We're Back!

Finally, we're back in Mazatlan! The murderous heat and the rain seem to have passed for the most part. The mornings are cool and brisk and the afternoons sunny and hot. What I think of this time of year are shrimp and ice-cold beer. In Mazatlan there are probably dozens of ways of preparing shrimp - camarones, in Spanish. Cerviche is a kind of cool salad made from peeled shrimp cured in lime juice mixed with onion, tomato, garlic and salt. Most often it's served on tostadas or tortilla chips but it's also delicious on crackers. Aguachile is a version made with red onion and cucumber and spicy green chiles, omitting the tomato. Bitter lime combined with the lush tomato, and meaty goodness of the fresh shrimp... perhaps the sharp bite of serrano chile, the latter half of aguachile's namesake, and one is set for an afternoon at the beach. Just about every party or get-together this time of year involves copious amounts of one or the other to feed the masses, along with a cooler of ice cold beer. Pacifico if you please...

Pacifico here is sold in cans, sometimes on tap, and in a variety of bottles. Ballenas are big, about 40 ounces. Next come the standard size bottles. Last but not least are the cuartitos', which is a 190 ml size. At first I didn't see the point to such a small size bottle. The true utility, if not genius, of the cuartito, however, is revealed during the hot season. At slightly more than 3 big swallows, a cuartito never has a chance to warm up. During it's short life-span (perhaps there are some who drink so slowly as to suffer a few warm sips towards the end) a cuartito stays cold and refreshing. One scarcely has time to grow accustomed to the bottle before it's time to reach into the icy cooler for another, as refreshing as the last...