Running for chilaquiles

Here in Mexico, around eleven in the morning, when you are dying for brunch and your stomach is roaring, chilaquiles are very often the dish of choice.

Chilaquiles are a complicated blend of red or green sauce (each in itself a complex mix of ingredients which are then cooked separately), tortillas in chips, cheese, onions, and cream.  My daughter-in-law makes such delicious chilaquiles that, once having tried hers, you can forget about having them anywhere else.

When the sauce and the tortillas are put together, it has to be done right before eating.  People hang around the stove, plate in hand, and wait for each serving to be ready.  Otherwise, mixing the chips and the sauces too soon would make the chips soggy, a big no-no for chilaquiles.  If you have the impression that Mexican cooking is labor-intensive, you are right. 

On Sunday we celebrated my husband's and son's birthdays at our house, and my daughter-in-law whipped up a big batch of chilaquiles, both with red and green sauce, for the entire crowd.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, she left me both sauces, the tortilla chips, shredded cheese, and chopped onion.  For the past two days I have had chilaquiles for breakfast, and I intend to do so until the ingredients run out.

Chilaquiles are incredibly nutritious, but they are also loaded with calories.  So I use them as a reward for getting myself out to run.  The exercise alone is too minor to make a dent in the calories consumed, so yesterday I had spinach and lettuce for lunch--that was it.  Same today.  Sounds horrific, but the spinach is from my square foot garden and I sautèe it in olive oil and add a little garlic.  The lettuce is also from the garden, and both products are almost too good to describe.  It makes a world of difference to step outside, harvest your veggies, and five minutes later eat them.

Now that the orthopedist has told me it isn't my ancient joints giving out that is causing me pain, my new running program is going to be "The Great Chilaquiles Run".  So far it has worked; today was drizzling and cold, but I was there, my Judi Dench haircut standing on end as if were a punk rocker.  Maybe later, after I've gotten tired of chilaquiles or have used up all the sauce, we can start the "Great Tres Leches Cake Run", or the "Great French Chocolate Tart Run".  I can see my lunches are going to be reduced to coffee and a breath of fresh air.

Water retriever??

My cousin David wrote me with a number of suggestions about how to get my dogs, both supposedly water retrievers, into the swimming pool.  I had already tried them, including jumping clumsily into the water myself.  Neither dog seemed very impressed by that.  They both had canine expressions that could easily be interpreted as "My God, is she going to drown??  What a wacko!"

And yet, my eleven-year-old standard poodle got into the water three times day before yesterday.  I had to point him back to the stairs each time, but he seemed really excited at having done it.

My Spinone, however, he of the webbed toes, would only go in up to his belly even with four little girls in the pool trying to coax him in.  And this dog LOVES little kids to distraction.  I am going to the store later to find some kind of totally irresistible goodie that will both lure him into the water and serve as a reward as he makes progress.  Just don't know what kind of goodie yet...

Here is White Lightnin' in person.  Don't be fooled by that hound-like appearance and laid-back demeanor.  You know all those movies that portray bloodhouds lounging determindly around the front porch while local yokels play the banjo?  That is a lie.  Bloodhounds need tons of exercise so you'd better be a runner or an escaped criminal, 'cause those dogs need to GO.

Well, same for the Spinone.  They may not be fast, but once they get started, there are no brakes.  And they weigh a lot, so step aside if one is rushing up to you for a slurp.  Otherwise you may suffer permanent knee damage.

Spring, and five weeks later...

We are having salads now, every day, from the lettuce and spinach in the square foot garden; there are other lettuces planted later so we don't run out, but right now we can barely keep up with the spinach, and there are only two plants.  The tomato plant sprouted and looks great, but since I have never produced a tomato, I am simply admiring the plant and hoping for little or nothing. 

Good and Bad

My orthopedist, after having tied me in knots in several directions, declared that the persistent pain in my right leg is caused neither by a degenerating hip joint nor the sciatical nerve.  We can chalk it up to fibromyalgia, and he encouraged me to get out there and run at whatever speed I can work up.

