We are learning here that if you want good eats from your own kitchen, you have to take some initiative.

Back home, there was Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joe’s, and other specialty shops where a person really didn’t have to look too far in order to procure interesting ingredients, spices, and condiments.

So, we were thrilled to get into “the system” here—-that of figuring out who knows whom, who can get access to a fishing boat to get fresh fish, and when (roughly!)  the fellows with the seafood truck will be coming through town to sell frozen shrimp (or camarones in Spanish).

It’s just how things are here—-you can’t buy frozen seafood in any of the three local supermercados.  Chicken, yes.  Mortadella and sausages, yes.  But not seafood.

But a lady I have met here knows a lady who dropped by today, and she knows a guy who happens to have…..and so, this afternoon, we are getting two mackerels!

The world is our school.  The way you get a mackerel here is not the way we did at Whole Foods, or in the freezer section of some container store.  The way you prepare a mackerel here is the way we would have had to had we caught it ourselves.  Time to learn about why and how we need to gut an animal for cooking!  We have one semi-sharp long knife among our apartment’s kitchen utensils, so wish us luck.

I bought onions, carrots, garlic, celery, rice and oil. We’re going to poach the mackerel because we have no grill.

I bought limones.  We’re going to clean all of our utensils and dishes with lemon halves so that our place won’t reek of fish for the next two months.

And the kids?  They’ll remember today.  They’ll remember their mom communicating with her hands and feet in semi-español, negotiating the procurement of the fish, and they’ll have a vivid image of the gutting process, the poaching, the tasting of our finished product.

And tomorrow, the big news in town is that the weekly fish truck will come through.   Rumor has it that it will be around 6 p.m.  That will give me time to get the ingredients all chopped up and ready for Costa Rica’s famous dish, arroz con camarones:

I will need:

* 2 libras de arroz,

* 1 libras de camarones pequeno pelados,

* 2 cubitos de camarones,

* 1/2 cebolla picada, * 1 barra de margarina,

* 1/2 chile verde picado, * 1 zanahoria picada fina,

* sal y pimienta al gusto,

* 1/2 ramita de apio y agua lo necesario.

I love how cooking lets us learn Spanish the alimentary way.  We all know that the way to a person’s heart, as well as linguistic competence, is through the stomach.

I love how putting a meal together here is a strategic challenge.  For that, it will taste all the better at the table.