I guess if there had to be a day of shopping today is as good as any. We headed out to the local markets to see what there was to see and discover as many oddities of Monterrey's markets we could. Most everything is as you expect in a foreign market, lots of handmade stuff you don't need but is just cool. And you can partake in one of my all time favorite sports.... HAGGLING! America falls on its face in this regard and I hate it. But in Monterrey at the markets, we got to haggle. And it felt right and it felt gooood. We found all kinds of stuff too. Some of the highlights were these big mounds of poop called mole, some very vividly colored hand carved wooden animals (we absolutely loved this big lizzard but he was like 300 bones), a nut station with tons of nuts, and are you ready for this one?....marinated crickets!! Oh yes, it happened. We got some once alive, perfectly fine in nature one minute and then tasty and dead available in the market the next minute crickets. Don't think we ate them? Think again!
They were actually not that bad. Once you got over the fact that you're eating an insect and the chewy factor (yes they were chewy not crunchy) they weren't that bad. Especially served with some lemon and on a chip with sauce! Gotta branch out eventually. Hey we already ate cows head, crickets were unavoidable at this point. Just wait till you see what comes next tomorrow night!
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| Mole stand or as I like to call it the poop stand |
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| Crickets! |
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| Jeanie even found her inner Stephanie from Lazy Town! |
For lunch we went to this taco joint that Rodrigo claimed had amazing "fish" tacos. Why is fish in quotes? Because Rod kept talking up this place and kept saying how good the fish tacos were so naturally we thought when he said fish he meant fish but in reality they were skrimp tacos. Not a far stretch true, but fish and shrimp are totally different in my book. Anyway, they were amazing, just like he said. Check out the back drop to the restaurant too! I guess most places around here have something similar but coming from the flattest place on the planet, I'm constantly in awe of protrusions from the ground, ESP freaking mountains, real ones. Something to note here is that this is a Monday, yet you see the whole family here for lunch. So in Mexico it's common for most families to eat lunch together, nearly every day. Despite work or school they all come together. Seeing more now how food and family plays such a huge role in their culture? Viva Mexico!! I love it.
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| Mexican Bloody Mary |
Tonight is yet again another promised delicious meal.... tamales! Fresh from scratch. Ok we cheated just a little bit, the kernels were already removed from the cobs. But we DID grind the corn by hand! Was so much fun. Not everyone came over for the festivities this time but we had plenty to have a good time.
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| The corn! |
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| Gil showing us how its done |
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| unripe tamale paste |
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| Jeanie cheated! This is supposed to be mans work! She disresprec her famiry! |
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| Mexican corn tango |
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| Tamale Making 101 |
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| Tamale Making 102 |
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| Tamale Making 103 |
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| All ready for the oven |
While the tamales were on the way, Rodrigo and I went to the roof top. You have to check this out. These are the views on top of their house! How incredible is this??
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| click to enlarge! |
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| click to enlarge! |
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| They actually cheered for me to jump here |
The tamales were absolutely amazing and I have never liked them before in the States. Basically it was all just corn...everything. We even had corn for desert lol. They told us during this corn worship that they only do this once a year so we were very honored to have them do this while we were here. Again we found ourselves in complete gratitude towards our friends and in an ecstasy that only traveling the world and spending time with amazing friends can bring.
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