Mexico Cooks!

Vena Cava Winery, Restaurante Fuego, and Restaurante Corazón de Tierra ALL IN ONE DAY :: Valle de Guadalupe Beginnings

At Restaurante Corazón de Tierra, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California.  Headed up by renowned chef Diego Hernández Baquedano, Corazón de Tierra was named number 39 out of 50 on the San Pellegrino 50 Best Latin American restaurants list for 2016.  Rafael Mier gave a presentation about Mexico's native corns to chef Diego and the restaurant's entire kitchen crew and wait staff.  Chef Diego closed the restaurant for two prime evening hours so that he and his staff could take part in the class; we felt very honored.  Left to right: Rafael Mier, founder of the non-profit foundation Tortilla de Maíz Mexicana,  Mexico Cooks!, and extraordinary chef Diego Hernández. 

Unlike the lush central and southern areas of Mexico, Baja California grows almost no corn.  Most of Baja California is arid, the mountains are rugged and barren, and the temperatures are extreme--the state capital, Mexicali, can have mid-summer temperatures as high as 110ºF and winter lows in the low 40ºs.   Because there is little to no rainfall over much of the state, many of its successful crops (wheat, red tomatoes, and onions are the principal products, followed by strawberries and cotton) are grown using irrigation.  Very few farmers grow native corns, and very few people in cities such as Mexicali, Tijuana, and Ensenada are familiar with them.  It was particularly thrilling to see Baja California's younger cooks and and restaurant staffs light up when they learned first-hand about their corn heritage.


Not everybody listened all the way through the corn presentations, but everybody loved the corn!  This little black cat at the Corazón de Tierra gardens pooped out about halfway through a talk and made himself comfortable for a snooze. 


Vena Cava and Corazón de Tierra co-owner Eileen Gregory joined us for the corn presentation given to the gardening team. 

Master Gardener Claire Acosta showed us around the gardens.  Here, a long row of organic acelgas (swiss chard).  All of the produce from the garden is destined for the restaurant tables.  Ms. Acosta tells chef Diego what the gardeners can pick today and he plans his menu around those vegetables.


Late in the morning, we went to Vena Cava (Phil and Eileen Gregory's beautiful winery) for one of Phil's delightful wine tastings and many stories about the Gregorys' arrival in Valle de Guadalupe.  Here, native corn meets Baja wine!


Would you believe this trip was called "work"?  Nah, me either!  Our next stop was at Restaurante Fuego Cocina del Valle, a short distance from the Vena Cava winery.  Headed by executive chef Mario Peralta, Fuego is part of Hotel Boutique, in the heart of Baja California's wine country. Chef Mario, a contender on the 2016 season of Top Chef Mexico, is part of the new generation of cooks who carry the banner of Baja California-style cuisine, which is best known for making use of the region's seasonal ingredients.


Chef Mario's chileagua, plated in a clam shell on a bed of coarse sea salt.  The dish is based on the almeja reina (queen clam), which is joined by pear tomatoes, red zebra tomatoes, avocado, cucumber, chile serrano, cilantro flowers, and cempasúchil (marigold) flowers.  On this hot, dry winter day, we couldn't have eaten anything more refreshing.  Four or five small courses followed this appetizer, but this chileagua was my favorite.


Our final corn stop of the day was back at Corazón de Tierra, for the maíces nativos presentation and then dinner at the restaurant.  Here, master gardener Claire Acosta and chef Diego Hernández enjoy looking at the two baskets of native corns.

The menu for dinner at Corazón de Tierra consisted of eight courses, the last of which was a series of three desserts.  Fortunately (or not) the portions were served to be shared per three diners.  The three tiny kumamoto oysters in the photo above, each as big as the end of my thumb, were meant to be one per person.  They were so intensely delicious I would have eaten not only these three, but the three meant for the three people sitting next to me.  Everything was delicious, but these oysters in hazelnut butter were my favorite course.

Our Corazón de Tierra courses: 
Smoked fish tostada
Kumamoto oysters in hazelnut butter
Salad of tomatoes and tomato water, all from the restaurant's organic garden
Roast beets with two types of smoked garlic, borage, and aged cheese
Lamb taco with stewed swiss chard stems, black radish, and blue corn tortilla
Sea bass with dashi and zucchini-type squash
Potatoes from the organic gardens with chile padrón and 5-year-aged salsa madre

Desserts:
Nopal ice cream with a ginger cookie
Sesame seed ice cream with cilantro cream
Mix of truffles and panacotta

Chef Diego's lovely and refreshing tomato salad, topped with edible flower petals.  The dining room at Corazón de Tierra was quite dark, giving a dark, dream-like quality to the dishes we ate--and to the photos I took.


Tiny potatoes, deeply flavorful, coupled with mildly spicy chiles padrón, and tender leaves of various colors, all served with deliberately aged five-year-old salad dressing.


The presentation of sesame seed ice cream with cilantro cream, served on a bed of crunchy, sweet crumble was perfectly beautiful, but was my least favorite item on the menu.  Others raved about it.   


This fantastic dinner at Corazón de Tierra ended as the moon rose over the restaurant in Valle de Guadalupe.  The trek back to our Rosarito condo was quiet and reflexive after our long and wonderful day.

Special thanks to Cintia Soto for taking menu notes in the dark!

Next week: we'll take a short break from Baja California for a special trip to Michoacán, for Noche de Muertos (Night of the Dead).  On November 4, we'll go to Ensenada for Baja California street food, and a surprise!  Don't miss either one.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours. 

La Cocina de Doña Esthela :: Doña Esthela's Kitchen, Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California

Señora Blanca Estela Martínez Bueno--known to the world as doña Esthela--along with her husband, don José, in the white hat--converse with Rafael Mier about some of Mexico's native corns.  

Doña Esthela and her husband, both of whom were born and raised in farming families from the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, know corn inside and out.  They had a lot to talk about with Rafael Mier and were thrilled that he'd brought the mazorcas (dried ears of corn) with him to the restaurant. The visit we made to their Valle de Guadalupe restaurant, La Cocina de Doña Esthela, was exciting for all of us. Watching the way these three people enjoyed touching these old-time ears of corn, listening to the stories they swapped about planting, raising, harvesting, storing, and cooking with the grains, inspired me deeply. 

Doña Esthela and don José (doña and don are honorifics in Mexico, prefixes to a respected woman or man's first name) moved from Sinaloa to Baja California over 20 years ago.  To do her part to support their family, doña Esthela took in washing and ironing.  Shortly after, she began selling home-baked cookies--and not just any cookies: she was making and selling coricos from the state of Sinaloa, the curled-up cookies on the right in the photo.  Coricos are made with lard, corn masa (dough), a little sugar, and some baking powder: simple ingredients with fabulous flavor.

Pretty soon her coricos, burritos, and whatever else she could prepare to sell outside the employee entrances to maquiladores (trans-border factories) and outside local schools was in hot demand among the workers and students in her Mexican neighborhood, and before much longer, other people got wind of the fact that she was a terrific cook.  Soon after that, the actors and crew from a popular Mexican telenovela (soap opera), filming in the area, showed up asking to be fed, and the rest is history. She started restaurant life in her home kitchen, with one table, cooking whatever ingredients she could afford to purchase.  Over the years, she and her family have expanded the restaurant over and over again--today, La Cocina de Doña Esthela can seat up to 160 diners at a time.


A simple sign, nothing fancy--but on weekends, the wait to be seated can be as much as three hours.  If you're in Baja California and want to have breakfast at Doña Esthela's on Saturday or Sunday--or during a puente (holiday weekend)--a word to the wise: the restaurant opens at 8:30 AM.  Be there early so you don't have to stand in line forever.  On the other hand, if there is a line ahead of you, wait. Breakfast is worth it and you'll thank me.

Let's get to the point: what did we eat?


The star of the restaurant is the barbacoa de borrego tatemado (pit-cooked mutton). Doña Esthela gets up long before dawn to put the mutton and its seasonings into the underground cooking pit--it has to be ready when she opens the doors to customers at 8:30AM.  Fall off the bone tender, the meat is served with a bowl of consomé, the liquid in which the meat was cooked.  I've eaten delicious barbacoa in a lot of places, and I swear to you that this is the best I've ever tried.  Anywhere.  Ever.


Big platters started coming quickly out of the kitchen. These are gorditas, thick corn tortillas, split in half and stuffed with spinach, with machaca, with nopales, or with chicharrón, all served with frijoles refritos, Sinaloa style.   


Machaca (shredded, seasoned dried beef), scrambled into eggs.  Doña Esthela prepares everything herself, with some other staff in the kitchen to help.

