Fresh Red Snapper. Fresh Corn. Delicious Spicy Salad. Ice Cold Beer. Yum.
It was an easy meal to make, and both delicious and healthy. Wish I had taken a picture before I devoured it.

• Snapper
  
  • 1 fresh Pargo Rojo (as big as you can fit in your pan), scaled, gutted.
  
  
  • White Onion, diced fine. (about 1/2 cup)
  
  
  • 1/2 head of garlic. Diced fine.
  
  
  • Several stems cilantro, whole
  
  
  • Several stems Coyote, chopped
  
  
  • 1 tabasco pepper, chopped.
  
  
  • enough oil to cover the bottom of the fry pan
  
  Stuff cilantro and some onion into fish. Add everything to pan, add medium heat. Cook 3 minutes, flip, cook 3 minutes, cover, cook 3 minutes, flip, cook 1-4 minutes until white and flaky. Use your judgement*. Generally speaking 10 minutes per inch of thickness should be enough. Overcooked is not yummy. Baste the fish w/ the onion/garlic/herb/peppers that are simmering away nicely as you cook it. Use tongs to pull the fish out, use a slotted spoon to pull the rest. Plate with yummy stuff on the fish.


• Corn. Shuck it. Boil it. Till its done. Serve w/ butter and salt.


• Spicy Salad
  
  • 1 avocado
  
  
  • 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
  
  
  • 1 small jalapeno. Seeded and chopped
  
  
  • 1/2 lime
  
  
  • cilantro to taste, chopped
  
  
  • some of the chopped onion from the fish recipe (raw)
  
  
  • 4 or 5 lettuce leaves
  
  Put avocado, jalapeno, onion, and cilantro in bowl w/ lime juice. Mash it into very chunky guacamole. Put rinses and chopped lettuce in a serving bowl. Add a layer of chopped red bell. Put chunky avocado mix on top. Drizzle with olive oil if wanted. Sprinkle with salt if wanted. Not too spicy, because you seeded the jalapeno. If you like it hotter, leave some seeds in.


• Ice Cold Beer. Put cold bottle of beer in freezer while you are cooking. Open, drink. Enjoy.

That's all. Just enjoying good, local food.

*Aside: Apparently there is controversy over the "proper" way to spell judg(e)ment. Blogger's spellcheck thinks we should omit the e, but Webster's accepts both spellings as correct. Click this link for more. I'm sticking with the e.

Labels: food

Thanks Rain!

I am happy to have a second day in a row with rain. I'm sure that I'll be biting my tongue in another month when the cats and dogs are falling, but I heard yesterday that this area is suffering the driest August/September in the last 70 (seventy!!) years. It has been awfully pleasant from a "spending time outdoors" perspective, but any extreme weather event has got to have some lasting repercussions on local wildlife. I know that our garden has been suffering, despite my half-hearted attempts to water -I just can't bring myself to water extensively in the "rainy" season and I haven't fixed our sprinklers yet- so I can only imagine what the effect has been on larger wild trees and plants and animals.

Unfortunately for me, the rain interrupted a little afternoon photo session. Ah well. Back inside to work.

"Coral Vine", Antigonum leptopus.
Growing nicely up the wall of the living room ---------------->

Labels: Costa Rica, garden, photo, tamarindo, weather

Another hot one yesterday. I spent the day finishing phase II of my gate project while catching the cellphone every so often*. I am feeling proud of the difference- note the old wood on the main portion of the gate vs. the newly refinished wood on the smaller gate. Yes, I know it has imperfections. Now that phase II is done, it doesn't look like as much work as it felt like while I was doing it! I'm sure that the heat played a role. Also stopping to catch the phone takes its toll on productivity. Occasional play breaks with the pooches didn't make it go any faster either.

This project has been a good reminder of the efficiency of specialized work. Once I figured out the best way to do a particular aspect of the job, and assembled the correct tools, it went much more smoothly. Of course, by the time I got all of that figured out, I was also done ;P One of the hazards of doing it yourself.

*Sometimes I like to take a second to enjoy technological advances. While I did have several very important business phone calls to handle, I was able to do so while doing some much-needed home maintenance. It was awfully convenient to be untethered from my desk!

In contrast to the gate project, I think I've pretty much got basic bread making down to a simple, efficient system. For those that aren't interested in a lot of time invested but do enjoy homemade bread, I think you'll have a hard time getting more streamlined than the following:

1. Grab flour container, yeast, and salt from wherever you store them. (this requires pre-planning in that I keep my flours in rubbermaid plastic bins that are large enough to dip a measuring cup, makes it easier to get the flour later and keeps it fresh).
2. Put ingredients on counter with 1C liquid measuring cup, 1 1/2 C dry measure cup, 1 teaspoon, 1 mixing spoon, 1 medium mixing bowl.
3. Put 2 tsp of dry yeast into 1 C liquid measuring cup, fill with hot tap water, set aside.
4. Put 2 tsp of salt into bowl
5. Put 3 Cups of flour(s) into bowl.
6. Go do something else that takes at least 5 minutes.
7. Add yeasty water to flour, mix well. If too dry, add a very very little bit more water. For me, it is usually a near-perfect wetness if I do it as above.
8. Cover with a towel, let sit for an hour, put in fridge.
9. Get up in the morning, pull dough out of fridge, pour a cup of coffee and go do something that takes 15-30 minutes (so the dough can warm up a little).
10. Remove dough, fold it two or three times, put it onto a cookie sheet or pie tin with some olive oil rubbed onto dough and pan, sprinkle a pinch of salt on top.
11. Set a timer for 45 minutes. Go do something else.
12. When timer rings, turn on oven to 475 degrees. If your oven chimes when it hits temp (mine does), then go do something else.
13. When oven is hot, slice some lines on top of the bread, add to oven, spritz oven with some water to increase humidity for a nicer crust (alternately, throw a handful of icecubes on the bottom of the oven, no bowl needed).
14. Set cooking time to 27 minutes (cooking time may vary). Go do something else.
15. Done. If you want a darker crust, let it sit in the cooling oven for a little while- you can basically toast the loaf like in this photo.

