Chile-Willy (from his hiding place on top of the cookies in the cupboard over the stove) asking not to be disturbed until the construction is finished and all foreign noises are off the property. 

Boring!! 

A not very clear picture of some Cuitlacoche 

My old B&D drill - finally dead after forty years! 

Day two of facade changes. 

Getting started on the facade changes. 

Mexican Smut and the Internet

One food item that is quintessentially Mexican is “cuitlacoche” or sometimes-spelled “huitlacoche” – the Náhuatl Indian word for this weird product pronounced “wheat-la-coach-eh”. It is that black and grey fungus, smut or mushroom type growth that appears on the ears of corn, usually when it gets a little too wet in the field. It is cultivated and coveted here in Mexico as a delicacy. They make crepes, soup, soufflés, tacos, empanadas, stuffing for meat and eggs and even ice cream flavoring from this weird food. Now is the season for it but one has to look for it in the deepest parts of local markets.

I came across a recipe for pasta sauce made from cuitlacoche and have been experimenting with it for a few weeks. I have to say that once you get past the visual part, it is quite good and the flavor sort of grows on you. I even tried it on a half dozen friends for lunch yesterday (among them a couple of aficionados) and they all agreed it was very good. Well what would you expect? They were in my house!

It is certainly not the most attractive food in the world due to its very dark (almost black) color. But mixed with some olive oil, shallots, onions, garlic, pine nuts, epazote, and cream I think it is very tasty indeed. As ice cream flavoring I will give it a pass. It doesn’t stop the Mexicans however, as they have avocado, pine nut, and shrimp flavored ice cream available just down the street - so why not cuitlacoche?

Finally, the coveted orange sticker announcing “Obra Autorizada” along with the work permit arrived. It took seven months from the first request to change the facade and paint the front of the house. My contractor however, got right to it and started on time with a small crew the next day. He says he will be done in a couple of weeks. I will give him three. Certainly the brickwork has moved right along and should be done today, but the finishing, new “cantera” around the windows and door, and the painting will take a little longer. Paint incidentally, for buildings in “Centro”, can only be the old fashioned kind where they mix special pigments with lime. No acrylics! I am looking for color suggestions.

I took advantage of the construction to change the way my cable TV and Internet comes into the house, in order to remove their ugly wires from the front of the building. It meant splicing the Cable Company's line and rerouting it over the roof. It has been nothing but trouble since! Finally after 2 visits by the Cable company it worked yesterday and about three hours later the guys working on the roof accidentally cut it again. I could not get it restarted. The TV works fine but no Internet signal. If and when you read this you will know I have finally gotten it fixed again.

In fact the Cable guys just left after insisting they had to change the entire cable (54 Metres) - at my cost of course. And to add insult to injury I finally wore out my old B&D hand-drill drilling the holes through the concrete walls for the cable that now will never be used. Dang I hate having to pay for things twice! I did however find a nice almost new Dewalt drill and to tell the truth I had been trying to break that old B&D for a number of years. It has to be at least forty years old with none of the features of the newer models. It had served me mightily and certainly owes me not a cent. I even thought of burying it in the garden with full dress ceremony but instead gave it to the Maestro in charge of the crew laying bricks. He may be able to fix it or give it away for a few pesos. At least he didn't say he didn't want it.

little more

Well, I have this new camera you see which takes giant pictures with enormous pixel count. So when I post them directly to the blog everything gets all blogged up, naturally. I think I have fixed it now but it took me a while and hopefully I didn’t annoy anyone too much with the crazy formatting problem. I have to say that I preferred my old “point and shoot” camera, but have not yet given up on the new one.

It has been raining a lot here which is very good for the dams around the state as they are all starting to fill up to more acceptable levels. It has rained over an inch a day for the last week.

Watched the mighty Roger Federer win the Canadian Master in Toronto today. I thought Gasquet had a chance but it was not to be. Wonderful tennis, even with a few too many errors.

Planning a smutty Mexican lunch this week sometime. More on that later.

I hope, by the way, with fresh sweet corn on the cob on the horizon all over Canada, that you will try, (or not forget to try), the Mexican solution: Plunge the corn into boiling water and once it returns to the boil turn off the heat and let it sit in the hot water for ten minutes; then smother with lots of butter, salt, big dobbs of some good mayonnaise and some cayenne pepper (and a little lime juice if you like). Enjoy!! Delicious!! Finally finding some decent sweet corn in osme of the tiendas around here, incidentally.

