New Year's Eve Party

Through our connection to Frida Elizonda, whose dog we took care of while she and her boyfriend went to the beach over Christmas, we were invited to her mother's house for New Year's Eve. In Mexico, Christmas Eve is for family, but New Year's Eve is for friends as well as family. Frida's mother Hilda lives about 100 yards from our house, so it was an easy commute.

Mark and Milagrito

"Milagrito" (Little Miracle) is a 9-month-old spaniel, a cross between a cocker spaniel and a springer spaniel. She's small but mighty, and she was fun to have around. She will be a nice little dog when she grows up and stops being a puppy.

We were asked to bring a dessert, and since blackberries are so fresh and cheap in the mercado I decided to do a blackberry cobbler in the cast iron skillet I brought from home. However, Mark wanted to make a cherimoya mousse from a recipe he saw on the Internet a few weeks ago. Cherimoya is a delicious tropical fruit that he's loved from the first bite. The recipe required unflavored gelatin (as in Knox), but we weren't sure if we could find it here. Turns out it's sold in bulk in grocery stores, at the same counter where ham and chorizo are sold.

Not being real familiar with gelatin in any language, it was a total experiment for both of us. We made a few alterations to the recipe based on what we could find and hoped for the best.

Mark's cherimoya mousse

Not only did it gel properly, it was the hit of the party. People came up to us and raved about it, and we've had at least one request for the recipe. Unfortunately I don't think we'll be able to reproduce it at home, due to a lack of the main ingredient. We see cherimoya only very occasionally in Salida--in fact, just once at Wal-Mart and once at Safeway.

Old Man 2010 ablaze

The party was composed of Mexicans and a few American spouses, and everyone ate and drank until just before midnight, when we all adjourned to the yard to "burn the old man,"  the old year. He represents all the bad things that happened during 2010, and I guess one can put notes in his pockets with one's personal bad things to be burned with him. What we didn't know, and which caused great hilarity, was that he was filled with fireworks that went off as he went up in flames. Everyone exchanged air kisses and wishes for "Felicidades," and "Feliz Año." Shortly thereafter the party broke up and we walked the short distance home.

One couple we met were from Santa Clara de Cobre, the copper-working village south of Pátzcuaro. James Metcalf and Ana Pellicer are copper sculptors with international reputations. She is quite a bit younger than he is (he was born in 1925), and describes herself as "first his student, then his lover, now his wife." He moved to Santa Clara in 1966 from Paris, and was, to hear them describe it, instrumental in creating the industry that has put the village on the artistic map.

When he arrived the villagers were only making cauldrons by hammering them into a mold and then rolling the edges. He introduced them to the technique of raising, or hammering a flat sheet into rounded shapes that could become closed vessels like vases. In the intervening years the village artisans have created a unique art form that has made them famous. Unfortunately there have been hard feelings, as so often happens in Mexico.  Cristina Potters has a nice interview and photos of them on her great Mexico Cooks! blog that you can read here.

When they return from a trip to the US later this month we've been invited to visit them at their studio. I'm looking forward to it.

Our street after midnight, New Year's morning