Remembering Mexico

When I lived in Mexico, I bought 99% of my ingredients at the market, where all of the food was brought in from nearby farms by little old ladies who loaded their wares on the top of second class chicken buses at the crack of dawn, and livestock were walked in by the farmers.  Nothing had traveled more than 20 or 30 miles.  Flash to today's Farmers Market and you'll find farmers who have driven their trucks into the urban jungles of Washington DC from up to 100 miles away.  Still, that's better than the sad excuse for produce that has traveled all the way from Mexico to Washington DC.

Now, since my CSA started, I have had to exercise incredibly restraint at the Farmers Market and not buying produce.  Its hard to see all of the beautiful produce lined up in the stands without drooling just a little.  And so, I have graduated to buying dairy and meat, a luxury I could not afford in previous years. 

This trip was a carnage of poussin, the first chickens of the year which just "can't be beat" (according to the farmer), nearly 3 pounds of pork spareribs, grassfed cow milk yogurt, raw milk habanero cheese, free range eggs (the elderly farmer who sells these gems always has a few cheery words each week... this week my tattoo was dutifully admired), and mushrooms.  The bounty of the Farmers Market, and memories of the times when I lived in Mexico, made me crave a Mexican-style breakfast. 

And so, I dug out some masa, whipped up a few tortillas and cooked until golden brown and able to withstand the toppings I was about to unload on them:

* One perfectly cooked sunny-side up egg.  Seriously, the joys of a perfectly cooked sunny-side up egg was worth buying a non-stick Calphalon pan.  I use stainless steel normally, but this non-stick pan makes magic.

* Crumbled habanero raw milk cheese from Keswick Creamery.

* A few lightly sauteed mushrooms from my grab bag o' mushrooms.

* The last bits of my CSA tomato diced.

* A huge dollop of sofrito made from cilantro, stewed tomatos, onion, and jalapenos. 

Yummmmm, so good.