Good morning. As I wrote that title to the blog, I suddenly realized that I don't know how to spell miscellanea! Just rewriting the word now, it still does not look right. I have never written it before, but I would have never had trouble writing it before either.
Today we are going to the dump to take my husband's used diabetic needles and prickers--"sharps", as they are called. You'd think there would be available depots all over town, given the number of people who are sticking and pricking themselves in any period of time, on a regular basis, by orders of the doctor, and as a duty. But when we called Kaiser Pharmacy, who hand that stuff out like candy on Halloween when it's their time to give out, we got a baffled, "Wha? Who? Us? What? Err--we don't know where you can turn them in." Tell me if that makes sense. We found that we can go to the big dump here in CV, where there is a little special dump stuck like a wart out in front, and on Wednesdays and Saturdays they accept these loathesome supplies. And I wonder what they do with them.
I also want to write about avocadoes today. On Wednesday morning, Theo left with special instructions to bring back an avocado for Patricia's and my lunch salad. He brought back a bag of Costco avocadoes, large, black, perfect looking---and watery.
I have not yet found a good avocado this year. Gosh, they are awful. Avocadoes are supposed to have a rich, flavorful texture, almost buttery. Better than buttery. I truly love them. But these--they would not even make a good guacamole even if rich olive oil is added to the mix.
This reminds me of the time when I was about twenty, and Maria came from Mexico City to preside in my mother's kitchen when Mother was on a trip. Maria was the wife of Luis, and she was in Brownsville because Luis was my father's driver for a time and Maria was supposed to fill in to keep my father going at mealtimes.
Maria was one of those classical Mexico City women of time immemorial. God made them whole and set them down in Mexico to keep the men alive. She was square, brown, dynamic, and a big know-it-all. And she did know it all, so we should not object. She gave me a couple of lessons in the kitchen.
Picking up a beautiful, green smooth Fuerte American avocado, she said, "Estos no son aguacates. Estos son paguas." She went on to reiterate that what we Americans called an avocado were a different fruit altogether from the Mexican aguacate of my childhood. I think I've told you, conscientious reader, of the savory, tender, aguacates we used to eat, full of big strings that had to be taken out before the fruit could be made into guacamole. In fact, I am sure that's how guacamole was invented. By the time you got the strings out, it already was guacamole.
She also taught me how to make Guachinango a la Veracruzana. You take a whole beautiful rose-pink and pearly colored red snapper from the Gulf of Mexico, clean him up and put him on a baking pan. Inside him you place this stuffing: tomato, peppers, onions, garlic, capers. It was the capers that were new to me then. Oh, olives too, you put in. Anyway, my mother being of good Scotch Irish stock knew not of the capers, so I learned how yummy these strange little knots of pickled nasturtium buds can be. Anyway, then you bake the fish. Yummo is all I can say. I have not seen a real fresh huachinango in years, I think.
I got to put in a lot of italics today, did I not? It's fun and I would do it more often if I were not afraid of blowing the whole posting away. And it has happened.
And that is all for Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011. YAZZYBEL
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