San Ramón, Macaroni and Cheese and a Thunderstorm - Costa Rica

On Tuesday of this week, we had occasion to drive to the town of San Ramón, about 32 km away from our town of Grecia. It was a beautiful morning with clear views of the lovely countryside - hectares of coffee plants growing in neatly laid out rows on the rolling hills and dales and clear views of the beautiful countryside. There are lots of interesting towns to explore in the central valley.

Back home, clouds began gathering in the afternoon and we had an impressive thunderstorm. A made a video of it:

Our Cat likes to lie on top of our car during rain storms.

Yesterday (Wednesday), we had banking to do in Grecia and some shopping. Banco National is adhering very well to Covid-19 protocols - hand washing station outside, must wear mask, keeping one’s distance, control of how many people in bank at one time, hand gel sprayed before entering, bank personnel wearing face shields. This morning, lineups were sparse so I got my business done quickly. Then we went to Compre Bien for some groceries. We like to shop at 100% owned Costa Rican businesses so we patronize this store and also Super Rosvil.

Compre Bien also has excellent Covid-19 protocols. I’ve noticed that more and more people are wearing masks/shields compared to a few weeks ago so the message is getting out. We don’t use plastic or fabric bags - just load our goods into the cart and take them to our vehicle where we pack everything into two cardboard boxes.

We were getting low on fruit so here is what I bought. Clockwise from left: papaya, bananas, cas (aka Costa Rican guava) and dragon fruit (pitaya).

Dragon fruit is one of my favourites. The ones we find here in Costa Rica have a gorgeous red interior:

We have a cas tree in our backyard but I’ve never seen any fruit. So today I thought I would try some. This is what the cas looks like cut open. It tasted very tart! So I’ll try using it to make a smoothie drink.

Earlier this week, I told Lance that I didn’t know what to make for dinner. He replied that we hadn’t had macaroni and cheese for a long time, one of his favourites. But it had to be his mother’s recipe so that is what I made:

The recipe is so easy: boil up some macaroni - and spread one-third of it in the bottom of a baking dish (I used to use a bean pot that worked really well). Then add a layer of sliced cheddar cheese, then more mac, another layer of cheese, rest of the macaroni and the rest of the cheese. Pour over one cup of milk. I added salt, pepper and dry mustard to the milk. Cover and bake at 350F for forty minutes, remove cover and bake another 30 minutes to get that nice cheesy crust on top. We refry the leftovers for another meal with a salad. It’s a recipe that you can adapt to your own tastes but we stay with the original family recipe.

Now, moving on to the wearing of face masks during these trying times. You absolutely must wear one when out in public. Thankfully, I am seeing more and more people wearing them around our town and those that do not are becoming less and less visible. We have both plastic shields and fabric masks. My black mask is pretty boring - I was thinking of painting toucans on it but then wasn’t sure about washing it after it had acrylic paint applied. So I came up with the idea of putting pins on it:

So right now, I have on my mask a Canadian flag pin and an art deco horse pin that I found at an antique store. I’m going to switch things around with Canadian Coast Guard pins, an B-1 bomber pin and whatever else I have in stock.

Fiesta de las Culturas

Today we went to the Atenas Day of Cultures event in our central park. This was organized jointly by the Municipality of Atenas and CATUCA (Cámara de Turismo y Comerciode Atenas) to celebrate the International Day of Cultures.

There was live music and dancing, lots of booths selling different kinds of foods, beautiful hand made belts, jewelry, embroidered linens, Christmas ornaments, orchids, and lots more. We headed right to the Salvadorian pupusa stand for our first snacks.

Pupusas are a traditional Salvadoran food - thick, handmade corn tortillas with fillings usually consisting of quesillo (a soft cheese found throughout Central America), ground pork meat and refried beans and then topped with curtido (lightly fermented cabbage slaw) and a tomato salsa. I could eat one of these every day.

We then moved on to a Tico stand selling strawberries and grapes on a stick and dipped in chocolate. Grapes and chocolate go very well together. Then it was a drink of cas (a fruit, also known as sour guava). To take home, I bought cheese biscuits from a Tico stand, organic dill pickles with garlic from an expat lady, Irish scones made by our very own Marietta Arce (Atenas Today), and two tamales. Someone was selling arroz con leche (rice with milk). Not sure if it this is a type of dessert or a savory. I am proud to say I walked right past the orchid stand and did not stop to buy one.

We ran into lots of friends. The weather was perfect and so was this day. I made a small video of two groups playing music. The first video features a marimba, handcrafted by the man playing it. He named it "Mi Leidy" for his wife whose name was Leidy. She passed away recently. The other video is of three young people playing bluegrass music. The videos are below the photographs.

Pupusas!

The pupusa in all it's glory

 

The lovely lady in the middle is 92 year old Yoshii Sasak. She did all the paintings shown hanging up and wanted all proceeds of sales to go to the Hogar de Vidi, Atenas' home for abandoned/abused children.

 

The little kid in the plaid shirt could not stop dancing to the music. He was really serious about it.

 

Marimba band. The fellow on the left side of the tent in the tropical shirt is our local, and very good, jazz musician.

 

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