I put a spoonful of the machaca into one of her house-made corn tortillas and bit into it, and I think my eyeballs rolled back in my head with joy.  If you don't eat anything else at La Cocina de Doña Esthela, you must have the machaca.  In 2015, the British food website Foodie Hub named Doña Esthela's breakfasts--with special attention given to the machaca--the tastiest in the world.  It's certainly far and away the best machaca Mexico Cooks! has ever tasted.


To the right in the photo is the completely merited Foodie Hub trophy, awarded to Doña Esthela for her breakfasts.  In the middle, one of the reed baskets filled with Mexico's colorful native corn.  To the left, the clay bowl holds little balls of what I know as azafrán de bolita (little saffron balls).  I was so surprised to see them in Baja California; a friend from the state of Jalisco gave me some several years ago and told me that they were only known in that state.  His grandmother used them for giving a deep saffron yellow-orange color to a recipe that she made for potatoes and onions. 


Here is some of the azafrán de bolita that my Jalisco friend gave me, in a dish that measures about two and a half inches in diameter.  The little balls are about the same size as whole allspice.  I split a couple open so that you could see their interior color.    


Doña Esthela's hot-off-the-comal (griddle) corn tortillas.  The incredibly rich flavors of every dish on the table were only enhanced by the pure, delicious taste of home-nixtamal-ized corn masa, pressed into tortillas and toasted on the comal until just right.  The tortillas just kept coming--and not only these marvelous corn tortillas, but also doña Esthela's addictive flour tortillas!  Which to choose!  Easy--have both!


Just when we thought we were finished with breakfast (i.e., ready to burst from having eaten our weight in everything but the actual clay plates, which we politely refrained from licking), doña Esthela brought us a couple of platters of her corn hotcakes and maple syrup.  Somehow these, too, disappeared.  Our 9-year-old companion, Wolf Koenig, said these were the best pancakes he'd ever tasted.  Seems like there's a "best" theme happening here--and honestly, everything we ate WAS the best of whatever it was.  


Wolf's dad, W. Scott Koenig, snarfing down a flour tortilla filled with frijolitos refritos (refried beans).  The plate at the bottom of the photo holds what's left of just one of the platters of those beans.  


Our group, just barely willing to turn away from their plates to look at me as I took the picture.  The shutter clicked and we all went right back to mmm-ing and oooh-ing and chewing and enjoying the best (there it is again!) breakfast ever.  Clockwise from the left side of the photo: Chris Mejia of Baja Test Kitchen, W. Scott Koenig of A Gringo in Mexico, Wolf Koenig of corn hotcake fame, Ursula Koenig, Jennifer Kramer of Baja Test Kitchen, and just a sliver of Rafael Mier of the Facebook group Tortilla de Maíz Mexicana--which if you haven't yet joined, you definitely should.


One last shot of our crew, with its stars of the day: the maíces mexicanos nativos that were the reason for our trip to Baja California, and to the far right, our incredible breakfast hosts, don José and doña Esthela.  From left to right, the rest of us: Mexico Cooks!, Jennifer Kramer, Rafael Mier, and Chris Mejia. 

The best way to rescue Mexico's at-risk native corns is by eating them, as we did and you will at La Cocina de Doña Esthela.  It's urgent that we promote Mexico's high-quality native corns and at the same time, Mexican farming.  

Mexico's two most precious resources: the campesino and the native corn.  

If you are ever in the vicinity of Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California, do not miss breakfast with doña Esthela.  Go early, but if there's a line, don't be discouraged.  Breakfast is so worth the wait.   

La Cocina de Doña Esthela
Highway from El Tigre to Guadalupe S/N
Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California
Open daily from 8:30 AM
Telephone: 01-646-156-8453

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

Native Corns in Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California, Mexico :: The Delights of Lechuza Vineyards and Viñas Pijoan

Here we go!  These two shallow baskets, packed into the trunk of our vehicle, are overflowing with 50 or more different regional varieties of maíces mexicanos nativos (native Mexican corns), ready to head out for wine country: Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California.  In the center of the basket on the right, you can see what looks almost like a hot dog.  It's actually a mazorca (dried ear of corn): white corn with a few rows of dried kernels removed to expose its red cob!  All photos copyright Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise credited.

You might well ask about the point, the vision, the purpose of this corn journey.  You can read here Corn: Mexico's Gift to the World, for a quickie refresher about the thousands of years of history of the corn we know today, corn domesticated in what is now Mexico.   That long heritage of Mexico's corn is in jeopardy today; Rafael Mier and I were invited to take corn and its crucial importance to the chefs and cooks in Baja California, where little corn is grown and few ancient corns are known.


The Pacific coast, from an overlook near Ensenada, Baja California.  Those rings in the water to the far right in the photo?  Tuna farms; this offshore area is dotted with them.  All photos copyright Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

During the last 20 or so years, Valle de Guadalupe and the Ensenada area of Baja California have become a Mexican wine and culinary destination, recognized world-wide. With over 100 commercial vineyards, an extraordinary number of high-end restaurants, and the nearby Pacific Ocean, tourism in this part of Baja California is booming. We travelled to this part of Mexico in the interest of educating area chefs, kitchen staffs, and the students at Tijuana's excellent Culinary Arts School about Mexico's ancient history of corn as well as the need to preserve and protect our native grain.  

The backstory is that about six months ago, Chris Mejia and Jennifer Kramer of Baja Test Kitchen visited me in Mexico City, saying that they were neophytes to the world of corn and asking for specific information about Mexico's original corns.  I gave them a teaching tour through the temporary exhibit called La Milpa at the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares in Coyoacán, in the southern part of Mexico City (on view until November 5, 2017).  I also arranged for Chris, Jen, and me to have comida (Mexico's main meal of the day) with my good friend, colleague, and extraordinary corn expert, Rafael Mier.  The four of us talked for several hours over comida about Mexico's native corn, about the urgent need to expose the person on the street, the chef in his or her kitchen, and the world in general to the distinct possibility that native corns, first domesticated thousands of years ago in what is now Mexico, are in danger of extinction.  Chris and Jen, who live in both Baja California and in San Diego, were truly fascinated with corn's ancient history, with its current danger from hybrids and genetically modified corns, and with the possibility of taking the corn show on the road, as it were, to inform Baja California--where corn has been cultivated very little--about the prospect of losing Mexico's original corns.  Within a short time after his and Jen's return to the West Coast, Chris called me to get the ball rolling: "Set some dates when you can come, we're ready to invite restaurant owners, chefs, students, and anyone interested in heirloom corn to meet with Rafa and you in Baja."  We arrived in Tijuana on July 22, 2017, knowing that Chris, Jen, and our friend W. Scott Koenig, who was helping them with the planning, had a packed 10-day agenda for us to follow.  Ten days, many of them sixteen hours long!  At the end, were thrilled, inspired, and exhausted.


First stop, Lechuza Vineyard, Valle de Guadalupe. 

Founded in 2003 by Ray and Patty Magnussen, Lechuza’s origin stems from the Valle’s verdant fields, fertile soil, and culture. The desire to share the Valle’s remarkable abundance and warmth is the driving principle behind Lechuza’s winemaking philosophy: to consistently produce top tier wines while promoting sustainability and regional stewardship. Lechuza’s wines strive to reveal the story of its grapes, under the meticulous care of the Magnussen family.  Mexico Cooks! met the Magnussen family at Lechuza (the name is that of a local burrowing owl) in February 2017 and felt a strong connection to them and to their work.  In mid-March, Ray's family and friends were saddened to our core by the news of his sudden and unexpected death.  Ray's daughter, Kris Magnussen, will continue her father's work; the family, the winery, the entire Valle de Guadalupe, and Lechuza's many fans are heartened that she's taking charge.


Grapes at Lechuza Vineyard were just beginning to take on color when we were there near the end of July.


Rafa explains the origin of Mexican regional corns as well as their historic and culinary importance to Ray's wife, Angela (Paty) Magnussen and a number of the staff at Lechuza.  


After a few very emotional hours at Lechuza, we once again packed up the corn (you're going to see that phrase a lot during the next month or so) and traveled a short distance to our next stop, Viñas Pijoan.


In the cava at Viñas Pijoan.

Viñas Pijoan is a family-run business, founded in 1999.  In that year, Pau Pijoan, a long-time veterinarian, took a course in winemaking that changed not only his life but the lives of his family members.  What might simply have been a hobby became a passion, and in 2001, Pijoan's Leonora red placed fifth in a Mexican national wine competition.  From then until now, the winery--although still small compared to many in the area--has continued to produce ever-increasing amounts of wine.  The number of barrels produced rose 600% between 2005 and 2011!


