Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

Tamales are a typical Christmas dish in Costa Rica.  When we were in Guatemala, the Spanish school we were attending had a cooking class every week.  Both times we made tamales.  Ever since we went to Mexico in April last year I had wanted to try and make my own tamales.  Now that we are living in a place with a kitchen I decided to give it a try.

We did some shopping for Christmas dinner and I picked up a few things for tamales: tomatoes, chicken, onions, masa (some sort of corn flour used for making tamales).  I found a recipe on the internet for a filling and made it on the evening of the 23^rd.  It ended out tasting good.  Cooking this simple mixture was more fun than you could imagine for me, since we’ve hardly done any cooking in the last 5 months.  We’ve done really simple cooking, but nothing that is even the slightest bit labor intensive.  To be able to spread out and just cook like at home is fun by itself.

Where it really became interesting was working with the banana leaves.  In some parts of Latin America people make tamales with corn husks.  In others they make them with banana leaves.  I guess that the deciding factor in which one they use is what crop is near and more readily abundant.  We’ve driven through numerous banana plantations in Costa Rica, so I figure it is just a matter of convenience that they wrap their tamales in banana leaves instead of corn husks.

Matthias and I went out for an hour and a half to do our Christmas shopping in the center of town.  The streets were bustling with activity, people selling their wares on every corner, lots of people shouting announcing what they are selling and what a good deal it is, cars passing and honking.  The market place is nestled on the inside of one street block.  It is a series of dark, narrow, isles lined with stalls of people selling everything imaginable.  Near the meat and fish vendors the smell is quite distinct.  We wound our way through this maze and left with two and a half kilos of banana leaves. 

At home I began to unfold and inspect the leaves.  Each leaf is around 5 feet long.  The tips tend to be sliced into small narrow strips, and the larger sections, big enough for steaming tamales, are at the other end.  I sorted through each leaf, saving sections large enough for tamales and discarding the narrow strands.  The smell of the leaves is earthy and a bit unpleasant.  I wondered if the smell would transfer to my tamales.  After sorting through this pile, I washed each section and hung them out to dry like laundry. 

Working with the leaves was such a great experience.  They are fibrous and thick like a piece of canvas with a thick center stem.  But they are also smooth and fibrous.  In one direction the leaves are sturdy and impermeable.  In the other direction they rip without effort.  The ease with which the leaves split is fulfilling and fun.   (Matthias put some pictures of me working with the tamales on our flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebays)

I figured my parents must really wonder about me.  They raised a good girl in Woodinville, Washington and here they see me quitting my good job at Microsoft, taking off in an old van, and here they meet us where I bring home a bag of unknown.  I explore them unfolding these massive leaves, not native to the Northwest, and take over the kitchen with these long wide leaves.  I’m not sure they know what to make of all this, but at least they are open as I am their daughter. 

On the evening of the 24^th I started to make the tamales.  The dough is just a mixture of corn flour, oil and water.  I mixed it with my hands and once I had the right consistency I started to spread the dough on the squares of banana leaves.  The filling is smeared on top of the dough, and then you fold them up like a small package.  I read on the internet that it is a good idea to wrap each tamale in a second piece of banana leaf and then tie them with a piece of twine.  When I had used up the tomato-chicken filling I added sugar to the rest of the mass and continue making sweet tamales for dessert. 

To cook them I took some forks and spoons and put them in the bottom of a pot with about an inch of water.  This was to keep the tamales above the boiling water since we didn’t have room for a tamale steamer in the Yoda Van.  I lined the pot with banana leaves and put the tamales in the pot on their side.  They were steamed for about 45 minutes and they actually turned out wonderful.  Even my Dad and Matthias (who both admitted to not really liking tamales) said they were good.  Knowing Matthias, he’s pretty straight up about what he thinks.  I’d know he’d tell me if he didn’t like it, so they must have been alright.

It was nice to spend Christmas a different way, in a different place than usual, with different food.  However, for me, and I think for all of us, it makes us look forward to spending Christmas next year the way we always do, in Woodinville with our good friends the Richards.  We’ve spent Christmas with them for so many years and this was the first time in a long time that I’ve missed it.  Spending time away from what you know is the best way to find out what is important and reminds me what to appreciate.

We all knew the in-laws would (literally) still be here. My mother has been suffering since shortly after she arrived: diarrhea, vomiting, sun burns, bug bites, and even a blister on her foot from her new flip-flops. To top it all off, (and the reason for our blog title) is that we even had a family blow out. My Mom is a pleaser by nature. She avoids confrontations like the plague, so family fights are even more unpleasant for her. I guess a fight is to be expected when we were all living in a 2 bedroom apartment and spending every waking moment together. Luckily it seemed to blow over fairly fast and we’re all back in vacation mode. The sun burns, bug bites and blisters still persist, however.

We still had a great time at the coast. Our apartment was so close to the beach and we went swimming in the ocean almost every morning, while my Mom played with the kids in the sand. There were several swimming pools at the place we stayed and we went swimming every evening (after the sun went down as to not aggravate my mother’s sunburns). You really can’t complain about 8 lazy days on the beach.

After 8 days at Playa Hermosa we headed back to Alajuela. We rented this apartment in a sort of hotel/gated community/complex sort of thing. We’re not exactly in the middle of Costa Rican life. Actually the heart of Costa Rican life is playing outside the big 15 foot gate that surrounds the facility. However, for us, right now, it serves our purpose – to spend time with our family. We have a soccer field, a small playground, swimming pools and secure parking. We can cook, do laundry and watch TV while lying on the sofa. Honestly, Matthias and I have both missed being in a place where you can just lie on a sofa and watch TV.

We are a half-German, half-American family and we also have to alter our regular Christmas routines of childhood to accommodate both of us. That works out great for William and Julian because they get to celebrate both. The “Christkind” comes on the evening of the 24th and Santa comes on the morning of the 25th. Each of those guys brings presents. For the first time my parents will be a part of the German half of our celebrations.

We’ve also had our 3rd official visit to the hospital in Costa Rica. Julian fractured a bone in his foot and is not supposed to walk for the next 2 weeks. None of us saw what happened, but he just started crying and was obviously in pain on Saturday morning. After his foot started to swell and turn purple we took him to the hospital. They immobilized his foot and he is not supposed to walk for 2 weeks. I’m not sure that is even possible for a 2 year old. At least for now his foot hurts enough so he doesn’t want to walk. We will be doing a lot of carrying in the next 2 weeks.

Matthias has had a nasty ear infection that weren’t cured by two courses of antibiotics. We went back to the doctor that removed William’s stitches and he prescribed 3 shots in the ass, an infusion of who knows what, drops in his ears, and 2 different pills he is supposed to take a different intervals. The good thing is that this aggressive course of action has knocked out all pain in his body and his ear infection seems to be cleared up. Keep your fingers crossed that the six of us survive this Christmas.

We’ve put some recent pictures up on our flickr site. Click here to go straight to the site. Or you can use the URL http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebays/

We uploaded some pictures of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.