shoestring gringa

One adaptation I have not been able to make since living in Mexico is the midday dinner hour.  People eat their main meal around noon here.  I’ve tried to make the switch several times, but have never made it stick.

It’s ironic, because for years I yearned to be able to dine at midday.  It seemed (it still seems) so much healthier to consume your biggest meal when you have some chance of burning it off, rather than a couple hours before falling into bed.

But I just haven’t been able to do it.

Well, that’s not totally true.  It’s no problem if I’m not doing the cooking.  When the Mexigringo was fixing up our casita in Yucatan, we ate every day at a cocina economica around 2 p.m., and had either nothing or takeout pizza in the evening, having no cooking facilities where we were staying.  I lost 14 pounds in six weeks.  I was overjoyed to say the least.

Eating at midday is fine.  Cooking at midday is the problem.  In order to serve dinner by 2 p.m., I need to start preparations at noon, and that’s assuming I’ve managed to take out some meat to defrost at the crack of dawn, an hour at which the only foodstuffs I care to contemplate are coffee and bread.  It’s really hard for me to work up the necessary enthusiasm so early in the day.  Conditioned by years of minimal lunches while working, and having breakfasted at 8 or 9, not 5 a.m., motivation is severely lacking.  Also, being vegetarian by inclination (though no longer in practice being married to the Mexican carnivore), dealing with raw meat that early in the day grosses me out entirely.

I’ve also found that eating at midday trashes my productivity, if trying to accomplish anything other than cooking and housework.  When I was painting, I worked best painting steadily from breakfast until 5 or 6 p.m., with a couple of quick dashes to the kitchen for some fruit or chocolate.  Having to drop everything between noon and 3 is fatal, and chances of returning to work afterward are slim at best.  After eating a big meal in the middle of the day, what I most want is a siesta, preferably in a hammock.  Failing that, I crave the forbidden pleasure of strong coffee to carry on.

And then, we’ve found that half the time we get hungry again in the evening, having given the old stomach a workout at noon.  It’s the road to ruin for sure.

And so we continue to dine at 6 or 7, four years on.  It’s hardly ideal.  Our health probably suffers.  And, worse, people who are going to drop in tend to do so around 5 p.m.  Fortunately for us, this doesn’t happen very often, but even so.  Every so often — usually after an unexpected run of these ill-timed social calls — I resolve to mend my ways, and get with the local program.   But it never lasts.  And in the end, I’ve decided that maybe some things are just not worth changing.  I’m never going to be at ease pounding cutlets at noon, or walking on cobblestone streets in three-inch heels.  And you know, it’s ok.  So be it.

Just in case you’ve been on the edge of your seat all these months since my distant reference to our upcoming agricultural efforts, herewith a summary of progress:

The lettuce we grew this winter was a huge success.  We were inundated with the stuff (but oh so happily).  We grew Romaine and butter varieties, both from seeds bought here in Mexico at Home Depot.  The Romaine did somewhat better.  We planted it in a couple different spots, and the sunnier spot produced noticeably more and bigger lettuces.  I was amazed at how it grew in such cold weather.  We were really sad when lettuce season ended.

Basil from seed bought several years ago failed to start, but a newer packet started quickly and has flourished since.

Lavender and rosemary seeds from packets both failed to start at all (sniff).  Better luck next year!

Parsley started and three plants provided a continual harvest until about a week ago; I think it’s finally gotten too hot for it.

I was unable to find any tomato seeds to buy (and forget about plants, they don’t seem to exist here, or maybe I just don’t know where to find them), so I squeezed the seeds out of a couple tomatoes from the grocery store and they actually came up.  Since that supremely exciting moment, however, things have gone downhill.  I ended up transplanting five plants, two Roma types and three round.  One plant produced only one tomato and gave up.  The other four have produced quite a lot.  Unfortunately, they refuse to ripen properly.  We’ve been told variously that they have too much sun and too much water.  Probably both.  Also, of course, they’re the offspring of hybrids never meant to reproduce.  We’re probably lucky they didn’t sprout legs and come devour us in our sleep.

Seeds from a grocery store cantaloupe came up and grew into a beautiful plant which flowered but, alas, has produced no fruit at all.

Some friends gave us cucumber seeds last month which we planted directly outside.  They quickly turned into a jungle and are producing like crazy.

