02 October 2015

Words Fail Me: The Staff of Life

(In which our new series, Words Fail Me, is introduced, and Cowbell learns that pride goeth basically every damn day.)

Fold, mix, or knead?
Those of you who know me know that I'm not exactly channeling Suzy Homemaker, here. I wish I were one of those people who find cooking relaxing or fun, but I'm not. I cook because we need to eat. Moving to Costa Rica, however, has forced me to embrace my inner Suzy. I wish she were more like an inner Sybil who could just completely take over in the kitchen while I go to my inner quiet place for a nap, but no, nothing so convenient. It's all me in the kitchen.

Logically, I know that not eating processed food is a very good thing. When I'm not actually in the kitchen, I'm all about it. In theory. When it comes time to actually cook, though, logic me importa un bledo*. Once in a while, you just miss a good box or package. An easy mix. That frozen Indian food from Trader Joe's. Actually, you can find packaged food here at AutoMercado, aka the Gringo Grocery, so named because the prices reflect what desperate people with US dollars are willing to pay for that imported taste of home. Which is a lot, and why I only go once a year, before Christmas. 

Anyway, "from scratch" has become more than just a fuzzy concept that happens in other people's houses or in books about the olden days. In the States, making spaghetti sauce meant I sauteed onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, basil, and oregano in olive oil, then dumped in a jar of store-bought sauce, added a few personal touches like a bit of sugar to cut the acidity, a pinch of cinnamon, aaand done. "Homemade." What? It's not like I used Ragú. Here, jarred sauce is either expensive (again with the import taxes) or nasty, and let's not even talk about the national brand that comes in those tiny foil packages. Single serving size. For a gnome. So spaghetti sauce here means an assload of tomatoes. This is where I should write about blanching and peeling tomatoes. Yeah, screw that. Did it once. Everyone knows all the vitamins are in the skins, anyway.

My sauce is chock full o' vitamins.

Sweet tooth, pfft. I have a carb tooth.
Anyway, I'm kind of domestic now, y'all. I learned to make yogurt in my Crock-Pot. Yogurt, now. Come on, impressive, right? Fine. I was impressed. I make beans on the regular. Cannot believe I ever used canned black beans in the US. Guácala. Blech. That is my skeleton in the closet here, people; do not out me to the new fam. I also learned to make my own bread. I wasn't feeling that at first, but after a few months of eating "air bread" I warmed to the idea. (Hey, it's a tortilla society. You want good bread, go to Europe.)

Also, I found a no-knead recipe. That's what clinched it. 

The esposo, having been raised on air bread, was quite happy with this dense, warm, homemade manna from heaven, straight out of our oven. So we're talking about it over coffee and warm, buttered slices of deliciousness, and I say to him -- in Spanish, because it's Spanish week:

Homemade bread is so much better for us because it doesn't have preservatives. 

He stops chewing.  

Because it doesn't have what?

Preservatives. I don't use preservatives to make it.

I hope not. That doesn't even make sense.

At this point, I should've realized I'd committed yet another word fail, but these were early days, and I had yet to discover how the intricacies of Spanish lace the language like so much barbed wire. I charged on. 

Well, it does make sense if you want the bread to last longer.

 ... the bread?

Yeah. The bread in the store is full of preservatives. It lasts forever.

Oh. Preservatives. You mean preservatives.

Yeah. What did I say?

Condoms.

Oh. Preservativos means condoms. Preservantes means preservatives. Go figure. To this day, I just avoid those two words. Whoever invented Spanish did that shit just to mess with me. 


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me importa un bledo:  it matters to me about as much as a blade of grass. I couldn't care less about it. 
guácala (WAH-kah-lah) - Gross. Blech. Disgusting. That's nasty. 

15 comments:

  1. BAHAHAHAHA! You win the award for Best Punch Line. What a treat to have discovered you over here; I'm kind of terrible at tracking blogs, but you have my attention. Jocelyn wants More Cowbell!

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    1. Coming from a professional competitive potlucker, that means a lot to me.

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  2. Hahahaha - which seems an incredibly short comment on a such a luscious post, but that hahaha is FULL of preservantes and will last a very long time. I could hug this!

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    1. Oh, Booda, you even used the right word so that you didn't give me a hahaha chock full o' condoms. Bien hecho. Yeah, these are usually things I laugh about later. Usually.

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  3. Wow, just wow.....if I had to do any of the stuff you just wrote about we'd starve. Hell, I can't even grow zucchini! Air bread sounds lovely...with home made butter....I can see you now, at the churn.

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    1. Rosie, it's really not as impressive as it sounds. You guys know me. I'm in the kitchen a very small portion of my life, truth be told. Well, no, that's not actually the truth. I'm in the kitchen most of the time, but that's only because our apartamentito is so tiny that the kitchen and living room are one room, and my work desk is actually our little table, which also serves as Tonka's anti-thunder room. I'm "in the kitchen" right now, but not doing anything remotely domestic. In fact, the esposo is making us coffee, so he's handling the domesticity for the moment.

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  4. This is going to make for a very entertaining recurring bit. Especially if every time a word is used incorrectly the alternate definition is something sexual. [please let there be more words like that, please let there be more words like that...]

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    1. Oh, just wait until we get to the monkeys and toads.

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  5. snort... snicker... sorry I'm not laughing at the thought of your as Betty Homemaker - well okay abit - but that condom thing... snort.. snicker.

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    1. I wish I could say it was an isolated incident.

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  6. That is just awesome. I'm imagining the look on his face. This seems to be common in many languages - two words, one innocent and one spelled very similarly that is lewd.

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  7. Well, after the blog post that set us up for this feature I was all concerned that we wouldn't actually get any of the 'lost in translation' jokery that was ahead. Shouldn't have worried. Still giggling. And also, I'm damned impressed with the yogurn in a crockpot thing. Do tell!

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  8. Alice, exactly, and it's a mine field if you don't know what those words are. I'm unintentionally lewd a lot. Well, in addition to being intentionally lewd.

    Lorraine, yeah, no worries there. Anything past what I could explain in English is probably something I missed and am being unknowingly mocked for, so it should all be pretty clear. The yogurt is super easy. I went with this method simply because other methods required a food thermometer and exact timing and temperatures, and ... well, you know. This one just requires a bath towel to swaddle the Crock-Pot in, and in the morning, yogurt.

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  9. I haven't eaten carbs in over a month and this post almost made me falter! Thankfully, the image of a big, buttery slab of hidden condom halted that craving in it's tracks. That's one messed up King cake, I tell you what.

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    1. HA! Messed up king cake, jajajaja! Hat for the win.

      I am not tempted by sweets, but carbs are my downfall. Pretty sure I could live off of bread, cheese, and wine.

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I've got a fever ...