Muchacho Polaco

Monday night was New Year’s Eve and we had the joy of celebrating it with friends in Tucson. Surprisingly, this year we were able to make it to midnight.

Spent New Year’s at Charles and Julie’s house here in Tucson. Good times, good food, good drinks. We are looking forward to their visit in the new year in a month in Hermosillo.

We are headed to Tucson in the next hour or so. Last night’s preparations can be seen in the picture above. 600 gram cuts (1.3 lbs) for the hombres. These are the kind that put you into a coma upon completion. So excite.

Late dinner xmas eve tradition. We had all sort of tamles and other goodies. This year was Gab’s house.

Last week we went to a xmas celebration at the orphanage in San Pedro. Yun wasn’t able to go due to other obligations, but Orlando and Ana joined me.

We had a nice lunch yesterday after our church service.

I made 6 loaves of 3 varieties today. So nice to get a chance to make bread again.

2x chiltepin and cheese

2x chile piquin and garlic

2x fetta cheese, dried tomato, and grern olives

We went to a Naranjeros baseball game last night. Normally soccer is the most popular sporting event in Mexico, but in our city baseball ranks just as high and that we have one of the highest ranked baseball teams in the country. We never been to a game before, but last night a neighbor invited us to a game.

We went out to lunch to a place near the house last Sunday. This is our second time there and hopefully our last. Overpriced and the food is mediocre at best.

I have been trying to familiarize myself with my new oven. There are a few challenges, one of which is getting steam to stay in the chamber and not be exhausted. The other challenge is running on gas. Gas seems much more affordable than electricity here, but the problem of course is running out of gas in the middle of a bake. That’s what happened yesterday. I was able to switch the tanks under 20 minutes, but it clearly had impact on the quality of the bread as the bake time was a total mystery.

I made three different options yesterday. I made two loaves of chiltepin and Mennonite cheese. I made two loaves of chiltepin and garlic. And I made two loaves of Chile de Arbol. I did not pre-shape and did a 40-minute autolyze.

There are so many variables that complicate the process and I am inevitably making multiple mistakes in the process. The photo above will help me remember some of the details for this round.