I’ve never done any gardening except for growing tomatoes in the Bay Area back in the 80s, which was akin to shooting fish in a barrel — buy plants at store, stick in the ground, water occasionally, harvest perfect tomatoes for 6 months.  O California!

This time around, I’ve referred mostly to Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening, and Extreme Gardening: How to Grow Organic in the Hostile Deserts by Dave Owens, the Phoenix-based guru for our Sonoran desert climate zone.  We have one 6×4-foot  square-foot type box, built by the Mexigringo, which has held lettuce, tomatoes, parsley, basil, and cucumbers.  We have two tomato plants in kitty litter bins and some flowerpots with basil.  All of these containers are filled with pure compost. The best container by far, however, has turned out to be an old concrete planter about 5 feet in diameter which used to house a tree.   We put about six inches of compost over the top of the existing dirt.  Everything we have grown in there has done noticeably better, I think because the dirt underneath maintains moisture better.  The wooden box with only six inches of compost is hard to keep adequately watered in this climate — things seem to alternately fry and drown.

I found tons of inspiration, courage, and the proper spirit of adventure for this undertaking with Anita Sands Hernandez, the queen of frugal gardening, at her fascinating website here.

Even though much of what we’ve managed to grow could be described more properly as garnishes or herbs than food,  it’s made a huge difference in the quality of our meals.  Parsley, especially, adds a freshness, flavor and color to items like potatoes, rice and sauces which is truly cheering to the vegetable-deprived.

In all, it’s been a great learning experience, and probably the most worthwhile thing I’ve done all year.  Free (almost), fresh food!  Organic, even.  I can’t wait until I can plant more lettuce again.

Shortly after moving to this sleepy village, we adopted the ritual of making every Saturday movie day.  We break out our latest DVD from the 32-peso bin or find something on the internet, pop up some palomitas and have a few cold ones.  At first I made the popcorn in a frying pan, but after a couple months we moved up to an air popper.   One batch from the machine made a nice big bowl for each of us.  All was well until a few months ago when the Mexigringo went off popcorn and started having guacamole instead, leaving me with a big dilemma:  the popcorn machine instructions asserted that the machine required a minimum of a half-cup of popcorn kernels to function.  Totally addicted to popcorn as I now was, this was no laughing matter.

I think I may be the last idiot in the world who reads instruction pamphlets.  I also notice, and often obey, warnings and instructions posted on signs.  For someone who is skeptical to the point of paranoia about everything else I read or hear, this is a curious blind spot indeed.  Maybe it’s my innate mistrust of mechanical things.

Anyway, what to do with all that popcorn?  It was twice as much as I could reasonably eat.  I valiantly tried one time — bad idea.  I guiltily threw away half another day, but that just felt too wicked.  I tried to think of other uses for the extra — string it into curtains or door dividers?  Save it for packing material in case we move?  The specter of attracting rats dampened my enthusiasm for these ideas.

As usual, it was the Mexigringo to the rescue about the fourth Saturday on, as he was making his guacamole while I whined about him leaving me in the popcorn lurch.

MG:  So just make half the amount.

Me:  But the instructions say you have to…..

MG:  Just – TRY – it.

Me:  (snivel, grumble)

Well, guess what folks?  The instruction book lies!  The machine will pop half of the prescribed amount with no problem at all.

You know, it was bad enough getting used to the news being all lies.  But the freaking popcorn instructions?????

It’s summer, and once again the annual Insect Parade is in full swing.  It’s a bit more subdued than last year, probably due to the unusual lack of rains, but still it’s something to see.  There was the rash of scorpions of May to greet the warming weather, followed by a motley succession of life forms which would last from a few days to a week and then disappear as suddenly as they had come, making way for the next wave.  July brought centipedes, who are so fond of dropping unexpectedly from the ceiling.  The last six weeks or so we’ve had small, dark moths which flutter out from our clothes and towels, and which I fervently hope are not the fabric-eating kind.  Some local friends just advised us that a recent arrival, a mid-sized creature with wings, has a nasty bite which, if scratched, oozes a caustic fluid onto the skin.

Notable mostly by their absence this year are the ants, whose movements seem to be related to the rain.  Last year, when it rained every afternoon, the ants would soon follow, marching in great columns across the tile floors, up and down the high walls, to our kitchen.  They were thoughtful in usually arriving after dinnertime, which allowed me to ignore them.

