In the evening we headed back down to the Zocalo as usual. We decided to walk to give Brian's sore knee a bit of stretching and exercise. Wouldn't you know it, stepping off a curb Kris twisted her left ankle. Seems like nothing is broken so we trundle on. We must have been a bit of a sight. Needless to say, we caught a taxi home, but not before picking up some much needed Michoacana ice cream.
Monday is stocking up on groceries etc day so we took a taxi to the Walmart near the Plaza del Valle. The taxi driver tried to drop us off at Sam's Club but we weren't having anything to do with that. After picking up the necessities and wine (of course) we hailed a taxi and headed for home. An afternoon of rest before deciding where to go for the evening. Both Kris' ankle and Brian's knee are still a bit tender. Although we think it is best to get those parts moving, we grab a taxi down to the Zocalo. We get him to drop us off near the Mercado Juarez where we pick up a few veggies, etc.
- Time for a price comparison: we bought 2 tomatoes, 2 avocados, 2 bananas and 2 large oranges for 32 pesos. About $2 CDN. We'll make a point of going to a grocery store to see what the cost, for the equivalent amount of groceries, will be when we get home.
Leaving the market we walked the 2 blocks or so to the Zocalo and our usual evening stop at Terranova. After a bit a couple sat down at the table beside ours. They were clearly "newbies". We chatted with them for awhile. They had just arrived in Oaxaca 2 hours earlier and were planning to spend a week here so they were interested in some of our tips and suggestions. They are here as a getaway from the winter back home in Winnipeg.
Tuesday being Feb 14, and we know what day that is, Kris found a wee surprise when she went to use the computer...
... we lazed about for the morning; Kris made a couple of omelettes for lunch then we watched a few episodes of 30 Rock before having a mid afternoon nap. Later we walked over to Brujula for a couple of iced lattes then headed down towards the Zocalo for a stop in at the ScotiaBank ATM. We browsed a few shops on the way back up the Alcala then went to Mezzaluna for a very good salsiccia y finocchio (italian sausage with fennel) pizza dinner. After dinner we decided to try the rooftop patio bar for the Casa Cresspo restaurant. Well, won't go there again... the ambiance sucked, the seating sucked, the service sucked and the wine not only sucked but was served in glasses that looked like they had not been properly washed. Not good!
Wednesday was a day we were looking forward to. We left the house a bit early and stopped in at Brujula for a couple of lattes on the way to the pickup spot on 5 de Mayo for transportation to the "Seasons of My Heart" cooking school, out near Etla, our adventure for the day. We arrived early and were able to chat with a number of other wanna be cooks, mostly folks from the USA; a couple from Chicago, Lori from Seattle, Pat from Tuscon, Georgia from Berkeley amongst others. One interesting fellow is actually a cook/chef for a wealthy private family. He accompanied his "boss" and family via their private jet for a holiday in a few places in Mexico. Every day, while he is in Oaxaca, he is attending cooking schools. What an experience! Turns out a fairly large tour group signed up just yesterday so instead of there being about 10 of us there were 23. Large group to say the least. The normal shuttle bus wasn't big enough so 4 people had to travel in a taxi. We opted for the larger more comfortable shuttle bus.
First stop was the market in Etla. Their market day is Wednesday and it is a pretty big one. It has grown a large amount since we were last here about 15 years ago. It used to be that the bus or collectivo taxi would let you off almost right at the base of the steps into the main market building. Now the closest the bus can get is about 3 blocks away as the main street from there to the main building is full of vendors. They broke us up into a couple of groups. We opted to have Dulce (yes it means "sweet" and she is!) as our guide. Over the course of the next hour or so we sampled several different types of tamales, baked goods, ice cream, chicharron (pork rind) and cheese and learned about the many different chilis, herbs and spices available in the market.
Waiting for us at the cooking school was Susana Trilling, the owner, master chef and all around excellent cooking teacher...
This is our 4th time at the school. The first two times were in the 90s, before Susana built the current school kitchen building, when the classes were held in her own kitchen. She remembered quite clearly about the time we were there and a student (neither of us) didn't realize he had to light the gas oven. After turning the oven on, it was several minutes later that Susana asked him if he had lit the oven. No, so he lit a match and opened the door. The explosion almost deafened everyone. The stove bounced about a foot in the air and the pork roast in the cast iron casserole, which he had so carefully placed in the oven before turning the gas on, flew in a large arc across the kitchen. Luckily, no one was injured. Much broken glass etc. We cleaned it all up, Susana washed off the roast, back in the oven it went and we carried on and the day ended with a pretty darn good meal, all things considered.
Well, that was then... she built the current kitchen in 2000 (we had one class there the last time we visited Oaxaca in 2001) and it is fabulous...
... She now has a staff of helpers and it is a whole lot of fun. Susana explained all the recipes, we divided ourselves up into 6 groups and with the help of Susana and her staff we set forth to make dinner. Brian was in the group making the cold soup and Kris joined the group in charge of the main chicken entree. Here's Kris charring chilis on a large coal (the other woman was doing tomatoes)...
Three hours later we all sat down to an excellent 6 course meal... and it was very good. Afterwards we got ready to leave but not before one final goodbye to Susana...
... well, we sort of hope it wasn't a "final" goodbye. Then it was back into the shuttle for the drive back into Oaxaca. A real fun day!
Thursday was mostly a shopping day picking up a few t-shirts and some small pottery souvenirs. In the evening we went down to the Zocalo for some wine at Terranova with a stop at ScotiaBank on the way.
Friday we decided to go back to Ocotlan. This time we found the Automorsa (Auto Transportes Morelos) station and got there just as one of the smaller suburban buses left. There was a large bus getting ready to leave but we learned our lesson last week. The suburbans are so much more comfortable for an extra 5 pesos (about 30 cents CDN) each, so we opted to wait. While waiting we chatted with a couple from Minnesota. They actually drive their vehicle down here every winter but then they store it and take local transportation. They've been doing this for years and said they have never had a problem. Anyway, in no time flat another suburban arrived and we got on. Another nice thing about the suburban is that there is no "standing". Everyone must be seated. Very different from the larger bus.
The Ocotlan market was it's usual very busy self. We did our usual of just wandering the streets and going into the various market buildings. On this day we found ourselves in a very large building with many comedors (eateries). We had read about one comedor where the owner was apparently close to being a dead ringer for Frida Kahlo and her comedor featured a Frida theme. It didn't take long to find it...
... and there she was hard at work...
We had a couple of bowls of chocolate with pastries. Very good. While there we found out just how popular this place is. Numerous other tourists and locals alike were crammed along the small table in front of the comedor. To top it all off, if you wished, when you paid your bill Frida came out and got her picture taken with you...
... sweet!
Saturday was not a good day. Somewhere along the line Brian contacted a serious bout of "traveler's stomach" (sure hope it wasn't at Frida's), that put a real kibosh on the day. Since it was cleaning day Brian holed up in the spare bedroom while Macrina the cleaning lady did her thing. Meanwhile Kris went out on a rather great walkabout taking back our DVDs to the Lending Library and picking up enough to get us through next week.
Basically, Brian was down for the count. Not a great way to end the week!
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