Maíces nativos mexicanos (Mexico's native corn) on the sun-dappled terrace at Viñas Pijoan.

We and the Pijoan family were enormously excited by our time spent together.  Paula Pijoan, Sr. Pijoan's daughter, who heads up the family vineyard's gardening and other botanical needs and is an active plant preservationist, was thrilled to have the native corns visit the winery. I'm sure the corns were as happy as we were to be there!


Corn, the star of the show!  Left to right around the table: Paula Pijoan, Mexico Cooks!, Jennifer Kramer, chef Diana Kusters, Chris Mejia, the lovely and laughing Leonora Pijoan, Pau Pijoan, Rafael Mier and at the far right...oh no!  I've forgotten his name.  I'm sorry!


Diana Kusters, chef at Salvia at Viñas Pijoan, with Mexico Cooks!.

During the course of a long, leisurely afternoon, of course there was food.  Viñas Pijoan is the site of Salvia, a charming outdoor restaurant, named for a Baja California variety of sage.  Chef Diana Kusters is in charge of the kitchen.


Heavenly bruschetta, with crusty, dense bread, Baja California grown and pressed olive oil and tomatoes grown in the Viñas Pijoan garden.


Tostada de atún (fresh Baja California tuna) with chile serrano, broccoli sprouts, and chile de árbol.  Really spectacular!


Salmas (see recommendation below) with fresh Baja California tuna and sprouts.


If you haven't yet tried Salmas, oven-baked corn crackers topped with a sprinkle of sea salt, look for them in your local supermarket.  They're better-tasting and healthier than any corn chip you've ever eaten.  (This is not a paid advertisement--Mexico Cooks! does not accept advertising.  This is just my personal recommendation, I've been eating Salmas for years.)


Portobello mushroom ceviche with avocados, sprouts, thinly sliced radishes, and calabacitas (squash similar to zucchini).

Enjoy this short interview with Pau Pijoan as he talks about Baja California, his wines, and his winery.  Video courtesy Grape Collective.

Next week, we return to Valley de Guadalupe to have breakfast at La Cocina de Doña Esthela.  Doña Esthela is legendary--you'll love meeting her and seeing the photos of the incredible breakfast we ate.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water!

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

 

Mexico's Native Corns, On Tour in Baja California :: Maíces Nativos de México, de Gira en Baja California, México

When Chris Mejia and Jennifer Kramer (founders of Baja California specialist tour company Baja Test Kitchen) invited us to take Mexico's native corns on the road, Tortilla de Maíz Mexicana's founder Rafael Mier and Mexico Cooks! were thrilled.  You think taking a suitcase loaded with mazorcas (ears of dried corn) from Mexico City to Baja California is easy?  Each ear required the protection of bubble wrap and plenty of coddling.  We could easily have filled this steamer trunk to the brim, but we made do with an extra-large suitcase to get the beautiful ears safely to their (and our) destination.  Photo courtesy Pinterest.


In the photo, you see just a few of the many colorful mazorcas we carried to Tijuana--and beyond. Photo courtesy Josué Castro, friend of Mexico's maíces nativos (native corns) and a tremendous support to all of us in the project.


From the plane, July 22, 2017: over the mainland with a view of el Golfo de California (the Sea of Cortez).  Very shortly after I took this picture, we and our personal luggage, plus the big suitcase full of corn, arrived in Tijuana, where Chris and Jen met us at the airport.


First stop?  We were ravenous, as if we'd flapped our wings ourselves to fly us to Tijuana!  We swooped from the airport directly into Tacos El Franc, one of Tijuana's large number of fantastic taquerías (places to eat tacos). From the time I first lived in Tijuana, in the early 1980s, my opinion has been that Tijuana is Mexico's taco central. The delicious tacos at Tacos El Franc truly confirmed that for me.  


Dos de pastor, por favor, con todo...two tacos al pastor, please, with everything.  "Everything" includes minced onion, chopped cilantro, freshly made guacamole, and as much house-made salsa as you want.  Word to the wise: green salsa is almost always spicier than red.


So what does 'al pastor' mean?  Allegedly invented in Mexico City and based on Middle Eastern shawarma, tacos al pastor are now hugely popular all over Mexico.  Al pastor simply means 'shepherd style', grilled on a trompo (vertical spit). The metal contraption behind the trompo is the vertical gas grill.  The trompo, loaded with thinly sliced marinated pork, turns to grill the outside of the meat--roasted through and crisped on the outside at the moment you order your tacos.  The slightly charred edge bits, combined with the tender meat just underneath the surface, combine to make your taco dreams come true.


Two tacos are never enough.  My next order was uno de asada, porfas...(one of thinly sliced grilled beef, please). The toppings for this one are minced onion, chopped cilantro, frijoles de la olla (freshly cooked beans direct from the pot), and guacamole--plus as much of your favorite salsa as you like.  Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is! 


Freshly-toasted house-made tortillas heat on a slightly greased flat top griddle (rear) while roasted chiles güero ('blond' chiles) wait for you to eat: ask for one or simply take one by the stem. This chile, about two to three inches long, broad at the stem end and pointed at the tip, can range in spiciness from mild to yikes, and you can't tell which it's going to be until you bite into it. Some (including me) like it on the yikes side of hot. 


Last taco for today: suadero, a very thin cut of beef from just under the skin, cut from the section between the belly and the leg of the animal. Again, I topped this taco with onion and cilantro, plus guacamole and green salsa, which is almost always what I prefer.


Raw suadero looks like the meat in the photo above. You'll probably be able to find the cut at a Mexican butcher shop, if there is one near you.  Photo courtesy Chedraui.


In Mexico, there's a saying: panza llena, corazón contento (full stomach, happy heart).  Here we all are, full of tacos and the living examples of that saying.  From the left: Jennifer Kramer, Mexico Cooks!, Rafael Mier, and Chris Mejia.


Just in time for our first Pacific Coast sunset, Chris and Jen took us to the Rosarito condo where we would spend the next 10 nights.  Tacos El Franc and a view like this from the balcony? Who needs anything more!

Grateful for the generosity of our hosts, we went happily to our comfortable rooms and dreamed of the next morning, when we would take the corn for the first time to Valle de Guadalupe, the wine country of Baja California.

Next week: A day with the corn at two spectacular wineries.  Don't miss a minute of this marvelous tour.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

Restaurante El Bajío and Its Founder, Carmen Titita Ramírez Degollado

Founded in 1972 by Raúl Ramírez Degollado y Alfonso Hurtado Morellón, the highly successful restaurant has now expanded to sixteen locations in various parts of Mexico City.  The original site is still thriving in Delegación Azcapotzalco, in the northern part of the city.

El Bajío's original restaurant is puro folclore (completely traditional and colorful) in its decor as well as in its extraordinarily delicious food.  The cardboard Judas (devil figures) hanging on the wall are typically burned on Holy Saturday night, but these have survived to keep an eye on you as you dine.

At an event at the UNAM Jardín Botánico (Botanical Garden at Mexico's national university),  Mexico Cooks! renewed acquaintance with the deservedly celebrated Carmen Titita Ramírez Degollado, founder (with her husband) and owner of Mexico City's Restaurantes El Bajío. Titita, as she is known to family, friends, and faithful customers, graciously invited us to come for comida at whichever of the eight El Bajío restaurants we preferred, and we chose the founding site, in the far northern part of Mexico City called Azcapotzalco.   We particularly wanted to see the birthplace of the legendary restaurant.

Twenty-nine years ago, when Titita was left a widow with five children, she took over running the restaurant. Over the course of the years, it has become a temple dedicated to the preservation of Mexican recipes, particularly those from her Veracruz homeland.  Her cooking skills, like those of all the best Mexican restaurant owners, were honed in her home kitchen, watching and learning from her mother and other female relatives and her childhood nanas (nannies).  "Mexican food is not about fusion with other cooking styles.  Mix Mexican food with Japanese, or Italian, and what do you get?  Confusion!  Traditional Mexican food is like traditional French or Italian cuisine: recipes and techniques are time-honored formulas carried intact into today's kitchens.  My restaurant cooks might use a blender instead of a molcajete (volcanic stone grinding mortar) to save time in the commercial kitchen, but the end result--the food on your plate--is the same as it was decades ago."


Titita Ramírez, standing next to the gorgeous wall of baskets that decorates the Colonia Polanco branch of El Bajío.  After our several-hour multi-course meal at the original location, Titita took us to Polanco to see that site.  "Yes, we'd love to go with you today--but," we begged her, "please, please, don't feed us anything else!"

