May 2020 Newsletter

Greetings from Manzanillo!

Life in Mexico

Lockdown

Life is a paradox in Mexico right now. As the infection and death tolls continue to climb (primarily in Mexico City and surrounding communities), the president repeatedly insists that the COVID crisis is receding and that everything should return to normal.

Linda and I have been in self-isolation for the last two months, which sounds a lot worse than it is. There are no quarantine restrictions or road blocks within the city and you are welcome to come and go as you please. The beaches have been closed since Easter but there are rumors that they may soon open up again. I’ve been spending more time tending to the garden in our home; our jasmine plant just burst into season with dozens of tiny flowers that smell like a cross between rose and lavender.

Even if the president isn’t taking the crisis seriously, most major businesses are implementing social distancing precautions. Once a week, we go to La Comer to purchase groceries. We go in the morning, when it is least busy. All of the entrance doors to the mall have been closed except for one, where guards refuse entry to anyone not wearing a mask.

Inside La Comer, butchers, bakers, shelf stockers and tellers all wear masks. A clerk wipes down the handle on every cart. At the check-out, shoppers line up on floor markers fixed six-feet apart.

Contrast this to the market in Santiago, where on a recent Saturday a dozen shoppers were lined up in front of the meat shop. No one was wearing a mask, and all were completely oblivious to social distancing.

We’ve been fortunate so far in Manzanillo, with under a dozen deaths recorded. While the numbers are definitely being under-reported, hospitals (and morgues) are apparently not being over-whelmed. We are hoping that when the crisis peaks this summer, it spares those who are at high risk in our community.

Recipe; Thai Beef & Beans

Many years ago, Greg, my mate in Australia, showed me how to concoct this incredible dish. It is easy to make and tastes incredibly delicious – it’s always the high-light of our day. If you don’t have Jasmine rice, Basmati or any other white rice will do just as well.

Ingredients

1 lb of ground sirloin (you can also use thinly sliced steak)

2 Tsp of sesame (or any) oil

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tsp of red curry paste

¼ cup of brown sugar

¼ cup of shrimp sauce

1/2 tsp of turmeric

1 tsp of ground black peppre

¼ cup of soy sauce

½ cup of water

½ cup of green beans, cut into 1-in pieces (asparagus also works very well)

½ cup of red pepper, diced

1 cup of Jasmine rice, cooked.

Garnish (mint, chopped green onion, basil leaves).

Lime slices.

Directions

Using a pan with a lid (or Dutch oven) fry the sirloin, garlic, red curry paste, black pepper, turmeric and sugar in oil.

Add shrimp sauce, soy sauce and half the water. Simmer on low for 20 minutes.

Turn up the heat and add the green beans and red pepper. Cover and let it steam for three minutes. If you wish to have a bit of gravy, add the rest of the water.

Serve on Jasmine rice with garnish and lime slices.

Check out Magnus the Magnificent

Book Review

The Last Trial, by Scott Turow

Scott Turow has made a brilliant career writing about the legal profession in fictional Kindle County. Beginning in the 1980s, he has focused on criminal defence lawyers and the shenanigans surrounding high profile trials, following a cast of characters through several decades.

The Last Trial is Turow’s latest novel, and takes place in the late 2010s. Sandy Stern, at the end of a distinguished legal career spanning six decades, is looking forward to retirement. He is dragooned into one last case, however, when his friend Kiril Pafko is charged with murder.

The case is unprecedented. Pafko, a Nobel Prize winner in medicine and CEO of a publicly traded research lab, has devised a drug treatment that is surprisingly effective against cancer. During expedited trials, however, several deaths associated with allergic reactions to the treatment were concealed from the FDA. In addition, when a reporter uncovers the deception and reveals the knowledge to Pafko prior to publication, the CEO sells his options knowing that the stock would tank. When the scandal erupts, he is charged by the district attorney with both fraud and murder.

Stern, in his 80s, literally owes his life to Pafko after being successfully treated with the wonder drug when he came down with cancer. Now he must rise to the occasion. With the help of his daughter Marta and granddaughter Pinky, he must build a defence that will convince a jury that there is reasonable doubt to the charges.

As in all of Turow’s books, there are no outright villains or heroes; all of his vividly-portrayed characters exhibit both nobility and malevolence. That’s what makes reading his work so enthralling – you never know until the very end which personality trait will triumph.

And The Last Trial is no exception. I highly recommend this book.

Movie Review

My Fair Lady

Based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady was turned into a musical in the 1950s, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.

The story focuses on the often-adversarial relationship between Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, and Professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician who vows to give her speech lessons to the point where she can pass as a lady in high society.

The musical, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews played to great success on Broadway and London’s West End. It was adapted to the screen in 1964, starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, and directed by George Cukor. It won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director.

But the real star of the show is the music. Virtually every one of the dozen show-cased songs is a classic, with I Could Have Danced All Night, The Rain in Spain, With a Little Bit of Luck and Get Me to the Church on Time leading the way. Various remakes have been proposed over the intervening 56 years, but the original still stands as one of the best musicals of all time.

“Few genres of films are as magical as musicals, and few musicals are as intelligent and lively as My Fair Lady,” notes American film critic James Berardinelli. “It’s a classic not because a group of stuffy film experts have labeled it as such, but because it has been, and always will be, a pure joy to experience.”