That's it. The actual "work" part is probably less than 15 minutes. You just have to start it the night before and also be around to do the little parts in the morning. Fresh bread is worth it.

Labels: bread, dog, food, house, weather

Last week I managed to fix the control board on the fridge by spending $20 on capacitors instead of paying $180 for a tech to come out and charge me $300 for a new control board.

Buoyed by that success, I decided to see if I could figure out why the light-goblin in the fridge takes a few seconds to turn the light on when we open the door.

It isn't such a terrible problem, but now that the light works (it did not, prior to the first repair) I find myself annoyed by the sudden flash of light after my eyes have adjusted to the darkness inside the fridge.

The problem was pretty clearly related to the door switch. It takes a while to activate. So I popped the switch out with my screwdriver and noticed that it is "not user serviceable". Bah! Humbug! It's a switch! I'm not paying $15 to GE for a darn switch. Besides, it'll take who-knows-how-long to get it.

So out comes the dremel and.... bingo! User serviceable part!
The switch is rather elegant, actually. The terminals are each a single sheet of copper with a contact on it. One terminal flexes to push on a plastic piston that pushes against a lever that is actuated by the door. When the door is closed, the piston pushed the one terminal's contact away from the other contact. When the door opens, the terminal pushes the piston outward and comes into contact with the other contact, closing the switch. Simple.

But the open/close cycles have arced a few times and the contacts are pitted and coated in carbon (which doesn't conduct electricity very well).

I polished them with steel wool and a pencil eraser, then spritzed some silicone spray on there to help prevent future carbon deposits and arcs, then lightly bent each contact to make them a little springier. After gluing the switch closed, it should work much better! Total cost: 4 drops of super glue (3 cents?) and a spritz of silicone spray (2 cents?). Savings: $14.95 (plus shipping) and several weeks of waiting for the part to arrive.

And best of all? Now when I go hunting for beer, I can see where I'm going without having to wait for the fridge-light-goblin to wake up and turn the light on. I suppose that it will also mean that the fridge will stop trying to cool itself when the door is open, which will mean a lot less work for a lucky few electrons who aren't called upon to throw themselves willy nilly at the various motors involved.

And if you buy into that whole butterfly-effect thing: maybe the resultant 2 oz of carbon dioxide that isn't produced by me not wasting power.... maybe that'll give the Maldivians a few more days. But mostly, its about the beer.

Labels: house, repair

Wind Chime on "verenera" over pool.
basil, odd leaf curl, advice welcome.
New flower on tobasco plantPretty spider

Labels: Costa Rica, garden, house, photo, tamarindo, weather

Today starts as a cloudy, "cool" morning (maybe low seventies) and we begin the day with coffee, coffee cake, and birds. One of the pleasures of our home is the large number of birds that we see from our deck. There are two large "Jobo" trees in our driveway positioned such that the crowns of the trees are only 3-5m (10-20ft) above our eye level but at least 20m (~65ft) above ground level. "Ground" in this case is a hill, so some of the higher branches may be several meters further from the dirt. Regardless of actual height- birds seem to enjoy the trees.

We also enjoy a fairly sweeping view out over a woodlands that turns into an estuary, where more birds feed and congregate.

As a snapshot of what is out there, I list the 12 different species we saw this morning. Most notable today was a large (longer than my forearm) Laughing Falcon (Herpetotheres cachinnans) that we were lucky enough to watch fly up from the estuary directly towards us until it landed (amongst much distress from smaller birds) in the tree directly in front of us. It reminded me of watching a commercial jet come in for a landing with its heavy body and motionless wings as it approached. The bird itself is quite notable for two features: 1) it has a distinct "bandit's mask" coloration on the face. Think raccoon. 2) it's voice is very much like a laugh, and very loud. We have been hearing it for months but did not know what it is. Now that we know, it is even more fun.

There was actually a pair in the tree, but we were so enthralled by the first that we did not even notice the second until they flew away together (calling in duet).

H. cachinnans is primarily a snake-eater, catching venomous and non-venomous snakes, also lizards and rodents. Its talons are particularly scaly and tough-looking, I imagine that helps it avoid envenomation.

The rest of the list is as follows, with common name, then scientific in italics.

Laughing Falcon - Herpototheres cachinnans - pair
Orange Chinned Parakeets - Brotogeris jugularis - several small groups of 3-4
Great Tailed Grackles - Quiscalus mexicanus - various
Pigeon (?) flying by - probably red-billed pigeon- Columba flavirostris
Rufus Naped Wren - Campylorhinchus rufinucha - 2 groups of 2 and 3
Great Kiskadee - Pitangus sulfuratus - pair and single
Green Breasted Mango (hummingbird)- Anthrocothorax prevostii - single (hummingbird)
Hoffman's Woodpecker - Melanerpes hoffmannii - pair
Swallow (maybe a Martin) flying
Blue-Gray Tanager - Thraupis episcopus - pair
Striped-Headed Sparrow - Aimophila ruficauda - single
Orange Fronted Parakeet - Aratinga canicularis - pair

Of course, there are also squirrels, iguanas (Ctenosaurus), at least five types of butterflies (yellow, white, orange & black, green and black, small green), ants, some mosquitos, some millipedes, other ants, Melipona bees, dragonflies, and one cute mixed-breed dog. Nice little menagerie that we enjoy here!

Labels: bird, garden, house, tamarindo, weather