Because we were Titita's guests, we barely looked at the El Bajío menu.  Titita, a supremely generous hostess, graciously ordered a lengthy tasting menu for us, a selection of some of her clients' favorite items.  The full menu is available at the restaurant's website.

The first course brought to the table was a selection of several antojitos de banqueta (little sidewalk whims), so called because these treats are normally eaten while you're standing at a street stand.  Clockwise from nine o'clock on the plate, we ate a gordita de frijol inflada (puffed-up thick tortilla, the masa mixed with black beans, served with that tiny dish of smoky salsa de chipotle meco), a garnacha Orizabeña (a small tortilla topped with Orizaba-style shredded beef, diced potato, and, in this case, red salsa), an empanada de plátano macho (the masa (dough) of the empanada is made of sweet, ripe plantain which is then filled with black beans and fried), and a panucho yucateco (a small tortilla covered with Yucatecan-style black beans, cochinita pibil, onion and chile habanero).

Next, each of us tried a tasting-menu size portion of ceviche verde de cazón (green ceviche made of dogfish, a kind of shark, marinated in citrus and chile). 

One tiny round empanada rellena con frijoles negros (a round empanada filled with black beans), dusted with Cotija cheese.  The beans were  delicious with the subtle anise flavor of the dried leaves of aguacate criollo--Mexico's native avocados.


Arroz con mole de Xico (Mexican red rice with Xico-style mole), accompanied by a tiny serving of chicken breast and slices of plátanos machos fritos (fried ripe plantains). Xico, a lovely pueblo in Veracruz, is justifiably famous for its mole.

Mayora Sandra Olvera is in charge of making El Bajío's mole; she's holding a standard-size plate, ready to be served to a restaurant client. A mayora is the woman head of a restaurant kitchen.  Mayora Sandra has been in the kitchen at El Bajío for its entire 45 year history.  For more than 30 years, Mexico Cooks! has eaten mole everywhere in Mexico and this extraordinary mole de Xico ranks among the best I've tried.

Two of the members of Los Tuxpeños, a group specializing in traditional music from Veracruz.  They are often at El Bajío to enliven the diners' comida (main midafternoon meal of the day).

A short breather in between courses: I confess that I was ready to be disillusioned by El Bajío.  Whether cracking open a much-ballyhooed best-selling book, planning to see an Oscar-winning movie, or tucking into a legendary restaurant's meal for the first time, I am often guilty of having the preconceived notion that, "It couldn't possibly be as good as the hype."  Let me tell you that El Bajío is at least as good as its publicity.  The atmosphere is lovely, the food is world class, and the service is excellent. 

Titita told me that this little clay pig--although it's not so little, measuring more nearly a meter from snout to tail--hails from Toluca and is used to steam-heat tamales.  The door in the side, once used for carbón (Mexico's charcoal), is now used for an alcohol burner.

Titita and her restaurants have participated in world-wide events and have won every prize conceivable.  All of her achievements (including the following) are legendary:

• 1998 "The Amercian Academy of Hospitality Services" Five Star Diamond Award.

• Participated for 10 years in the culinary events of Festival Anual del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México.

• Consultant for various restaurants in the United States and Europe.

• Active member of the Asociación Mexicana de Restaurantes (AMR).

• Member of the International Association of Professional Chefs (I.A.C.P.) of the USA.

• For three years, demonstrated Mexican cuisine at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, California.

• Represented Mexico in the USA-based television commercials for the campaign "Got Milk" in Los Angeles, California.
• Won recognition as "La Llave Empresarial 2006" granted by  AMAIT y ABASTUR in México.

• Nominated by the New York Times as one of the two great matriarchs of Mexican cooking.

• Won the 2008 and 2009 restaurant business merit prize.

Titita assured me that the menu, the quality, and the prices are the same at all sixteen El Bajío locations, regardless of neighborhood and regardless of clientele. 

Quesadillas de flor de calabaza (quesadillas made with squash flowers, epazote, onion, garlic, and chile jalapeño).  The deep, rich, complicated flavor of these quesadillas was pure Mexico.

Somehow we dived into two of the courses much too fast and the food escaped the Mexico Cooks! camera.  One was a taco of delicious carnitas estilo Tacámbaro (Tacámbaro-style pork) that gave us a taste of our beloved Michoacán.  The other a tasting plate of pescado a la veracruzana (Veracruz-style fish, with tomatoes, onions, and olives), brought us back to Titita's birthplace on Mexico's east coast.

The last touch to a typical meal from the east coast of Mexico: a small dish of frijoles negros refritos (refried black beans), to eat with totopos (tortilla chips) or to roll into a small taco.  One of these is plenty as the final toquecito salado (little salty touch) to a meal such as ours.

And then there was dessert.  We shared two: first, an individual-size dark chocolate tart filled with cajeta (otherwise known as dulce de leche) and topped with a coffee bean, created by María Teresa Ramírez Degollado (Titita's daughter), her partner Joan Bagur Bagur and their staff at Artesanos del Dulce.


Next, the hands-down best capirotada I have ever eaten.  If you've been around Mexico Cooks! for long, you know that I am a huge fan of this typically Lenten dessert--but wow, this one is stupendous for any time of year.

Titita also gave Mexico Cooks! a copy of her beautiful cookbook, Alquimias y Atmósferas del Sabor: Alta Gastronomía de doña Carmen Titita (Alchemy and Atmospheres of Flavor: Haute Cuisine of doña Carmen Titita), with superb photo illustrations by internationally known photographer Ignacio Urquiza.  First published by Editorial Tiempo Imaginario, México in 2001, the book won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2002.  The book's second edition was published in 2009.  

Alquimias y Atmósferas del Sabor is as exquisite in its presentation as in its recipes, several of which are offered on the menu at all of the El Bajío restaurants.  Try Titita's recipe for empanadas de plátano macho; it's very simple and will make your household and your guests sigh with delight.  Here is Mexico Cooks!' translation of Titita's recipe.  Serve these empanadas with any Mexican main dish you choose and freshly prepared rice; they are marvelous with a rich mole served with chicken or pork.

+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+

Empanadas de Plátano Macho Rellenas con Frijoles Refritos
Plantain Dough Empanadas filled with Refried Beans

Ingredients
3 very ripe platános machos (plantains), skins on
Salt to taste
1 quart water
Enough vegetable oil to fry the empanadas, with a little extra to coat your hands while shaping them

Refried black beans

Special utensil
Tortilla press or rolling pin

The plantains are ready to use when their yellow skins have turned almost entirely black and are showing a bit of white mold--just when you might think it is time to pitch them in the trash, it's time to make empanadas.

The day before you want to serve the empanadas, cook the plantains, peels still on, in the quart of boiling water.  Allow them to cool overnight. 

The next day, peel the plantains and discard the peels.  Mash the plantains to make a smooth paste that you will use as the empanada dough.  Rub vegetable oil all over your hands and make 12 little balls of the plantain dough. 

To flatten the dough, put each ball between two sheets of plastic (a cut-open freezer bag would work very well) and flatten into circles with either a rolling pin or the tortilla press.

In the middle of each plantain dough circle, put a tablespoonful of refried black beans.  Fold each empanada in half, completely covering the beans with the plantain dough.  Firmly press the edges together so that the beans cannot escape while the empanadas are cooking.

Heat the oil almost to the smoking point and fry the empanadas until they are a beautiful deep golden color.  Drain on absorbent paper. 

Arrange on a small platter, garnish with a flower or two, and serve.

Makes 12 empanadas as a side dish.

You will love these empanadas and your family will beg for them.

+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+

Click for the El Bajío location nearest you in Mexico City: Sucursales

When you go, please tell Titita that Cristina at Mexico Cooks! sent you, and give her a hug from me.

Originally published in 2011, this article about the delights of Restaurante El Bajío and its founder, Carmen Titita Ramírez Degollado, bears repeating. Mexico Cooks! is on the road at the moment but will be back soon.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.  

Rosalba Morales Bartolo :: Cocinera Tradicional (Traditional Cook) and Proud Daughter of San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro, Michoacán

Rosalba Morales Bartolo, born and raised in San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro, Michoacán, grew up cooking alongside her mother in their indigenous Purépecha kitchen. Purépecha women are well known for their regional cuisine and extraordinary cooking abilities. Rosalba, who learned recipes and techniques beginning in her early childhood, has become one of the most exemplary cooks living in Mexico. In the photo, Rosalba oversees a restaurant dining room during a 2015 homage dinner she prepared for Diana Kennedy and many attendees.  All photos copyright Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.


