I promise not all of our blog entries will be about food….
As I’ve mentioned, San Gerardo de Dota does not have a Superstore; nowhere to one-stop-shop, that’s for sure! The local “pulperia” is maybe the equivalent of a Mac’s, but even that is generous, since there certainly are no 4L jugs of milk or slurpees.
So to actually have all the food you need for a certain recipe on hand, takes some planning, even for something as simple as grilled cheese for lunch. Cheese is even more difficult for us to get than milk, since milk comes in room-temperature tetra packs that are easily transported. And we can't exactly ask our friends who occasionally go to the city and pick up food for us to arrange their travels so as to bring us fresh cheese.
We’d heard through the grapevine of a guy down the road who makes cheese (and whose house was nicknamed “casa de queso” [house of cheese] by a student at the field station). That sounded promising to us, so we were willing to give it a try. We walked there yesterday. Turns out this guy lives at the very end of the San Gerardo road, making it quite the trek to get cheese! We’d failed to plan ahead and bring headlamps, so we ended up walking back in the dark. But we now have cheese—a 1-kg soft, white brick of homemade cheese. It’s quite different from the hard, orange cheddar we are used to in Canada, but I’m crossing my finger that the kids will eat it.
On another note:
The anticipation of February 8th has taken on mythical proportions around here, at least in the mind of a certain boy in our family. Not only is it his 6th birthday, it also happens to be his 100th day of Kindergarten (which they are celebrating in his classroom back home too), and we now know it’s the first day of elementary school here after the Costa Rican summer holidays. Can we pile anything else into that day?! That’s not your average birthday. I’ve promised to bake brownies for his birthday cake, now that I have acquired some very coveted cocoa powder.
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| Just a nice photo.... |
As the one who makes the meals, I can understand the importance of acquiring what you need/want. Hope your brownie birthday cake turns out. That's an absolutely gorgeous picture of the kids - what a backdrop.
ReplyDeleteDad says it's a quarter of your stay now!?! Three to go :-) We're glad you're enjoying your adventure. Love, Mom & Dad