I 💗 Gluten

I remember first walking down the streets of Panajachel, Guatemala, almost four years ago and being filled with both delight and disgust at the variety of smells.
Delight -- delicious foods being cooked
Disgust -- sewage, rotten things, and diesel fumes

One of the best smells of all comes when you walk past a bakery. Something I love about living here in Pana is that there are tons of places to get fresh-baked buns and treats. Now, notice I said "buns" and not "bread". This was something I learned in my first week here. The bakeries don't bake bread. HUH? What kinda bakery doesn't bake bread??

Well, I didn't know this when I first went into a small bakery in Jucanya way back in 2015. My nose led me into the little shop, drawn by the early morning smell of yeasty goodness. Feeling smart cuz I knew the Spanish word, I asked for pan - bread. The lady raised an eyebrow and me and said, "What kind?" I was a bit baffled and started to look around the shelves and in the racks behind her. She pulled out some baskets and showed me a dozen different varieties of buns and rolls. I said, "No, pan," and mimed the shape of a loaf. She shook her head. Nope, no bread here. Slightly mystified, I bought some delicious fresh buns and went on my way.

A bit later, I was in Despensa Familiar (the grocery store) where they sell regular loaves of sliced bread and I checked the package label. It said pan sandwich. Oooh! Sandwich bread. Makes perfect sense, once you hear it!

Back I went to a different bakery armed with my new vocabulary. ¿Tienes pan sandwich? (Do you have sandwich bread?) Nope, no sliced bread. Hrm. Curious. After trying several places over the next few weeks, I eventually gave up trying to find a freshly-baked loaf of sliced bread. Instead, I bought boring sliced white bread at Despensa and buy all my other bready products from the bakeries.

Recently, I was pleased to find more baked goods including awesome loaves of bread in the back of Chalo's and the front of Sandra's. You can get seeded loaves, focaccia, croissants, bagels, and baguettes. Pricey but worth it!

Here's another little secret! Almost every corner store has a basket of freshly baked buns for sale. The big bakeries make loads of buns of different shapes and sizes and deliver them to the tiendas in baskets or crates. The store owner usually places a brightly coloured cloth on top of the basket to keep the bread fresh, so you may not notice that it's there. But don't be shy. Lift up that cloth and take a peek at the yumminess hiding beneath!


How to shop:
Bakeries here in Panajachel operate usually in a choose-your-own manner. You walk in, trying not to drool, pick up a basket and a pair of tongs, and pick out your individual buns or rolls or cookies or whatever else catches your eye. You take your filled basket to the counter and they count the pieces out into a bag, you pay, and off you go!

Buns for sale at the local bakery in Jucanya.

Prices:
6 packaged processed "normal" hamburger buns at Despensa Familiar Q14
6 delicious fresh-baked soft hamburger buns at the bakery only Q3!
Most individual buns, cookies, and smaller items in the bakeries are Q0.50 each (50 centavos). Bigger or fancier rolls are more.
Banana bread (pan banano) Q10 to Q20 depending on the size and the bakery

So cute! A little bread octopus! Only 50 centavos.

Bakeries are more than just buns, of course! Even the smallest bakery will sell cookies, generally of two types. Champurradas are the ubiquitous Guatemalan cookie, perfect for dunking in your coffee. They not really sweet, crispy on the edges and kinda soft in the middle, often topped with sesame seeds.
Other cookies I've purchased from smaller bakeries come in different shapes -- rounds, fingers, flowers -- but seem to all be made from the same dough. I have to say that they're not very good and if anyone is interested in an unmet need in Panajachel, come down and open up a cookie store! I will be your best customer, I promise!

Champurradas. Photo courtesy of  Antigua Daily Photo.
Click the picture to go to their website! I love it!

In Pana, there are several bigger bakeries and cake shops. I won't go into all of them here. It will be more fun for you when you to visit and stroll around and discover them on your own. 😊

Looks delicious, doesn't it?

Cupcakes, oh my!