San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro--Purenchécuaro translates to 'place of visitors'--nestles at the shore of the Lago de Pátzcuaro, in central Michoacán.  Eighty per cent of the town's approximately 2,000 inhabitants are indigenous Purépecha and a large number continue to speak their native language and teach it to their children.  The town continues its millennia-old social customs, some of which are incorporated now into Roman Catholic religious practices.  Mexico Cooks! took the photo from a scenic overlook in San Jerónimo; you can see the town, including the parish church tower, one tiny portion of Lake Pátzcuaro, and the tiers of Michoacán's mountains stretching out beyond the other shore. 


Lake Pátzcuaro fishermen, in an old postcard.  Today, the butterfly nets typical of the lake region have been largely replaced by other styles of hand-woven nets. Fishing continues to generate income as well as family sustenance for the towns around and close to the lake. Photo courtesy Mexico en Fotos.


Charales, freshly caught and cleaned.  Rosalba's father was a fisherman, working on Lake Pátzcuaro.  From him, she learned how to fish with a net. She learned how to prepare tiny charales (genus Chirostoma) her grandmother's old-fashioned way.  Once the fish are caught, she scales them (yes, these tiny fish, one by one), then eviscerates and washes them.  The heads are typically left on the charales.  Next, Rosalba spreads them out in the sun to dry on petates (mats made of palm fronds).  Once the fish are dried, she uses them for a variety of different dishes: fried for a filling in tacos or gorditas, simmered in a richly flavored broth, crushed into a salsa, or cooked in a guisado (a type of main dish that can also be used as a taco filling).


Petate (mats made of palm fronds), rolled up to be transported on a bicycle.  The petate, of pre-Hispanic origin, has multiple uses, including use as bedding, as a drying floor, and as a shroud. Image courtesy Pinterest.


At home in her kitchen, Rosalba shows off a plateful of her famous charales.  Restaurants and individuals in cities and towns all over Mexico order kilos of charales to be shipped to them.  I confess that I always thought I hated them: strongly fishy, thickly breaded, greasy, and often overly picante (spicy), charales were for years last on my list of things I wanted to eat.  One day a few years ago, Rosalba stood in front of me with a lightly fried, delicately golden brown charal held out between her fingers.  "You haven't tried mine, Cristina," she insisted. There was no way to say no. What a surprise, it was delicious!  Now I crave them--but only Rosalba's.


Your family's food preparation probably begins with a trip to a well-stocked supermarket.  Once your ingredients are at home, you simply turn on a modern stove, either electric or gas. Rosalba's food preparation begins with a trip into the woods near her home, where she gathers branches to be used as fuel in her wood stove.  In addition, she grows much of her food in her large back garden: she tends and harvests tomatoes, chiles, squash, cilantro, and various fruits, among other delicious items that end up on her table.

Recently, Rosalba has been featured on several Mexican television programs, including this one called "Cocineros Mexicanos" (Mexican Cooks). Take a few minutes to watch how she cleans the charales, prepares a simple soup and salsa, and delights Nico (the program's host) with her simplicity, directness, honesty, and skill as a cocinera.

Rosy's route to her present renown hasn't been fast and it hasn't been easy.  Her life has had numerous ups and downs, its path twisting from her birthplace to a risky life as an undocumented person in the United States and back again.  In 1984, she graduated from primary school in San Jerónimo and left the next day to work as a cook in a private home in Guadalajara.  Her employer asked her to prepare food that was completely unfamiliar to her--fish cooked in white wine!  She remembers, "That day marked my life and was incredibly special, because it confirmed and reconfirmed the love, my deep feeling for cooking, as I experimented with different flavors."


In 2013, Rosalba won honorable mention in Raíces, Platillos que Cuentan Una Historia (Roots, Dishes Which Tell a Story) at the annual Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Michoacán (Meeting of Michoacán's Traditional Cooks).  Her first entry, in 2010, won her a first prize.

Twice Rosalba entered the United States as an undocumented worker, each time laboring in Mexican restaurants and sending money back to her native San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro.  Over the course of 25 years, she was able to construct her own home, where she lives today and has made her "Cocina Tradicional Rosy" well known to Mexicans and foreigners who are intent on dining well in Michoacán. 


Everybody's favorite chile in much of Michoacán: chile manzano, known in Michoacán as chile perón. Approximately 1.5"-2" in diameter, the perón is only chile in the world with black seeds.  It ranks between 30,000 and 50,000 'heat' units on the Scoville scale--about the same heat level as the chile de árbol.   "While I was living in the United States, I really missed caldo de trucha (trout soup) with chile perón," Rosalba reminisced.


Rosalba at Morelia en Boca 2015, with chef Aquiles Chávez of La Fishería Restaurant in Houston and Restaurante Sotero in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico.  Morelia en Boca, an annual international high-end food and wine festival, featured a conference given by cocinera tradicional Rosalba together with chef Aquiles, demonstrating the preparation of Rosy's tiny charales and chef Aquiles' enormous pejelagarto (freshwater gar), native to the waters in chef Aquiles' home state, Tabasco. Their conference was so knowledgeable, so well-presented, and so funny that the huge and enthusiastic audience gave them a standing, cheering ovation at its end.


Chef Aquiles roasted the pejelagarto over a charcoal fire; this photo shows only the head and a small portion of the giant fish's body.  To roast the fish, chef Aquiles inserted a broomstick into the gaping tooth-filled mouth; the broomstick stopped at the fish's tail.  With the end of the broomstick that protruded from the mouth, chef Aquiles was able to turn the fish as it roasted.


Rosalba's caldo de pata de pollo.  She prepared this rich chicken broth using just chicken feet as the base.  She added fresh vegetables just prior to serving.


Rosy's delicious guisado (a casserole or stewed dish) made with nopales (cactus paddles) and calabacitas (a squash similar to zucchini).


One of Rosalba's many talents is the ability to create utterly wonderful food from whatever is seasonably available.  Salsa de zarzamora (blackberry sauce) is a molcajete-ground spicy, sweet, and savory concoction of roasted chile perón, roasted ripe tomatoes, and native Michoacán blackberries.  A pinch of salt, a moment's grinding in the volcanic stone mortar, and it's ready for the table.  I would cheerfully have eaten it with a spoon, it was so heavenly.


Rosalba serves a taco de charales to chef Joaquín Bonilla, director of the Colegio Culinario de Morelia (Morelia's Culinary School).  Not only has Rosy prepared and served her extraordinary dishes all over Mexico, but she has traveled to a number of foreign destinations as well.  In 2016 alone, she thrilled Chicago, Illinois, for several weeks with her food. Later that year she participated in the Slow Food International Terra Madre event in Turin, Italy.  The current year has brought more much-deserved recognition throughout Mexico.


Please contact me if you'd like to visit Rosalba and enjoy a meal in her kitchen.  I'd be delighted to take you to meet my dear friend and talk with you about the food and its preparation.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours. 

Oaxaca Restaurant Recommendations From the Primer Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales! Breakfast First...

Our first breakfast in Oaxaca at the end of April was at Restaurante Las 15 Letras (Abasolo #300, Centro Histórico, Oaxaca). We started with a seasonal fruit plate that included watermelon, papaya, kiwi, and cantaloupe.  Mexico Cooks! prefers to eat tropical fruits the typically Mexican way, with a squeeze of limón (key lime), a pinch of salt, and a sprinkle of powdered chile.  Try it that way--the sweetness of the fruit combines with the other flavors to bring a new flavor profile to your palate.


A really marvelous tamal--as usual, wrapped in banana leaves in the Oaxacan style--followed the fruit course.


Our main breakfast course at Las 15 Letras was chilaquiles entomatados con cecina a lightly spiced, lightly dried beef served atop a plate of totopos (tortilla chips) sautéed and then bathed in tomato sauce. Crumble white cheese on the chilaquiles and voilà--delicious.


The restaurant is charming, decorated with Oaxacan artesanía (craft work) from all of the state's eight regions. I had eaten here several times before; the meals have always been wonderful.


Breakfast on Day Two took place at Zandunga, a restaurant that I had read a good bit about but that I had never visited.  We started the meal with full servings of seasonal fruits (papaya, watermelon, and banana) and freshly squeezed orange juice. 


Because Aurora de Toledo, Zandunga's delightful owner, served us so very many dishes, a friend at table and I decided to share this tamal de elote. Not only did the sweet tamal come with a plate of cheese, but of course I dolloped rich crema de mesa (table cream) over it and topped that with fiery salsa de chile de árbol.  


As you might begin to notice, there is no such thing as too many tamales.  Zandunga's tamal de cambray is filled with mildly spicy picadillo, a kind of meaty, fruity hash. My friend and I split this one, as well.  There are limits, no?  Or maybe limits don't apply in Oaxaca!