We take a pretty laissez-faire approach to bugs here — after all, we live next to a milpa.   I dislike using poisons around the house, and I  hate killing things.  And anyway they’ve got us way outnumbered.  The bugs mostly go their way and we go ours — peaceful coexistence, you might say.

Well, there are a few exceptions.  I’ve stomped on a scorpion or two, a purely reflex reaction.  Lala the Fearless Killer Tabby is fond of scorpions — for lunch.  I worry she might get bitten but she hasn’t so far.  She also hunts centipedes, as does the Mexigringo.  Spiders suspected of being black widows are eliminated rather heartlessly.  And when the cutter ants show up to ravage the garden, the Mexigringo brings out the big guns, a lethal powder from the hardware store. In August and September, when the flies arrive and somehow get past our screens, we both pursue them with rolled-up newspapers, while the bored tabby looks on.

Lala the Fearless Killer Tabby

But otherwise, it’s live and let live.  The ants are welcome to the kitchen when I’m not using it.  The myriad flying beasties mostly hover around the lights, twelve feet up, although they’ve been so thick lately they will crash land into cooking pots, so I’ve taken to keeping things covered.  We look carefully when reaching into any basket — scorpions adore baskets.  The Mexigringo got stung last summer when going for his keys.  A quick internet search revealed this unlikely to be fatal to an adult and recommended icing.  Now we look first.

The most unwelcome bugs are the ones that get into the food.  O the dismay of finding that disgusting spiderwebby stuff in a box of cornmeal you’ve been hoarding for months!  According to my research (whatever would I do without the internet??), those bugs are there in the meal all along — it’s just that they hatch in warm, humid conditions.  This can supposedly be prevented by freezing the product for a day or two, which kills off the larvae,  so I’ve started doing this with everything in sight — flour, masa harina, chile powder, rice.

Unfortunately I only noticed the rice was harboring uninvited guests weeks after buying a six-pack of 1-lb. bags at one of those big stores.  Freezing doesn’t seem to have fazed the rice critters, or maybe I got there too late.   In any case, it’s a real pain getting them out.  I’ve been picking over the dry rice on a plate, then rinsing it in a strainer, then putting it in a bowl of water, whereupon, encouraged with a little judicious stirring, the little buggers will float towards the top and can be scooped off with a spoon.   Unfortunately the starch in the rice quickly impairs visibility, making frequent changes of water necessary.  It’s kind of distasteful but what else to do?  I’m not going to throw away five bags of rice.  The good news is that here in Mexico, for once in my life I have time:  luxurious, blessed, beautiful time, to de-critter the rice, to observe the ways of the ants, to smell the flowers as they say.  I consider myself supremely fortunate in this.  And if a worm or two evades my search, well hey, it’s free protein.  Or as the old Spanish saying goes, lo que no mata, engorda (what doesn’t kill you, nourishes you).

Should you disinfect vegetables in Mexico as a matter of course?  I must admit I’m not nearly so big on it as I used to be.

When we first moved to tropical Yucatan, I faithfully disinfected anything that was not going to be cooked, i.e. salad stuff.  I used iodine (yodo) until I got a horrified look from the lady in the farmacia when I revealed what I wanted it for, and then moved on to the new silver-based, special purpose Microdyn, which is supposedly nontoxic.  It can also be used to purify drinking water.  I have no idea how effective it is, but it seems to have become very popular and appears to be marketed to restaurants in giant-sized jugs at Sam’s and Costco.

I do think in the tropics disinfecting is probably important.  Nasty bugs of all descriptions flourish in those climes, and they could well be lurking in your vegetables.  Better to be safe.

After moving to Sonora, however, I had an epiphany of sorts while getting ready to disinfect a tomato one night.  This tomato, it occurred to me, was identical in provenance to countless tomatoes we’d consumed in Tucson for years and years, with never a thought of disinfecting them.  Probably 90% of the tomatoes sold in Tucson supermarkets come from Mexico.   Do they somehow lose their Mexican cooties by virtue of crossing the border?  I think not.

I haven’t disinfected a tomato since.

