Summer Semesters are great

Although it's never really "winter" in Cholula, it actually was colder during November and December. But recently sun has gained in strength considerably. Right now we have 26°C and - quite uncommon for Cholula - you can go out at night without jacket. Remember: Our location is 2.146m above sea level. Last night I slept with an open window for the first time. It's awesome to wake up and hear the birds singing, the crock crowing and then looking out of the window and say good morning dear cows on the field, dear Popocatépetl in the back.

Live Webcam of Popocatépetl, provided by CENAPRED

 Even better, after 5 1/2 semesters I still love my studies. It's a lot to do, but that's why you really should have some strong interest in corporate strategy, finance, international trade agreements and economics. The last two days I was lying under a huge tree at our campus lake, reading a case study about Starbucks while enjoying the ducks' quack. When sun goes down at around 6.30pm the lanterns of the taco store on the other side of the lake are refelected in the water and I actually feel more like back in Beijing, relaxing at Shichahai Lakes. With a big advantage: No other people, as most Mexican students don't stay in Cholula or at least on campus during the weekends (have I ever mentioned the importance of family in Mexican culture...).

Yinding bridge at Shichahai Lakes, provided by flickr

Apart, I'm really content with an aspect that highly influences my mood: Food. As I mentioned, since the beginning of this semester I cook for myself again, because first and foremost Mexican food sucks. Second, restaurants, be it lokal or international cuisine, really is not that good and always leaves me behind with the thought "man, I can do this so much better", third: I missed cooking, and especially decent Asian cuisine (when I tell you that I actually brought some chopsticks with me when I came to Mexico you might be able to imagine how crazy I go for that stuff).

Ok, so now I have the necessary kitchen equipment and step by step I discover decent substitutes for the original Asian or whatever ingredients. Since logistics infrastructure in Mexico is... well let's say "improvable", foreign goods are either not available, or ridiculously expensive. And of course in a country where 50% of the population lives below the poverty line, demand for exotic goods keeps within narrow limits.

But what now really created a "wow" effect was when I found stuff you can get as staple in Germany, but which is not so widely available, yet original here. Examples are quark, cottage cheese, flakes of desiccated coconut... Back in Germany I don't like quark because of it's acidic taste and pretty dry texture. But here it's not acidic at all, what makes it a decent source of protein in a country where tofu lovers have to suffer (not even talking about delicacies like tempeh). Yesterday I found cottage cheese, which I did like back in Germany - but the one I bought here is uncomparable. Such a creamy texture, such a rich taste. Same with grated coconut: It's not just dry and somehow good after being roasted. No, it's so fresh it still has some taste resembling marzipan. Already a real treat without roasting. The conclusion of this: The fact that logistics in many parts of Mexico are underdeveloped also brings an advantage: Many things you get here are produced and sourced locally and hence you get the freshest produce. The cheese vendor warned me that due to it's high liquid content the cottage cheese will only be good for two days (haha, it was all gone the very same day...). In Germany you get the packaged industrial stuff. I probably had never eaten such a incredibly fresh cottage cheese before. It's a huuuuge difference. And equally with the quark: You can buy it wrapped in corn leaves and when eating you literally still seem to hear the cow mooing, so fresh is it. Ingredients are sourced here, no artificial stuff is put in, it's made the traditional way - you just get great but I tell you great quality if you know where and when to go.

Quark in corn leave, provided by Wikimedia Commons

Apart, some ingredients which I thought to be Asian can be found here as well, just because over the decades people had the same ideas of how to process certain stuff. Yesterday I bought piloncillo, which is unrefined whole cane sugar. I knew that ingredient as it's widely used in Mexican cuisine. But when I tried it pure for the first time yesterday, I was really surprised, because it exactly tastes as jaggery, which I used in Germany for many Indian dishes. How nice - jaggery in Mexico.

