Yucatan Day 10: Cooking class in Merida

Journal entry:

We packed up and walked over to Los Dos for our cooking class. We were greeted by Chef David himself. His house was beautiful with an open courtyard complete with pool, tropical plants and a singing love bird. We had a light breakfast, then our first lesson about the history of the Yucatan. This included why the Mayans are at odds with the "Chilanos" from the mainland. Then we walked to the market with our shopping lists. David explained the different ingredients as we walked through the market.
When we got back there was cold hibiscus juice waiting for us, and we proceeded to learn to make tortillas. We did a taste comparison to the machine made tortillas we had purchased at the market. Then we fried the ones we had made up and filled the others with beans and fried these also, these formed the base of our lunch snacks. They finished preparing them for us with chicken, lettuce, onion, tomato. They are called Panuchos and salbutes. They were delicious. We topped them with an habanero sauce we had made - it was pretty hot. Aaron covered everything in it. Then we started on dinner...I sauteed leeks and onions for our cilantro soup in butter. Aaron stirred the rice in lard until it turned translucent. Then he added garlic, onions, stock and cilantro making it green. We also made chicken that had been brined by coating it in sour orange and anchiote paste. We then wrapped it up with a tomato, some onion and bell pepper and with this herb that smelled like formaldehyde in a banana leaf and smoked it in a homemade pib on his stove top.
We were then served beer and wine and then dinner. The soup was delicious, so buttery and good, topped with the machine made tortillas fried in lard and salted (easily the best chips I've ever eaten). Dinner was good also, but there was way more than I could eat. The chicken was tender and flavorful. The rice was good too. Dessert was sweetened plantains with honey and sorbet. They were made from tropical fruits I didn't know and couldn't remember the names of. The best though, was actually made from corn...it had a simple vanilla like flavor.
Then we hopped on a bus to Cancun for 4 hours. There was a weird movie (found out later it was Down in the Valley ) We were so confused as to what was going on in this movie, trying to figure it out in Spanish.
Aaron went to the back of the bus to use the bathroom, but couldn't figure out how to get the door open...we watched the next person go back so we could see how it was done. This older woman walked back, and just yanked as hard as she could. And that was how it was done, it was hilarious. When I went in, after very carefully hovering without touching anything (it was disgusting in there) while the bus bumped around, I found that it was also necessary to throw your shoulder into the door as if going in for a drug raid to get out.
We found a hostel quickly, a 4 bed room, as nothing else was available for $25 a night with air conditioning.



Our cooking friends in the dining room


The courtyard


Spices at the market


Chiles



Dinner


A pet, they had all sorts of animals at the market. Some were for eating, some were not.


Aaron learning to make tortillas


Our lunch


The kitchen



Aaron wrapping up the chicken


Sooo good, I would have been happy with just this!


Chicken pibil, rice and pickled onions


Dessert