But, on another note, he told me to limit my coffee intake to two cups a day.  Folks, this just can't be done.  It is my only vice, for God's sake!  I grind my own beans and have a nice drip coffee maker recommended by Cooks Illustrated; I use organically shade-grown Mexican coffee.

I figured there had to be some kind of out, so I checked online and found a study by no less than the Mayo Clinic which found no correlation between caffeine intake and bone density loss, except in the case of women who smoke, drink a lot of caffeine, and imbibe alcohol.  That lets me off the hook, because only in much older women (older than who?) did the study find some loss of femur bone mass, but running will take care of that. 

In the spirit of compromise, however, I have decided not to sit at the computer with a non-stop supply of coffee. 

Armed with orthopedist's advice, I headed to the park today and did a brisk one kilometer walk and ran another one.  It was not my usual hour for the park, and the cast of characters was quite different.  Most notable were a couple who seemed to have hooked up at the park itself, since the man was trotting as slowly as he could while the woman walked.  He was telling her that he was a marathonist, and when he felt like a little extra exercise, he hung from a tree.  I am not kidding here. While the over-40 woman squealed with admiration at the tree act (God is great, he kept me quiet while I passed them...), the over-50 man continued to give a detailed account of his exercise feats.  I didn't hear them all, but nothing outdid the tree bit.  It was my assumption that the guy used his arms to do the hanging, but the mind runs rampant with alternative scenarios!

It has been a weird day even from the get-go.  I sat with my first cup of coffee about 5:30 a.m., taking my vitamin pill, my thyroid hormone replacement pill, and my folic acid when I dropped the thyroid pill.  Lusso, in a flash, ate it.  I pried his mouth open but could see nothing (it is a very small pill and a very big mouth filled with teeth the same color as the pill), but eventually I managed to rescue one very tiny piece.  A picture went through my mind of Lusso being wired to the gills and ricochetting off the walls.  After about an hour I called the vets' office and the one on emergency duty told me he would probably be okay since he is big and heavy now.  He does seem pretty active, however, so today is the day: he swims or I sink in the effort.  By dang, he is a water dog! 

Harvesting!

Incredible, but I am able to harvest lettuce and baby spinach each day for a salad!  My square foot garden has come up so well that if you stand there a while you see stuff grow!  As soon as I get a memory card for my camera, you will see a shot of the thing again, this time replete with things to eat.

And the fight goes on...

Just a few days ago I sent off the check to the IRS for the amount I was charged for "late filing", for God's sake.  And now, I am again sending off my tax return, but this time I owe no money.  This does not mean I might not be charged a penalty for late filing if the thing once more gets lost in the shuffle.

I sent a letter to the new head of the Treasury Department, with no hope of it eliciting a response--nothing I have every written to a government official has gotten a response except for a letter to Johnson about a million years ago, and that probably put me on some kind of FBI screwball list.  Oh well, even that must mean something!

I'm not willing to get into a sarcasm battle with the IRS because they don't answer in kind, they just charge you something.  This time I was sarcastic silently--I sent my tax return in a bubble envelope with "Fragil, Handle with Care" printed on it.  You think maybe that will get me into trouble?  Just in case they should think some kook had sent a package of poop or another resentful item, I added on the envelope that the contents were only paper. 

On the other hand, I may get into trouble with the Secretary of the Treasury himself since I was polite but pissed; if you don't hear from me again, it could mean I've been arrested or am in hiding at the quinta.

Time for a revolution

Please read the March 4 issue of Time magazine, and the long article by Steven Brill.  It has to be read to be believed, but it makes crystal-clear that we have no business arguing about who is to pay for medical costs in this country, but rather why medical costs are so outrageous.  Unless we start doing something, even if it is reading and passing the message, we are going to be taken to the cleaners like no one has ever been taken to the cleaners before.  And all I can add is that the "non-profit" hospitals in Mexico are beginning to follow suit.

And if you don't have medical insurance, you are paying for every single individual who does.  Sounds really fair, doesn't it?