Piloncillo (unrefined cane sugar) surprised me, because finally I have my jaggery here in Mexico (image provided by nourishedkitchen.com)

The only thing what was while not disappointing, really not overwhelming: Honey. Given that Mexico is the second largest provider of honey in Germany (after Argentina), I would have thought that here you have a wide range of sorts and good quality. But apparently the country is exporting all the premium stuff, leaving behind just the average. People don't understand that "honey" is not "honey", that it heavily depends on the plants you expose the bees to. That it does matter how you handle the extraction process, etc. But here you get mostly liquid honey, or "butter honey", which is nothing else but the more solid and spreadable one (which I like more). No distinction in pollen or anything, and the taste is not much more than sweet - a slightly more complex flavour profile would be nice...

But it's fine, I'm happy with my new findings and each and every time I go to the market it's a bit like holiday. Vendors are sooo nice. There's my vegetable vendor Maria, who is always asking if my family is fine and if I don't miss them (for many Mexicans it's unbelievable to leave behind his family for such a long time). There's Elvira, who produces the very best Tlacoyos (oval-shaped kind of small tortilla, filled with crushed beans and stripes of avocado leaves, quark, or fried pork rinds. Yesterday she introduced me to (read: gave me as a present) her wheat tortillas, which are awesome as well. Like in the case of sesame, the fact that ingredients are often still processed at home or at least not in a highly industrialized manner is favorable for the taste. Things like husking wheat or hulling sesame just don't work 100% perfect, or are just omitted to save labour. So we end up with whole wheat tortillas and unhulled sesame seeds - sooo much better, healthy, you name it.
There's my cheese vendor who always makes me stuff my face with the great stuff she gives me to try. There are Kevin and Alex, the 10 and 7 year old boys of my blue corn tortilla vendors, who always give me a sip of coke, or a steaming hot tortilla while there parents are freshly making my order of tortillas (which are perfectly freezable, so you can easily buy 2 kilos at a time). Of course people know how to socialize in order to do business. But still, I feel they are also open, interested, and just friendly without solely thinking of establishing a relationship to enhance customer loyalty. Besides, also vendors I have never come before and I probably won't go again (because I buy some ingredient I don't use regularly or which lasts long) are really nice, interested and talkative.

And to end this food talk (which probably no one will read, but it's a nice memory for me) I want to mention that it's tremendously interesting to live with a US American since this semestre. Saving energy to reduce CO2 emissions? Where's the connection? And by the way, global warming? Please... Fracking? Great thing! Weapons? For sure! But alcohol, I tell you, is reaaaally devilish (as a nondrinker I partly have to agree here). He talks about healthy eating and always uses an empty plastic bottle to get the bad egg yolk out of his omelett mixture, scans the bar code of every product he consumes in order to track his sodium intake, buys only low-fat, no-sugar products, but at the same time his diet heavily depends on convenience store pizza... hrm. Ah and of course he misses good burgers. He lives for sports and watches his university's basketball games online. He washed his dishes by just leaving the tap open for several minutes, so that the water cleans everything (he also uses detergent, but I'm talking about the waste of water the minutes before). He didn't grasp my argument why Germans are not so fond of plastic bags and I love his sentence "Well, I don't know if Germany is different from the rest of Europe, but..." (hey, at least he knows that Germany is a country in Europe). We are both amazed about the sidewalks here: He, because they exist and are used by pedestrians, me, because they are so bad and still used. But of course he really misses his car - walking outside? What for? But ok, he drives a Volkswagen, that's something.

Don't get me wrong: I know, I'm really talking mean and bad and everything about him, but it's just sooo awesome how he just 100% perpetuates each and every stereotype one could have about Americans. In fact, I really like talking to him, because he's very polite and gives me a nice insight into his culture. And as I'm planning to do the TOEFL test in order to apply for my master studies, it's also a nice practice of English, which has suffered heavily during my stay here, talking Spanish all the time.

So, that's it for now. Back to work. See you!