Day Fourteen - It's Hot in the Kitchen

Saturday in Monteverde means the Farmer’s Market. Kel and I were able to sleep in and went to the market around 8:00 am. Yes, 8:00 am is sleeping in around here. Truth be told, the sun rises around 5 in the morning and sets about 5 at night. Many people here base their entire days on the sun and they will get up with it very early in the morning.

The Farmer’s Market in Monteverde is much smaller than the one in Heredia, in fact, if you add them both together, you might get half of the market in Madison or Minneapolis. Even though they are smaller, the produce is undeniably fresher and sold directly by the people who picked or made it that morning.

Today at the market, our host family was serving breakfast to raise money for their dancing group. Tomas and Ana Patricia are very active in the Senior Citizen groups here in Monteverde. They dance, the fundraise, and they stay young doing it. They were serving Gallo Pinto, empanadas, coffee, aguadulce, and some deserts.

After eating, Kel and I wandered around the market, which was held in the high school’s gym. We knew we were cooking dinner tonight so we picked up ingredients for salad and for one of my staples – French bread served with goat cheese and a balsamic vinegar reduction. Also on the menu was a simple pasta and sauce because we’ve been eating lots of Tico style dishes and wanted to share some of our Italian background with the family.

Ingredients in hand, we headed back home, dropped off our supplies, and went to our next stop – the Ranario. The ranario is an exhibition of the various types of frogs found in Costa Rica. When we arrived, the next tour wouldn’t be for another hour, so we took the advantage of the chance to walk around the butterfly garden they also had there. Imagine 5 greenhouses filled with hundreds of butterflies. It was awesome. Flashes of orange, pink, and yellow flew through the air as you admired both the butterflies and the plants. The best of the butterfly garden was the last greenhouse. Inside were the most vivid blue and black butterflies I have ever seen. Costa Rica is known for this type, but they were so cool to see in such a large group.

The Ranario tour had some big shoes to fill after the butterfly garden, and it did a pretty good job filling them. In total, we saw about 20 different types of frogs and toads. I love the smaller frogs – which happen to be more poisonous. They have awesome names like blue jean frog or red eyed tree frog that use their colors to describe them. Because we went during the day when most of the frogs are sleeping, we get to go back tomorrow night for free and see the frogs in their more active state.

I don’t know if you have ever tried to cook in someone else’s kitchen before, but from my experiences, it’s tough. And dinner tonight was no exception. Mind you, the typical Tico kitchen is small to begin with, I was trying to cook for 7 people with a modest amount of tools. Iron Chef Casey had some challenges to face. Nevertheless, I was able to create some semblance of a meal to serve to our Tico family and their friends. The pasta and sauce were great…not too hard to mess that up. The salad was super fresh thanks to the great vinaigrette our Mama Tica made, but sadly, my bread didn’t turn out they way I wanted to. Turns out the goat cheese I bought at the Farmer’s Market wasn’t like the goat cheese I am used to at home. It was definitely more solid and tangier than what I buy at Trader Joe’s. We made do, and the family seemed to enjoy the meal. Tomas really enjoyed the balsamic reduction, so much so I caught him licking the pan!

We’re halfway there. Looking back on the days, we’ve had a lot of fun, but there is definitely more to come. Even as I write this blog for today, I am surprised with how full we can make a day. Let’s hope that we keep up the good work.

Bon appétit,
Casey