Life in Mexico
It’s the little things in life that makes living in Mexico so enjoyable.
Every other week, we go down to the Santiago market where the chicken ladies have a stall under a staircase. Their counters are festooned with broilers and eggs and poultry appendages.
Their free-range produce is classified as Mexi-organic, because Tia Maria who raises them can’t afford hormones or antibiotics, so you get them the same way they’ve been sold for the last 500 years.
Mama Angelica is in charge. When I ask for ‘Milanesa’, she picks up her razor-sharp cleaver and slices a breast so thin it’s the size of a bread board when she’s done.
Whenever I want to make paté, I always buy my livers there; although ‘buy’ is a misnomer as they just give me a bag.
And the price? I can buy enough chicken for twenty servings for around twenty-five bucks. Read it and weep.
Recipe; Mariposa Chicken
Mariposa (or butterfly) chicken is easy to make in less than an hour, and it always comes out moist, tender and delicious!
Ingredients
1 whole chicken
½ cup of butter, soft
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp of salt
½ tsp of black pepper
2 Tsp of parsley, chopped
Directions
Heat the oven to 425F. (You can also cook it on the BBQ).
Split the backbone so that the whole chicken lies flat. You can do it at home if you have a good pair of meat shears, but it’s also sold pre-prepared; if you don’t see one out on the shelf, just ask the butcher to split one for you (butterfly translates as ‘mariposa’ in Spanish – easy to remember).
Lay the chicken skin-side up in an oven tray that has been sprayed with oil or covered with parchment paper and allow it to warm to room temperature.
Mix together the butter, garlic, salt, pepper and parsley into a paste. Place half the paste under the skin of the breast and legs, and spread the rest on top of the skin.
Roast for 45 minutes, then cover and allow to rest for 10 minutes before carving.
Enjoy!
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Book Review
The Appeal
By Janice Hallett
The novel attracted quite a bit of attention when it debuted in 2021 due to the unusual structure; rather than telling the story of a murder using chronological narrative, the majority of the book is told through a series of emails and instant messages sent between the primary suspects.
This is a bit of a spoiler, but it will help you understand the premise right from the first paragraphby rather than having to fumble through several chapters trying to figure out what’s going on. Two independent investigators have been hired by the lawyer representing the imprisoned murderer in an attempt to overthrow the conviction. They are trolling through messages sent between friends and acquaintances prior to, and after, the murder in an attempt to find the real killer.
The story itself points to an intriguing range of motives. A two-year old girl is suffering from a rare brain cancer, one with little chance of survival. Her parents and grandparents are part of an amateur theatre company in an affluent English village, and they decide to launch a Gofundme appeal to raise money for an expensive, experimental treatment developed in the US.
As the investigators work through the correspondence, however, troubling questions emerge. Is someone stealing money from the appeal? Does the experimental cure, in fact, even exist? The reader is drawn through a series of interpersonal disputes that could very well escalate into nasty repercussions.
Even though the author creates a dozen potential suspects, in the end, Hallett wraps it up neatly with a bow, much to the satisfaction of yours truly. This is a unique twist on the Agatha-Christie English village murder mystery. I highly recommend The Appeal!
TV Series Review
Expats
Streaming on Amazon Prime
This six-part mini-series set in Hong Kong is based on the novel by Janice Lee. Normally, I would give the domestic drama a pass, but it stars Nicole Kidman, and I’d be a fool not to give it the sniff test.
I’m sure glad I did. Nicole stars as Margaret, the mother of three children, who is stationed in HK with her husband Clarke (played by Brian Tee). One day, she takes the children with their young nanny Mercy (Ji-Young Yoo), to the night market, where her four year old son Gus suddenly disappears.
The abduction sets off a series of crises in her family, with Margaret searching the city for signs of her son, and Michael retreating to the comfort of religion. The remaining two children are traumatized by fear that they might be next, and there’s nothing their parents can do to protect them.
The series explores a further layer of trauma within the extended community of HK’s domestic service industry. The opportunity for work draws hundreds of thousands of Filipina and Indonesian women to Singapore, HK and the North America seeking to support their families back home. Mercy is wracked by guilt, and Essie, who raised Margaret’s children from infancy, experiences the same nightmare that every mother faces.
The series is brilliantly cast, but it is Nicole who rises a level above with her unrivaled ability to evince her character’s grief through the tiniest of micro-expressions, magnified by the intense close-ups used by the cinematographer. You feel her pain, not through cries of anguish, but the immense, deep distress in her eyes.
This is a feast of Nicole Kidman’s talent that equals her best performances on both the big and small screens; I highly recommend Expats!
Documentary Review
American Symphony
Streaming on Netflix
For years, Jon Baptiste was well-known as the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
He is also an accomplished song writer, singer and performer, teaming up with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Ed Sheeran. He has won 5 Grammy awards, including Album of the Year for We Are, in 2021.
The documentary, directed by Matthew Heineman and executive-produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, follows the artist as he composes American Symphony, an orchestral arrangement featuring black musical styles, and simultaneously deals with his wife Suleika’s relapse into leukemia.
This is a portrayal of their struggles to beat a deadly disease and to finish the biggest musical challenge of his career. The documentary is both intimate and majestic, as they suffer the pains of chemotherapy and celebrate the debut at Carnegie Hall. I highly recommend American Symphony.