While Erin and I are out gallavanting around Costa Rica trying to squeeze in at least a couple of touristy-type adventures during our last couple of days here – mastering the art of maneuvering public transportation, rappelling down waterfalls, petting monkeys (HEY! I said petting monkeys, not petting the monkey – get your mind out of the gutter), I want you to take a moment to recognize that we are now officially famous in Costa Rica.
That’s right – a link to our blog has now been officially noted in a Costa Rica publication. Considering we’ve never been mentioned in a U.S. publication, I’m going to take this as a sign that we need to move here permanently.
Just sayin’.
And okay, maybe a few of the journalistic facts were slightly misrepresented in The Link’s accompanying article (we traveled from Bagaces, not La Fortuna, and clearly we’re NOT tourists since – duh – we live here… okay at least for 2 more days), we’re incredibly excited about the shout-out, nonetheless. And I suppose we can’t give them too much crap considering Erin used the old restaurant name in her post – a fact the Tico Times author is only too quick to mention. In her defense the restaurant’s website still goes by the old name.
And while the insanely inaccurate article managed to stimulate what I’m estimating to be approximately zero blog hits, it’s really the publication that counts.
Because really – what’s National Geographic compared to the Tico Times??
And wait… maybe it’s pet the kitty, not pet the monkey. I was converting the euphemism to a Costa Rican animal. Does that mean I’m now fluent in Spanish?
Last weekend our friend Karla took Erin and me to the beach. Two beaches, to be exact – Playa del Coco and Playa Hermosa.
As with most car trips, I found the time on the road to be half the fun.
I love taking photos from a moving vehicle.
When we got there, we saw that Coco is an adorable little beach community absolutely packed with souvenir shops.
We arrived with the intention of buying a couple small gifts for friends and family – though, I never understood why anyone would really want a token from somewhere they’ve never been. But it’s apparently a “nice thing to do” so we set out to do it.
Honestly, we did.
But it turns out there was a slight problem with the souvenir selection at Coco Beach.
At first glance it seemed there were plenty of cute dangly earrings from which to choose. The problem? They were the same in every shop, which indicated they were probably imported from Nicaragua.
And we all know it’s impossible to pick out sunglasses for other people.
(Though it turns out Erin is quite talented at picking them out for me.)
And once we ruled out earrings, t-shirts and sunglasses, we were really at a loss. The rest of the souvenirs at Coco Beach are, it turns out, heinously hideous at worse and insanely tacky at best.
What do you think, mom? Didn’t you just tell me you were looking for a giant rooster statue?
Make your guests feel welcome by setting him on your front step in lieu of a boring old welcome mat.
Or if you’re looking for something a little more travel-friendly, there’s always the one that hasn’t quite finished hatching.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…
And if poultry isn’t your taste, there’s always naked statues.
My, what nice abs you have.
And not-so-naked statues.
Yeah mon.
And of course, the copulating couples.
And now for position #179…
My, were there copulating couples.
Apparently they couldn’t be bothered to remove their skirts.
I can’t help but be impressed with their balancing skills.
If you want something a little more National Geographic, you could always go with one of these:
She does NOT look like she’s having a good time.
Don’t worry – I can help you find a bra with the right support and comfort to perk those babies back up.
(Yeah, because we all know THAT’S realistic.)
Not into people or poultry? No worries, they have plenty of other animals, too.
OMG, I’ve been LOOKING for a red-vested monkey!
I already have this doormat. In tabby.
I think this monkey might be stoned.
And the art… well the art is just exquisite. I didn’t find anything to add to my “collection,” but I definitely enjoyed looking.
Ladies, doesn’t this look like something you had hanging in your room in the 80’s? Minus the boobies, of course…
And this guy totally would’ve been going home with me in the 90’s.
Okay, now here is where you may want to turn away.
I know, I know. I didn’t warn you before the creepy half-hatched rooster egg or the blowjob pipe. That’s because those things were small potatoes compared to this.
Really.
The following image is – by far – one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen.
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So don’t scroll any further if you don’t want to have nightmares.
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I mean it!
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Last warning…
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Okay here goes:
What is it??!!
I’m sorry I didn’t get a closer shot, but I was worried it would jump out of the frame and peck off my face.
What would possess someone to paint something like this?
Is this how the artist views women?
Maybe it’s a portrait of his ex wife…
Can you imagine actually buying this thing? Oh yes… that would look just PERFECT on the living room mantel. Or better yet, above the bed! You know, because there’s nothing like a large-breasted naked veiny chicken to put me in the mood.
I will never look at a chicken the same way again.
The things we did like were pretty pricey and would’ve cost even more to ship home.
