Pan Casera, Homemade Bread

Bienvenido, loyal reader. Please join Bruce and Mary in welcoming a new addition to their family. Provecho!

As you may recall, we picked up Mary’s BD gift from the kids on Thanksgiving Day and we had promised to not open it until our weekly video call with son Joe y su esposa Meryah. Joe takes great joy (?) in witnessing his mother’s emotional moments. So on pins and needles Mary waited it out.

And here is what our three wonderful kids (Sammy/Annah, Helen/Caleb, Joe/Meryah) gave her, a bread machine!! But wait, there’s more…

Joe knew he’d witness a torrential downpour when Mary realized they had sent her a bread maker, but holy mackerel, when she saw her old stored-away recipe boxes… Niagara Falls!

This is Yarita, our neighborhood bakery which is located on Calle Basilio Badillo, entre Ignacio Vallarta y Pino Suarez. Mary had been meaning to talk to them about yeast but was holding off until the weather had cooled off a little more as neither of us wanted to heat up our tiny apartment baking bread. But now that is not a concern. We’re going to have homemade bread year round!

Cristina is very helpful and friendly in supplying Mary with Saf-Instant Gold yeast, 500g/17.64oz por 162P, about $12.60, and 2 kilos/4.4# of white flour por 20P, about $1.60.

Mary is standing in front of Tienda Bodeguita, our semilla, seed, nuts and a whole lot more store. We thought we’d check them out for more exotic flours. BTW: It is located at the corner of Madero y Aguacate.

Rocio tells us that they normally have whole wheat flour, for 18P/kilo, but they are out of stock at the moment. Mary does get some powdered soy milk and I guess because the amount is small, Rocio does not bother charging for it. Or perhaps she felt badly for not having the flour in stock? I’m not sure but we love this store, this is where we buy, among other things, our popcorn and our favorite beach treat (outside of my fish on a stick) chicharo, salted dried peas, yumm….

Ok, we are shopping at the moment but this is still a little off-topic (delete! say our moderator friends) and although we always try to keep this blog on the positive we are compelled to give this report as a heads-up to our PV friends. This market, the largest in the Mercado Emiliano Zapata complex and situated on the corner of Cardenez and Camachin, used to be our main source of produce and frutas. But no more.  We were just there for our weekly shopping and when we checked out, the cost was nearly double for a little less than we usually buy – 232P. We politely asked the chica to reweigh and price our goods which reduced it to 192 which was still way too high, and this time we paid attention to the prices of each item.  So on the way home we stopped at another, tiny, tienda to compare prices on just one item, sandias personales, personal watermelons and we discovered that our old store charged over twice as much. We have been noticing, with the high season upon us, a lot more gringos shopping there and today they outnumbered the locals. So I guess that market has gone to “gringo prices”. I doubt that gringo tourists will notice the gouging but I wonder how they will get the local traffic back when they revert to low season pricing. Well, that place is not our problem anymore. We will have to stop at perhaps two or three markets to  get what we need as this one has everything but we will be happy to do so as there are small markets everywhere in Old Town. Ok, I’m done with my rant now.

Mary has all her ingredients ready to go and is chomping at the bit to get this show on the road.

And it’s done!!

Finally, it’s cooled enough to slice.

Is there anything better than homemade bread?! Tacaño, cheapskate, that I am, I calculated the cost of this delicious homemade bread and it comes to 17 cents per loaf, not bad, eh? BTW kids, this is plenty enough gift for my upcoming BD and x-mas – we are good!

Thanks for visiting gentle reader. And yes, Bruce and Mary do have some pretty special kids, they are not really sure how they came to deserve them. And, as you know they love comentarios on all subjects so please feel free. Hasta proxima Domingo!