure. It is the kind of meal Lorena and I often
prepare when we're on the road or hunkered down in our cabin, very busy with
some writing project. This breakfast is also easy to clean up after, quite
filling, nutritionally balanced, and cheap. What more can you ask for?
Chorizo?
You don't really need a recipe for this so I'll just describe the
ingredients and how we put them together.
A can of refried beans.
Eggs, however many you can eat.
Chipotle hot sauce.
Tostadas
We'll start with the refried beans. Our hands down favorite is La Sierra,
probably the only Mexican brand that is both vegetarian and delicious. In
fact, La Sierra offers several types of canned beans, all of them excellent.
If you can't find La Sierra, use whatever you've got -- and if you have to,
whole canned beans are fine, too.
Talking about beans reminds me of a great trick I learned from my friend
Geronimo, a very savvy Mexican mountain man and cowboy. Geronimo and I were
camped deep in the Sierra Madre, exploring for ancient cave dwellings. At
breakfast one morning he pulled a can of refried beans from one of our burro
packs. You know how hard it is to get all of the refried beans out of the
can, especially when you don't have a rubber spatula? Well, Geronimo
whipped out his dagger and sawed the top off the can, then turned the can
over and deftly punctured a small hole in the bottom, right in the center.
(Don't try this with a factory made knife. You'll probably break the tip of
the knife and/or lose a thumb.)
Once the top was off, Geronimo raised the can to his lips, covered the
puncture in the bottom with his mouth, puffed once, and blew the entire
contents into a waiting skillet, slick as a whistle.
Not being a mountain man myself, I remove the top of the can with a can
opener and carefully puncture the bottom with an ice pick. Then I puff.
Works just fine.
OK, it's time for the salsa, eggs, and a stack of tostadas.
In our opinion, one of the most hopeful developments in the past several
years is the public's growing appreciation of chipotle peppers. Not long
ago, chipotles were difficult to find in Mexico except whole, usually in
small cans. Once the chipotle was discovered by gringos, however, it soon
gained a much wider following in its native country. Today, you can find a
wonderful variety of chipotle sauces in Mexico. Two of our favorites are
"21 Premium", in bottles and San Marcos (sold in a squat, 320 g jar). San
Marcos is somewhat sweet and ketchup-like but it's got a smoky kick that
goes great with fried potatoes and eggs.
By the way, the next time you go to Mexico, make a detour into the nearest
WalMart -- their salsa selection is hard to beat. When it comes time to
head north again, we stuff every corner of our suitcases with jars and
bottles of chipotle sauce.
An important element in this breakfast is a bag of tostadas, the round
brittle kind. A good brand, one that you'll usually find in the United
States, is Guererro "Amarillas Clasicas". If you simply can't find tostadas
you could always use tortilla chips, fresh tortillas, or... perish the
thought... a canned tamale to round out the meal.
Being partial to traditional ways of preparing Mexican food, I'm going to
suggest that you do more than just heat and serve the refried beans. This
is another Sierra Madre technique, one that we learned from Doña Mica of
Batopilas. She made her refried beans from scratch, of course, but it
doesn't really matter; the important thing is to follow her cooking
instructions, not those on the can.
Heat a generous amount of butter, lard, or oil in a small heavy skillet.
Add the beans and press them down into a thick patty. You're going to fry
the beans until a good deal of the moisture is gone and a dark crust forms.
Doña Mica refried her beans very slowly, on a beautifully polished antique
wood stove. Being much less patient, I crank up the heat on our gas stove,
turning the beans frequently to avoid burning them. My goal is to refry the
beans until they have a thick crust on the outside and a moist, smooth
texture inside.
When the beans are done I take them off the stove and plate them while I fix
the eggs. You don't want to scorch your tongue with molten-hot refritos. A
sprinkling of cheese over the beans is nice -- a crumbly white cheese is
traditional but just about anything works, including feta, Gorgonzola,
Parmesan or even a drizzle of sweet cream. What the heck -- as long as
we're adding condiments, consider topping it off with a slice of sweet Walla
Walla onion. I'm sure Doña Mica would approve.
Next, cook your eggs to taste and nestle them alongside the beans.
If you're in a seriously Sierra Madre frame of mind you'll eat your
breakfast without utensils, scooping up the beans and eggs with pieces of
tostada. It goes without saying, I hope, that you've drenched everything
liberally with chipotle.
Comments (3)
Seeing Double
Originally posted 11:24 AM PST, March 7, 2006, updated at 11:43 AM PST,
March 7, 2006
First of all, the comments some of you have made about my earlier entries
are inspiring me to keep hacking away at this. I know that I'm probably
"singing to the choir" with this blog (sorry Amazon, but I refuse to call it
a "plog") but that's fine because if you've already read our book(s) it
means I don't have to explain myself and my particular approach to travel
and writing. In other words, what you read here is what you get... or
something like that.
Yesterday I went a little crazy and did a thorough cleaning, vacumning and
dusting of my attic office, including disposing of a mummified mouse that
had expired in one of Lorena's Mexican baskets.