Like this funky mirror:
Or these pretty chimes:
Or this ornately carved chair, complete with butt print:
Needless to say, we didn’t end up buying anything. Oh well, I guess my photos will be souvenir enough. Because friends and family love looking at my vacation pictures, right?
Right??
After exploring the cavernous shops at Coco, we drove on to Hermosa to spend a relaxing afternoon on the beach.
We were only on our first or second day at work when we realized it was perfectly normal for someone to show up at the office with a giant freakin’ SNAKE in tow.
This is why it came as no particular surprise when Derby showed up the other day with something quite interesting in his hand.
Something any normal person would not want to carry in his BARE-ASS hand.
That’s right, my friends. It’s a scorpion.
It’s a live scorpion.
And no, I did not ask him to flip it over so I could get a better shot.
I realized today that when I go home, it’s almost certain that I’m going to crave certain foods from Costa Rica.
You see, every now-and-then Erin and I splurge on a meal at a restaurant. And after watching some bull riding yesterday (more on that to come), we craved nothing more than a couple of beers and some patacones at one of our favorite restaurants in Bagaces.
Pata-what-es??
Patacones. (Pat-a-cone-ays.)
Basically, they’re fried plantains. Plantains are very similar to bananas.
No, they’re not served with chocolate. That black stuff you see is actually frijoles molidos – a type of refried black bean.
Hey – don’t knock ’em ’till you try ’em.
You spread the frijoles molidos over the patacones, and then you top it all with this slightly salty white shredded cheese.
Mmmmmmmm.
CHOMP.
Oh, and let me take a moment to point this out:
Salsa Lizano is a Costa Rican condiment that is commonly found on restaurant tables and in refrigerators all over the country. We have a bottle (or two) in ours, and we will likely have several bottles in our backpacks upon our departure.
Anyone know the export rules for Lizano? Anyone?
And speaking of mmmmm….
Erin and I each ordered fish tacos at the beach on Saturday.
Much to our surprise, they were fried!
I can’t say this surprise was unpleasant. Although my arteries would probably disagree. Especially because they drizzled Costa Rica’s infamous mixture of mayo and ketchup all over the top. And of course, you can’t forget the cabbage.
YUM.
Karla just ordered a boring old burger.
But even that, paired with an ice-cold local brew, can’t be beat on a hot day at the beach.
Ironically, the one type of food I will probably miss the most is not even technically from Costa Rica. It’s the ingenious invention of Aaron and Becs, and let me just say…. holy craptastic, batman!
They call them torti burguesas, which basically translates to grilled burgers wrapped in tortillas.
Oh, but that’s not all.
Add to them some cream cheese, crispy bacon, caramelized onions and a slice of cheddar on top, then bake them in the oven, and you have a tailgater’s wet dream.
I really, really wish I had a finished picture of these. I do. But I only thought to bring my camera on the day we made torti salchichas, one of my all-time favorite foods (hot dogs) done up torti burguesa-style.
*Warning: If you’re not a big fan of meat – especially of the hot dog variety – you may want to skip the next couple of photos.
Then they put the tortis together assembly-line style. A dab of cream cheese, hot dog pieces, caramelized onion, and a bit of crumbled bacon. They may have sprinkled a few crunchy Cheetos in there for fun, but we can’t be sure.
Finally, they wrapped ’em up and stuck ’em on a baking sheet with a slice of cheddar cheese on top and popped them in the oven.
And when they came out… wow.
Worth every single one of the 52,876 calories.
Okay, okay – 52,877 calories when dipped in Aaron’s homemade ranch.
You’re not gonna like it, but it needs to be said.
You know that whole… camouflage thing you have going?
Yeah… it’s not really working for you.
Hey – don’t get offended. I’m just trying to be honest with you. If I can’t be honest about this, then what can I be honest about?
You know, you always do this. I say something just the least bit critical and you get all defensive. Did you ever stop to think that just maybe I want what’s best for you? For us?
I hate to admit it because part of the reason I came to this place was to get away from a routine and live a little.
But as much as I wanted to get away from regime, there are two things here I cannot not do every morning.
One is something I did before:
Except now it looks like this:
But the other is something new.
I wake up almost every day at 5:30 a.m. here. I’m not sure why – I think Erin is to blame. But the first time I did it, I went straight to the window to make sure we were really… you know… here.
And this is the sight that greeted me:
Not too shabby, huh?
It’s no wonder I now routinely find myself walking to the window and peering through the curtains every. single. morning.
We’re not exactly roughing it here.
Take a closer look:
Notice anything unusual about the cement around the pool?
We discovered shortly after arriving that Gifford and Judy have a very unique way of remembering their house guests and interns.
Donovan was in charge of adding the date for our group of interns. Turns out this was a lot of pressure.
