Thursday, February 26 -- Gettin' Short

Our last real day of vacation, tomorrow is travel from morning through night.  We'll lose just a few degrees along the way, so we feel a little foolish saying it's cool this morning!

As I was packing up, I thought I'd document the accessories we travel with to support the goal of cooking in ... these plus a quart-sized pitcher with cover, a set of thin plastic cutting "boards," and a much larger assortment of spices & herbs.  Makes life fairly easy!

 As we reviewed what was available for dinner, we figured to finish off a couple things with just a few bites left, as well as sample the tamales and beans that Alicia, Silvia & Martha had contributed.  So we did in the Achiote/Garlic Pork Taco meat and the remnants of our beans, and enjoyed our first taste of Silvia's beans.  Alicia's tamales were savory (wrapped in yellow and stuffed with chicken and vegetables) and sweet (wrapped in green ... was it a plantain filling?).  Quite a nourishing meal!

We assembled our towel-origami zoo for a farewell portrait ...










and enjoyed the echoes of a beautiful sunset while waiting for our friends to arrive.







Turns out they had attacked the tequila & mango distillery which we'd visited on Tuesday morning, so a part of the afternoon had turned into nap/recovery time.  L'Chaim!  Our buffet this evening was augmented by mouthwatering tamales with chicken or corn filling, and a vat of wonderfully-seasoned refried beans.  So very tasty!