Ironically, I have been disinfecting our homegrown lettuce because it’s grown in compost — just in case.  And I still disinfect supermarket lettuce.  I never disinfect cabbage, though, just remove the outer leaves.  I doubt  millions of taco-vendors do, so why should I?

Another factor to weigh is how trustworthy is the water in which you wash the vegetables.  (The Microdyn bottle makes a big point of the fact that you don’t have to rinse off the Microdyn with possibly bad water after disinfecting.)  As we’ve  had no problems in more than four years brushing our teeth with Mexican tap water, I don’t worry about it.

The truth is, many of the health hazards Mexico is so famous for are really not much of an issue anymore.  The Mexican government has done a bang-up job of getting potable water to the people, including in the most remote and tiny villages (even though many still decline to drink it), and much of the food (sadly) is grown by agribiz.   Common sense, as usual, seems the best approach.

Continuing on the food theme of the last post,  it occurred to me that some kinds of cookbooks are more  useful than others here in Old Mexico.  If you’re in the pre-relocation sorting stage, and you’ve got the wherewithal, as with all books, I say bring them all!  If you’re trying to weed out an overgrown collection, however, here are some points to keep in mind.

Any cookbook that relies heavily on exotic ingredients or equipment is likely to be of little use in Mexico (unless you live in a very metropolitan area).  I parted reluctantly with a Hunan cookbook before leaving and have had no reason to regret it — on the contrary, having it around now would only make me pine for its unobtainable pleasures.

Old-fashioned, basic cookbooks have proved the most useful in my experience.  The more general reference material they contain the better.  As I’ve mentioned before, cooking in most parts of Mexico involves starting with what you’ve got as opposed to dreaming up a menu and then assembling it.  I got rid of my 1968 edition of the Larousse Gastronomique because it was so large and heavy, and regretted it so much I actually found another copy (in worse condition) on Amazon and replaced it.  I also regret getting rid of my old Joy of Cooking, although I won’t be replacing that one.  I don’t remember ever actually making a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, but all those tables about cooking times and how long stuff will keep in the freezer can really come in handy at times.

I definitely recommend bringing anything you’ve loved and used for years (for me, all my Italian and Spanish cookbooks), and  also anything of  literary interest (e.g. Elizabeth David, M.F.K. Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, etc.).

I brought a couple of Mexican cookbooks, which turned out to be a good idea, despite my worry about carrying coals to Newcastle.  I’m sorry now I got rid of my Diana Kennedy collection; her formidable scholarship would be doubly interesting now we’re living  here, in spite of  her uber-control-freak recipe format which always annoyed me so.

The one cookbook we’ve acquired since living here (besides the Larousse replacement) is a Cuban one, bought with an eye to wresting more variety out of the limited ingredients available in rural Sonora, and it has worked out very well.

As with all these decisions, when in doubt, keep it and bring it along!  If it’s a book you’re fond of, it will still be good for entertainment or nostalgia, even if you never make another recipe from it again.

If you’re a fan of Chinese food, the good news is that there are Chinese restaurants everywhere,  even in Mexico.  Even rather small towns will often boast one or two.

If you want to make your own at home, you can usually find basic Asian items in large city supermarkets.   Warning — most of the available soy sauce is pretty awful — if you see a jug of Kikkoman in Costco, grab it!  Jars of  plum sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and kung pao are easy to find.  Once we found tofu in a tetrapak which was quite acceptable.    We’ve regularly been able to buy fresh ginger (jenjibre) at Soriana for the past year.  Ingredients for other Asian cuisines are sometimes seen, but less common.

If you live off the beaten track, you can still satisfy those Asian cravings with a combination of planning, improvisation, and keeping it simple.  For example, we’re very fond of wonton soup.  The miracle of a steaming bowl on a chilly day was recently achieved by:

Planning:  (1) Having bought ginger when we last shopped in the city (growing it would be even better and is on my to-do list).  (2) Always having soy sauce, cornstarch and sherry, the basics for Chinese food, on hand, and of course garlic.

Improvisation:  (1) Making our own wonton wrappers.  This is easily done with a pasta machine (or rolling pin) and a recipe off the internet.  (I think we bought ready-made wonton wraps once in Merida, but I can’t swear to it.)  (2)  Using pork broth left over from  another dish combined with Knorr chicken powder and water for the broth.

Keeping it simple:  Forgetting about luxuries like dried mushrooms and Napa cabbage and just using locally available green onions.

