April 2023 Newsletter

Life in Mexico

It’s Semana Santa! Every year, 40,000 Mexicans descend on Manzanillo during Easter to celebrate their religious devotion with tequila. Here’s a few survival tips;

Go the nearest ATM and empty it before everyone else does.

Stock up at the OXXO with ten loaves of Bimbo bread and a big can of Spam. Both will stay fresh at least until the Second Coming.

Top up two dozen sealable bottles with gasoline in case Pemex runs out. I recommend José Cuervo; you can find about three million empty ones along the Miramar beach.

It’s OK to make noise at Easter. If you can’t find fireworks, pay one of the Marines hanging outside the Burger King to let his AK-47 rip.

Book Review

The White Lady

By Jacqueline Winspear

We’ve been reading Winspear’s Maisy Dobbs mysteries series for several years now. It features a woman private detective who starts her own agency in London after WWI. It runs for several decades and features a fine cast of eccentric British characters. If you’ve never read it, I urge you to give the series a try.

The White Lady is a departure into new territory.  Elinor White is a British woman who grew up in Belgium in the early twentieth century, and returns in WWII to act as a spy behind enemy lines. After the Allied victory, she retires to rural Kent.

But the countryside is too dull for her taste and she soon launches a one-woman crusade against a ruthless gang of London criminals. Her former spy-mate, now a Deputy Commissioner in Scotland Yard, becomes a hapless accomplice as he tries to keep Elinor’s life attached to her limbs.

The author brings her profound insight and knowledge of post-war British culture along with lots of twists and turns to create an exciting and intriguing cops-and-robbers thriller. I highly recommend The White Lady.

Members of Kindle Unlimited can now read all my books online!

You can also order eBooks and paperbacks online at Amazon!

TV Review

Dinner Club, Season 2

Streaming on Amazon Prime

Celebrity Italian chef Carlo Cracco returns for a second season. The series features half a dozen friends who he takes on road trips to his favorite parts of Italy to sample the local cuisine, then returns to his mansion outside of Rome to cook a dinner club meal.

This season features excursions to Sicily, South Tyrol and Romagna, where his actor friends discover fresh herbs, sausages and deep-fried delicacies amid scenic settings. It’s the dinner club that really sparks the series as everyone gets very tipsy and critiques each meal in hilarious fashion. It’s all in Italian, but the subtitles keep you abreast of each insult! If you love food and friendship, I highly recommend Dinner Club.

Recipe: Rack of Lamb

We’ve always been big fans of New Zealand lamb, where they outnumber Kiwis 10 to 1. The delicate flavor is derived from a breed that feeds best on pastureland. Their lamb is coveted all over the world; I recall seeing ships in the South Island port of Nelson that were designed to transport them live to the Middle East for the festival of Ramadan.

For the first few years, we were disappointed to find that New Zealand lamb was rare in Mexico; the country has millions of sheep, but most are raised for wool and dairy. We were delighted when La Comer finally started featuring frozen lamb that had been raised in Mexico especially for meat; the leg, shank and shoulder are just as delicious as the New Zealand variety when roasted over several hours in the oven.

Our favorite, by far, is rack of lamb. When properly marinated and cooked over coals, it is extremely delicious! If you don’t have a BBQ, roasting in the oven is also a great way to go, but it just doesn’t beat that mix of smoke and sizzling fat when done over coals.

Ingredients (feeds 2)

1 rack of lamb with 8 chops (cut in half).

Marinade

¼ cup of olive oil.

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tsp of salt.

1 small chili pepper.

1 sprig of fresh rosemary (or 1 Tsp of dried rosemary)

Directions

Mix the ingredients in a blender and pour over the lamb and let it marinate in the fridge for at least four hours.

Prior to cooking, pull the lamb out and let it warm to room temperature.

Place the lamb bone-side down over the coals* for five minutes. Flip the racks and cook for another five minutes. This should bring them to medium rare. Slice the meat and check for doneness; if it’s still too pink, put it on bone-side down for another few minutes. Cover and let rest for five minutes, then carve into lollipops and serve with baby potatoes, asparagus and mint sauce. Enjoy!

*(If you don’t have a coal BBQ, set your oven at 450 F and cook, bone-side down, in a metal pan, for 15 minutes, then let rest covered for five minutes).