This wonderful sign is painted on plexiglass and fastened to the wall above a sink at Oaxaca's Mercado Benito Juárez. The sign indicates that the water from the faucets is safe to use for washing hands but not safe for drinking. The sign is just the sort of thing Mexico Cooks! would have bought and brought home, if it had been for sale.
In June 2011, Mexico Cooks! spent a long weekend in the southern Mexico city of Oaxaca as the guest of Mexico's government tourism initiative called Mexico Today. A long weekend, no matter how wonderful, wasn't quite enough time to accomplish the kind of touring that interested me. Invited again to Oaxaca by the extraordinary culinary festival El Saber del Sabor, I had the chance to see just a little more of this amazing state and was able to realize one long-time dream.
Table centerpiece, inaugural event at El Saber del Sabor. This lovely dinner for about 1000 people was prepared by many of Oaxaca's best regional cooks.
Memelas with refried black beans and crumbled queso fresco (fresh cheese), a traditional antojito that is emblematic of Oaxaca.
At Oaxaca's Mercado Benito Juárez, Quesería Las 7 Regiones (Cheeseshop 7 Regions) employee Julia Pérez winds freshly made quesillo into the individual balls visible at the lower right in the photo.
Bienvenidos a Oaxaca (Welcome to Oaxaca). This papel picado (cut tissue paper) streamer greeted us in Ocotlán de Morelos, a small city just half an hour south of the city of Oaxaca. It had long been my dream visit the town.
Young members of a Saturday afternoon wedding party await the bride's arrival at Ocotlán's Templo de Nuestra Señora del Rosario (church of Our Lady of the Rosary).
Dome over Ocotlán's Templo de Nuestra Señora del Rosario.
Detail of a jarrón (large clay jar) in Ocotlán's ex-Convento de Santo Domingo. The former convent has been largely restored using funds donated by Morales and is now a museum. The painting shows both the man in the moon and the Mexican legend of the rabbit in the moon.
Mexico Cooks!' primary reason for going to Ocotlán was to visit the home of maestro Rodolfo Morales, a native of Ocotlán and an internationally known surrealist painter and collage maker. His paintings haunt my dreams and, although I never met him, his work speaks volumes to me about who he was and about his love for Mexico and his home city.
Maestro Rodolfo Morales, native-born Ocotlán surrealist painter and collage maker. Maestro Rodolfo, who died on January 30, 2001, has long been a personal hero of mine and for years I have wanted to visit his town and his home.
This painting is filled with some of maestro Rodolfo's recurrent symbols: girls with streaming long hair, bicycles, dogs, flowers, and mystical figures. Click on any photo for a better view.
The Morales family kitchen. Alberto Morales, maestro Rodolfo's nephew, showed us through the house. As they are in the Morales kitchen, clay pots are traditionally hung in the kitchen of a Mexican home both for daily use and as decor. The Morales kitchen is still used every day.
The workshop where Morales created the intricate collages he sold to benefit his cultural foundation, headed today by his nephew. The collages were made of paper, fabric, stickers, ribbons, yarn, lace--really, any material that fit the subject matter of the piece. Some collages are very simple and others are extraordinarily complex.
Rodolfo Morales, collage Ángel Azul. Photo courtesy Art for Small Hands. Hands are usually prominent in maestro Rodolfo's work; they symbolize the work of the people of Oaxaca, work done with their hands.
Tubes of paint and pots of brushes remain in Morales's Ocotlán home studio, along with a large number of incomplete canvases.
The maestro's boots, propped on the base of his easel.
In the Templo de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a candle symbolizes a prayer--perhaps a prayer that a dream might be realized. Mine was, and yours can be, too.
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Disclaimer: Marca País-Imágen de México is a joint public and private sector initiative designed to help promote Mexico as a global business partner and an unrivaled tourist destination. This program is designed to shine a light on the Mexico that its people experience every day. Disclosure: I am being compensated for my work in creating content for the Mexico Today program. All stories, opinions, and passions for all things Mexico that I write on Mexico Cooks! are completely my own.
Those memelas look crazy good. You never see dishes like that north of the border.
Posted by: tortilla chips | October 25, 2011 at 04:00 PM
que bueno, se me antojo mucho que buenas fotos! esto tambien se antoja para viajar
Posted by: tere | October 20, 2011 at 02:08 PM
Sólo de escuchar Oaxaca se me antojan unas ricas tlayudas... Dios, espero estar muy pronto por allá.
Posted by: Danny | October 17, 2011 at 05:26 PM
I love the sign. But I thought it meant something entirely different.
Posted by: Steve Cotton | October 15, 2011 at 12:36 PM