Holy Mole and other expenses.

We had to go downtown anyhow after the morning's purchases at the tianguis. We needed to get a couple of prescriptions filled and Cristy decided she wanted make a special kind of mole that's not based on lard or lots of grease. Mole is a traditional sauce that has a lot of ingredients that produce a mix of flavors that is unique to Mexico.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(sauce)

Note the comment about mole poblano traditionally being served with turkey. We'll be doing a post-Thanksgiving turkey on Monday or Tuesday.

The reason for trying Cristy's recipe is that it can be kept low fat, low salt and low sugar, meeting all the goals of my post bypass diet.

The ingredients are:
Chile ancho
Chile nopalero

Garlic
Mexican chocolate which contains raw sugar and cinnamon
Pepper
Bay leaves
Cloves
Sesame seeds
Saltines
Almonds
Sugar
Salt
Just enough oil to fry the chiles and sesame seeds

If you would like to try mole just Google "recipe mexican mole" without the quotes.

Besides the mole ingredients, we also picked up some strawberries at about 96 cents/lb, peanuts and raisins I use for snacks.

The mole ingredients and snacks plus a taxi ride back up the hill came out at about $17. Mole is not an everyday delicacy unless you buy a small jar of commercial mole in the supermarket, the same brand as found in the Mexican Foods section of US supermarkets, good but not as good as homemade.

It was

Today Was Tianguis Day

Today was tianguis day which I blogged about last week:
http://gudgrief-mentalramblingsmexico.blogspot.com/2011/10/when-we-first-moved-to-new-apartment.html

Cristy and I went again today to avoid having to go downtown or even Walmart if we could .

We ended up buying a bunch of stuff that may meet out fruit end vegetable needs for 5 days to a week. The list includes:

Bananas (6)

Oranges (6)
Mandarin Oranges (12)

A cantaloupe

Red Tomatoes (2lb.)

Green Tomatoes (2lb.)

Guavas (1lb.)

Onions (2 large)

Cucumber (1)

Little Green Lemons/Limes [Limones] (12)

The total bill was 52.5 pesos or around $4.00 using the rate the last time I bought pesos.

Rice, beans and tortillas are equally low priced which explains how the poor can eat healthily on a meager income.

When we first moved to the new apartment, the landlady told us there was a "tianguis" every Friday the next street over. I got out early enough this morning to have a look for the first time.

A tianguis is an open air market or bazaar that is traditionally held on certain market days in a town or city neighborhood in Mexico. This bazaar tradition has its roots well into the pre-Hispanic period and continues in many cases essentially unchanged into the present day. The word tianguis comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire.

You can have a breakfast of fresh made, hand made gorditas with a wide variety of fillings washed down with atole:

You'll find a selection of clothing and personal odds and ends:

Household items:

A nice mix of fresh fruits and vegetables, a convenient way to avoid an extra trip to WalMart or the market downtown.

There are two "corner stores" within a block of the house.

They are almost literally "holes in the wall."

The sign over this one is actually for a law office which takes up most of the building.

This is the "little store" which is an alcove off the entrance and no more than 20 sq. ft. big.

There's a bakery in the same block,

And a unisex salon. The sign says "about hair."

There's also a tortilleria a block over and a block up the hill. Fresh and hot out of the machine and they reheat soft and chewy instead of dry and hard like most of the prepackaged ones do. Sorry, no photo, got plenty of tortillas in the house and am going to be in Mcallen most of next week.

I have to admit that I have back slid because thare isn't a whole lot of incentive to get roam any significant distance from home. My appetite has come back in spades. If I'm awake, I'm hungry and have gained around 10lbs. since getting out of the hospital. I'm going to have to find filling snacks that are low cal, low sugar, fat free and salt free. Is that even possible?

I'm about to become a Neo-Luddite

Here's what happened.

It started with my desktop going belly up and going to cost more to repair than a new one.

I don't want to think of buying a new computer now, so I had to come up with a cheaper alternative.

I already had two USB hard drives for photos, back ups and other old stuff I wanted to keep. I use a USB keyboard on the laptop when I'm at home and a USB marble mouse. They already use two of the three USB ports on the laptop.

The desktop had two hard drives and was connected to my Home Network.

What I did was order USB two cases, took the drives out of the desktop and mounted them in the cases. Just to have the luxury of having them all online at the same time, I got a 10-port powered USB hub "thinking" that with 6 USB devices plugged into the laptop, the hub would need power. Duh, I forgot that the keyboard and mouse don't need power and the hard drives are self-powered.

