Nueva Fecha para el Curso de Vino

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Estamos orgullosos de anunciar una nueva fecha para nuestro curso Una Introducción al vino en el área de la ciudad de México.

El curso se llevará a cabo el día 15 de mayo, 2010, los detalles están disponibles AQUÍ. Durante el curso aprenderán las cosas básicas que necesitan para desmitificar el maravilloso mundo del vino. Al final de la parte teórica del curso, hacemos una degustación formal de 7 vinos diferentes. Todo el material del curso está incluido en un CD, incluyendo nuestro software profesional de cata.

El costo del curso es de $1,350.00 y requerimos un depósito de $350.00 para reservar su lugar. Reserve pronto ya que los lugares están limitados.

Aquí un pequeño extracto de lo está reservado para usted:

Por cierto, este curso será en español, pero si existe demanda también puedo impartir este curso y todos mis cursos y conferencias en inglés o francés. También puedo viajar alrededor del mundo o a su localidad para dar mis clases y conferencias en una variedad de temas. Por favor contácteme directamente para más información.

Lucito

New Wine Course Date

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We are proud to announce a new date for our Introduction to Wine course in the Mexico City area. The course will be held on May 15th and all the details are available HERE. During the course you will learn all the basic things you need to demystify the wonderful world of wine. At the end of the theoretical part of the course we do a formal tasting of 7 different wines. All the course’s material is included on a CD, including our professional wine tasting software.

The course’s price is MN$1350 and we require a MN$350 deposit to reserve your spot. Reserve early as spaces are limited.

Here is a short excerpt of what is in store for you:

BTW, this course will be in Spanish, but if there is a demand for it I can also give this course and all my courses and conferences in English or French. I can also travel worldwide to your locality to give classes and conferences on a variety of subjects. Please contact me directly for more information.

Lucito

Late afternoon coffee

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After lunch today, at the end of the afternoon and neighborhood friend came to visit us to chat a bit. In the past months we have been a bit reclusive as we are working all the time to prepare a lot of new project. It was nice for a change to sit down and relax and chat of other things. Luckily I had prepare two loaves of banana bread this morning as I had some leftover bananas and with the high heat we are experiencing they would not have lasted much longer.

Our neighbor’s husband came to join us a bit later and I prepare a pot of coffee and we enjoyed that with the bread while chatting. It was a relaxing late afternoon. early evening and changed our minds from our regular concerns.

A nice slice of banana bread and strong coffee

Lucito

Photos – Chicken Salad

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It is now past 9pm here and it is still over 90F in the office. Outside it is around 70F, but even with wind no fresh air is entering. The chicken salad we hate earlier was just what was needed on such a hot day. It is a bit cooler in front of the house, but not by much. We enjoyed the nice light salad and even have a bit left for tomorrow. We will see what we will recycle then…

The plated chicken salad perfect fare for a hot day

Lucito

Daily Express – Chicken Salad

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It is over 90F in the office today and we are just melting on the floor. We still have half of the roasted chicken we bought yesterday and in our traditional way of not letting anything go to waste we are going to prepare it as a nice chicken salad. It is about the only way I would get it down in this heat. We will dress the chicken with a bit of mayonnaise and cream, herbs and spices, some frozen peas and carrots, and some little cubes of celery. Normita disinfected a head of romaine lettuce and we will serve the chicken salad over a bed of fresh lettuce. With a tall glass of ice-cold water it should just hit the spot…

Lucito

Photos – Chicken Sandwich

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In our new found quest for everything leftovers I thought that we would have a leftover free day today as we bought a roasted chicken, but of course when we started to prepare the sandwiches we ended up as usual using a lot of odds and ends we found around the kitchen. First the bread, then Normita found some leftovers pickled chiles in the refrigerator and I found some pickled ergh… pickle slices… We also found an avocado and some cheese slices. so we had some nice sandwiches on small French rolls with cheese, roasted chicken, a touch of mayo, avocado, pickles for me, and chiles for Normita. They turned out great.

When we arrived home I noticed that the roasted chicken was “Ranchero” flavored. Since Ranchero roughly means farmer or ranch owner, I was hoping the the flavor was not sweat and dust, or worse sweat and manure… Luckily it was neither and it tasted to me like any supermarket roasted chicken I ever ate.

Our Ranchero-flavored chicken. Just a plain roasted chicken.
The opened plastic tub makes the chicken a tad more appetizing
Half of the chicken cut in small pieces
My mini-sandwiches ready to eat

Lucito

Daily Express – Chicken Sandwich

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I guess that by now most of you who are following us daily are starting to see a trend evolving over the last week or so. It seems that we never have time to do much cooking as we are rushing all over the place trying to put together some big projects on many front. Today is the same as we needed to go out this morning for some business meeting, and we were delayed as the neighbors on one side who are building a house came to visit with their little kids and 3 puppies. Of course a bunch of screaming kids and yapping puppies did not go well with our dogs who joined the fun, the the kids humans and animals on the other side of the fence were just running back an forth raising a huge cloud of dust. Since we cleaned the hose yesterday, that made us both very happy as there is now a huge amount of accumulated dirt everywhere.

