It's mango season!

Oh how we love mango season here in Mexico. There is a good variety of mango that grows here, but the juiciest, tastiest, mango-juice-running-down-your-elbow mango is the Mango Manila, pictured below.



Mango season in Mexico runs from early February through to about June, with the Manila type first one off the trees. When I lived in Acapulco, we had four mango trees on the property, one of Manila and three of the Paraiso type, which I don't like very much. Come February and March it was positively raining mangoes.

The paraiso mango. I don't find them nearly as juicy.



My daughter loves mangoes and it was one of the first fruits she tried. Full of iron, mango fruit is rich in pre-biotic dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals and poly-phenolic flavonoid antioxidant compounds.

Mangoes can be a bit of a pain to cut up and serve. I'd normally just peel them and chew around the pit but that's extraordinarily messy for a 20 month old. Here's a way to cut mango into cubes to more easily serve to children...in a bowl with natural yogurt and granola in our case.

The 100 favourite fictional characters

From The Independent, The 100 favourite fictional characters as chosen by the literati.

The story is from 2005 but I just found it. Some interesting choices in the list.

Flashman

Chosen by Terry Pratchett (the Discworld series)

Harry Flashman, that fictional reprobate - wenching and dodging his way through the major military engagements of the 19th century - is funnier, more honest and certainly less harmful than many of the real brave fools whose paths he double-crosses. You just can't help liking the amiable cad.

Gandalf

Chosen by Mary Hoffman (Stravaganza City of Flowers)

JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings boasts the best white wizard in fiction - not morally ambiguous or neutral like Merlin, but not infallible either. Always wise when present and strangely comforting even when predicting doom and destruction.

Dr Watson

Chosen by Judith Kerr (The Tiger Who Came to Tea)

There is something appealing about a man who stows his stethoscope under his top hat. Modest to a degree, Watson does not bother us with facts about himself, since Sherlock Holmes is so much more important. His only irritating habit is the way he refers to some of Holmes's cases without telling us the full story.

God

Chosen by Michael Marshall (The Lonely Dead)

Polymorphic, unpredictable, unaccountable; omnipotent yet negligent, kind yet vicious. Suitable to any genre or period. Able to hold centre stage in plot, or work subtly in deep background. Never requires a deus ex machina. A character you can immerse yourself in, forever.

See the full list at the link above.

Hottest Chili Pepper - A New Record

The hottest chili pepper in the world is not from Mexico, despite the regular scorching I get at local taco stands. It is not from India whose military apparently uses chili peppers in hand grenades. No, it is British.

The BBC has the story.

Experts have pronounced a chilli grown in the market town of Grantham, Lincs, as the hottest in the world.

Tests have revealed the "Infinity Chilli" to have a Scoville Scale Rating of 1,176,182 - hotter than chilli reportedly used in hand grenades by the Indian military. But what is the attraction of this insanely hot ingredient?

The story of the world's hottest chilli begins not in Mexico or Bangladesh, but next to the barbed wire at RAF Cottesmore in Leicestershire.

Nick Woods, working shifts as an RAF security guard and considering his growing family, decided he had to do something more entrepreneurial with his life.


That was five years ago. What was Nick's hobby - cooking up hot sauces in his kitchen - developed into his Fire Foods sauce business, and now the 38-year-old Grantham man finds himself literally in possession of hot property.

Like many great discoveries Nick says he developed the Infinity Chilli accidentally.

more at the stroy link above

Stella and Dog Training

My significant other and I have two dogs, Tequila and Chela (I didn't name them!). Tequila was picked up as gift in Honduras as a pup and is better traveled than I am. Chela was a Mexico City street find. Both have been great though not without some housebreaking problems.

When Stella came along, I was something nervous as a new and overly protective father. How would the dogs adjust and would they present a danger to newborn Stella, either by being rough with her or from allergens in the air. None of my concerns was ever warranted thankfully and Stella loves them both.

Stella is old enough now at 19 months to help daddy put out the dog food dishes and pick them up, in fact she insists on helping. She likes to give treats to the doggies and is learning hand signals and commands, to tell the dogs to sit and lay down.



Here's Stella learning how to do it.

Museo Papalote Mexico City

The happiest place in Mexico City! I can't believe I went 10 years living here without having visited, though since it is for kids I guess I didn't have a good reason until now.

http://www.papalote.mx/

The museum in Chapultepec park is geared towrds kids and features hands-on science, tech, and cultural exhibits. There's an IMAX theatre inside and constantly changing feature exhibits. What impressed me most were the dozens of workshops run every hour by great staff, everything from how paper is made, to working with electricity, to art and more. Stella is too young for the workshops, so we stuck to the under-3 displays and exhibits but we'll be back every year I think. 12 dollars gets you in.

Mexico and Canada - A Comparison

Thanks to The Mexile for this find, who compared Mexico to his native United Kingdom (fact: you are 400 times more likely to drink tea in the UK!). While Mr. Denness is just about to leave Mexico to return home after about 6 years in Mexico and is understandably looking into his options, I'm staying put.

But, it might be fun to see what differences there are, using If It Were My Home...a nifty website that compares any two countries, presumably by using widely available statistics.

So let's see how the old country stacks up against Mexico.

The Results

I would:

Use 9.8 times more electricity living in Canada. and pay a lot more for it too! Win for Mexico.

consume 4.2 times more oil in Canada.. I don't drink oil. I also don't have or need a car. Win for Mexico.

spend 4.7 times more money on health care in Canada. Eh? What about universal health care? I guess it's not free. Win for Mexico.

make 2.8 times more money in Canada. Actually, it's probably much higher than 2.8 Win for Canada.

have 72.03% less chance of dying in infancy in Canada. Since I'd already been born before this survey, I'll call this one a draw.

have 51.79% more chance of being unemployed in Canada. Ouch. So I guess I wouldn't be earning 2.8 times more money being unemployed now would I? Win for Mexico regardless.

have 46.8% less babies in Canada. I have one child now, born in Mexico. I'm not sure how I would explain things to folks in Canada if I'd had 53.2% of one baby there. Let's call this sill category a draw.

experience 33.4% less of a class divide in Canada. Wonderful, I'd have to mingle with the great unwashed. A win for Canada, badly needed at this point.

live 5.03 years longer in Canada. I should hope so paying so much for health care! Win for Canada.

have 11.99% more free time in Canada. Not sure I believe this one. Christmas season alone in Mexico would seem to scotch this stat. We'll give it to Canada pending an appeal.

be 33.33% more likely to have HIV/AIDS in Canada. Whoa! Another dubious stat. Win for Mexico.

Final score Mexico 5 Canada 4

Mexico city taxis - fares going up

Taxi rates in Mexico City are on the way up, after many years without an increase and near constant complaints by DF taxi drivers, whose rates are fixed by the city.

Story at El Universal

Taxis rides are already very cheap in DF - cheaper than anywhere else in the country, and the rise is modest.

New rates are now as such:

2-door taxis (such as VW bugs) now start at 6.40 pesos (up from 5.80) and go up 1 peso every 250 meters or 45 seconds.

4-door taxis start at 7.04 pesos with the same per-meter rate.

Sitio taxis start at 10.56 and rise 1.25 pesos per 250 meters.

Overnight taxis will still tack on 20% to the fare, as before.

To put it in simpler terms, a ride to the airport from my area in Escandon will rise from a total of 60 pesos to 68 pesos. I can deal with the rise as taxi drivers deserve the break.