I got everything cobbled together and it was working fine until the next set of Microsoft updates came down. Instead of rebooting, the laptop shutdown. Using an old trick, I disconnected everything including the 120V, took out the battery, held down the power button for 10 sec., re-installed the battery and tried to power up on battery only. It worked fine.

I connected everything up and rebooted on AC power. Worked fine.

Tried to put it to sleep. Shutdown completely. Wouldn't start up again. Went through the ritual to get it started again. Connected everything back up except the AC and tried to put it to sleep. It slept. Took it out of sleep and tried to get it to hibernate. Hibernated and woke up no problem.

I called tech support with the details. He had me disconnect everything and reproduce the failure without any USB devices connected. Then he did a search through his and HP's knowledge base and came back with the suggestion that if there was a BIOS update, which there was, I should download and install it. I did that and we went through the steps to recreate the failure and it sure looked like the BIOS update did the trick. So, the Microsoft Windows updates caused me to need to update the BIOS. It's getting so complex, anything's possible.

After thanking the guy for sticking with me for over an hour, I hung up and reconnected everything USB hub and all. Duh! Bigtime! The failure came back.

OK, with no USB devices plugged in, everything works fine. I started with plugging the AC in and the mouse and keyboard directly into the laptop instead of the hub. Everything worked fine. I plugged one hard drive into the hub and connected it to the laptop. WA-LA! The problem came back!

With that, I lost it! I had to go off and calm down. Once I got myself together again, "a light bulb" went on. Stuff connected through the powered hub causes the problem! After a bit, it hit me, "What if I unplugged the power cord from the hub, would the hub still work?" Worth a try, no? That did it! My system don't need no powered USB.

Sweet, Sour, Spicy and Mouthwatering

Years ago while visiting relatives in Tennessee, it blew me away that they sprinkled salt on watermelon and cantaloupe. Till I tried it.

Years later, I saw Southerners putting hot sauce on fried eggs. It didn't blow me away, I tried it and could appreciate the attraction but never made it a habit.

The kids used to love Mexican chile candy. Just like the powdered sweet sour candy in the US but with a dash of chile thrown in. Or a jam-like concoction based on fruit pulp laced with chile. Not bad.

Then Cristy came up with something else a few days ago.

She cut up some cantaloupe and watermelon in bite-sized cubes and sliced some jicama in thick strips. Next she sprinkled lemon juice over all three arranged on a plate. This was followed by ground black pepper and a secret mixture of ground chile she bought at the market in Zamora. To die for!

If you can find ground chile (not chili powder) it's worth a try. It should be good on almost any fruit you can serve sliced. It might take some experimenting, especially the ground chile, to get the right balance of flavors.

Here’s a good article on the price of gas.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/13/news/economy/gas_gallon/index.htm

It took me a long time to understand the Law of Supply and Demand. We covered it in high school and the most important point was missed. Even in college Economics, the point was glossed over. It wasn’t until many years later I heard Milton Friedman explain it with the proper emphasis.

First, let me give an example I run into on almost a daily basis. The taxis around here do have meters but almost all of the drivers claim they are busted. When I take a taxi from the bus station to home and the meter does work, the fare comes to about 35 pesos ($2.88.) With a broken meter, they usually ask for 30 pesos ($2.47.) Sometimes, one will ask for 45 pesos ($3.70.) That’s almost 30% over the going rate and although I can afford the 82 cent difference, does it make sense to get taken? So, I go, “¡A poco! íMe cobran 30! (WTF! They usually charge me 30!) Right away, we settle for 30 or 35.

The missing point is that price settles where the seller is WILLING to sell and the buyer is WILLING to buy.

Just for drill, a barrel of oil that’s used to make gasoline yields about 42 gallons of gasoline. I can’t find a good figure on what percentage of oil produced is used to make gasoline. Let’s say half.

The average price of a gallon of gas is around $3.15.

A monthly Metrocard for the NY Transit System costs $104.

The average tax on a gallon of gas is $.41 or 13%.

Any monopoly other than OPEC would be loudly condemned by progressives, liberals and Democrats. They split up Ma Bell, didn’t they? OPEC can and does fiddle with supply to get the best price it can for a barrel of oil.

