Cooking, Part 2

I entitled one of my earlier posts Cooking Part I, and I've received a request for Part 2.

I've been procrastinating. It seemed like Part 2 should be the triumphant story of how I've mastered the art of Oaxacan cooking and have created interesting dishes using local ingredients. Instead....

In my first post, I said that good cooking required time, energy, and a knowledge of where to shop for ingredients. Turns out I misssed a few things. It also requires a knowledge of techniques, and proper tools.

I thought I had the former. I've been cooking since I was 11, and have been feeding myself fulltime since I was 21. Over the years I've gradually moved to doing more and more cooking from "scratch". It still feels like magic to turn flour, salt, water, yeast and a little bit of elbow grease into bread. Olive oil and vinegar beat bottled salad dressings to flinders. Freah herbs, freshly ground spices....and home made stock! More magic. Home made stock can transform a few vegetables into a fantastic soup or rice into a lovely risotto.

But I was forgetting a few basics. How do you clean vegetables when when the water that comes out of your tap is itself not clean? And how do you store and handle food when your kitchen has both a profusion of tiny ants and a steady supply of magnificent 4 cm cockroaches? Not to mention a limited supply of usable pots, two usable burners on the stove, a complete lack of staples (okay, there was salt), and knives so dull you could use them as drumsticks. Cooking is possible, but it's kind of a hassle.

So, I've scaled back my cooking ambitions. I've made chicken soup from some chicken backs that Harv inadvertently purchased from the supermercado. Green beans with nopales (cactus pads) were slimey but tasty. Given how much work it is to create a mole paste, it seemed reasonable to buy a mole rojo paste in the mercado. Harv has twice attempted tortillas from masa, and we made a pasable imitation of empanadas de Oaxaca with chiles de agua.

We've signed up for an all day cooking class tomorrow...just as we've about to give up our kitchen! Oh well. Maybe we'll pick up some tips and recipes, and can buy ingredients to bring home with us. Do you suppose customs will let us through the border(s) with dried worms, fried spiced grasshoppers, and dried chiles?