I love the bicycle, but sometimes you have to set out on foot for something different. I’ve been walking the last couple days and thought I’d share some of the photos I’ve taken.
Weekly Photo challenge: Unique
These may not be unique, but they certainly are unique to me!
A very interesting spider web. I’m not sure what the white threads are. (photo by Joel)
A very cool looking red headed lizard! (Photo by Joel)
A very pretty bug that flew in one night and landed on our kitchen wall near the light.
A tiny but beautiful bug on my finger.
Maybe the most unique of all – this tiny bug collects lint and carries it on its back. The bug itself is very hard to see so usually you only see a lint ball running across your table. It’s very small, and this one is on Joel’s finger. (Photo by Joel)
Thank you Joel (of FindingMyselfInPanama) for letting me use a number of your excellent photos for this post!
Here’s some other posts for this photo challenge, found by Zemanta.
Guandu are pigeon peas, and very popular in Panama. Guandu con arroz (with rice) is a traditional Christmas dish, so guandu are very expensive around that time. Many people grow them in their yards, including a number of my neighbors (the picture above is a guandu flower across the street). My neighbors say they come in green, black, and speckled. Haydeé, my Panamanian friend and cooking instructor, says the black ones have the best flavor and she usually uses the green ones in soup.
Haydeé came over yesterday, and our main objective was for her to teach me how too cook guandu con arroz. It’s not very complicated, but we have a lot of fun and I’m happy to see how she does things.
I had a bag of guandu, maybe 1/2 pound, and an equal amount of rice, or maybe a bit more. She started by putting oil in the pot, turning it up fairly hot, and then adding the guandu. She stirred it in the oil until it was sizzling and hot. Then she added the rice and continued to stir until it sizzled. Then, she added water, it seemed enough to cover and a couple more inches. This was left to cook with the cover on until the water was all absorbed, maybe 20 minutes.
Next, she added salt, some more oil, and some more water, maybe 1/2 cup. It was like a generous sprinkle to moisten everything well. This all was stirred and left to cook (covered) for 10 more minutes.
That’s it! Done and ready to eat. It made a lot but she insisted she wasn’t taking any to her house. It could wait in the fridge where it would be ready for a quick warmup in a frying pan for another meal. There seemed to be quite a bit more rice than guandu since the rice expands a lot when cooked, so I might adjust the ratios next time just because I don’t eat a lot of carbs, especially white ones. But, I certainly think it tastes good and so does my husband. Haydeé says it’s even better with pork so we’ll have to try that too sometime.
Extra guandu con arroz ready to store in the fridge.
I have a feeling we will be growing guandu here next year. It is planted when the rains start again (beginning of April) and starts producing before Christmas, and is still producing now. The plants look like shrubs maybe 6-8 feet high with lovely yellow or yellow/purple flowers. Pretty things in the yard that also produce food sound like a good idea to me.
I’ve been making tortillas for a while but yesterday I was instructed by the pro, who was instructed by her grandmother.
It starts with corn.
This is a bag of corn from the vegetable stand down the street. It’s also available in the supermarket or pretty much anywhere that sells food.
I know, it looks like chicken feed or something, but you can turn this into something very good! Start by boiling it in water for maybe an hour? Try a bit, and if it’s soft all the way through, then it’s done. Drain it, and salt it to taste.
Them, put it through your food grinder. Mine looks something like this
What comes out is a nice soft corn dough that can be shaped into tortillas or whatever other use you want. I was kneading it on the cutting board until it felt right, but Haydeé took it a bit further. First, she grated white cheese into the dough. There is a local Panamanian cheese that is soft and mild. Some brands are more crumbly than others but they all seem to be good.
This is the cheese I happened to have in the fridge the day we made tortillas.
After the cheese was kneaded into the dough, she put a ball of dough in a plastic bag, rolled it out flat with a glass, then used the end of the glass to cut out a circle. She then patted the circle with her hands to flatten and thin it further.
Tortillas ready for frying
Tortillas ready for frying
Hers came out much better looking than mine with smooth edges and perfectly round circles.
I like tortillas for breakfast with beans (or lentils) and salsa. Haydeé thought I was a bit odd for eating them this way, saying they just fry them and eat them plain. I did that this morning and they were very good, but I still like them with beans.
She told me that this is also the beginning of an empanada. Roll the tortilla until it is bigger and flatter, put in filling of your choice, fold over, and pinch the edges closed. Then it is ready to fry. I need to try that!
My neighbor Haydeé came over yesterday, and we had cooking class in my kitchen. What fun! She is Panamanian so of course she knows how to cook all kinds of Panamanian food, and I’m interested in learning.