Zandunga's design and decor, both coordinated by señora Toledo and her sons, are modern and quite comfortable, mixing many traditional elements into the room.  The restaurant combines its delicious food with a mezcal bar. Here, typical Mexican oilcloth tablecloths combine with a quote from Oaxaca's literary prize-winning author, Manuel Matus.  The translation: "Mezcal frees us from an infinite thirst for eternity."
 

One of our Zandunga cooks for the morning, Daniela Luis Rodríguez.  Daniela has been in the kitchen at Zandunga for a bit more than a year and loves her work.


A niche in the Zandunga entryway displays old metates with their metapiles--volcanic stone grinding stones, each with its 'rolling pin'.  The round grey item in the middle of the photograph is a molcajete, used for grinding spices, chiles, and other vegetables for sauces.


On my last morning in Oaxaca--for this trip--breakfast was at the Mercado de la Merced's Fonda Florecita.  A fonda usually refers to a family-run eating spot, either in a market or free-standing.  I've eaten at the wonderful Fonda Florecita many times.  The first thing I order is a cup of hot chocolate, traditionally prepared with water.  


My breakfast: cecina enchilada (semi-dried meat soaked in spicy chile sauce and cooked) with enfrijoladas (tortillas dipped in bean sauce prepared with native avocado leaves--the avocado leaves give the beans a heavenly anise-like flavor).

Three days, three superb Oaxaca breakfasts!  Next week, we'll take a look at our press group's comida de bienvenida (welcoming midday meal), cenas (suppers), and a snack or two.  Be sure to come back hungry.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

OAXACA: First Grand Meeting of Oaxaca's Traditional Cooks :: Primer Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Oaxaca

Oaxaca hosted its first-ever Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales on April 24-25, 2017.  The festivities included more than 50 traditional home cooks from Oaxaca's eight regions, plus two days of conferences and other activities.  Doña Martina Sánchez is the person shown on the poster; she's making a tlayuda, a very large, thin corn tortilla that will subsequently be topped with any number of ingredients. 


Indescribably delicious empanandas, prepared by doña Martina Sánchez at the Mexico City press conference prior to the Encuentro.


From 1:00PM until 9:00PM, the cocineras tradicionales (traditional cooks) sold plates and platters and bowls of both well- and little-known dishes to the hordes and throngs of avid attendees.  More than 10,000 people showed up over the course of two days.  The Encuentro was a tremendous success in every respect.


Señora Celia Florián, traditional cook, restaurant owner (Las 15 Letras, Calle Abasolo 300, Centro Histórico, Oaxaca), and one of the principal organizers of the Primer Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Oaxaca.  My dear friend Celia is a truly great woman, in every sense of the word.

Oaxaca thrilled Mexico Cooks! with an invitation to an April 23-26 hosted press trip to Oaxaca, for the sole purpose of eating, drinking, photographing, and writing about the first Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales in that city.  The event took place during the celebration of the city's 485th anniversary of founding, and what a celebration it was!  The Encuentro, primarily organized by Señora Celia Florián and hosted by Oaxaca's city government and other organizations, the event included more than 50 traditional cooks who set up their cooking fires on the Plaza de la Danza, just in front of Oaxaca's beautiful Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad.


La Danza de los Rubios of Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca, pounded the stage with its fiercely colorful, tremendously flashy rendition of this more than 100-year-old dance to open the Encuentro.  Normally danced during Carnaval, the bailable (dance) made a wonderful festival of the Encuentro.  Photo courtesy Daniel Cui, IGERS Mexico.


Just one of a huge number of whole pigs, roasted over firewood at the Encuentro.  This one was almost ready to be served, together with puré de papa (mashed potato), all in the style of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in far-southern Oaxaca.  


My plate, filled with tender, juicy, wood-roasted, mouth-watering carne de cerdo (pork meat), Isthmus-style puré de papa (mashed potato), and delicious sauce. The cocinera tradicional istmeña who served the crowd wears the typical clothing of the Tehuana: a woman from the Isthmus: hand embroidered velveteen blouse coupled with a colorful skirt and typically white lacy underskirt, gold filigree jewelry, and a ribbon or flower wreath around the head.  Photo courtesy Gaby Vargas.


From left to right: Rufina Mendoza Ruíz, Abigail Mendoza Ruíz, Mexico Cooks!, and Marcelina Mendoza Ruíz.  The Mendoza Ruíz sisters are arguably the best-known cocineras tradicionales in Oaxaca--and probably in all of Mexico.  Indigenous Zapotecas from Teotitlán del Valle, they operate Tlamanalli, their family restaurant.  Abigail Mendoza has literally traveled the world educating people about Mexican and Oaxacan food.  It's a privilege to be a friend of the loving Mendoza family.


Tichindas en caldo de frijol: sweet-water mussels hand-gathered from their muddy flats along the coast of Oaxaca and prepared in a slightly spicy, slightly savory, slightly sweet sauce of smoothly-ground beans that knocked my socks off.  The mussels themselves, shells and all, were just over an inch long. From now on, when I think para chuparse los dedos (finger-lickin' good), this will be the dish in my mind.  I ate this bowl of mussels on the last day of the Encuentro; on the first day, a friend gave me the last tiny bit of a tamal with one of these mussels, still in the shell, wrapped in rich masa (corn dough). The next day, I went looking for those tamales, but they were completely sold out.  This bowl of tichinda soup was my consolation prize, but wow, a prize indeed.


Three members of a fascinating and tender round table conference; the one of the topics was "food memories from your childhood".  The Tehuanas (women from the Istmus of Tehuantepec) are (left to right): Aurora de Toledo, owner of Restaurante Zandunga; Deyaniro Aquino Pineda, owner of Restaurante La Teca; and Ofelia Toledo Pineda, owner of Restaurante Yu Ne Nisa.  All three restaurants are located in the city of Oaxaca.

Tejate, one of the iconic drinks of Oaxaca, is made from corn masa, Oaxacan chocolate, canela (Mexican cinnamon), the finely ground large brown seed of the mamey fruit, and flor de cacao (also known as rosita). After those ingredients are beaten by hand (see video), water and ice are added.


Mamey fruit for sale at a market in Oaxaca.  The mamey tastes very much like a baked sweet potato. The cut fruits--so beautiful!--have had their seeds removed to be sold separately.


At the top of the photo are long sticks of Mexican cinnamon.  In the woven tray is flor de cacao, or rosita. At the bottom are the large brown mamey seeds, ready to be ground to a fine powder for tejate.

In this video, the vendor has added cold water and ice to the tejate mixture--it's almost ready to serve.  You can see that the surface of the tejate is foamy and thick, while the liquid she mixes from on high is thin, as it is supposed to be.  Tejate is a delicious and extremely refreshing cold chocolate drink.  When you're in Oaxaca, be sure to try it!


The finished product, tejate ready to be served.  We thoroughly enjoyed a jícara of this one at Oaxaca's Mercado Benito Juárez.

For two full days and evenings, thousands of hungry people lined up at this event for Oaxacan regional food specialties that are rarely seen outside the comunidades (small indigenous towns) where they are made.  Oaxaca residents, Mexicans from states near and far, and foreign tourists devoured anything and everything that the cocineras tradicionales prepared; everything I tasted was a thrill.  The Encuentro was enlivened by constant live music and other entertainment, the city was in full fiesta mode for its anniversary, and everyone was excited and happy to be present.  

As soon as the dates for the Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Oaxaca 2018 are announced, I'll post the news right here.  You really, really need to book your trip as soon as possible!  The event is a do-not-miss.  In addition, I'll be offering a guided tour of the festivities!


Eager comensales (diners) pass along one of three sides of the Plaza de la Danza, where the cocineras tradicionales served food.  No admission fee at the Encuentro means that one can purchase more of the very inexpensive dishes that the traditional cooks prepare and serve. Photo courtesy Marichuy Garduño.


Part of the invited Mexico City press group took a culinary tour of Oaxaca's Mercado Benito Juárez.  I'd been there many times before, and nevertheless learned a tremendous amount from our guide.  We're sitting for our portrait at Aguas Frescas Casilda, an institution in Oaxaca.

Over the course of many years, Mexico Cooks! has been invited to countless culinary festivals in Mexico.  The Primer Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Oaxaca will always stand out in my mind as extraordinary: as the first in Oaxaca and as being entirely exemplary of Oaxaca's marvelous hospitality.  Profound thanks to Celia Florián, to the Oaxaca city government, to the Oaxaca tourism department, to CANIRAC Oaxaca (Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Restaurantes y Alimentos Condimentados--Mexico's national restaurant association), to the cocineras tradicionales, and to all who made this marvelous event possible.  Trabajar en equipo siempre es mejor (it's always better to work as a team) has never been truer.  Three cheers and huge gratitude to all.