Greg finally gets a little swim. Hasn't been this wet since Ottawa. 

Looking up towards the houses on the edge of the canyon 

View of the little pond looking down from the presa 

Close look at the lily 

Nice show from my water lily 

Having a heart to heart 

Contemplating his name 

Life at the top is good 

Summer in San Miguel de Allende

The big change here in summer has little to do with the weather, which remains much the same year round. Nights are cooler in December thru February and at this time of year (April thru July) there is sometimes rain in the afternoons or evenings. I remark to myself almost every day that this has to be one of the nicest climates I have ever known.

The main difference that summer brings is more tourists. By and large they are quite the best kind. The majority are families and older couples or singles from DF (Mexico City – Distrito Federal), Guadalahara, Queretero and elsewhere in Mexico. Of course there are the “Chilangos” (young, wealthy and arrogant week-enders from Mexico City), which the Sanmiguelenses love to hate. But the “Chilangos”, (many with family homes here), come here on weekends to party all year round so are a constant of the night scene and not just a summer phenomenon. There are also lots of folks (again a lot of families and older folks) from Canada and US – mainly from southern US (Texas, Tennessee, New Mexico, California and Florida) escaping the heat. Many come to set their kids up in various classes at the cultural centers around town or just allow them to suck up a bit of culture from the wide variety of activities that are a constant in SMA.

This town is growing like a bad weed. Some figures were released recently that make my own estimates seem a bit sad. I had said that I discounted the idea that there were up to 5,000 gringos here believing that it was closer to 300 and thinking the 5,000 figure came largely from phone lists that included a ton of folks that come for only a few weeks. According to city officials about 7,000 foreigners have permanent residency in SMA with the total population at any one time in the order of 10,000. In a city of 80,000 proper and with suburban barrios of an additional 60,000, that makes the gringo population in the order of 5% – 8 %. To satisfy the demand, not one but two new supermarkets are being built on the edge of town. The need to run off to Queretero or Celaya for decent grocery shopping will certainly become less apparent.

Furthermore, the US Govt estimates(no one knows) that some 1.8 million Americans are currently living in Mexico. With around 50 million set to retire over the course of the next five years it is a good bet some more will end up in this country. In which case if you are looking for a spot you better hurry. Mexican blogs are beginning to blog cyberspace. Just in SMA one can read the following (in addition to this one of course):
http://www.fallinginlovewithsanmiguel.com/index.html
http://mysanmiguelblog.blogspot.com/
http://franschiavo.com/sma/
http://www.elconsejo.com/
http://www.infosma.com/
http://www.sanmiguelauthors.com/new/index.php
http://adventuresandtravelinmexico.com/The_Heart_of_Mexico/S
an_Miguel_de_Allende/tabid/110/Default.aspx
http://www.billiemercer.blogspot.com/

And if you wish to explore Mexico even further here is a
more complete list:
http://rollybrook.com/blogs.htm

The Mexican elections are still not over. The Elections Tribunal has until September 6 to pronounce a winner. The leftist, Obrador, is still claiming fraud and that he is the legitimate heir. To show his strength he continues to organize large crowds of protesters into the central square in Mexico City every weekend. Filipe Calderon meanwhile, is resolutely forming his transition team. With only a 0.5% lead however, he will have trouble claiming a complete victory and will have to be quick on his feet to govern effectively should he retain his slim advantage and become President.

I am planning some projects over the course of the next few weeks/months. Of course I still have this fantasy that I can change the façade a bit and give the whole front a much-needed face-lift including a paint job. That however is in the hands of the City fathers, as any façade changes in “Centro” require rigorous approval in order to maintain the “colonial” look. But it has been six months now and still my contractor claims they have not approved. In the meantime, (and in anticipation of eventual approval), I am going to build a permanent staircase from my second floor balcony to the roof. I also plan to install a solar water heating system on the roof. That is very much in the planning process at present but what I long for is something simple with no moving parts. The climate here should be ideal. We will see and I will post progress.

Meanwhile I am getting to know a fairly eclectic group of folks, most of who claim permanent residence. They typically meet in el Jardin and hang out in a variety of places over lunch and some music and cultural events. I have worked my kitchen a bit but winter is a better time for dinner parties. I have also found a new swimming hole for the Gregster. It is up the canyon that forms the spillway for the old dam below the botanic gardens. It makes for a reasonably strenuous hike of about an hour to the water holes but worth it to see the pleasure the hound gets from a little swim.