The rest of us dug on in…
And Donovan got started eventually…
I think we all felt pretty good about being commemorated pool-side when we were done, and we learned a little bit more about each other in the process.
Like Erin enjoys symmetry:
And I apparently lack spatial recognition skills:
And Matteo has gigantic feet:
And Robert has really nice handwriting:
And Donovan? Well Donovan takes a really, really long time to draw in cement.
Maybe someday I will be able to come back for a visit and still see our legacy by the pool.
But even if I don’t, I’ll know it’s there.
And maybe routines aren’t so bad, after all.
What starts as routine can inspire traditions that reach back generations.
And, perhaps even more impressive, my new routine imbues in me the desire to greet each day with a touch more enthusiasm…
We have seen all kinds of cool critters here in Costa Rica. And we’ve even managed to get pictures of a few of ’em.
You’ve most likely already seen the kind I’m showing you today – I know I have. But the thing that makes these different here is that there are swarms of them. They’re everywhere. All I had to do was hold still long enough in one spot and wait for one to land.
I love dragonflies. I think they’re absolutely beautiful. And this one was no exception. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that they eat mosquitoes, which practically makes them my best friends.
As promised, Erin will share the rest of our weekend adventures later today.
Before you get too excited, no, we are not going to California.
We are in Costa Rica right now, people. Why would we go to California??
The title of this post will make more sense later. Moving on.
Recently I’ve realized that aside from this:
And these:
One of the things I’ve absolutely missed the most while living in Costa Rica is cooking. And I’m not even that good at it. It was just fun to do. Therapeutic, even. Man, I feel sorry for anyone who has to live with me when I don’t have my cooking outlet *cough*Erin*cough*.
Even though Judy has graciously offered us the use of her gorgeous kitchen (which I hope to show you at some point), the budget constraints that Erin and I have placed on ourselves have limited our main course dinners to primarily beans, rice, potatoes, or some combination thereof.* We’re not missing out on our starches here, folks.
Anyway. I was going through my hard drive and found some photos of recipes I haven’t yet posted. Whoah. I had forgotten all about them. And they instilled feelings in me – feelings I haven’t felt in a long, long time.
So I’m going to share one with you today. This is one of my all-time favorite summer/fall recipes. And even though it’s meatless, it’s completely appropriate for company. Even big, burly man-type company has always devoured this dish. I don’t know why, and I don’t question it. It’s simple and delicious.
The original recipe makes actual sandwiches, but I prefer to serve these open-faced. You can find the original here.
California Grilled Veggie Sandwich
To make these (the way I make ’em), you will need:
Olive oil or balsamic vinegar (If I grill the veggies, I use olive oil. If I sauté ’em, I use balsamic vinegar.)
1 medium zucchini, sliced
1-2 small yellow squash, sliced
1/2 small red onion, sliced
1 red bell pepper, sliced (sometimes I leave this off – it looks pretty, but there are already more than enough veggie toppings without them)
1/4 cup mayo
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
Thickly sliced sourdough bread
Once you have your ingredients together, it’s time to get messy:
1. Slice up all your veggies.
2. I often use an indoor grill to cook my veggies. I grease the grates with olive oil and preheat it around medium-high. For a less-tedious method, I sometimes saute the veggies with a little bit of balsamic vinegar. Really, you can cook them any old way you want. Just get them cooking!
3. While the veggies are cooking, mix together your mayo, garlic and lemon juice and spread evenly onto 2 large pieces of the sourdough bread. Then sprinkle on some feta cheese.
4. If you’re grilling your vegetables, check to see if the first side is done. If it is, flip ’em on over.
4. You can wait until your veggies are done cooking and re-use the indoor grill, or if you’re impatient like me, go ahead and get your grill pan oiled heating on the stove over medium heat. Place your slices of sourdough bread on the grill pan, then cover it with some type of lid. The goal is to get the feta cheese nice and melty. (It’s not going to actually melt into a goo – but it should get nice and soft.) This will also toast the bread.
5. If your veggies get done cooking a little early, just set them aside in a bowl and cover to keep warm.
6. Once the bread is toasty and the cheese is melty, top the slices with your grilled veggies and enjoy!
I know they don’t look like much, but there’s something about this mixture of toppings that makes these taste phenomenal. Even Erin, who purportedly “hates” mayo, will gobble up these sandwiches. If you try them, let me know what you think!
*Correction: We usually do eat some combination of beans and/or rice for dinner. However, sometimes our completely awesome boss makes a kickass meal and generously shares it with us. He is a fantastic cook and we are ALWAYS grateful when he shares his masterpieces with us.
Ninety-nine bottles of sauce… Take one out, pass it about…
Wait! We just put those in there.
Okay. Many of you have probably been wondering just what the heck we’ve been doing with our time during the day here in Costa Rica. How do we earn our keep in this beautiful place?