Next week, Mexico Cooks! will feature some of the restaurants where we were spoiled rotten by Oaxaca's CANIRAC.  The truth is, we ate more in three days than is really conscionable.  Between the traditional food at the Encuentro and our meals at Oaxaca's legendary restaurants, we all but waddled our way through the city. 

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

At Home and Away in the Kitchen and on the Street: Mexico Cooks!

Like many of you, we started our year with the Women's March--in our case, at the United States Embassy in Mexico City.  This delightful young man exemplified everyone's spirit of joy at spending an afternoon in solidarity with so many marchers from so many countries: Mexicans, US citizens, Canadians, Europeans from several nations, Asians, and more, all eagerly participated.  


At the beginning of February, the Pacific Coast lured me away from home.  Twenty years had passed since I had been to Baja California's wine country in the Valle de Guadalupe.  Just the scenery was worth the trip--but oh!, the vineyards and the food were so exciting.  My mind keeps drifting back there; I should have returned so much sooner.


Yes, it's a taco--but what a taco!  Have you ever tasted something that almost made your knees buckle, it was so delicious?  That's this taco: shreds of birria de res (long-stewed beef) topped with tender, fried tripitas (beef intestines), all tucked into a folded, chile-drenched and toasted two-tortilla package and topped with cilantro and minced onions. Add either salsa roja (red) or salsa verde (green) and get ready for an OMG moment.  You can get these at Tacos Fitos, at one side of Mercado Hidalgo, Tijuana.  A big shout-out to Fernando Gaxiola of Baja Wine + Food for everything you did!


To finish our two-day February tour in Valle de Guadalupe, we ate our farewell dinner at the impeccable TrasLomita Comedor Campestre. The beautiful setting outdoors under the trees, the wonderful owners and staff, and the really marvelous meal made our evening perfect. Above, a salad of grilled asparagus, seasonal greens, a variety of seeds, and ricotta cheese--all dressed with epazote oil.  Two of us split the salad, but either of us could have eaten the whole thing!


One of the several desserts on the menu when Mexico Cooks! was at TrasLomita: arroz con leche (Mexican rice pudding) with tweaks by Sheyla Alvarado, the incredibly talented young chef.  The base is traditional arroz con leche, which is served with conserve of fresh guavas, honey, nuts, and house-made ice cream.  Photo courtesy Fernando Gaxiola of Baja Wine + Food.
 

In late February, Mexico Cooks! took a tour group to Morelia and neighboring towns in Michoacán.  One of our stops was in Santa Fe de la Laguna, at the taller (workshop) of grand master potter Nicolás Fabián Fermín and his wife, María del Rosario Lucas, a potter in her own right and one of Michoacán's well-known cocineras tradicionales (traditional home cooks).  This large bunch of mazorcas (ears of native corns) was drying, hanging from the ceiling beams.


In Morelia for several days after the tour, Mexico Cooks! took an old friend to Origo, Panadería de Origen (Bakery of Origin), at Boulevard García de León 936.  This delightful new bakery is owned by Pietro Lembo Islas and his wife, Marie Lembo. The Lembos's idea is to work to take food back to its simpler, local origins, in addition to hiring and training local people to work in the restaurant and bakery.  When I was there in early March, Pietro told me that they currently employed 30 people from Morelia. 


Panadería Origo's beautiful flour mill, where they grind flour for bread and pastries.  Pietro Lembo demonstrated the mill and the various processes that achieve the texture needed for baking the delicious products that come from Origo's ovens.


Delicious (if I do say so myself) and simple home-made albóndigas (meat balls) in caldo (broth).  If you want to make these traditional Mexican meatballs in your own kitchen, the recipe is in the link.


Mexico City springtime color!  The purple is jacaranda, the deep fuchsia is bougainvillea.  Late March, April, and May are the hottest months in central Mexico; temperatures can be has high as 90º Fahrenheit during the afternoons.  Even though the temperature is very warm at midday, morning, evening, and nighttime are cool (in the low 50s)--and the humidity is extremely low.  By mid-to-late May, the rainy season starts and the weather cools off even during the afternoons.  It rarely if ever rains for more than an hour or so on any day!


In early April, a visiting friend was eager to see the exhibition "Pinta la Revolución" (Paint the Revolution) at Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Palace). The exhibition, which will be on display until May 7, 2017, includes paintings, sculptures, and photographs dating from the early 1900s to about the 1950s; the works come from museums both inside and outside Mexico as well as from private collections. Artists range from Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other top Mexican painters to Tina Modotti and Paul Strand, foreigner photographers who were profoundly affected by their lives in Mexico. The photo above is a detail of a Diego Rivera painting called Naturaleza Muerta con Botella de Anís (Still Life with a Bottle of Anise Liqueur), painted in 1918.


Our glorious springtime blue sky.  You're looking at the back of the late 16th century Metropolitan Cathedral, in the heart of Mexico City's Centro Histórico (historic center).


My out-of-town friend and I also went to see Callegrafía, a photography exhibit at the Museo del Archivo de la Fotografía (Photography Files Archive Museum) at Calle República de Guatemala 34, just opposite the entrance to the Templo Mayor.  The photographer, Keith Dannemiller, photographs almost exclusively in black and white; his specialty is Mexico City's downtown street scene and his gift for seeing what most of us miss is uncanny.  Above, a Mexico City diner.  Even angels need sustenance.  The exhibit will close in mid-June; here's a preview: Callegrafía.


Tlayuda (a Oaxaca-style thin, crisp corn tortilla, folded over asiento (a smear of lard), refried black beans, chorizo, and cheese.  April 2017, at Restaurante Pasillo de Humo, Av. Nuevo León 107 (upstairs).  The restaurant is far and away the best Oaxacan food in Mexico City.


On the spring menu at Restaurante Pehua (the name means 'beginnings' in Náhuatl), an appetizer called 'Monocromatismo' (monochromatic). The dish is composed of finely minced green chayote and green apple, a light agua (in this case, a cool broth) of tomatillos, and swiss chard. Neither my supper companion nor I wanted a full meal; this and another shared dish or two were just right for us. Monocromatismo was both stimulating and refreshing, truly delicious.  Chef and co-owner Lezli Ramos Fabiel, formerly of Restaurante Quintonil, surely has a winner on her hands at Pehua.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

Nudo Negro: Daniel Ovadía in Mexico City

Daniel Ovadía of Restaurante Nudo Negro, Mexico City.  Photo courtesy Chilango.com.

During the last 10 years, Daniel Ovadía has ranked among the wunderkind of Mexico City's restaurants.  Barely in his middle 30s, he has already been at the helm of more than one kitchen: initially, he and a couple of friends opened El Changarrito, which closed for financial reasons.  In 2005, cocinero (cook; he doesn't claim to be a trained chef) Daniel opened award-winning Paxia, which Mexico City received to grand acclaim but which closed without explanation in 2013.  Several of his restaurants have come and gone, while others continue to exist. Among the latter are the neighborhood versions of Peltre, which Ovadía defines as a lonchería (a casual and inexpensive eatery, serving good fast food).

At the dawn of 2015, Daniel Ovadía and Salvador Orozco, his restaurant partner since 2011, opened Nudo Negro (the name means 'black knot') in Mexico City's Roma Norte neighborhood.  The hype about the restaurant proclaims that it's unlike any other, that Mexico City has never seen a restaurant like it, and that the fusion of Mexican ingredients with touches of China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, and Venezuela make for unique dishes arriving at your table.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend visited me here in Mexico City.  She's extraordinarily knowledgeable about the cuisines of parts of China, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand, and has ordered and eaten well in all of those countries. For a few years, I worked in New York as a Chinese chef and also have a good understanding of Vietnamese cuisine. Neither of us claims any expertise in Venezuelan cooking.

Both my friend and I love food, with its many possibilities to delight and entertain the palate.  We spend a lot of time talking about food, talking about ingredients, investigating cuisines other than the familiar, and trying new foods.  She adores regional Mexican food and is a lover of adventurous food; I'm always interested in trying just about anything at least once.  We don't mind eating more than we normally might at a meal together that's meant to be special for both of us.

During her recent stay in Mexico City, we happily ate at street stands, at a municipal food market counter, and at restaurants ranging from delicious pozole at La Casa de Toño to a close to perfect comida (Mexico's main meal of the day) at Fonda Fina.