For someone who learned (perforce) to cook out of books, this way of cooking and thinking is an ongoing learning experience for me — beginning with what’s on hand and fashioning something hopefully enjoyable out of it, as opposed to dreaming up a menu and going out and buying all the stuff for it.  As with so many areas of Mexican life, it involves a whole lot more creativity and way less expense.  Although it can be frustrating at times, it seems ultimately a more sustainable and satisfying approach to doing things.

Now why is she writing a post about salt in Mexico,  you’re probably asking yourself.  What could possibly be different about Mexican salt?  So I will tell you.  In some places (Yucatan is where I experienced this) it is almost impossible to find salt which is not fluoridated.  Being one of those cranky people who thinks fluoride is poison, I had a huge problem with this.

I  had to search all over Mérida before locating some unfluoridated salt, and it may have been there by accident, it was so difficult to find.  I think I finally found it at Comercial Mexicana (a large supermarket chain).   The next time I visited the states I brought back pounds of the stuff in my suitcase, worried I’d never be able to get it locally again.  (Reminder:  Finding an item someplace in Mexico one time is no guarantee you’ll ever see it there again.)

An internet search revealed that a number of countries in Latin America and, amazingly, France, have salt fluoridation programs purportedly for the prevention of dental decay.

Having read that, I assumed the disgusting phenomenon was the case in all of Mexico, but have been pleasantly suprised to find out otherwise.  In Zacatecas both unadulterated and fluoridated salt were easily available.  And in Sonora I haven’t seen any fluoridated salt at all.  Even better, in Sonora there’s a  local brand of sea salt, Sal Bahía (it is iodized).  As to the rest of the country, I don’t know, so I recommend carefully examining the label of any salt you buy if you object to fluoride.  Yodada = Iodized, and Fluoridada = Fluoridated.  Let the buyer beware!

In honor of the festive season, here is some info on the world of affordable spirits (drinkable variety)  south of the border.

Table Wines

For the devoted drinker of red wine, the biggest drawback of living in Mexico is that it is not a wine-drinking country.  I really should have moved to the Mediterranean.

Wine is not everywhere in Mexico.  It’s rarely to be found in little corner tienditas or even midsize markets, and many liquor stores don’t bother with it either.  The best source for wine is the really large supermarkets like Soriana, Comerical Mexicana, and Walmart, which carry selections of imported wine in a range of prices.  Good buys can be had on bottles from Chile, Argentina and Spain.  (Of course, this being Mexico, you’ll probably never find the same thing twice, so don’t get too attached to anything.)  Our biggest find to date has been five bottles of really decent champenoise from Argentina for ~$2 a bottle at a Walmart closeout.

For everyday use, I’ve found two sources of acceptable plonk in Mexico that I can recommend.  One is the  California label, produced by Valle Redondo in Aguascalientes.  It comes in red and white (both are good) and is sold in 1-liter tetrapaks in the aforementioned large grocery markets.  It can also be found at Sam’s Club in gallon jugs at a comparable price.  The regular red and white are still hanging in there under ~$3 a liter as of this writing.  Valle Redondo also offers tetrapaks of a Cabernet Sauvignon (north of ~$4) which I haven’t tried.

Equally drinkable and even a few pesos cheaper is Don Simón, a Spanish brand, in a choice of red or white in 1-liter tetrapaks.

In the same vein and price range, Costco sells gallon jugs of a brand called F. Chauvenet, made in Baja California where something of a Mexican wine industry is developing.  I haven’t tried the white but the red is acceptable although I prefer the other two.

In the ~$7 range, another Baja winery, L.A. Cetto, makes some really decent white wines, although I don’t care for their reds.

The most widely available Mexican wine is Padre Kino, which I find totally undrinkable.  The red is SWEET (horrors!).  I’ve used the white to cook mussels in with okay results.  It comes in cute reusable carafes and the last time I noticed the price it was over ~$4 a liter.

Sherry

Mexico only produces sweet sherry (vino tipo Jerez) that I know of.  I’ve gotten quite fond of it.  Mexican Jerez is dark and syrupy with distinct raisny overtones.  The two brands I’ve found are Valle Redondo and Tres Coronas.  Both are cheap.  It’s really too sweet for most cooking purposes, so I substitute white wine for that.  For dry or medium sherries, Spanish brands can be had for a price.

