April 2020 Newsletter

Life in Mexico

Easter is the most popular vacation time in Mexico, with families packing up the car and heading for ocean resorts in the weeks before and after Good Friday. Typically, Manzanillo’s population swells by 50,000, clogging the streets, restaurants and beaches.

But this year was different. While the federal government dithered and cases of COVID began to soar in Mexico City and Guadalajara, local authorities took action. Colima Governor Jose Ignacio Peralta (Nacho), established state police barriers on the major highways leading from Guadalajara; travelers without business or residential status were turned back.

State officials also urged the closure of all non-essential services, including restaurants, bars, hotels and shopping malls. Even if a holiday-maker were able to sneak through, there were few distractions to keep them in the city.

The result was dramatic. Miramar Beach, which would normally have 20,000 people or more during a holiday weekend, was entirely deserted. Armed marines patrolled the sand every day from morning to dusk, ensuring compliance. Full-time residents were asked to self-isolate and to journey out only for groceries and medical services, until April 30.

So far, Colima has had the lowest number of reported COVID cases in Mexico, which makes everyone breathe (literally), a bit better. The government may extend the shut-down further into May, but for now, the worst seems to have been avoided.

Favorite Recipe; Steak L’entrecote

We first discovered this amazing recipe when we were living in Paris. Relais de L’entrecote is a specialty restaurant in the trendy St. Germain de Pres district of the Left Bank. They have nothing but steak & frites on the menu, but the silky sauce that they serve over the steak is to die for!

Ingredients

6 chicken livers, chopped,

1 large shallot, chopped

1 sprig of fresh thyme, tarragon and parsley

1 1/4 cup of liquid cream

2 Tsp of Dijon mustard

¼ cup of butter

½ cup of water

½ tsp of salt.

1 Ribeye Steak.

Directions

1 Slowly sauté the shallot and liver in half the butter until lightly browned. Add thyme, salt, tarragon and parsley.

2 In a separate pan, mix mustard and cream and reduce over low heat. Add the rest of the butter.

3 Mix all ingredients together and let rest for five minutes.

4 Sieve out the sauce. Adjust the thickness with the water to achieve a silky texture. Heat on low when ready to serve.

5 BBQ the steak for two-three minutes per side on high heat. Let rest for ten minutes, then carve into 1-cm strips. Pour the sauce over the strips and serve.

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Happy April!

Check out Friends April 2020 Newsletter

Book Review

American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins

This is a complex book to read, simultaneously filled with love, joy and terror.

The novel starts in present-day Acapulco, where a drug cartel orders the murder of the family of journalist Sebastian, who has published an expose of their leader Javier. They ruthlessly gun down 16 men, women and children during a family birthday party.

Only Sebastian’s wife and young son survive. Lydia and Luca are forced to flee the wrath of the jefe, whose reach spans all of Mexico.

In order to escape, they join the migrant wave heading from Central America to the US, el norte. They ride the rails and seek comfort in the refuge stops that are stationed by good Samaritans along the way. They are also brutalized by criminals and rogue police.

The author, who has written extensively about victims of justice in several novels and memoirs, brings to life the motivations of the main characters, starkly illustrating the realities of their lives in war and crime-torn countries.

It is also a fast-paced thriller, pulling the reader along a roller-coaster ride as Lydia and Luca and the friends they meet on their journey scramble for safety.

This is a tough read, but one that will ultimately change your perceptions of the complex issues that surround the mass refugee migrations that are happening around the world today.

TV Review

Mad Men, streaming on Netflix

OK. Now you know what I’ve been really been doing in self-isolation.

Mad Men is one of my all-time favorite TV series, about a Madison Avenue advertising firm, featuring Jon Hamm as creative director Don Draper, January Jones as his long-suffering wife Betty, and Elisabeth Moss as the intrepid copywriter Peggy Olson.

The series takes place largely in the late 1950s and 1960s, during the golden age of TV, the Beatles, civil unrest and opposition to the Vietnam War. The cast of characters at fictional ad agency Sterling Cooper each try to out-do each other in drinking, cheating and generally self-destructing.

The mood of each episode (there are 96 in total), veers from interpersonal drama to slapstick comedy and back again, taking the viewer on a manic, addictive journey.

Over the course of seven seasons, we watch each character mature (or not). One of my favorites is Sally Draper, Don and Betty’s young daughter, who learns as an 8-year old how to mix Tom Collins and fetch cigarettes, eventually growing up into a rebellious teenager.

I know it’s a lot of TV, but as far as pop-culture pleasures are concerned, nothing beats Mad Men.

Pets and COVID-19

Can you transmit COVID-19 to your pet? Or, just as importantly, can they give it to you?

The answers are…no one knows.

There have been reported cases of dogs and cats testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), even a tiger in the Bronx Zoo, but there hasn’t been any follow-up as to how they caught it.

There have been no reports of pets getting seriously sick or dying in China, Italy or Spain, so the anecdotal evidence would indicate that pets are not significant vectors (or victims) for the disease.

Still, virus researchers at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Massachusetts have launched a study in which pet owners and farm workers who are being treated can also have their animals tested in order to better study if transference is taking place.

In the meantime, if you have tested positive for the disease or are showing symptoms, take a common sense approach;

• Just like other members of your family, do not touch or kiss your pet.
• Have an un-infected family member feed and tend to your pet, if possible.
• Do not share food, drinks, glasses, cups, towels, or bedding with your pet.
• If your pet is experiencing respiratory stress, contact a veterinarian by phone (Do not go to a clinic).
• Keep cats indoors as much as possible.
• When an un-infected family member is walking your dog, keep it on a leash and avoid dog parks.