I then had to go talk to the owners to convince them that it would be a good idea to finish building the huge wall they started to build and abandoned with the section still open being the center of a huge pile of dirt that the workers are sending to us daily. We have been living in a dust storm for over 2 months now and hopefully they will soon finish they wall so we can breath a bit of clean air once in a while. While we were driving to our meetings we both realized that once again we had forgotten to plan something for lunch. We finally stopped by on the way back to a supermarket and bought a cooked rotisserie chicken and some bread, so I guess we will now go make some chicken sandwiches. I will report later on how they turned out…

Lucito

Daily Express – New York Steak

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As mentioned multiple times we finally manage to have our nice steak as we both had the energy and the weather cooperated for a change and I could cook on the barbecue outside as the wind was only moderate. I quickly marinated some zucchinis cut in medium thick slices.

The marinating zucchinis waiting to be grilled.

Prior to that I had prepared some nice baked potatoes and maintained them hot in a low oven while I prepare the rest. About 15 minutes before cooking, I took the steaks out and simply salted them and put some Montreal-style steak seasoning on them. Strangely enough I was raised in Montreal and when I was young you never saw that stuff in the supermarkets. Now I live in Mexico and you can see that stuff all over the place. Go figure… I prefer a simple dry seasoning to my steaks and never use things like oil either on the meat or on the grill. I cook the steaks at very high temperature with the barbecue lid closed, and that has worked for me for over 30 years, so I stick with what works.

The nice New York steaks with a sprinkling of Montreal-style steak seasoning pressed into them.

I grilled the steak to around medium-cooked for Normita as she likes her meat dead, and to blue for me as I like my meat with a nice crust outside and with the inside at body temperature. If it does not go moo when I stick my fork in, it is perfect for me. We enjoyed the meat as it was extremely juicy and very tasty. Next time we go to town to do some shopping we will definitely buy another side of New York.

Normita's plate ready for her to eat.

Lucito

Quick Breakfast Chalupas

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In our long quest to reuse all leftovers and not leave anything uneaten, this morning we prepared a nice breakfast make mostly with leftover ingredients from last week. We had 4 of those chalupas we used with the mole last week and a bit of refried beans and spicy tomato salsa that Normita made last week. We decided to use all of that to make a nice tasty breakfast. As with most of these things the effort is minimal and the result very rewarding.

We started with the chalupas that we fried on both sides in a pan with a few tablespoons of oil. Once nice and crisp we buttered them directly in the pan with the beans, then added a bit of salsa and some shredded bits of Oaxaca cheese. You keep cooking them until the cheese melts and you end up with a savory Mexican breakfast pizza. We enjoyed them with a nice strong cup of coffee and we shared a huge grapefruit afterward. Too bad they are all gone…

I started eating and found them so good that I rushed to the office to get the camera to record the event before they were all gone…

Our nice Mexica breakfast pizzas - Chalupas

Lucito

Daily Express – Hot Dog Pilaf

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Yesterday, Sunday, I had thawed some nice New York cut steak. Late last fall I had bought an entire piece of New York and butchered it myself into some steaks and two small roast. I still have one of the roast frozen and those were the last of the steaks. We were planning to have those yesterday, but we had an emergency and had to go out late in the day. When we returned we were both too tired to cook and the weather was not cooperating as it was to windy for the barbecue.

In keeping with last week’s pattern I tried to creatively used what was at hand in the larder and use leftovers in creative way. I look into what I had around and found some rice, leftover sausages, chopped onions and tomatoes from Friday’s hot dogs, a few small zucchinis, a bit of frozen corn and chile poblanos, and another head of romaine lettuce. My devious plan was done in quick order. I decided to make some rice pilaf. Since I used the hot dog sausages as part of the ingredients I called it a Hot Dog Pilaf.

Making a pilaf is very easy, you put a bit of oil in a pot and brown the rice in it a bit, add your liquid and cook until absorbed. I first added to the oil the leftover onions and tomatoes as well as the zucchini. Then I added the rice and browned it a bit, then added the water with some powdered chicken broth and seasonings and herbs, and a tab of hot chile paste. I mixed everything and added the sausages cut in cubes to the mix, and cooked until the water was absorbed and the rice was tender.

It turned out surprisingly good, as my expectations were not high. We enjoyed the meal a lot as it was no problem to prepare and used up a lot of things we would not have know what to do with. today we will finally have the steaks and I will write about that later when I have a bit more time.

Lucito