TheExpatJournals.com

Honestly, I fear that when I do finally re-ascend from this computer screen, I’ll have no friends left! I haven’t been writing because typically, I’ve written about what I’ve done, where I’ve been, what I’ve learned and these days, leaving the house is typically only reserved for when it’s essential…like groceries. So since all I see or experience these days is really the inside of my apartment, what you get is the likes of my ‘Drawing The Line’ journal. And now this.

Today, I got up from the computer and went to the kitchen to pour myself a nice glass of maracuya juice. That’s passion fruit if you’ve never heard of maracuya. I bought the BonLac brand rather than mixing it myself from the concentrate. I have the frozen concentrate because it’s become an essential element in my smoothies: banana, pineapple, a little maracuya concentrate, ice and a little of whatever juice is on hand. Yum! Okay, back to my juice…the first thing I need is ice. And that’s when it struck me how different it is here simply because I make my ice in ziplock bags now. I no longer use ice cube trays.

I learned that from the locals. They make duros (frozen fruit juice popsicles) in these little plastic bags that they tie up. Kids buy them for .10-.25 cents. Back when they cut my electricity while I was out of town (5 years later, they decided the meter was not properly installed), I got back to a fridge with a residual smell for way too long and had to either buy a new fridge or wait it out. And zip locks were my savior then! Since I could no longer make ice without fear of it having the flavor of that smell, I sent a local to get some for me. He came back with a block of ice in a plastic bag. It was made in the plastic bag, not placed there. And I thought, how clever, and immediately followed suit.

What I found was that, even after the fridge had once again returned to normal scent, I still liked the ice in a bag better. Ice can take on freezer burn which corrupts the taste…but not in a ziplock. And the best part is that now I have crushed and cracked ice, not just cubes. Crushed ice expedites a smoothie and just makes anything I’m drinking with ice seem better somehow. I simply fill up a ziplock with water, lay it flat in the freezer and when it’s frozen, I remove it from the freezer and slam it a couple of times on the tile floor. Works great! I then put the chunks and shards in a tupperware container. And it was from that I filled my glass and proceded to pour my maracuya.

Every morning, I open a ziplock bag filled with sugar for my morning coffee. I immediately close it back, make sure it’s securely shut and, not only has not a single ant discovered this motherlode, but there’s not a clump in it during the rainy season! I’m going to have to try this trick with salt next.

So shortly after my resolve to rid myself as well as I could of ants, I opened a drawer full of rice, beans, and other kitchen items only to find quite a few of those damn grain bugs crawling around. Okay, time to take care of that problem. Up until a couple of months ago, there was a Rice Pilaf mix brand I’ve been loyal to for years that was unavailable in Panama. El Rey carries it now, Near East is the brand. Last year, a friend came down and brought me a dozen boxes of it. Fortunately, I only lost one to the bugs. Seems most of the bugs came from a bag of beans. I took everything out of the drawer, threw away anything they lived in and put everything else in ziplock bags. And, btw, those things that were already in ziplock bags had no bugs whatsoever.

Meanwhile, back to the fridge…in what started out as a way to use the fridge and give it time to resume a normal fragrance meant everything had to be sealed. Well, it’s been back to normal for quite awhile, but what I discovered in the process was what an advantage it was in the first place. I pulled out some tortilla chips today that have been ziplocked in my fridge for at leat 3 weeks and they were as crisp as though I had just opened the bag. If I leave chips or crackers out in this humidity, they will go stale overnight, if not quicker. And crackers will absorb moisture in the fridge if they aren’t well sealed in ziplocks. And that paper butter comes in has never been enough protection from a flavor that wasn’t there when I bought it. Ziplocks are the answer.

You know the ‘when it rains it pours’ slogan on what? Morton’s Salt? Well not down here. The rainy season and salt equals learn to use your hands or fingers when it comes to using salt because it definitely won’t pour. But I’d be willing to place a wager that, at room temperature, ziplocks will do the trick.

I did take a day trip up to the interior a week or so ago. We stopped at the El Rey in Coronado and as I was waiting outside, having a cigarette I couldn’t have in the car, I saw a bag boy come rushing out yelling at a departing customer. The customer had apparently purchased pre-paid phone cards and then forgotten them. I thought to myself that it would have been very easy to keep an item like that, but I truly appreciated the fact that they didn’t.

About 3 weeks ago, I was also out of town in a little town where I was the only gringo for miles around. I had lunch with 5 Panamanians, 3 were local and 2 worked for Casastro in Panama City. I was going to head up a road after lunch that is relatively desolate and normally impassable without a 4WD, but because it had been so dry, I thought it woudl be okay in my rental. A lady I had met through a mutual friend was aghast at the thought of me heading there on my own. So she insisted her cousin come with me. He did. It turned out that I would have been perfectly fine on my own, nevertheless, I enjoyed the way she looked out for me. That, I find, is normal here, not extraordinary. The people just embrace you like one of their own. And how extraordinary is that?

On a final note…things I would HIGHLY recommend:

1. I recently bought Butterball Smoked Turkey Sausage at El Rey in San Francisco and wow! Get some. If you can’t eat it all, close up the bag it came in using a rubber band on one end and then put that inside of a ziplock bag. It lasted well that way for me.
2. Ceviche Verde or Ceviche with Apple (Manzana) at Deli Gourmet. The ceviche with apple is probably for those of us who like cinnamon raisin bagels…not traditional and verges on being a dessert, but isn’t. Wonderful stuff.
3. VitaSlim 1.5% milk. This is the ONLY milk I’ve found in Panama that I can drink. My first year here, I didn’t have a glass of milk because I couldn’t find milk I liked. I love this milk. In the US, I drank 2% milk…hate non-fat/skim and could drink whole, but preferred the 2%. In Panama, like England, I find the whole to taste too rich. 1.5% is perfect!
4. Betzabe anything, but especially the Chicken Curry Pot Pie. Riba Smith used to carry Betzabe, but now I think you have to go to her shop in San Francisco to buy her brand. Worth the trip.
5. Uchuvas. These are tiny little yellow fruits from Colombia that look akin to a smaller version of the yellow cherry tomatoes but taste more akin to star fruit. Slice them in half and use in a green salad. They’re slightly sweet, but more tart than anything. You will keep buying them. El Rey, Riba Smith, Mini-Max Bal Harbor, etc.
6. Those $.25 cent packets of garlic powder. Anything else will turn into a rock unless you keep it in the freezer or maybe a Ziplock bag?