Men's Group Celebrates Their Women

How else? By consuming ice-cold beer and having a Bar-B-Q, BBQ, Barbecue, Barbeque, Bar-B-Que, or Barbie. And, as usual, Wikipedia, the online source of all knowledge, has a large chunk of information about the subject at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue).

Anyway, I think it was Craig who originally came up with the idea, but managed to get enough cohorts of a like mind, that the Corozal Men's Group was motivated enough to actually put on the bash.

Craig and I went shopping for most of the big items, meat, fish, veggies, and other cooking supplies.

This was intended to be a photo-documentary of not only the shopping (although that would be interesting in and of itself), but the cooking and of course, the consuming. Unfortunately, that sort of "clicked" to a halt when my camera quit working for the evening. Well, that and perhaps a beer or two too many may have helped with the confusion factor.

So, to document the shopping experience. Since Craig and Mae's maroon beast was still in the shop being morphed into a metallic green beast, courtesy of one of Corozal's best Earl Sheib paint shop imitators, I took the Isuzu, newly out of the mechanic's shop itself, after having gotten a new clutch, body mounts all around, A/C fanbelt, and turn signal short all sorted out, and picked up Craig for our morning adventure of speed-shopping.

Our first stop was to Jud's Meat Shop and Deli, since we didn't want to take a chance on them selling out the 10 pounds of baby ribs we had reserved the day before.

Craig In A Determined Pose Outside Jud's

I have to say, I do like Jud's Meats. It's always clean inside, and their ground beef with the peppers and spices they add into it when they grind it, is something special.

Here's the proprietor, showing Craig the rack of ribs we were going to have cut into individual portions. Nice looking piece of meat.

Craig Checking Out the Goods

A couple of things on display in the store was this armadillo, and a wood snake. Not just a wood snake (if there is such a thing) but, a wooden snake. Close-up, it looks pretty authentic.

Armadillo's, Oh My

Snakes, More Oh My

From Jud's, it was just a hop, skip and jump up to D's Supermarket, where we bought a whole batch of stuff. Here's Craig checking out a bottle of coconut rum - he eventually opted for the cheaper Traveller's brand (which took a fatal dive onto the concrete steps once we arrived at Jim's), and then, there's me showing how we buy eggs in Corozal. Eggs, regardless of size, sell for about $0.30 BZD each no matter where you shop.

In the Liquor Isle

Eggs-zactly

Here's Amelita (on the right) checking our purchases for us. She is one of the few checkers in town that always gives you a receipt - a nice touch.

Amelita (right) and Her Helper

From D's, we hotfooted it over to Frank's Meat Products. This is another favorite meat shop. We get some great cuts of beef and pork here. Today, we're buying a fillet of Chilean salmon, farm-raised, but mighty tasty. I know, not in the same league as the northwest salmon, or even Copper River salmon, but when you can't get that, the Chilean variety will do wonders.

Craig Describing What He Wants

The Girls Digging For It

And, here it is, on the scale, looking mighty good, They keep it in black plastic, even in the freezer, otherwise, exposure to light down here will kill the color. That fillet cost $78.00 BZD, and was worth every penny.

Weighing the Salmon

Our final stop on this shopping trip was to the Corozal Market. Craig had a whole laundry-list of veggies to get, including ten pounds of potatoes. He wanted red potatoes, but they've just gone out of season, so we got whites. We live and breath with the veggie seasons here, not like Safeway, or Piggly Wiggly up north.

Craig Describing the Veggies He Needs

While we were shopping, we were found by Wendy, Roger's wife. They're just newly returned from five weeks in Britain, and glad to be back.

Wendy Congratulating Us On A Fine Shopping Job

Here's the stall vendor at the market. Her little girl was very much interested in the camera. So much so, she couldn't keep her fingers off of it and somehow goobered the settings, which I didn't discover till we got to Jim's for the party. When I couldn't get the trigger to fire at all. Bummer.

Peter and Sylvia's Daughter A Market Stall Vendor

and Her Young Inquisitive Daughter

So, that is why this is just a speil about shopping and not about the celebration as such.
I did get the camera working again, this morning. Only after I took out the batteries, reinstalled them, and reset the camera to it's factory defaults. Wow!

Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker

We had an interesting walk this morning. First, there were so many other folks out walking, not just "Snowflakes" (Snowflakes refers to tourists generally - white ones at that. They are so white it almost hurts your eyes), but Belizeans as well, were out walking. Only one other person had their dogs out - a guy exercising his well-behaved pit bulls in the park by the seawall. It was just so unusual to see that many people out. Kind of nice. Maybe it's a trend.

I needed to go to the butcher this morning. There's another butcher in the market (down at the north end) that I was going to go to, to see if he had an pork roast meat for sale. I don't know what prompted us to walk by Frank's Meat Products to see if anyone was there. We've never done that before - just assumed that no one was there till like around 8:00 AM or so. This is with many months of daily walking behind us. One of those things. Whatever it was that prompted us to walk past Frank's this morning was providential. They were open for business and have been Tuesday through Friday all along (our loss).

Frank's is our favorite butcher shop, and it's almost right on the walking route, so cool, we'll not only get bones for the girls, but meat for us people as well.

Frank's Meat Products

I picked up a huge (4-5" thick) pork roast and two pounds of hamburger, which the girls got to carry back to Casa Winjama. Dianna's going to dump the roast along with veggies into the crock pot and let it do the cooking. Certainly keeps the kitchen cooler than trying to use the stove or oven.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Time for a shower and to get to work (so-called) for the day.

Cheers,
Dave

A Trip to the Pill Pusher and Other Stuff

This morning, on our way to breakfast, we stopped and paid the bill with Menzie's Transportation Services, after Mark our driver had stopped by the house to let us know we had not completed the payment process - oops. From there, we tried to go to breakfast at Mrs. June's, who is closed until July 2. We then tried to go to the Oasis - her gates were locked. So, we ended up having breakfast at Tony's, where we were welcomed back by our favorite waitress, and where we saw the same woman whose husband is in Consejo undergoing stem-cell treatments (he's here for a booster treatment), kind of an old-home-week sort of thing.

After breakfast, we hurried (well, that's probably too strong a word) to our list of appointments. First was to stop and see Jenni and Nigel, fine and jolly as ever, where we got up-to-date on all the happenings locally. Such nice people. Jenni was the one who clued us in on where to buy litter.

From there, we went to the Evergreen Pharmacy where all three of us got our drugs of choice. Dianna got information about vitamin B2, apparently it's just not available. She had heard it was good to help repel our little friends, the mosquitoes.

Elsie got a 10-day supply of amoxocillin ($9.00BZ) to combat an ear infection she got from diving so much in Honduras. She also got a bottle of some preparation to help dry ears after diving ($4.00BZ).

I got a bottle of an expectorant (diphenhydramine), really bad tasting stuff, cherry-flavored for ($9.00BZ). I've come down with a slight chest cold from the flights from the states. Bummer.

From there, we tried to go to Odette's, an import shop that sells motor scooters, etc. I wanted to buy a couple of helmets before we pick up the scooter from Brit Paul. They were closed for lunch. As was Caribbean Chicken. Elsie had volunteered to cook a chicken stew for us. It'll use up the left over rice from the Friendship Luncheon. It smells great as its cooking.

After that, we stopped at Frank's Meats to get the chicken. He also sells Caribbean chicken and doesn't close for lunch.

Then we went to New World Market, for some veggies and sundries, then it was home for medication doses, then a nap for me, and getting a Coke and Coke Light delivery from Bowen and Bowen distributors and cooking the grub.

Now, we're ready for the evening. BTW, I've signed up again for MLB.com Audio, so I can listen to the M's as they continue to kick butt. Yahoo!!!

I've also listened once to KPLU on line. Sounds as good as it does in Oly.

So ends another grab bag.

Local Stores and Businesses We Patronize

Dianna had a good suggestion. That we post pictures of the stores we go to and use here in Corozal, so that you can see a bit of what shopping is like here. so, with that in mind, we'll be posting pics of the various places.

You've already read about Mrs. June's Kitchen elsewhere on the blog.

Next up is Frank's Meat Products.

Frank's Meat Products

Frank's is located at #2 Park Street North, just north of the central square. His place is a good supplier of fresh beef, hamburger, sausages, special orders, Chilean salmon, and other seafoods when in season.