Liqueurs

Indigenous varieties of sweet stuff are plentiful.  My favorite is Mexico’s version of Cointreau, Controy, which is fabulous (actually tastes closer to Grand Marnier) and a mere ~$8 a bottle.   Also try Rompope (many different brands available), a delicious eggnog-type liqueur, and Don Pancho, an excellent coffee liqueur a fraction of the price of the famous brand.  In addition to the big national brands, there are many small producers of licores made from locally grown items such as quince (membrillo), almonds, etc., whose products can be found in tourist shops, street markets, and local liquor stores.

Beer

If you’re a beer drinker, this is a good place.  Mexico produces dozens of great beers.  Not the cheapest thrill on the block, but good value.

Hard Stuff

If it’s tequila you’re looking for, we are in Valhalla here.  I personally never got into the tequila mystique, it’s all gasolina to me, so I only buy the cheapest, in big plastic jugs.  Rum (destilado de caña) is similarly available at dirt-cheap prices.  I’ve been experimenting with homemade liqueurs using it as a base.  Several brands of Mexican brandy are produced in varying price ranges and quality.

Other types of hard liquor, such as vodka, bourbon, etc. are mostly imported and therefore relatively costly.

Moonshine

A tradition of self-sufficiency persists in Mexico, as evidenced by a wealth of home- and locally-produced drinkables ranging from Sonoran bacanora (a tequila variant) to fizzing batches of tepache (a kind of pineapple wine) ladled from five-gallon buckets by roadside vendors (highly recommended).

¡Salud y felices fiestas!

I was remembering a cookbook writer, Huntley Dent, the other morning as I combed the town for enough food for a couple days’ worth of dinners. Huntley Dent’s book is entitled Feast of Santa Fe: Cooking of the American Southwest, and a wonderful book it is (tragically lost to me now, with so many of its brethren, in the Great Pre-Move Book Unloading). A particularly memorable part is where he discusses some dishes traditionally eaten in the days preceding Christmas in tones of truly inspired poetry and longing for their simple goodness, their rustic wholesomeness, their utter foreignness to anything we eat today, in Santa Fe or out of it. “I WANT THAT FOOD,” I remember him writing, and he made me want it too. Of course I already wanted it, which is why I’d bought the book — but you know what I mean. (Actually I once lived in New Mexico, but that’s another story.)

My point here is that the sudden memory of this book caused me to snort out loud at my simple-life fantasies of yore, realizing that the Sonoran village where we now live is probably very similar to Santa Fe of 100 years ago. The chief difference being Sonora has beef and Santa Fe had pork.

A discerning reader glancing over these 10 feasts of Christmas as I think they were called, would quickly note that they all consisted of the same three or four ingredients, done up in slightly differing ways. There was pork, beans, flour tortillas, red chile, and I think green chile, although frankly he may have been stretching it there because there wouldn’t be any green chile by December, unless people canned it back then. Which I suppose is possible. It makes for romantic reading, all right — but don’t try it at home. Unless you’re forced to. Simplicity is all very well and something I aspire to, but I start getting health problems if I can’t eat some vegetables on a regular basis.

Our current location is actually paradise compared to the neighboring town where we spent the summer. There, you could buy beef one day a week, IF you arrived early enough. Sleep till 8 and you’d miss out. There was no pork, fish, chicken, lamb, or goat available at any time, ever. Vegetable selection was exceedingly limited and miserable in quality. Nobody in town sold butter. Here at least, we can get butter, a few more vegetables including broccoli, and beef/pork/chicken/fish most days of the week, but it still drives me crazy.

Do let me clarify that this situation is NOT typical of Mexico as a whole, far from it. The entire southern half of Mexico is blessed with colorful, overflowing central markets in most towns and a wealth of regional cuisines. The ranch country to the north, however, has far more austere traditions in food. If you’re attached to your eating habits, be sure to check out the local food shopping before settling on an area.

As my predilection is for a more or less Mediterranean-type diet, the lack of vegetables presents a real problem. I can stock up on olive oil, decent parmesan, and vino in the city (along with Friskies and kitty litter), and I can make my own bread. But the only real solution I can see for the vegetables is to learn to grow them myself. Stay tuned.