Friday dinner in a Catholic country

As I noted last week, this being Lent the fish market is always crowed on Friday. In our village, Friday also means chilies rellenos in the kitchen of one of the local restaurants. Probably in all, for that matter. You can stand at the big open window of the hotel's kitchen and watch them being prepared, then order a couple to bring home for comida or cena. In thinking about this I decided that I get enough cholesterol as it is without shoving down yet more cheese-stuffed peppers. I changed the menu.

First you buy a whole fish. Then you flip to Huachanango a la Veracruzana in the tattered and spotted The Cuisines of Mexico by the doyenne of Mexican cooking, Diana Kennedy. Since we can get almost any size whole Snapper we want this is great for just los dos and can be quite spectacular for six. I have a couple of barra (clay) fish platters, depending on the size of the beast, that I use on the top of the stove and put directly in the oven. I love all my Mexican barra cookware; easy to clean, decorative, wonderful to cook in. Hang the lead content!

We drove over to Armeria to check out the local paint store. We are trying to match the current house color for the areas Fernando has patched and will paint. Unfortunately we painted the house about three years ago so you can imagine the fading in the hot tropical sun. I guess we'll just have to paint the whole house again next year. Meanwhile, we'll make do with what we can find. The garage and front doors need repainting, too. I am looking for a teal green/blue, like these. (I don't know why these are so fuzzy; I'll try again after I get my PhD in "Camera Use.") The house color is something called "Salmon" and it looks quite good with the teal. Not very Mexican; more French countryside. It's good to be eclectic. The Patient and I compared these colors, decided either of the top two would be OK. He's color blind by birth (can't tell the difference between the red, yellow and green on stop lights; does it by position, not color. Yikes!) I am color blind due to years of laser treatment that zapped my cones. We are not a good pair to make these decisions.