Bean there - Cooked that!

Today there was a rice and beans fund raising lunch for the school in Cahuita. Ernesto invited me to come and see the “proper” way to cook rice and beans. He’s been teasing me since I’m so eager to learn how to cook Costa Rican dishes, and I was ready to watch and learn at eight o’clock this morning.We decided to be on time this morning even though we know that in Costa Rica, eight o’clock means sometime after eight, so we weren’t really surprised when no one was actually there. We went off to the internet café for a half hour.

Cafeteria - 8:00 AM

When we got back Ernesto was busy chopping up coconuts. (It turned out that there was lots of work to do but not many people so I spent the morning chopping and frying and stirring. It was great fun.) We took the coconut meat and chopped it into small cubes. Then Roxanna placed the meat into a blender with some water and processed it into coconut milk. Very cool.
The beans and rice were cooked together in the coconut milk and herbs and spices and finely chopped veggies. There was a pasta salad made with fresh veggies and mayonnaise made with fresh lemons from the tree. There was chicken fried and then cooked in a coconut sauce as well.

Very yummy. Dinner party at my house when we get back!!! (Of course it’s gonna cost you as we’re still trying to raise 7 months back rent for the computer center!)

One of the veggies I was chopping was celery. I chopped about 2 stalks and then asked is this was good. Arlene said maybe a bit more. Now I meant was it chopped fine enough because we had been talking about that earlier, but she meant more celery not more chopping. So I chopped my celery finer and asked again. She said a bit more, so I kept chopping. Finally I stopped because I had all but pulverized that celery and she was looking at me funny. I asked if she wanted anything else chopped and she handed me a couple more stalks of celery. I started chopping and then I realized what had happened. I asked her if she meant chop more celery not chop the celery more finely. She smiled and said yes. Well we both started to laugh. She must of thought I was right nuts turning the celery into dust. Hahahha.

It was fun to watch the people working together. The women all decided that each of them was a better cook than the other women there. They all felt that men don’t know how to cook. They re-spiced the marinade that the chicken was in when no one was looking, and made “men tinking dey can cook” noises behind their backs. It was a hoot!

The guy frying the chicken built a fire and set a huge cast iron pot on it and dumped in some oil. (So far so good.) Then he decided to score the chicken before he fried it. Now this worked well enough for the white meat, but the cut tendons on the drumsticks curled up and the meat shrank as the pieces were fried and it looked like someone had already eaten parts of the drumstick.

Loud, Spanish, talking ensued. Frying guy left without telling anyone, chicken frying away unattended. Luckily Arlene decided to check on the chicken, and rescued it before it was totally black. We pulled it out of the pan and fried up the rest. Then we took the frying pot off of the flames and put the sauce cooking pot on. Once the sauce was boiling then we threw in the chicken and let it cook for a while.In the end everything turned out really delicious.

New Fryers

In Canada the meal would have been a social occasion, with much chatting and nibbling, but here a fundraising lunch means low cost food to support a cause. Food was packed in take out containers and people took their lunches home. Best day ever!

A guard waiting hopefully for the chicken to be dropped.