I decided that I would go yesterday and see if I could find the ingredients that I wanted though so that I will be prepared when it cools off. Roy also needed a new pair of flip flops and with his foot size it is difficult to find them here, we had looked at a few places the last time we were uptown and found nothing. He needs a size 12 up north which equates to about a 30 here or 31 depending on the shoe. Usually the largest size we find here is 29 which is not big enough. My little electric food chopper decided to die the other day so I also wanted to look for one of them, not with very high hopes though as there are not a lot of electric kitchen appliances here. Last year when our electric frying pan died I asked at a couple of places and the answer was always, "no hay", in other words, "we don't have them". Yesterday I was surprised to see that at these same stores they are now carrying electric frying pans, go figure. I jokingly said to Roy last night that perhaps I am responsible for the electric frying pan coming to Guaymas lol. Ask and you shall receive and it only takes a year. Oh well, at least they have them now for the next time we need one.
So, no food chopper downtown. There are still a couple of places to look at the mall so will try them another day; but don't have very high expectations.
On to the flip flops. Asked a couple of places and got the usual, we don't have them answer. Then stopped at a young fellows stall outside of the market place. He had some but the price was 68 pesos which was pretty high for the product available. I started to walk away and the price came down a bit, I hesitated some more and the price of 68 pesos came down to 55. I bought them.
While I was chatting with a merchant at one place, this fellow was listening I guess and after I was done he came up to me and told me that my spanish was very good. I am afraid that his hearing must be really bad, like my spanish; but it made me feel good anyway. I chatted with him for awhile and found out that we had both known a fellow who had passed away awhile back. There are not many of us here so we tend to stick out lol. Anyway had a nice conversation with him and he made me feel good about my lousy spanish skills.
On to the baking ingredients. I have found a multi grain bread here that I like, made by Bimbo of course. It has sunflower seeds in it along with 4 or 5 other seeds and things. It is difficult to find though and most of the time it is not in the stores. The lady at the little Bimbo store told me that it is because there is not much demand for it as most of the people here like white bread and I know that. The day after Tropical Storm Jimena passed through here the landlords asked me if I wanted to take a drive with them around town. I did and so did one of the other neighbor ladies. We drove through several sections of town and in each area stopped at all the little stores as both the other ladies were out of bread. One stop was at one of the little Bimbo stores and they, along with all the other stores were out of white bread. Que lastima for the other 2 ladies, for me not a big deal as we had bread at home. This little store had 1 loaf of multi grain bread and before grabbing it I asked the other 2 if they would like it. Scrunched up noses and an emphatic NO from both of them, so I grabbed it, a happy camper. Go figure. Roy also loves white bread. Anyway I want to try and replicate this multigrain bread so a hunting I went for ingredients.
I decided to try a bulk place that has been open for a few months and has a good selection of stuff. Several health food stores also carry nuts and grains; but I thought the bulk place would be cheaper if they had what I wanted. This store is called MOY and has stores in various places in Mexico and also the USA. They are very friendly and helpful people who moved here to open this store from Guadalajara. The lady helped me find what I needed and the fellow chatted the whole time with me. I ended up buying a kilo of whole wheat flour, 1/2 kilo of bran, 100 grams of sunflower seeds, 100 grams of sesame seeds and 1 bag of ground flax (not sure of the weight; but a good sized bag) and the total bill came to 38.50 pesos (about $2.94 CAD). I was happy and had a good language work out at the same time. They didn't have any raisins; but I found those at the grocery store so I am already to bake when it cools off. Score 1 for me.
Of course I needed to use the washroom so headed for Woolworths. You have to pay 5 pesos there to use it and then you get a ticket for 5 pesos off of your purchase. The washrooms are very clean, equipped with paper, soap and an air hand dryer, so I usually go there. As I was walking down one of the aisles I saw a familiar looking package.
I love peanuts/peanut butter in any shape or form so grabbed a package to try. They are a bit different than in Canada where this was my one chocolate treat; but were pretty good. The peanut butter filling has bits of corn in it for some reason. It says on the package "flakes of corn". Not sure why; but whatever tasted good anyway.
Then when I went to the local Soriana I noticed that they had the bags with 4 of them in. Will have to remember that for my next snack attack. A nice find. I also found blue cheese there, that was a first. I love blue cheese on toast so of course snapped some of that up. I think it might actually be Danish blue cheese as the label said, "danubleu". Who knows, it tastes good anyway. I am thinking a blue cheese sauce to pour over tortilla chips, might be good. You never know what you will find, maybe some day a cheddar cheese will be had.
All in all a good shopping trip.
Weather wise we are keeping an eye on Hurricane Ricks progress. This has been a crazy weather year for here, very unusual activity for us. Rick is, the last time I looked a Catagory 5 and they are predicting that he will hit the Baja and cross the Sea of Cortes and then hit the mainland just south of us. This won't be til about Thursday so things can change a lot before then. We are not panicking but are keeping a close eye on it. I hope that Nancy and Paul in Mazatlan don't have too many problems with the storm, as on its present track it could create some havoc there also and in many other places.