I should mention that this is my experience in Panajachel, which is a rather small town in a rural area of Guatemala. I have seen some pretty awesome bakeries in the bigger cities of Guatemala City, Antigua, and Xela (Quetzaltenango). They had such amazing variety! I'm sure you would have no problem getting your gluten/sugar fix on in any of those places. 😋


SPANISH WORDS FOR YOU!
pan = bread items of all types
pan sandwich = loaf of bread
panadería = bakery
pastelería = cake shop
pan frances = a roll for making sandwiches
pan dulce = a roll with a bit of sweetness in it, usually fancier looking
galletas = cookies
pastel = cake
pan banano = banana bread
pan zanahoria = carrot bread
cubiletes = this is a Guatemalan word for cupcakes
magdaleñas = also cupcakes, I think
mufin = muffin (ha!)

Please, comment below if you have any experience with bakeries in Guatemala. I'd love to hear more proper terms for the baked goods, and also where your favourite bakery is!

An Expensive Night Out With Friends

Whoa, I spent so much money tonight! 😵

Water (bottle) Q2
Dinner (pupusas) Q15
Mochaccino (large) Q25
Lemon Meringue Pie (small) Q20
Candy!!!! Q35
TOTAL Q97

That's approximately $17 Canadian or $13 American. We are crazy big spenders!!

Don't you love how the prices went up as the night went on? Good thing we decided not to hit up the bar or we would have blown thru all our money in short order! 😊

Karina's Kitchen!

I mentioned to NJP that I had a craving for pupusas and he said we should go to La Cocina de Karina, right near his house. It's an adorable little food stand on the side of the road in Jucanya Norte. Check out the awesome prices!
Behind the "restaurant" is her house. They basically just grabbed stuff from her kitchen and brought it out as they needed. it. There was only one table, and we claimed it! (Bert, NJP, Amazing Iva, and I.)

Karina cooking our delish food.

Karina did a great job of describing the dishes to us. She offered several types of pupusas, plus tablitas of BBQ meat with onions and cole slaw, all served with escabeche and ensalada and sauce.

Are all these words completely unfamiliar to you??? 😄 Check out this webpage to find recipes to try in your own kitchen! ⇒ Recetas Salvadoreñas

I got pupusas de chipilín. This is before I piled on the toppings!
That's NJP's rosa de jamaica drink to the left. So pretty!

The red jar is a warm tomato sauce, the yellow is HOT pickled carrots, cauliflower, and peppers, and the white jar is the mild cabbage salad.

NJP & Iva got the plate of roast meat with tortillas and coleslaw and onions and stuff.

Eating at Karina's food stand was a very Guatemalan experience. We had to pause our conversation while a truck went by with loudspeakers announcing some event. Dogs barked. The wind blew our napkins around. And then kids set off firecrackers in the street! There was even an old lady who offered to sell us food from her basket...while we were sitting in a restaurant...that serves food. Baffling.

After dinner, we went in search of sweets! We stopped in at Té Quiero coffee shop, their new second location at the Plaza de Jardin de America. They offer Starbucks style fancy coffees and desserts. My mochaccino cost more than my whole dinner! We sat outside at the back near the motorcycle parking. The whole plaza is still lit up with Christmas lights. Great conversation and good laughs!

Iva pointing out the cheesecake she wants.

My yummy mocha.

As we were walking out, a peeked thru a window and saw CANDY! The doors were closed but the lady inside saw us gawking and let us in. We spent a fortune on treats. She said it was Q5 an ounce and we could mix and match. Well, let me tell ya. It is really easy to buy Q35 of candy when you've got a bowl and tongs and a sweet tooth!

SUGAR!!!

That was my wild Saturday night. We're living the lush life here in Panajachel! 😎

A Lovely Walk at Lake Atitlan

Now and then, I need to remind myself of the gorgeous Lake Atitlan that is so near to my home. I love to gaze out my second-floor window at the lake and volcanoes, but I keep reminding myself that I need to get my butt off my computer chair and actually go down to the shore more often!

Panajachel has recently renovated their lakefront and put in lovely brick walkways. It's a wonderful improvement!

And the end of my walk, I bought some sliced green mango with chile and limón, a cheap and refreshing snack. Then I grabbed a tuc-tuc to the grocery store, bought some food for dinner, and walked home. Ah, what a sweet life!