Well, I’ve mentioned before that we came here primarily to work for an up-and-coming, family-owned hot sauce company called Chile Town. We knew before we arrived that there would be some office work involved, including writing press releases and blog posts for the company website. We also knew that we would potentially be making some of the sauce itself.
What we didn’t know is what, exactly, making hot sauce entailed.
It starts with the chile peppers, most of which are grown and hand-picked right here on the property.
Without giving away too many trade secrets before the sauce gets released to the U.S., I will say that some of the hottest peppers in the world are grown and used right here. For that reason, caution must be used even during the picking-process. Notice the gloves. You don’t dare touch your eyes or exposed skin after handling hot peppers.
At this point some type of magic happens and the peppers are somehow washed, seeded, and mashed up into what we call… well mash. By the way, at Chile Town each individual hot sauce uses an individual type of chile pepper – unlike many other hot sauces, which just use an extract to bring the heat, the sauces we’re helping to make here actually use the heat and flavor that come directly from the chile variety itself. So a mild(er) sauce like the one called La Muñeca (“The Doll”) uses a less-spicy variety of pepper (yellow scotch bonnet) than the sauce called Bandito (“The Bandit”), which uses orange habaneros.
It’s all very scientific.
And if you think habaneros are spicy, some of the Chile Town sauces get even hotter than that!
*By the way, thanks to Becs for taking most of the following photos. My gloved and mash-covered fingers were not about to get anywhere near my beloved camera. Or my hair, apparently, which is a mess. Apologies.
So what we end up with is this mash.
Appetizing, no?
Of course, the color/consistency vary depending on the type of pepper we’re using. These are smoked jalapeños for the smoky Don Fuego (“Fire Boss”) sauce.
The first part of this entire process is really just basic cooking – we mix all the ingredients according to Aaron’s (aka “The Mayor’s”) top secret recipes and stick ’em on the stove to simmer.
Here’s where it gets tricky. Once all the ingredients are partying together in the pot and the sauce starts to thicken up, it’s time to blend. This ensures a smoother, even consistency and that all of the flavors are truly melded to perfection.
The problem? An industrial-sized blender, Aaron owns not.
So we use the small one. Again, and again. And again.
I’ll admit that this is probably the scariest part of the process for me. I mean – you have this substance that is 2 kinds of hot – temperature and spicy – so if the blender decides to say… I don’t know… blow up in your face, you’re seriously burned. Heat burned and heat burned. Not pretty. I’ve caught a splatter or two to know.
So we try to use the utmost precaution, especially during this phase of sauce production.
Once everything is blended, it goes back in the pot and back on the heat. This time it needs to get to a certain (extremely hot) temperature before it can be bottled. The goal is to have everything nice and evenly cooked to the desired level of thickness.
Aaron’s stove takes a beating.
While the sauce is cooking, we need to wash bottles. Lots and lots of bottles.
And of course, since no one wants to buy empty hot sauce bottles, we need to fill ’em.
This step is a tid bit precarious, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.
We are sauce-making machines.
No thanks to this punk, who didn’t even bother to watch.
Once they cool a bit, we add the seals and labels. Eventually, they look like this:
Pretty groovy, huh?
Ironically, the most stressful part of the process is after all the sauce is made and we’re cleaning out the pots. When the cold water hits the warm hot sauce remnants, the noxious chile fumes somehow get set off and I’m thrown into an ugly, hacking and sneezing fit. It ain’t pretty.
And while Erin’s superior writing/editing skills have since earned her a place back in the air-conditioned office, I really don’t mind toiling over a steaming hot chile pepper concoction several days a week. A true sense of accomplishment accompanies every seal of every lid; and while I dread the potential day when Aaron opens a bottle of sauce I made from one of his recipes and, God forbid, something just doesn’t taste quite right, I will at least savor the experience until that time.
Even though all of the bottles that eventually get sold in the U.S. will have been made to exact specifications in a factory by qualified professionals, I know I will smile every time I see one because I am now a first-hand witness to just some of the frustration, sweat, and determination that goes into creating a product.
I wanted to have a post ready for you about what I do during many of my waking hours here in Costa Rica (and no, contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t about this). But as I was going through some of the pictures on my hard drive, I ran across some that slapped me with my first real dose of homesickness.
I snapped these just before we left for Costa Rica.
I think they knew I was leaving.
And their very demeanor made me feel bad about it.
You’d think they were raised Catholic or something.
The guilt was palpable.
Clearly, my mistake was taking photos of the moment. Because now I have to admit how much I miss Mara’s mitten paws.
And Capone’s curly tail.
Looking at these now, I have to ask myself, were they trying to make me feel guilty on purpose?
