food | Let The Adventure "Continue"!

I bet you’ve been wondering what it takes to have fun here in Panama. Well, luckily I’ve got just the recipe! You start with the completion of a brand new Techo, or Roof for my non-Spanish speaking readers. Then after the sparkly new Techo is completed the required fun must commence with a few key ingredients. The first and most important ingredient for a fun time at this traditional celebration is the food. And , specifically the main dish which is called Mondongo. Basically, this is Tripe, or at least similar to it, let me be more specific….Cow intestines. I know….many of you may be saying..”Yuck!” I’ll stick to Non-Cow intestines please! And I would not disagree, but the traditional celebration of a newly completed Techo is aptly named a Mondongata because these fun-loving folks here love it! It’s Party Food! Shrug, I’m pretty sure we very likely have a taste for many things they think is crazy as well, so, let’s just roll with it, k? Read the rest of this entry →

Boy, we really had a great fun filled evening with some great people last night. It was a Birthday potluck and the emphasis is on the “Luck” cuz’ we all really “lucked” out with such amazing food prepared by everyone! Al has really got the BBQ ribs and chicken down to a science. Scott’s the Jambalaya master, Eric is king of the guacamole, and Lyns Guanabana desert really topped off our culinary experience for the evening. You may be wondering what contribution to the Potluck Sela and I made and our’s is the ever so essential job of “consuming the food”! Ha!Ha! Of course it’s a tough job, but you know, someone has to do it and we are just the gals for such a painful and difficult task! MMMMM! I think Sela would agree that we’ve got a good thing goin’!

As if the consumption of a gourmet meal weren’t enough, we had the additional pleasure of learning a really fun new (to us) game called “Mexican Train”. I had heard of this game and have always wanted to learn it so when Al and Sela invited us to join in I was really excited. Al had organized the evening around playing the game before dinner whilst enjoying some tasty appetizers and sipping on cocktails . (I wish you could all see the spectacular setting in their outdoor living space. The Views of the mountains and the city lights below never cease to draw my attention, and nearly bring tears to my eyes as I say to myself, “I actually Live Here!”.) Al and Sela told us it was a really long game so we would start playing and then take a break mid-way through and dive into the meal portion of the evening, this was a superb idea! Eric and Lyn and Scott and I caught onto the game pretty easily and it didn’t take long for us to start strategizing our evil moves to undermine our opponents in order to stomp on them , royally ! Wahahaha! It turns out, this is a group of “cut-throat” Mexican Train players! LOL! Watch out!! There’s almost nothing I enjoy more than a fun game night with people like this who I can laugh with even though I’m getting my but kicked! And A very thorough but kicking it was! I was the Queen Loser! All good fun, for sure!! I’ll have to see if they’re interested in learning one of my favorite games , Apples to Apples! Maybe I could actually win a game!!
But I will need to continue playing this new game so I can try to get better at all that Strategizing that they all are so obviously “naturals” at. Good fun was had by all! And I’m sure the fun has only just begun because hey, we live in Panama! And let’s remember the quote (that I believe was coined by Keith), “We’re all HERE because we’re not all THERE!” That just cracks me up!!!!