Parrot update

We now have two parrots. Last Thursday Sabina was sunbathing on the back patio and a male parrot arrived out of nowhere and wouldn't go away. After luring him into the house with Sabina as bait, he decided to stay.

Meet Chicharito (Little Pea).

How to make Agua de Guayaba

Behold the guayaba. A small, yellow, head-shaped fruit with creamy flesh, filled with hard seeds that get stuck in your teeth. Deliciously sweet, and excellent in an agua fresca.

Aguas frescas are so simple to make that they hardly call for a recipe, but they weren't in my repertoire before living in Mexico. A step by step instructional is listed below. If you're making agua with any seedless fruit you can skip the strainer.

STEP 1. Quarter 4 to 6 guayabas. I had 4, so I used 4. You can cut off the ends if you want. (See optional STEP 7.)

STEP 2. Toss the quartered fruit into a blender along with 6 to 8 tablespoons of sugar. Add 4 to 5 cups of water. (This is no exact science.) Alternatively, you can boil the water with the sugar first to make an easy dissolving syrup.

STEP 3. Blend!

STEP 4. Place a small strainer on top of a pitcher to catch the seeds. (I have a prettier pitcher than this one, but it doesn't fit in the fridge.) Pour blended mixture through it.

STEP 5. Mash the juices down with a spoon until all the good stuff is in the pitcher.

STEP 6. Add water to top off the pitcher, stir a bit, and you're ready to go! Serve immediately with ice, or stick in the fridge for later.

STEP 7. (OPTIONAL) Give extra bits of guayaba to Sabina. What a greedy parrot.






In recent years, aguas frescas have been completely taken over by sugary sodas. The weekly entertainment mag Dia Siete just put out a great article about the history of aguas in Mexico (click here to read), and the fruits and other unusual ingredients that make them. Recipes included. If you read Spanish, I highly recommend it. For those who don't, I'll translate the opener:

15 years ago, squeezed lime, sweet pineapple, juicy melon, refreshing watermelon or any piece of fruit was mixed with natural water to prepare a pitcher of agua fresca that --at the center of the lunchtime table-- not only hydrated the majority of Mexican families, but also provided many natural nutrients. Today, 8 of every 10 Mexicans consume soft drinks with their meals. As one of the regions of the world with the largest diversity of fruits, it might be worth refreshing ourselves with aguas once again.

The Accidental Tapatia — a new start

So I’m back. Actually, I have been for a while—I'll have been in Guadalajara a full year next week! I haven’t blogged because I thought I had nothing to blog about. I’m not writing for the Guadalajara Reporter anymore, so no new articles to post.

I now work out of my home as a manager for a Chicago-based translation company, and my life revolves around the domestic upkeep of a small bungalow-style home near Plaza Mexico, a resilient 2007 Dell laptop on which I do all my work, and (somewhat limited) conversations with a greet parrot named Sabina. I live with my tapatío* boyfriend, who, among other very important things, has taught me to like soccer.

I thought I’d turn this blog around a bit, and focus on things I would want to know as a now expatriated 20-something gringa living in Guadalajara, Mexico. Things like:

• How to sell stuff (furniture, old electronics) without Craigslist
• Where to find other gringos, if needed (I don’t have the full answer to this yet, but I’m working it out)
• How to master re-fried beans and other deceptively simple Mexican culinary staples in your home
• How to get along with your significant other who does not usually speak English
• The visa process, quick and painless
• Mexican healthcare for the uninsured, and the best budget-friendly hospitals in the metropolitan area
• …and more.

For each idea, I’d like to provide and also solicit names/contact info for the people who have helped answer the questions, like my favorite dentist and favorite FM3 lawyer. I like to recommend things that have turned out well for me and sure you do too, so maybe this we can figure all this out together.

Note #1: This blog is not intended for long-settled expats who know how to do everything already. If you know the difference between a bolillo, birote and telera, have visited the INM more times than you can count, and can point out pitaya season on a calendar, you could probably write this blog yourself. 

Note #2: I'm not going to italicize or otherwise punctuate Spanish words because I assume they are part of a standard Spanglish vernacular for the audience the blog is intended for. If not, they probably should be.

*Definition of tapatío.