Things are finally starting to quiet down a bit. Many of the boxes are unpacked, and yesterday I cooked up my first meals in the house. Hurray! Believe me, after two weeks of eating out, then two weeks of nothing but boiled meat and rice, some good old Sloppy Joes are much savored.

The hard part about shopping down here is the lack of spices. You can finds tons of garlic, anise, and “poulty seasoning”, but not much else. Chili powder is hard to find for some reason, and forget about “weird” stuff like kosher salt and dried peppers. A lot of veggies are tough too, or really expensive. So, I’m going to shift some of my cooking to use more local ingredients…except that I won’t boil them to death. If someone could come up with *real* chinese food down here, they’d make a mint.

Speaking of food / money opportunities…there is a place right next door that is like a “horse bar” (for lack of a better term)…open on Thr/Fri/Sat. Basically, it’s a place where a bunch of people come to drink/dance/ride horses. It’s kinda cool, since a gazillion people on horses show up starting at around 7 PM. Music is a bit loud, but at least it’s decent music…and it quiets down at around midnight. Anyway, I’m not sure if they serve food down there or not, so this could be a good chance to open up a BBQ stand (we are right up the hill from the place…right at the top of their driveway). I’ll keep you posted–this could be my big start in cooking down here.

For all those lushes out there…rum is cheap down here. About $8 for a 750 ML bottle…and that’s for Barardi Select, not the rot-gut. I can see why there are so many drunks down here. On the bright side, even with the cheap booze, I’m not drinking very much…if I did I’d screw up my liver (with the meds that I’m taking). As for the health front, I think my blood pressure is getting too low, which is a really good sign. Maybe I need to start working again.