Pixie in Paradise

The time spent in Central America has impacted my whole approach to life, especially how I “hunt,” prepare and eat ingredients, combining them to make life sustaining meals. I feel there is more intentional mindfulness to my approach now to not only finding food and cooking it, but also in communing and communicating with nature – more about this at a later date. We’ve already discussed the pasta obsession that started a few months ago. It is intense – and delicious! While in Central America I’ve become a pasta and chicken wing fanatic. The truth is, now that I’m staying five minutes from Playa Negra again, there is a restaurant right on the beach that makes great food. Another deep dark secret – besides the pasta fetish – is a near constant craving for Buffalo chicken wings, specifically the ones from Banana Azul Resort. I’m so embarrassed to say it but when one of the waiters sees me walking towards him he just asks, “Alitas?” which is “wings” in Spanish. I can be walking towards him in the tiniest bikini or a sundress and instead of, “Wow, you look pretty,” it’s, “Do you want to order chicken wings today?”

I do eat more local meals native to this area, not just these weird American fusion foods, but I do so when not having a craving. I prepare meals made with local ingredients. I mean, breakfast with freshly roasted nibs from locally grown cacao, those tiny thumb-sized bananitos (baby bananas) and maracuyá (passionfruit) in my oatmeal and chia seed pudding; fresh vegetables for salads and fish that haven’t been stored in warehouses for weeks, is such a luxury for me here too. As long as I buy the produce from the early morning Saturday farmers market the prices can’t be beat. If anything is purchased outside of that market, it’s the same as buying it in the US or more costly. Every week I go to the farmers market as early as I can drag myself down the road because one weekend I showed up at 10 am and expected my favorite vendor to still have greens and he was sold out. I almost went fetal to throw a fit right in the middle of the floor full of customers. That’s what I get for getting distracted at the thrift store trying on a sundress. That particular dress was worth it though: I wouldn’t have fresh salad for a couple of days but I would sure look cute and beachy in my outfit!

I like my routine. Once I find the right farmers market products and prices, I’m a loyal, repeat customer. Period. You know, unless something flashier, cheaper, eco-friendly and better quality comes along. I am always able to purchase one to two weeks’ worth of produce for $28 USD. It’s amazing. The cost is slightly higher on the weeks I get a papaya or more than a couple of avocados but it’s still a steal.

Having arrived back here over four hours later than scheduled last Friday, it was not going to be possible to make it to the farmers market the following morning. The other thing I need to be mindful of in the following months is that I will not be settled in one bungalow like last time. While I will thankfully always be at Casa Vikingo, I will be moving from unit to unit depending on which spaces are available. Some weeks I’ll be in the main house and others I will spend in one of the six casitas, all of which are pretty sweet. While I’m definitely not roughing it, there’s still a lot of adjustment and flexibility needed to move from room to room. Most of my luggage will stay locked in a room in the main house and I’ll take the little suitcase filled with my essentials for a week, to the designated living quarters. That’s not the hard part for me. The hard part is that three of the spaces have their own kitchenettes and three do not. The three that don’t, share an outdoor kitchen across from the pool. Most people that know me are aware of my slight (sometimes extreme) germophobia so the thought of sharing a kitchen doesn’t turn me on. Thanks to my experiences on this walkabout, however, I have learned how to adapt to things I wouldn’t have been able to before. Or, if I would have been able to adapt, I still would have refused. Now I’m able to pause and think for a minute before facing certain challenges. That being said, I feel like next week is going to be full of restaurant food since I will be sharing a kitchen!

When I arrived Friday my friend Christine, who was still staying at the resort, was moving out Saturday to her more permanent home. I had given her a lot of food and pantry items before leaving for San José and there were several items she wanted to give back, which was kind and would be so helpful to me. I dropped off the luggage Friday, put her re-gifted food items away and headed straight for the beach in order to say hello to my beloved Playa Negra and walk in its fine sand.