My motive for this clean-up was to prepare to begin writing another book, a
long overdue push to actually complete a "People's Guide" on living or
retiring in Mexico. I soon found myself distracted, however, by piles of
old photographs, half-finished manuscripts, and various curiosities
collected here and there over the years in Mexico and Central America. If
you've ever visited Seattle's Olde Curiosity Shoppe, you'd see the
similarities with my office.
Many things reminded me of stories yet to be told -- there is, for example,
the wonderful photograph by Ed Buryn of Lorena and me in front of our
thatched house on a beach in western Mexico, circa 1975. We had this house
built in the traditional way, of palm thatch, twine, and rough beams. It
gave us six months of bliss before being obliterated by a hurricane.
Well, I'm diverging yet again from the point of this post, which is "double
vision". I've often speculated that I must have been a Mexican in a
previous life, but as you can see from a remarkable email that came in this
morning, from a writer named Carl Franz, perhaps I'm already living a kind
of quantum, dual-existence. Here it is:
"Dear Carl and Lorena,
Maybe this will amuse you, Carl, since writers are prone to love
coincidences (by other name, “fate”). We share the same name and we are both
writers as well. Could be that on top of that we are distant cousins? My
grand grand father –Carl Franz Monnig-- came to Chile from Basel, in
Switzerland more than a century ago. In his retirement he indulged in
writing novels as well –unfortunately, or perhaps not, they are lost. I am a
novelist myself, with four books published in Spanish. Although some of them
have been translated into other languages, these don’t include English.
Nonetheless, you surely speak Spanish and if you feel curious, maybe you can
find a novel that was published in México by Planeta: “El lugar donde estuvo
el Paraíso” (although, if I am to believe the publishers it should be out of
print).
Well, coincidences don’t stop there. I am travelling to Mexico in the first
week of April --from Madrid where I live now--, to attend a literary
conference. After that, I will travel around making a little research for a
new novel I am planning. This project is concerned with a German traveler
painter (Johan Moritz Rugendas) who “explored” Mexico, among many other
Latin American countries, in the first third of the XIX century. I just
bought your guide through Amazon and I am waiting for it to arrive. Then I
will try to match my planned journey with some of your tips. Although I don’
t know where you are, if our roads cross, we perhaps can share a Corona, or
even better: un tequilita, por qué no…
With best regards,
Carlos Franz"
Comment
Blogging: What Me Worry?
9:08 PM PST, February 24, 2006
I had an e-mail tonight from Amazon's Blog Team, encouraging me to follow
the example of some other blogging authors in order to "improve" this blog.
I felt as though I had been taken gently by the hand and led to the
woodshed. I found it especially troubling that the examples I was given of
their favorite Amazon blogs are all written by authors who obviously
understand English grammar and probably even have college diplomas. (In the
interest of full disclosure, I have to confess that I do have a bachelor's
degree, but I got it more or less by correspondence, without actually
attending classes, from a notoriously liberal State College.)
The Blog Team's e-mail included tips on things to avoid posting, all of
which seem reasonable though somehow irritating. After all, if I wanted to
promote myself with a hard sell or even sell my readers a condo in Cancún, I
would much rather chase you all down on a beach instead of sitting here in a
drafty attic, dictating into a noisy laptop.
Which reminds me that we are supposed to stay on topic. But first, I must
tell you about some amazing software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Two
years ago I developed severe tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome in both
arms and wrists. I had never really believed that tendinitis could be as
painful as some people claim. As usual, I learned how wrong I was the hard
way, through personal experience.
Needless to say, if my arms hurt so bad that I was unable to wash my face in
the morning, how could I possibly sit down at a computer and attempt to
write a book for several hours a day?
Lorena and I have been dedicated Macintosh users for many years, so after
doing a lot of research I decided to buy a more powerful PowerBook in order
to use iListen dictation software (from MacSpeech). This isn't the place
for a complete software review so I'll just say that after several weeks of
utter frustration I tossed iListen into the trash and resigned myself to
ibuprofen and physical therapy.
It took about a year before I could even think of typing again, but as soon
as I did the tendinitis came roaring back. That's when I happened to read
an article praising Dragon NaturallySpeaking by tech writer David Pogue, a
serious Mac user and tendinitis sufferer himself.
Two months ago I finally broke down and bought a fast Windows laptop on
eBay, one that included a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.0. I also
bought a very good Sennheiser headset microphone.
Once I got past my initial confusion with Windows, I'd say that it took me
less than an hour to set up Dragon and complete the initial training. Am I
satisfied? Well, I'm using Dragon right now, to dictate this post. In
fact, I'm slumped back in my chair with my hands in my pockets. I suppose I
could just as easily be lying in a hammock, especially if Lorena would come
to her senses and let me buy the wireless version of the Sennheiser headset.
Well, I seem to have accomplished my goal here by ignoring all of the Amazon
Blog Team's suggestions. I did avoid using brightly colored or bold type
but only because I haven't yet figured out how to do that. Maybe next
time...
Saludos,
Carl
Comments (9)
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