Pyramids and Panuchos

Panuchos:
A Yucateco taco made from a corn tortilla filled with a thin layer of black refried beans and deep-fried. Once fried the tortilla is topped with a piece of lettuce, shredded chicken cooked in Achiote, a slice of tomato, and either an avocado slice or a bit of guacamole.



The goodness of panuchos is hard to understand until you’ve sampled your way through the Yucatan. This is the most specifically regional food that I know of. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world. Go to Azul Grande, nothing comes close, in Oaxaca, Mexico, they have incredible mole but no panuchos. It’s not even in my Oxford Spanish/English dictionary.

Last week I had the opportunity to eat panuchos at least once a day when I was in Merida, Mexico with my 84 year old guapo grandfather and mom. We were on a mission to take grandpa to the Mayan ruins he has long read about. My ulterior motive was to eat as many panuchos as possible. I ate them at the tourist restaurant, at the fancy Mexican place, on the street, and at the ice cream café. However, the absolute best, best panuchos came from the market, which is no surprise.

After a long day at Chichen-Itza we decided to have a rest day in Merida. Our plan was to go to the market and shop and then my mom and grandpa were heading to the archeological museum. I knew it was the morning to skip breakfast. After haggling and wondering through the wares it was time for a break so we walked up to the food stalls. As soon as our feet hit the top step the ladies from the four stalls started calling to us—“Hay Panuchos, fruta, jugos…”

We sat down at one of the white tiled tables with matching benches, my grandpa ordered a coke, my mom a water and me the panuchos you see above and an horchata to drink. The panuchos were perfect—they were by far the freshest, I was able to watch the woman slice open the tortilla and fill it with beans, the onions were grilled after being lightly pickled, and the avocado was perfectly ripe.



The horchata arrived in a large plastic cup and was refreshing as always. Follow the link below for a recipe for this rice/almond/cinnamon drink. According to the history this drink is a good hangover cure—perhaps we should add this to our summer drink list!
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/horchata.htm

The next morning we were rested and ready to head to Uxmal, which according to our group was the ultimate ruin site. Unlike Chichen there were more bugs than people…

SUMMER

I’m not sure if it’s because summer is such a distinct season here in Kentucky or if it is because I arrived directly after college, so I was in the habit of having real summers, either way summer is a big deal for us. We remember summers as a unit—the summer that sucked because it was cold and rainy, the summer we made a fun list and checked everything off. We also remember summers by the drink—there was the mojito summer and the summer we totally scooped New York when watermelon martinis were all the rage. Generally three things should happen in the summer, but above all fun should be had by all and this summer we are well on our way:

1. Swimming with or without clothes (Swimming is a must when it’s really hot. Already we made it up to our local swimming hole and it wasn’t even hot. There was some skinny-dipping involved and a pontoon boat.)
2. Parties that include some kind of grilling (Lots of parties have been happening, and always it seems we're grilling some form of pork…)
3. Developing a summer drink (Sometimes we come up with a drink, sometimes we don’t. Most of the fun is in experimenting with concepts.)

The glory of Whitesburg, due to the ebb and flow of people is that things change. This summer has been declared an actual theme—the summer of food challenges—by one of our new friends. It all started with a challenge to eat 12 hotdog buns in 10 minutes. That same night Shawn was challenged to eat 5 large blizzards in 1 hour. He made it through almost 3 in 30 minutes and then threw up. Each blizzard was a different flavor, I think if he had it do all over again he would have chosen his flavors differently.

*****
note the heating pad that shawn stuck up his sweater to keep warm

Another take on the food challenge was the egg toss that we had last week. This was in response to my brother saying that he “is an egg toss champion.” Apparently when you spend your summers working at summer camps this is one of the many reallife skills you gain. He was more proud of this fact than one might imagine, unless you know my brother and then you have no problem imagining him being proud of such a fact.

I’m hoping that this summer will also include some picnics, like the one my family had on mother’s day:



And that we’ll get a good drink figured out—it is nice to take the guess work out of what to make yourself and gin and tonics are a little dull. So far, and we realize this sounds gross, the best thing we’ve come up with is vodka and some splashes of triple sec and tonic mixed with a small spoonful of cherry jam. It was good, I promise:



So here’s to the summer!!