Molasses Puzzle Solved

Molasses Puzzle Solved

Seeing as I had finally found molasses I decided that I better bake cookies. After I had them baked I took a plateful of them and the jar of molasses down to our landlady. She tasted the molasses and a lightbulb went off. It is the same as the piloncillos she says, the cones of brown sugar that you see everywhere in the stores. She says that you put a little water in a pan and melt the cone and then use it in your recipe. I am not sure how that would affect your sugar ratio in the recipe though, so I will have to stick with the already liquid form. You can also buy piloncillos in squares (rather than cones)with nuts, peanuts, etc. already in them. Ah...when I googled "piloncillos", I found a site that says to boil a piloncillo with a bit of water to make a molasses syrup. The ratio seems to be that 2 cones equal 1 cup of sugar. A couple of days later when Ciro and Irene were up visiting, they were telling me of a place in Sonora where apparently they grow the sugarcane and process it into the piloncillos. They said that you can go there and buy the liquid molasses also; but it is about 100 miles from here, more or less. The cones are made just for ease of transport, etc..

Roy drove me to spanish class on Thursday and we returned to the store to see if she had managed to get the easel. It was sitting out waiting for us and after checking that all the bits and pieces were there, we purchased it. Merry Christmas to us, (this was what we decided to get for our Christmas "gift").

Yesterday (Saturday), Roy and Ciro went fishing in the early afternoon. Around 5 PM, Irene and I were off to a baby shower for one of her nieces. We stopped at a couple of places on the way, first to say hello to some of her relatives and then to pick up her sister from work. Unfortunately her sister had to work until 7 PM so could not attend. Irene also pointed out where other members of her family live on the way to the salon where the shower was being held.

The baby is not born yet; but they know that it is going to be a girl, so everything was decorated with pink. The white tablecloths had overthrows of pink gingham with ceramic centerpieces of babies, each table had a different ceramic baby on it, so we wandered around looking at them all. There was a huge stork with his bundle holding a baby, a large floral arrangement on the main table, etc.. It was very pretty. We were each given a little thing to pin to our blouse, mine was a tiny baby bib with little colored balls inside, Irenes was a little angel head with wings. The momma to be had a pink corsage. We sat and visited with others, I actually recognised some of the ladies from the birthday party that we had attended earlier this month. Everyone sat around the tables visiting and snacking, I met lots of new people; but of course cannot remember names as usual. Some pictures were taken by the gift table, Irene obviously doesn't know how much I hate having my picture taken, as she dragged me along. A lady came in and did a bit of a show, I am not sure who she was impersonating; but she seemed to be known by everyone there. We were served a late dinner at around 9:30 which was very good. The meat was pork roasted with pinapple and was very tender and delicious, Irene said she will give me the recipe for it. Shortly after eating, we made our farewells and left, returning home around 10 PM. An enjoyable evening; but also one which showed me just how little spanish I do know and what a long road I have yet to travel to fluency. I probably understood about 20 % of the conversations. It was a good gabfest for the ladies and a fun time. Thank goodness there were none of the silly games played, like they used to do in Canada, how I hated those games.

I haven't touched my spanish homework so need to get at that today and also need to do some laundry.

Molasses

Molasses

Things are different here in the grocery stores. Some products that you are used to from "back home", are unfindable here, other things are different and still others you will need to hunt hard for. I had a hard time finding chocolate chips, they are not in the grocery stores, they are found in the cake baking supply stores. There seem to be 2 grades of white sugar, standard and refined, the refined is much more espensive. The standard is coarser and not as white as what we were used to; but is fine for almost everything, I have bought the refined a time or two; but decided that it was not worth the extra cost, unless I am baking something special. Brown sugar was not easy to find. Everywhere you look, you can find the hard cones; but those are impossible to use unless you want to dissolve it in something. For baking I had to find the mascabado, it is in a small packet and is not carried in all the grocery stores and is also very coarse. Canned tomatoes, pickles and other things are just not found here. Before Christmas I wanted to bake Gingersnap cookies, so began the hunt for molasses. I have found out that it is something that is just not used down here, or in this area anyway. My landlady did not even know what it was, she thought I was looking for honey. The store owners met my questions with blank stares and "No Hay", in other words they didn't have it and most didn't know what it was.

Yesterday we had some errands to run in San Carlos. I had heard of a shop out there that carries a brand of Veracruz coffee that we wanted to try. According to the shop owner it is also an organic coffee, we bought a kilo (ground) for 140 pesos (around $14.00, coffee is not cheap here). I am just finishing off my old can of coffee so we didn't try it this morning, will try it tomorrow and see if it is better tasting. I had also been told of a store that stocks some US style products so thought that I would check there for the molasses. It is just a tiny store; but has lots of products: canned tomatoes, some pickles, Tollhouse chocolate chips and YES molasses. The prices are high, about $4.89 for a jar of molasses; but cheaper and easier than packing it back from the US. I also found a bag of brown sugar. I restrained myself and just bought 2 jars of molasses and 1 bag of brown sugar and the bill was over $13.00--you definately pay for being particular!!

We stopped at the shop where we are supposed to be buying the art easel. The owner said that she was just on her way into Guaymas to the warehouse to pick up her order. She and Roy arranged to met at a spot in Guaymas, for him to buy the easel, while I was in spanish class. I guess they did met but no easel. She told Roy that the man was not at the warehouse so she was unable to get her shipment. Roy told her we would check back in a few days. We then stopped at our friends restaurant, they were just leaving to take a break for a couple of hours so we went and visited at their home with them. Our little heater has not been working well, I think the thermostat is going bad, it clicks on and off every 30 seconds or so. Our friends had one that they were not using so we bought it from them. We also stopped and chatted with a lady who is driving to Tucson when we want to go to Yuma, she was looking for a couple of passengers and we thought it might be more convenient for us than the bus. We arranged to go with her, and then found out that she is going to Green Valley, not Tucson. In the evening we checked the bus site to see if we can go to Tucson from Green Valley and it doesn't even show up on their site. We are re-thinking the plan now and will go and check out some of the bus schedules here today to see if we can go from here to San Luis Rio Colorado rather than to Tucson and then over to Yuma. We will see. After we had finished with all our errands I went to spanish class. Hmmm... and people wonder what we do with all our time.