Most Thursday mornings the family that sells pork and beef drives by with that days slaughter. I purchased 7 lbs of beautiful lomo fino (tenderloin) of pork. Half went into the freezer already covered with the dry rub, while the other half went into the refrig for its rest until this morning when I cooked it up.
I had to take a few pictures because these guys are just so sweet, the father was not with them this morning so I was only able to get photos of two of the sons. Here is a series of photos, I guess they wanted to look more macho so smiling too much was not how they wanted to be portrayed.
The pork had marinated and this morning I had it in the pressure pot by 7am. While out this afternoon Joe and I stopped by Jesus’s place and picked up fresh rolls, I made cole-slaw and invited David Hitchcock over for a quiet dinner. It was fun, the pork was excellent and life could not get any better.
Finding our Paradise in South America 
I’m sure that I saw someone say (in Cuenca) that lomo fino was $30 for 1 1/2 lbs. Surely that was wrong and you didn’t spend $140 or something, right?
Hi Leigh, No I would not pay that much here for tenderloin, this is tenderloin of pork but he sells both beef and pork for $2.50 a pound. Nancy
Sorry – she said $30 for 1 1/2 KG, not LBS, of course. WOW!
That is such a great deal! ENJOY! Life is grand there!
Thanks Karen, the Pork BBQ went fast that is for sure, Nancy
Hi Nancy, it has been some time since i last wrote to you. Thanks for all the info for us potential future expats to Somewhere?? I was in Guayaquil a few days visiting a Pastor and church, drove to Salinas for Lunch, took a 5 min stopover in La Libertad in 2007. I have a doctor who is now a pastor in a small church somewhere in Santa Elena and i am curious about that location and its proximity to Salinas. We Might’ go in late May or wait till next year to explore Santa Elena area. Do you know anything or have some pics of that location? Is the heat unbearable?? Crime? any anti US sentiments? Is La Libertad ’better’ for us to explore? We are Americans of latino, Puerto Rican parents. Just the typical questions you get daily. Thanks …gracias…merci. Joe n Raquel
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Hi Joe & Raquel, nice to hear from you again. Santa Elena is the provincial capital of that area, it covers Salinas, La Libertad and Santa Elena the town. Joe and I have driven through on our way to other places but have not spent any time in the town. It is in land, not on the coast and seems to be a nice sized town with a great deal of businesses that is about all I can tell you about the town. We have been gone from that area for quite a while. Lived in Playas for almost a year and have been up in San Clemente for 8 months already so I have no current experience in Salinas or Libertad…Wish I could help more but I would just be guessing at how things are going currently in that area.
I do know that Salinas is having a great deal of flooding and folks are making reference to the fact that some of the problem is being caused by folks flushing toilet paper. While we were there many of the expats told others that it was okay to flush TP. The septic system in all of Ecuador is not set up for flushing TP. Pipes are too small and we felt that there was going to be an issue. Right now the water is flooding into parking garages and flooding the streets near the malecon…I don’t care how new the building is and how great the pipes are in that building, the cities septic system is not new, it cannot handle TP because it was not built to handle TP…Most rural areas like ours have a septic tank for each home not a central septic system so we are very cautious on what goes into that system, when we added a washer we had that grey water go into our yard instead of into our tank..wish all our grey water was set up that way and only our toilets went into the tank but that is not how they did it back when our home was built.
Sorry I could not be of more help, Nancy
Thanks for the late night dinner last night. The BBQ was great and it was needed after babysitting some workers way too late into the evening. I thought I was gonna go to bed hungry, but you saved the day!!
David, it was fun getting together on Friday evening, glad you were able to come by. Joe and I woke up yesterday with what I am calling the “Barometric Pressure Blues” we actually had coffee and went back to bed for several hours. It did not get any better both of us felt such pressure all day that we never even went out of the house. This morning it is completely gone, yesterday the clouds were so low, this morning you can see a bit of blue…hope it stays this way. Nancy
Nancy,
I’ve been following your blog through Gringo tree and enjoying it very much.
As Canadian small scale farmers, we are ‘shocked’ at the sight of meat being sold in the streets (sarcasm)
no nanny state teling you what you can eat? How do you survive?
We have a small specialty meats business, that we started as a way to ‘add value’ to our free range pork. We’re planning a move to Ecuador in the next year or two, and are wondering if we should bring all our our hard won equipment with us and set up there?
Do you think there would be a demand, among ex-pats for sausages, bacon, jerky, hams, kielbasa, pies etc made from the local pork?
Hubby loves his sausage making, and would like to continue after we move.
(He’s too young to retire 🙂 whereas I AM NOT)
Hi Rhonda, Well I for one love your sense of humor…And I may steal the term “Nanny State” because it sums up how much control the government wants over what we eat, how we raise our food and what we put in our bodies.
I for one would buy most of what you make…kielbasa OH for a ring of good kielbasa…I wanted a smoked ham for Easter and I ordered it from our meat guy and waited all day on the Thursday and Saturday before Easter, we ended up eating chicken..oh well the bird was good but not as good as a nice smoked ham would have been.
If I were you I would look into starting a business in Ecuador before you bring all your equipment here. Both Joe and I are here on a Pensionado Visa in other words we have SS from the states, you would need to get a Visa allowing one or both of you to work and honestly I know nothing about that…but there are folks on the boards, forums like Yahoo and even on Facebook that should be able to answer any questions you may have…also contacting a good attorney to tell you the requirements before you make a big move would be my suggestion.
Move somewhere on the coast and we would love to eat your products. Nancy