Steaks and booze

The rest of the Fletcher party is flying in tonight. They’ll spend the night in Punta Esmeralda and in the morning head north to their house in Custodio. I plan on joining them up there over the weekend for a day or two. Their house, Casa Corona del Mar, is beautiful but it’s a bit isolated—the nearest real town, Zacualpan, which is really not much more than a dusty little village with a couple of paleta shops and a stand where you can get excellent roasted chicken—is about half an hour away. Usually the Fletchers will stop at the Mega store on their way through Bucerias for basics but since they won’t be getting here until nine or so this evening, I offered to make a Mega run for them to pick up any necessities. Chris Fletcher e-mailed me back with the following grocery list:

–8 rib-eye steaks

–2 bottles good tequila

–bottle of Controy

–6 bottles good white wine

–6 bottles good red wine

–2 bottles Champagne

That was their grocery list. Booze and steaks. Since they’re going to be there for all of four nights I was a little surprised they didn’t need more wine.

In the afternoon, after we’d had lunch at Mark’s in Bucerias, we dropped Signe off at the condo so she could take a well-deserved nap and then Mechas and I went out to Mega. Mega is just like any major supermarket in the U.S. except they tend to run out of things and then it might take a week or two before they have them again. For instance, last week I’d grilled up a couple of sweet potatoes I’d gotten at Mega and thought I might do that for the dinner I’m making tonight for the Fletchers but when I went to get some more, the store was out. A woman in a hairnet stacking tomatoes said, when I asked her if they had any more sweet potatoes, “Sí, vamos a tener muchos más la próxima semana.” Yes, we will have more next week.

One thing I particularly love at Mega is their mix of chili-spiced nuts and sunflower seeds and little crackers. You can get something like it at any Mexican store, but this mix is particularly good. The only problem is that you never know if Mega is going to have them or not. The first day I got here, I bought the only jar on the shelf and I haven’t seen any since. You might wonder, Why would that be? There is no reason.

Anyway, Mechas and I went to Mega and bought the tequila and the wine (we didn’t get the Champagne because there was none) and then we went to their excellent meat counter and asked the butcher for eight good-sized rib-eye steaks.

“It is not possible,” said the butcher, barely glancing up from the massive piece of beef he was carving up.

“No rib-eyes?” I asked, intentionally glancing at the section of cow from which the rib-eye comes that was just inches away from the butcher’s sharp thin knife.

“No,” he assured me. “Only New York steaks.”

“You have New York steaks but no rib-eyes?”

“Claro.”

If this was a supermarket in the United States, I would have said, “What about the rib-eyes that are clearly on that hunk of cow you are butchering?” But this is not the United States and such a question in Mexico would be rude and inappropriate. So instead, I just shrugged and asked him to cut me eight New York steaks, which he promptly did.

When we got to the check-out stand, I laid all of the bottles of booze on their side, as they like you to do at Mega. As the conveyor belt brought our horde of liquor up to the checker, I saw her almost involuntarily lift one eyebrow.

“It’s not for me,” I told her. “Es para mis amigos.”

She smiled. “It’s okay,” she said cheerfully. Then the young boy who bags the groceries for tips let out a low whistle and, without saying anything, went off to get us a couple of boxes for all the wine. Under the guise of putting my credit card back into my wallet, I made Mechas wheel out the grocery cart full of booze to our car and load it in the back. After all, I was driving.