Our friend Elsie King, on the eve of her departure to Guatamala, cooked up some bodacious salmon steaks for us at our place. She had cleaned out her fridge and cupboard and gave us all her leftover homesteading supplies, including the salmon. Was it ever good. Thanks Elsie!

Now for the Car Wash

This place is unreal. It doesn't seem to have a business name. It appears to be a used car sales place, auto and appliance parts, as well as a car wash.

Car Wash

Completely hand wash process. Very meticulous. Rinsed the the dust off the SUV, washed it down with auto detergent and water, water rinse, rag-dried, windows washed with Windex and newspaper inside and out. Dash and other inside surfaces Armour-All'd, inside completely vacuumed, mats beat and vacuumed, and tires dressed. I've never had that from a car wash before, ever! All this for $20.00BZ. A deal.

Course, two days later, the dust is beginning to accumulate again all over the rig. But for a while it looked sharp.

I asked him if he got a lot of business due to the road dust.

"No", was his answer. "Most people wait till rainy season and come in to get the mud off of their vehicles... (implying only crazy Gringos do it at this time of year?) Naw, I've seen lots of cars in there over the past few days.

Caribbean Chicken

Caribbean Chicken

This is the source for fresh and frozen chicken and eggs. They keep their eggs refrigerated where most other places don't. They also sell other grocery-related items. Easy access in and out from the highway.

General Discount and Drug Store

Clean looking operation. The proprietor (not sure if he was a doctor or pharmacist) had to get back to us on one of Dianna's meds. We'll check back with him on Monday to see if he can get it for her. No info yet on prices of prescription items. We'll let you know.

General Discount and Drug Store

They carry other drugstore related stuff, cough meds, etc. Behind the counter. You have to ask for it. Seems to be the way most stores do business here. Very customer-service oriented. Which is nice and a real change from some pimple-faced teen, chomping his/her gum and looking at you like you interrupted their bored routine for something even more boring, like waiting on you.

Justice of the Peace and Shoe Store

Interesting place. We went there to get some property papers signed and notarized. Senora Marzan, the proprietor, told Dianna and me that we need to have the other two folks involved in the transaction here to sign as well. I started to get PO'd, but quickly realized she was right. So we went over to Craig and Mae's place to get them. They were busy eating breakfast and designing a stairway to their loft.

Justice of the Peace, Shoes, Photo Studio

After a while we made it back to Senora Marzan's, signed the papers, and she duly notarized them. Then didn't charge us anything at all! She just said she wanted to see things filled out properly and done right. Too cool!

Also, her store seems to carry a wide variety of sandals and shoes for the whole family. We will certainly check out her goods when we need zapos.

New World Store

This is the first store I shopped at here in Belize. We've been making to them about every three or four days since, for various and sundry.

New World Grocery Store

They carry a wide variety of foods and household products, all crammed into a tiny establishment. They also carry some excellent imported hard cheeses, kept at or behind the counter. You have to know to ask for them, or you'll miss them entirely!

Cinty's

Cinty's has Three Locations Within Half a Block of Each Other!

Cinty's is one of those stores that seem to have everything. If they don't have it, it probably doesn't exist - sort of place.

Cinty's Middle Store

You always know when they are open. Merchandise spills out of the doorways and over the sidewalk at each location.

Stuff is everywhere. Piled on top of other things or hung by the dozen from overhead. It's hard to describe.

And the staff... Incredible! They not only know where everything is, but they know how many they have of any one thing.

Like I said, they have three locations, all within a half-block of the other. Each carries slightly different items, but all just a jumble with goods.

Their prices are very reasonable. Everyone shops there. Example: Dianna and I were talking to Connie of Copa Banana the other day when she brought over some real estate papers we needed to sign. In the course of the conversation, she mentioned that the door to one of the refrigerators in the guest house had fallen off, and that she had gotten a new fridge.

Dianna asked her where she had gotten it, thinking Connie would say some store over in Chetumal (she's well known locally for frequent shopping there).

Connie piped up and said, "Cinty's". "Where else"?

Like it was the most natural thing in the world to go there to purchase a major appliance. And, she got a good deal on it too!