Still Wanna Cook with Cindy?

This post might be enough to make you rethink the idea of cooking with me.  But let's start with the good part first  -

- on slow Saturday mornings our tradition has become to go for chocolate and churros as a family (although Hannah chose to sleep in this morning). The chocolate is a thick dark chocolate served in a coffee cup.  You dip your churros or porros (deep fried dough) in the chocolate and eat.  When the churros are gone you eat the chocolate by itself.

On the left are churros and on the right is a porro - they will cut
it into sticks about a foot long

After chocolate and churros I headed to the fish store and then the meat store and shopping got a little "fun."  A husband and wife own a fish and fruit store (yes, they are often in the same store).  I always buy fruit/vegetables but never fish.  He began to tease me a few weeks ago that I didn't like his fish.  So today I decided we would have fish tomorrow.  I have a recipe (shared by Marsha) for a lemon Dijon baked fish.  It calls for a white fish.  So I told the fish man (all in Spanish remember) I wanted some fillets of a white fish that was good for the oven.  He gave me 3 choices (all which were whole fish at the time - I of course was wondering what was wrong with the fillets that were in front of me) and I told him I didn't know the difference so what was his favorite.  He chose one (thank goodness the cheapest) and scaled, gutted, cleaned, and sliced it for me and then wrapped it up in two packages.

STOP - a culture lesson - when you buy meat/fish they weigh it first and that is what you pay for.  So my fish was weighed whole and unclean.

Since I was paying for the whole fish, I got the whole fish - one package was my two nice long fillets

The second package, however - was the inside of the head and I think the backbone (does a fish have a backbone?).  Can someone tell me what I am supposed to do with these parts?

Since the meat stores are closed from siesta today until Monday I had to buy for the whole weekend (and I usually buy for Monday too) I then went to the meat store.  I got ground beef (which is actually have beef and half pork - beef is way too expensive).  Then I told him (again, in all Spanish) that I wanted the meat required to fix white beans like in Avila (a beautiful town nearby known for their big whites beans - they are fabulous!).

He spread out a piece of paper and got started - first a pork bone - he says full of flavor.  Next some ribs (just a couple) - they have a different flavor.  Now he added a piece of chorizo (Spanish sausage).  Then he asked if I wanted the black sausage too (usually black sausage is blood sausage so I said NO - but who knows if it was blood sausage or not).  Then he picks up this long piece of meat and says this is what will give you the most flavor.  I could tell it was pork (it was on the pork shelf) but I didn't recognize it so I asked what part.  He turns around makes a tail motion.  It was a pig's tail!

From left to right - ribs, chorizo (redish piece), pork bone, and
finally the pig's tail cut into 3 pieces.

Then I asked what am I to do with all this.  He says put it all in the pot with the beans and let cook for many, many hours.  We'll see - it's in the crock pot - tail included.  Watch back tomorrow for a report.

Still want me to share my recipes with you?