We made a drink called chicha de arroz con piña – drink of rice with pineapple. (Chicha seems to cover a lot of drinks, usually with fruit, and occasionally fermented. I’m getting the feeling my neighbor makes chicha out of any kind of fruit she has on hand)
When you peel a pineapple, take all the peelings and the core, and put it in water, enough to cover it. Add some rice (maybe 1/4 – 1/2 cup). Boil this for 30-60 minutes. It’s interesting to see her cooking is not an exact science either, but rather “some” of this, “more” of that, and “a little” of something else.
So anyway, you end up with this very aromatic pineapple water that smells wonderful. Let it cool and remove the pineapple peels. This is the base for your drink.
This is some I have leftover in the fridge, ready to make more chicha.
Put some ice in the blender, some of the drink base, some sugar to taste, some milk, and a splash of vanilla. Blend it until smooth, put in a glass and enjoy.
Joel thought it tasted like ice cream and he’s right. It’s smooth, creamy, cool, and tastes surprisingly rich for only having some rice and milk in it. And, what a good thing to do with your pineapple peels that you would otherwise throw away.
I have a couple more things that she taught me, and there will probably be others in the future too so I’ll share what I learn here.
Cerro Santa Cruz
OK, so it wasn’t exactly a mountain, just a hill but near the top it felt like a mountain! I didn’t make it all the way up, deciding to be sensible and not stress my sore knee any further, so some of these photos were taken by Joel.
Our Target, as seen from the entrance of our neighborhood. Joel made it up to the top where you see the bushy tree above the gray roof. I made it maybe 3/4 of the way.
I think we took a difficult route up. The higher we went the steeper it was, and it was hard to get a solid footing in the dry leaves and loose dirt. We found out later that there are easier routes so if we go again, we’ll try something different.
But, we did manage to get some photos. Click on one and you can go through the gallery.
I’m glad to report we both survived relatively unscathed except for a bunch of seeds clinging to us, some scratches, and tired legs. I hope we give it another try sometime because I’d like to see the view from the top.
Joel also took a bit of video.
It’s hard to believe it’s been three months since we’ve moved here. Actually it’s been more than that for me because I arrived three weeks earlier to get things set up.
It’s been better than I dared hope and I am very very happy here. I know we’re still in the honeymoon phase and there will be things that annoy us, but I can’t see anything changing that much. I think it will only get better as my Spanish improves, we learn more about our community, and make more friends here.
This isn’t a complete list of everything I find good in Panama, only the main points. The things I find difficult are all from my side – difficulties with communication because my Spanish is far from fluent, and problems finding things because I’m still not familiar with everything in the city. But, at this point, there is nothing I can think of that’s a problem with Panama or this area, at least not for us.
I would say our first quarterly report is overwhelmingly positive!
I was sitting at Joel’s desk looking at photos, and I felt the floor vibrate. For a city girl this isn’t anything unusual. Who’s doing construction in the street, or was that a subway passing underneath us? But, here on our quiet street, in our sturdy block house, the floor shouldn’t vibrate. I’m sure I felt something, but I wasn’t sure it was something noteworthy.
Then, today, I saw these headlines, and some of the local forums also have comments from others who felt it too.
In all my years I have never felt an earthquake! Thank goodness it wasn’t anything serious that did any damage. I know earthquakes happen here but from what I understand the plates slide over each other instead butting into each other, so there’s less chance that there will be a very destructive earthquake, thank goodness.
Panama doesn’t have a lot of natural disasters. According to Prevention Web, floods are the most frequent problem. The most people killed were from epidemics, then storms, earthquake (1991 – a 7.8 in Costa Rica that also affected Panama), and floods. Over the last 30 years, 276 people died from natural disasters, an average of 9 per year. That’s not bad odds.
I know, it’s supposed to be winter, but in Panama it’s summer. We are getting no rain and it’s often very breezy. It’s drier, a little warmer in the afternoons, and a little cooler at night.
Someone commented on my blog that she would like to find this river, so yesterday we met her and her husband and had a wonderful time! We walked along the river and around our neighborhood. I loved the river in the rainy season when everything was lush and green. Now it looks different but equally as beautiful. Today there wasn’t much wind and I had some time as the sun was getting low in the sky. I thought this might be a perfect time to take some photos.
No challenge here. This is easy!
My family – my two amazing daughters, their husbands, my sister and brother in law, and assorted extended family.
My husband and Pongo, our wonderful and loving dog who now lives with his new mom in Florida
My partner, best friend, and husband. Who else would go tramping around in the woods in a downpour with me, and think it’s great fun?!
I remember hearing something a long time ago that stayed with me – “Love is a behavior, not a feeling. Love is a verb” It is how you behave with someone. It’s how you treat them every day. I did a Google search to find the source of this and found this interesting article on OPRAH, and another excellent BLOG POST.
Every day I am treated with kindness and respect. Every day he tells me how glad he is that we are together. I never have to be someone different to please him. I never live in fear that he will behave badly towards me. I know that he is always here for me, and will support me wherever I go. Is it any wonder I feel so loved and so fortunate that we are together?
Lets see what some other bloggers have posted in answer to this challenge –