Once that was done, I realized hunger had set in and I needed a decent meal, quickly. Across from the chicken wing resort is an adorable little grocery store. I could only shop there if I had to, if I had that kind of money. Things are a bit more expensive there, but again, in the context of where we are everything is more expensive – except at the farmers market. I typically purchase the same items at this gourmet market on different schedules. I get one roll of toilet paper and aluminum foil at a time – for very different rooms in the house. Then there’s wine and frozen tilapia when I’ve gone to the big grocery store and grabbed pasta, garlic and tomato paste. My favorite meal consists of salad dressed with olive and sesame oil, tamari sauce and balsamic vinegar, tilapia seared in white wine with grape tomatoes then set on top of pasta that’s been swimming in a simmered red sauce of garlic and red wine. The price of the tilapia is so cheap, so between its price and flavor, it’s a good choice for protein. Tilapia tastes way better here than back in the US. It has a mildly sweet flavor, reminding me of scallops, unlike all other tilapia I’ve had that makes me think after I swallow it, “Was that real fish or something grown in a laboratory?”

If I’m desperate I’ll buy a can of tuna. Cat food is always bought there when Mo runs low and eggs, a couple at a time. They give you a paper bag to put your eggs in just like in Belize so I save my little 6-egg cardboard carton and carry it with me on grocery days.

I went to this same store after my beach stroll to grab what I thought could fill me up quickly until the next day when all was more settled and a good night’s sleep was had. This is where I have a final food confession to make. The third item I’m fairly obsessed with eating lately is a jar of salsa from back home: Tostitos™ chunky medium salsa. It’s not better than homemade, it’s just easier, and I started shoveling this stuff in with plantain chips five months ago when I arrived in Belize. 

My plan for last Friday was to grab a can of corn, a can of black beans, some Tostitos salsa and plantain chips, an inexpensive locally made soft cheese (Turrialba) and maybe a can of tuna if I was feeling wealthy and glamorous, or really lacking protein. Canned tuna is insanely expensive here, it’s between $3 and $6 USD for each can. These are items seen in all three grocery stores I shop at in the Puerto Viejo area and I purchase them routinely. Stepping around the aisles to find what I needed, I stared in disbelief: blank rows where my desired items are normally kept. I walked around the aisles again hoping I didn’t have the place memorized (but we all know I did/do). The probability of a grocery store – even this tiny one – being out of canned corn and beans is so low I can’t even do the math.

I continued on home with just the salsa and some Turrialba cheese to find myself in a real life episode of Chopped. Truly, because I had 30 minutes or less to make a meal that I wanted to eat, before my blood sugar plummeted so far I’d either pass out or lose my shit – it’s always a 50/50. (I’m super fun on outings – always carry some string cheese and nuts to throw my way, then back away slowly – you’ll thank me someday!). Back at the house I assessed what Christine had given back in terms of pantry and food items and formulated a plan to turn these into something edible, and quick. In the goodie bag there was a small mesh bag of the tiniest potatoes, a few grape tomatoes rolling around in an eco-friendly takeaway container, an old ear of corn, one small sweet red bell pepper, a can of red beans, a can of tofu and sesame oil. From San José I brought with me balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a few spices. I found a healthy looking bulb of garlic while I was cleaning the house so I stole that to use. I swapped the black beans and corn in cans that I wanted to buy, for the canned red beans and fresh-ish ear of corn. It only took me a couple of minutes before I resigned to the fact that the corn would have to be shaved off its cob and the rest would need to be chopped and thrown into the same skillet at varying times – potatoes first – to make some sort of hodge podge hash. 

This all seems intuitive and normal but this process while done in the past five months has made me much more mindful, present and grateful about what ingredients I have available to me. Those vegetables were at least two weeks old and there was a tiny bit of corn on the cob that looked like it was going bad, but I didn’t care, we were going to use as much of it as possible. Before this walkabout, I may have just thrown most of those old veggies away and gone to a restaurant to make the process a little easier or take less effort on my part. 

Just like on the show, Chopped, I looked at each item, held it and rolled around several ideas before settling on something that I felt would make a decent, edible, somewhat aesthetically pleasing dining experience. There’s so many ways to live intentionally and mindfully and those ways change and evolve for each of us depending on our age and stage in life. Believe me, if there is a way to achieve Enlightenment through food – especially brunch – I will find it.