Hey Guys!! Just another quick reminder that you can buy our Casa Mascia products at the Placencia Sidewalk Festival this weekend. Annette Vernon (of Placencia Pop-Up Art) will be selling our stuff. She will have all the favourites including our Copal Medicinal Soap, Oil and Ointment. And there is much, much more!! Okay, I am not that good with the marketing jargon… it’s maximum velocity, awesome and out of this world (Ha-Ha)!!
Here are some pictures to entice you:
Have Fun at the Festival!!
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a lady in the States who had discovered our Casa Mascia products whilst on holiday in Toledo. I think that she bought a few items but once she was back home her young daughter became enthralled by them. Anyway, after a few excited emails back and forth, she ordered a whole load of extra goodies. I told her that the package would most likely reach her within two weeks via the Belize Postal Service.
The package was due to arrive at her address the beginning of this week. Yesterday, I received an email from this lady saying,
“The post office lost it at the post office…”
Now I didn’t exactly get the details of the story but it sounded like a lot of back and forth trips to the post office with cries of woe and frustration a-plenty.
Now, we have never had any of our packages lost in the post and this was our first time. So we decided that under these distressing circumstances the best thing to do was to send out a new package quick smart. The lady was understandably stressed over the loss of the package and so I tried to console her over an email,
“…these things have a way of working out so don’t worry about it.”
She asked me if I was covered for insurance and I looked at the back of the certificate of posting and read the following:
The short answer was “No.” If you actually care to read the small print it will make you laugh…it is totally archaic and out-dated and looks like it was the policy made back in the British Honduras days.
I was just about to start getting the new package together when I received the following email with “Look what we got!” and this absolutely priceless picture.
Here are more pictures with the opened package:
Apparently, it was a lost and found package! I didn’t ask anymore questions. All that is important is that this story has a very happy ending!
Sapodillas (Manilkara zapote) are in season again and this year we have a bumper harvest. The fruit has a very sweet caramel-honey taste. We have been picking them every morning. For an inexperienced picker, the ripe fruit forms a taut and shiny appearance. At first it is difficult to spot but after picking hundreds of them you can get the hang of it. Here is a picture of Gnome ready for action on the farm!
This year, we are going to sun-dry some of them. We like to eat them with beef jerky!
Some more sapodilla melomel would go down nicely!
Oooooh, so many to pick and so much to make!! We will of course eat some of them too…
The Wee Wee ants (or leaf cutter ants) are one of the most annoying things to any person wishing to grow their own plants and trees in Belize. These pesky ants come out in formidable numbers harvesting vegetation (leaves, flowers and cut grass) as a nutritional substrate for their fungus. They come out in such huge numbers, they are even capable of defoliating a tree in one night. We know this because it happens on our farm! One day, our tree is looking magnificent…the next day, it is totally destroyed!!
These ants usually form mounds above ground which lead down to their underground cities. I call them “cities” because these nests can grow to 100 ft (30m) across with smaller radiating mounds growing to about 260ft (80m) and can house eight million ants. Amazing!!
These wee wee ants cultivate a fungus by feeding it with fresh cut plant material (ie. all our lovely plants and trees). Furthermore, these ants carry a bacterium which protects the fungi from pests and molds. This is a really nice symbiotic relationship…sometimes you wish that us humans could form a better mutualistic relatiionship with the planet in the same way as these ants! The fungus is used to feed the ant larvae.
I asked Gnome,
“Why can’t humans behave properly like the ants and live in balance with the Earth?”
Gnome was in no mood for “love and light” and said:
“…because most of them are idiots!!”
Even though these ants are a real pest on our farm, I can’t help but admire them for their diligent activities.
The other day, we actually found a leaf-cutter colony above ground because it was hidden in a particularly overgrown area.
This is the fungus. We tasted a bit of it and it was quite sweet and mushroom-like. We are thinking of cultivating it to eat and like all this stuff, it probably has medicinal properties. The duckies certainly liked the mushroom as you can see them chomping it down:
Another Gnome project to add to the never-ending list!!
Hi Everyone!! I am writing to let you know that Annette Vernon of Placencia Pop-Up Art will be selling our Casa Mascia Apothecary products at the Placencia Sidewalk Festival next weekend. She will have all the following goodies: Copal Medicinal Oil Vials, Copal Medicinal Ointment, Copal Medicinal Soap, Itch Done Gone, Lemongrass Insect Repellent Balm, Jackass Bitters and Neem Soap and White Pitahaya soap. Look out for all these products…
Sorry we won’t be there this year!! If there is anybody that wants something that is not on the list please email me. Cheers and have fun at the festival this year!!
The Paradise Piggies are totally hogging the Blog space with their adamant requests to re-locate to the Monastery. Mayor Gnome is building a Zen Garden to house the Zazen Duckies that have a genuine desire to meditate on the meaning of life. In the last post the Piggies were trying to convince Mayor Gnome of their noble lofty values in a bid to move to the Monastery. But somehow their message lost momentum when Treshawn requested having a baby first and Bob requested growing organic tomatoes and Barbie gave a mixed message about love, light and Jedi Piggies. Mayor Gnome told them to come back when they could decide on a clear and coherent philosophy.
Now this is what the Paradise Piggies have come up with. They would like to start up a School:
They want to call it The School of Life and the purpose of this place is to teach the “dance of life.” In order to convince Mayor Gnome of their spiritual desires, they did a public demonstration with their best dance piggie. This is Johnnie Daybreeze, dance piggie extraordinaire:
They even had a tune to go with the dance…you need to listen to this and imagine this dance piggie prancing in front of you:
Any comments from Mayor Gnome?