Speculators bet on the change in the future price. Thanks to several factors in addition to holding their oil till the “right time”, they make large profits. Is that their fault? Are they any eviler than anyone who buys stock in a company expecting to rake in big profits for retirement? Judging what effect speculators have on the price of oil is clouded by OPEC, state and local taxes and other government actions.

Now, a quick look at oil company profits. The billions of profits look obscenely large. Put it in a perspective that maps to a simpler concept. Sell off all the oil companies’ assets and let them invest the proceeds in US Treasury Bonds. The income from those bonds would be very close to the profits they make by being oil companies. What! Yes, it’s true. Along the way, millions of people would lose their jobs. Businesses that depend on the oil companies would disappear. There would be negative effects throughout the world economy. So, these “evil greedy bastards” must be staying in business for some other reason than just being evil and greedy.

How about a look at the demand side? When I lived in Las Vegas, I used a gallon of gas a day on average. 250 workdays a year at $3.15 a gallon cost me a little over $65/mo. to go back and forth to work. That guy in Queens or Brooklyn who owns a car anyway and commutes by subway for $104/mo, how is he better off? Given that that $104 fare is already heavily subsidized by taxes, his real cost is a good bit higher. What does that do to all the hype about mass transit?

Looking further, how many people spend $1000 or more on a big screen TV, pay over $150/mo. for cable TV, over $100/mo. for cell phone service, $25 or more for two people to go to the movies once a week. Am I dreaming or can the vast majority cut back on something they can absolutely do without and not lower their quality of life?

You really want to lower the price of gas or its future equivalent (biodiesel, hydrogen, wind, etc.?) Can you find anything quicker and cheaper than allowing the development of all the energy resources in the US without government interference or prohibition or subsidies?

Security Renewing US Passport in Mexico

It was a seven hour bus ride Monday night to Monterrey to renew my US passport, arriving a 6AM. I wanted to do it in San Luis Potosi where there's a Consular Office and is two hours closer. The Consul General was in Zacatecas a few weeks ago and I asked him specifically if you could pay with a credit card in San Luis. He answered with an unequivocal yes. When I called San Luis to make an appointment, I was told that if I wanted to pay with a credit card, it had to be Monterrey and that I needed to take my old passport, two copies of the page the picture's on, my original birth certificate and two copies, another form of picture ID and two copies and two passport photos. Nothing was said about security and nothing about printed on the appointment slip.

I made my appointment for Monterrey.

I arrive at the consulate, walk up to the bullet-proof teller-type window and show my ID and he asks me if I have a cell phone. "You have to turn the cell phone off," he says. I do so. The he asks if I have any other electronic equipment. "Well sure, I have my laptop in my backpack." "Oh, you can't bring it into the consulate." Pause. . . "You'll have to find some place to store it." Pause. . . I turn and walk a few yards down the street and a Mexican says good morning in English as he passes. I notice he has a security badge, turn, say excuse me and explain my problem and ask if anything can be done. He asks me to wait and goes into the consulate. He comes back out saying that the guard knows where I can check my backpack. Back to the window and the guard tells me where to go. It's a block down and is a business that makes copies and helps people fill out US Consulate forms. 20 pesos ($1.60) for the checkroom service.

Back at the consulate, the guard buzzes me in to a security area. Stuff on the belt, walk through the arch, pat down which didn't even come close to my "package.' Another teller-type window to get a visitors badge and I'm allowed to enter the waiting room and take a number. There is only one person ahead of me and I get my turn in about 5 minutes. Another teller-type window where the lady wants only my old passport, application and photos. Then she runs my credit card for the $110 fee. So far, everyone has been Mexican and except for the minor ommission by the first guard, all have been professional, helpful and courteous. She askes me to take a seat while my documents are being checked. In about 5 minutes I'm called up to another window. Everything is fine and all I have to do is to take a form and my receipt to the courier service a block down to arrange to have my new passport delivered when it comes in. The only hitch there is that in Zacatecas, they don't deliver to your door; you have to pick it up at their office. That's not big deal either. Maybe six bucks in cab fare and it's close to where we do our main shopping so we can kill two birds with one stone. The new passport should arrive in about two weeks.

It would have been nice though if the appointment form that I printed off on my computer had included a complete and current list of security procedures and what the provess consisted of.

Actually, things went so quick, I caught an 11:30AM bus back to Zacatecas after arriving at the consulate around 9-9:30.