Abasolo.

A few weeks ago we went to a small town that is about 25 minutes from our town. The town's name is Abasolo.
It just so happens that many states and towns in Mexico just had elections. The elections were for mayors, senate representaitves, etc. My husband has a student whose father was elected as "regidor", a position which works closely with the city's mayor.
Anyway, he decided to have a BBQ to celebrate his recent election and birthday. He has a small piece of land about 5 minutes from the town, which he uses for family gatherings. There is no electricity or water, but it does have a cistern. And the road to the place is dirt. It is very rustic, but I found the place and hills next to it beautiful.
Here are the photos.

This is the place where the party was celebrated.

My sons and I went walking and took

this photo of the place from a distance.

Lots of plants.

The sky was a bit overcast, but it was still
a nice warm afternoon.


Lots of insects, autumn flowers, and of course, cacti.

We have been fascinated with lichens
for some time. I love the color of these.

And the view....look at that sky. Isn't it beautiful?

You can see the color of the sorgum, wheat, and corn fields
in the background.
For me, Autumn is roasted corn....
with lots of chile sauce...mmmmm.

I love October and Autumn.
How's your Fall season coming along?
Hope it's great!!

Quesadillas.

Oh, my. My posting has been very poor lately. I don't like to use excuses, but there has been so much work at school!
I really should make time.

So I've decided to leave the Morelia photos for some other time, and talk about food.
During this time of the year, lots of yummy food (for us) start to appear. Some of these dishes date from pre-hispanic times.
My favorites are pumpkin flower and huitlacoche quesadillas. Pumpkin flower, I'm sure you've seen. Huitlacoche? Ha, most probably not! Huitlacoche is the fungus of the corn. Yes, the fungus! In English it is called corn smut, and you can read more about it here.
Anyway, I'll show how both delicacies are prepared. (Kelli, I owed you this post).
First I'll start with Flor de Calabaza (pumpkin flower) quesadillas.

This is the way the flowers are sold at the market.
First you have to wash the flowers.

Then you have to pull the flower away from the base
of the flower, including the pistil. If you leave this part,
it will taste sour.

Here are all the discarded parts.

Then proceed to chop up the "flowers".




Sauté some diced onion (here we use white onions)
in oil. You can use olive oil if you want.

When the onion is transparent, add the flowers.
The flowers will wilt pretty quick, and lose some moisture.
Season with salt, pepper, whatever you like to use.


You let the liquid evaporate a little (not too much,
you don't want it dry) and it's done. This is how it looks.



Now the huitlacoche....

These are the "diseased" corn grains. I also wash them,
and remove the "threads".

A closer look at he stuff.

The "grains" are chopped.

As with the flowers, dice onions, sauté them, but with the
huitlacoche you will also add chopped tomatoes and green chile.
Hitlacoche is dry, so the tomato will give it moisture.
Some people add epazote, a very strong
flavored leaf or herb used in many Mexican dishes.

Our neighbors were having "carne asada" (BBQ)
so I shared the huitlacoche and flor de calabaza,
and they shared meat and sausages.
The stuff in the pot is huitlacoche. You can see
the epazote leaf near the top


A quesadilla of each (tortilla with string cheese, and a
spoonful of each dish). These are put to the heat so the
cheese melts.

Mmmm, we love it! But I can understand
if YOU don't.

Hope you enjoyed this "cooking lesson". If you have pumpkin flowers on hand you should try it. It is really good!
Have a nice evening, adios......

Palacio Clavijero

The place I liked the most in Morelia was the Clavijero Palace. It was built in the 17th century, and is now a museum. The day we went, there were seven expositions. There was a very cool one about modern, useful ceramics. There were some great designs there. Another exhibition was done by a sculpture artist who used obsidiana stone for some very interesting carvings. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed. I was only permited to photograph the building, the murals by Alfredo Zalce, and the poster exposition from the last biennal
competition. This is a competition done every two years, and there were posters from everywhere, with themes ranging from ecology, domestic violence, art, music, women's rights, animal preservation, anti-was, I mean every kind of theme. There were hundreds of poster. The whole top floor was full of these incredible creations.

This is the top part of the main entrance to the palace.

Through the main entrance you can see the fountain.

This is the courtyard with its fountain.



View of the courtyard fron the second floor.
You can see the floor pattern from here.

It was a bit cloudy, but the light effect was beautiful.
Wish I knew how to take better photographs.
Cannot even imagine what a profesional
photographer could do with this.

Alfredo Zalce's murals. Very Mexican muralists style.

They are painted in the stairwell that goes to the 2nd floor.

Love this one with the working hands and eyes.....

Looking down from the stairs you can see the fountain again.

View from one side to the other. These windows
do not have glass, they are just open rectangles.





Another side to side view. I just kind of
liked the way it looked.

And a few (very few!) examples of the posters.

I was surprised to see this one from my hometown,
Puerto Rico.

Too bad the glass gave off so much reflsection. No matter how I moved, the light from so many sources showed up on the photo.
There were so many, and I liked almost ALL of them.
So I hope you also enjoyed this small sample of this incredible museum. Next time I go, I'll try to get previous permission so they let me take photos of the other expositions.
Hope you have a lovely week!!