“Hmmmmmm…I need to think about this.”
Anything else Piggies?
“Yes, Mayor Gnome just one more request. Can we change our name to Jedi Piggies by deed poll?”
Another gift from our missionary friend which we have coined Novelty Jesus Packets. On one hand, we are always grateful for the gifts bestowed on behalf of Jesus. On the other hand, we are aghast at this type of processed food in a packet. Each pack is supposed to hold one meal of pasta or rice. We found out that you can buy these rinky-dink things for $5.00 Belize Dollars. Do you know you can buy 5lbs of rice with that money? Or, five packets of pasta? Scary!!
We tried the Chicken rice one…apparently you have to add your own half chicken and 1/2 lb slab of Monterey cheese to complete the meal. Am I missing something then? What is the point in buying the packet when you have to buy all the ingredients for it? Might as-well just buy rice, right?
We did attempt to cook it as a meal. However, I did not have the chicken and cheese to go with it:
The original meal was supposed to be the rice portion on the upper left side. I had to add the rest because it looked rather pale, anaemic and sorry-looking. I added the greens to the rice to give it a bit of colour. The eggs and bread were a “last minute” make-over because the rice meal lacked ooomph!! Our verdict of the packeted rice: very, very salty and no interesting or pleasing flavour. Rather mundane. Nonetheless, the gift still provided an experience that we would otherwise not have and so I can now be certain that we are not missing out!
Mayor Gnome called an emergency meeting with the Paradise Piggies earlier in the day. If you have been following the events, you will know that Mayor Gnome is in the process of building a Zen garden to house the Zazen Duckies. The Paradise Piggies have made a special request to move to the Monastery.
Today Mayor Gnome explained to the piggies that the moving of their gated community of Paradise Pastures would be no mean feat as their home weighs a whopping 100kg (200lb). This would entail the movement of their home across a distance of 100 yards! He explained to the piggies:
“Piggies, you need to convince me that you are serious about your spiritual goals because moving your house to the monastery will be a lot of hard work…”
Are the piggies ready for the next move? These are a few answers from members of the Paradise Pastures community.
Treshawn Piggie:
“I’m ready…just need to have a baby first…”
Bob Piggie:
“I’m ready…spirituality is the most important thing in my life but I need to grow some mmm…organic tomatoes first.”
Barbie Piggie:
“Yes I know I am ready and it is time to take the next step. Yay…I want to be a Zazen Piggie! It is all about being Jedi, right? With the way of the Piggie, I will find the way…love and light. The force is strong in this one…WEEEEEEEEE!”
In amongst the general piggie noise of squealing and squawking, these were the most intelligible answers that Mayor Gnome managed to get. This was his reply:
“Piggies, you don’t seem know what you want. Come back to me when you can all agree on a spiritual goal!”
“Jedi Piggies, huh? Hmmmm…..what next?!”
This is an easy snack made from very simple ingredients. Use your favourite bread recipe to make about 1 to 2 cups of dough (depending on how much fried yum yums you desire) and roll it out on a flat surface.
Cut the dough into strips and then leave uncovered for about 2 hours if you are in the tropics. If you are in a temperate country, leave it out for about 4 to 6 hours.
When you are ready to fry, brush the surface of the strips with egg. Now, this is the inventive and exciting part and it is up to you how you flavour your breadsticks! You could try sesame seeds, anise, basil, garlic powder, Italian herbs, etc, etc. Just use your imagination!
This is what I did:
I separated the dough strips into three batches and with batch 1, I sprinkled rosemary and salt. Batch 2 had sprinkled paprika and salt and Batch 3 had brushed egg only; once fried and drained, sifted icing sugar was added.
Heat the vegetable oil to about 400F. Fry the bread sticks in the three batches. They should puff up nicely and cook within about 2 to 3 minutes. Drain well.
These are great as a snack or as an accompaniment to a meal. Our favourite was the batch sprinkled with icing sugar…savoury sweet!
If you recall in a previous article, there is a certain ground root that we coined “The Brain” because well, we thought it looked like a big brain!
Kind of…you really have to be a doctor to appreciate the brain thing. Other names are Amorphophallus paeoniifolis or elephant foot yam.
This is what the plant looks like:
It has a characteristic spotting on the stem and it also produces a beautiful flower. Ours hasn’t flowered yet so sorry, no picture as yet.
The good thing about this yam is that it can be harvested and stored for about 3 months. This is great for the tropics because most ground vegetables have to be processed soon after harvest or else they go bad…take for example cassava. Anyway, I left this brain out on the veranda for months before I found the time to sort it out. This is how you prepare elephant foot yam:
Wear a pair of gloves whilst processing as the uncooked root contains oxalic crystals which can cause itchy dermatitis. Firstly pare the root with a sharp knife and then cut into uniform cubes about an inch in size. Wash thoroughly with water.
Next, place in a cooking pot with a teaspoon of salt. Bring to boil and cook for about 30 to 40 minutes. After this, add about 100g (3oz) of cream cheese to the pot and boil for another 10 minutes. Traditionally, in Indian cuisine, curds or tamarind paste are added at this point to further remove the itchy sensation caused by the oxalic acid. I had neither ingredient in my kitchen, so I opted to use Philadelphia Cream Cheese which seemed to work in the same way.
Once tender, drain off the water. You can eat it at this point or bag it into smaller portions to store in the freezer. The yam can be eaten as a substitute in any potato dish and there are numerous traditional recipes on the Internet; usually in the form of wet and dry curries.
This yam grows prolifically in the Tropics and so I recommend that every self-sufficient person should have a patch of this growing somewhere on their land. This is great survival food because there is so much of it!