Shopping Everyday

My sister Jane and my 16-year-old niece, another Louisa, visited us in Guanajuato last week, and the subject--as usual in my family--turned to food and related topics, like cooking and shopping. We discussed the dramatic differences in our kitchens. Jane, who is raising three children, keeps much more food around than we do: baskets of fruit, dried fruit, cereals, bread. Not a lot of starch or junk, but a generous amount of food you can nibble on without having to cook or prepare. Our kitchen looks anorexic by comparison.

But it's not that we deprive ourselves. If I want munchies, I will go out and buy it, but I don't routinely keep stuff like that lying around the house because I'm likely to eat all of it. And we don't buy a lot of fruit at one time because it goes bad quickly.

The beauty of Mexico is that within 2-3 minutes of our home are a variety of shops selling the foods we like. They are open early and late. I buy my almost-daily 35-cent bag of raisins at one shop, Barry buys his granola-based cookies at another shop. We can buy an ice cream cone at various shops, fruit and vegetables at a produce store, rolls for Barry (I don't eat bread) at the bakery.

It's the ideal way to have your snacks and eat them too.