Tag Archives: Ecuador

market

Market Day!!!

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We have been waiting to do the Sunday Market. People come from up in the mountains to sell their produce and wares. I was our first visit and it is amazing. Similar to markets we have been to in Europe and Asia. Except every type of fruit and vegetable from tropical climates to climates similar to what we see produced in the Northwest USA.

We were told it was best to go early in the morning for the freshest stuff and we did just that.

We spent about $5.00 today. $2.50 on 25 roses and the rest on veggies. It was really all I could carry back to the condo. I guess we could have made another trip. It isn’t that far just at the other end of Leather Street that we live on.

Check out the pictures. There is another building that sells meat and fish. The picture of the Market is just down one isle.

One other thing to pass on – UNESCO actually built the white tiled market.

Inventing a new dish for the culinary world!!

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Yes the title is correct. But what else would you expect after all.

So last night we started to make Eggplant Lasagna for dinner, but quickly realized we didn’t have all the traditional ingredients let alone where to obtain them.

The short story is we invented Eggplant Ecsagna. Why do we call it Ecsagna you might ask. Well… if you have to know…we substituted so many Ecuadorian ingredients…What else could we call it? Pretty ingenious even if we do say so ourselves. The local cheese we used was fantastic and gave the dish a wonderful flavor and texture.

So now you know the true origins of this dish even before it sweeps across Ecuador, South America and the rest of the world!!!

Food and Bread for today

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Dave here…

Just so you know we have captured yet again another world record. That record is for the successful baking of Alaska Sourdough on the Equator. As far as we know it has never been done before now. And you know us too – how lucky is that!

All in all it was a quiet day of working so no golly gee stuff to report today.

So to answer one of the most asked question, which is, “what did you have for dinner”?

It was a simple affair:
Mixed green salad with a German Onion Herb dressing
Sauteed potatoes (papas)and leek with smoked paprika and fresh garlic
Fresh Asparagus wrapped in Serrano ham
Grilled bacon wrapped Fillets seasoned with “Dave’s Magic Dust”

See the picture – just remember we are roughing it here.

Just as we sat down for dinner…the power went out. How romantic is that! A candle light dinner for two – how exciting is that
?
After dinner we snuggled up to our laptop with the biggest battery I could find and watched a movie. Well ok just part of a movie – then off to bed

Great sunny day today – I am sure there will be good things to report.

We met the Dentist .. shopping in Ibarra

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Patrice here – filling in for Dave he is working on the 2nd batch of bread as I type this.

We ran errands around town and picked up some items for lunch at the grocery store. We bought ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, 2 bags of chips (I know bad) for $3.02 (honestly)!! As we already had chicken and bread at the apartment – lunch was great even though the cook did not get a tip.

Ok on to our major event of the day – Super Maxi in Ibarra – grocery store – lots of great things for sure. We have enough for it to feel like home now in the apartment. Just some ideas of costs for groceries – 4 peeled white onions = $.75, 4 red onions = $.77, 15 roses plus a mix of other flowers to make them look nice = $2.50, artichokes = $.75, eggplant = $1 a kilo (2 small for $.50). We were introduced to some Ecuador specific fruits (Julio our van driver and guide extraordinaire) recommended them – we will update you when we try them.

Now for the dentist, thought we would have a quick visit with appts to be made for cleaning and the rest of what is needed WRONG full exam (both), deep cleaning (both), upper and lower impressions (P), xrays (D) office visit (now sit down for the total price) …. $140.00 (both of us)! He also required that we get panoramic xrays which we did for (are you still sitting down?) $9 each. We both really like him – he was trained in NY City and has a degree in cosmetic dentistry. At this point we are considering re working my smile completely – could never have though of doing that state side. Will keep you posted. As an FYI a full porcelain crown here is about $400.

For those of you driving diesel – its $1.03 a gallon.

It was a long day today but we feel like we got lots accomplished. Even with the power out yesterday (from 8am – 1pm) I was able to work a couple before the outage and then after close to 10 hours all together- high speed is really quite good here, our Vonage phone is working great!