After researching how and what we wanted to eat on her last night in the city, we discarded a number of excellent possibilities in favor of enjoying a cena (late evening supper) at Nudo Negro.  The menu intrigued us, the food sounded both delicious and fun, and friends who had recently eaten there said they had enjoyed their experience.  Result: reservation confirmed.  We felt the excitement of an upcoming WOW!


When we arrived, our waiter mentioned that our first stop would be upstairs in the kitchen, where we were greeted by the cooks and pinches (prep cooks) with an exuberant chorus of BUENAS NOCHES. A delightful young woman prepared two starter gorditas (little fat corn masa disks) of chicharrón prensado de pato with an adobo of chile ancho flavored with cinnamon, crumbled queso canasto, crema del rancho, and a good-sized blob of sriracha chile sauce (photo above). The savory gordita crunched, the sweet adobo was an interesting if unexpected foil, the dairy was creamy, and the sriracha tried its spicy best to bring the dish together.  Eating standing up in the kitchen felt like an odd restaurant quirk, but we spooned up our gorditas and dutifully trod the stairs back to the main floor and our table. 

Once we were seated, several waiters in turn talked with us about the menu (I had the Spanish version, my friend had the English version). We each ordered a cocktail from the extensive drinks list, which features classic alcoholic beverages in chronological order of their invention, plus several pages of artisanal beers. I asked for a mojito and my companion requested a Bloody Mary.  My mojito was fine, if a little sweeter than they usually are.  My friend's Bloody Mary was salty enough to raise her eyebrows and mine, and over-Worcestershired to the point of being undrinkable.  Who sends a beverage back to the bar?  We asked that hers be remade.  Our antennae went up, but not up far enough. 

As we discussed our preferences for other courses, we realized that our menus had some discrepancies: a dish appearing on my Spanish version didn't appear on her English menu, and vice versa.  We soon realized that my menu bore the current date, while hers was dated May 2016.  The waiter said that could not possibly be the case, but when he looked closely at her menu, he saw that it was indeed true.  No staff member mentioned that the menu changed frequently, nor did we the clients know.  

Nudo Negro recommends that dishes be shared; the two of us usually order plates to divide between us so that we can both taste as many things as possible, which made that recommendation easy for us.  Ramen with matzo balls, our selection to start our dinner, comes highly touted by friends and by the restaurant's website.  My companion had eaten a similar dish in a Brooklyn restaurant and was eager to try the Mexico City version; it was the first thing we ordered.

We ordered the ramen, as shown below in a photo which was posted at an earlier date by an anonymous Nudo Negro client. Our serious staff/client troubles started immediately.   
 

Ramen with matzo balls (the two beige spheres on the left-hand side of the bowl).  Image courtesy Twitter.


This is the ramen we received: with chochoyotes (the dark brown spheres on the left side of the bowl), small corn masa (dough) balls with a finger indent.  In this case, the chochoyotes were prepared with ground black beans mixed into the masa.  When I explained to the waiter that this was not what we ordered, he insisted that it was. Then he insisted that these WERE matzo balls: "Sí, señora, esferas de masa." "Perdón, pero masa no--pedimos matzo."  "Sí, señora, son de masa."  Irritated by this snafu in communication, we eventually gave up; the pronunciation of the two words is apparently too similar to an ear not trained to differentiate between them.  

The flavor of the broth was very weak, the chochoyotes were grainy and unpleasant and fried rather than being boiled as is the norm, and the ramen (in English, noodles) were all but inedible: flavorless, pasty to the point of clumping together both in the soup and in the mouth, and without the springy texture of true ramen.  The egg was correctly prepared, but the waiter offered no condiments. A nori (dried seaweed) sheet decorated the bowl, but no dashi or shoyu or pickles came with the soup.  We were seriously disappointed by not receiving what we ordered. Much later, it occurred to us that ramen with matzo balls must have been listed on my companion's May menu and was not listed on my July menu.  But why didn't anyone on the wait staff tell us?  Waiters hovered over our table the entire evening, in an attempt to make sure that, as the headwaiter said, "your experience is exactly as you want it."  Ay ay ay--would that it had been.

We requested the ostiones a las brasas (an order of six oysters, spiced and cooked over coals), but were told the oysters were only available per single oyster on the tasting menu.  The waiter told us that there weren't enough oysters to prepare an order of six to share.  It seemed odd, but he was quite definite.  Later, after we had ordered other appetizers, he came back and said he was wrong, there were no oysters at all.

In place of the oysters, we asked for dumplings de pato (duck) and ceviche verde.

The duck dumplings, prepared with kaffir lime, almond milk, hazelnut oil, flash-cooked green beans, seta mushrooms, and smoked chile, sounded (and looked) marvelous.  The truth?  They weren't.  The duck filling was too dense and under-seasoned; the dumpling wrapper was extremely heavy and doughy, with texture more like an uncooked empanada.  The green beans were perfectly cooked, but their crunch didn't really combine well with the leaden, dense dumplings; the too-slick setas added flavor, but didn't provide fusion, just another unrelated texture and taste.  The sauce was thick to the point of gloppy and added nothing to the flavor profile of the dish.  I believe that the sprinkle of red atop the sauce was the smoked chile, but it brought no hint of smoked chile to the dish.


The ceviche verde consisted of tiny bits of fish marinated with slivered red onion, fresh coconut and cucumber juices, coconut, and lemon. The toppings are flowers cut from coconut meat (exactly eleven on every bowlful, according to the waiter), and sprouts.  Yes, it's pretty--but most of the flavors were lost in the acidic lemon juice.

We initially tried to order three main dishes: a fish of the day, chamorro (pork shank) glazed with honey and cardamom (with dill, salted carrots and beets and mashed potatoes included) as well as the spiced fried chicken with another interesting-sounding salad, but our waiter said that we had already ordered too much food and he refused to allow us to have the chicken.  


Chamorro with carrots, beets, leeks, and dill.  One of the wait staff brushed glaze onto the meat at the table, but did not offer extra glaze to use as we ate. The bit of mashed potatoes was dull and flavorless.  Everything on the plate, including the meat, was stone cold at the time it was served.

This pesca del día a las brasas (unidentified fish of the day cooked over coals) had a small amount of "Thai curry with chile morita" spread over it.  Chile morita, which has a pronounced smoky flavor, is a smaller cousin of chile chipotle.  The tiny amount of sauce had no smoky taste, and the fish was drastically overcooked.  The middle object on the plate is yaki onigiri, a grilled rice cake, which in this case was grilled to the point of being tough and difficult to cut.  The salad on the left-hand side is listed on the menu as fennel bulbs with a Persian lime vinaigrette. Instead, this salad was made of limp lettuce and shredded onions with halved cherry tomatoes and black olives that seemed to have come from a can; the dressing, whatever ingredients it contained, was inedible. The entire dish looked like it had been held too long under a heat lamp in a cheap cafeteria.

During the course of our meal, tension between us as clients and various members of the wait staff was palpable.  My friend and I were thoroughly puzzled and frustrated by Nudo Negro's food.  We talked about the difficulties in our meal with the head waiter, with another waiter who seemed to be at that level, and with our server.  It was extremely disappointing to see that Daniel Ovadía was sitting on the terrace with another group of clients, within easy view of our table. At no time did we see any of the wait staff approach him to let him know of our problems. At no time did he look our way or show any interest the dining room. When I finally did hand one of the waiters my card to give to him, he immediately came to greet me with a kiss and a hug and offered a handshake to my friend--but at no time did he ask either of us if we were enjoying our meal, if everything had been to our liking, nothing of the sort. It was as if he didn't care at all. He talked with me about a business aspect of his business (a new restaurant in the offing), but not about the most crucial part of any restaurateur's business: the dining pleasure of the client. After only a few minutes with us, he returned to the group on the terrace.


My friend and I were tired of and more than annoyed by the evening's incessant struggle to dine, neither of us wanted dessert, and we asked for the check.  Rather than bring the check, one of the wait staff brought us a dessert, courtesy of the house: cheesecake baklava with ground nuts and a pretty egg-shaped serving of normally subtly flavored rose petal ice cream, plus smears of jamaica reduction meant to have the appearance of rose petals.  The baklava was edible, but the ice cream fragrance and flavor mimicked exactly the extremely strong scent of one of Mexico's iconic soaps: Rosa Venus.  We laughed and left it on the plate after a taste.


Our server brought the check in its folder, laid it on the table, and immediately took it away again.  The head waiter came to the table and said, "There is no check. There is no check. We apologize for everything."  It was definitely the right thing to do and we truly appreciated the gesture.

Two thumbs down, readers.  This is a first for Mexico Cooks!.

Restaurante Nudo Negro
Calle Zacatecas 139
Between Calle Jalapa and Calle Tonalá
Colonia Roma Norte
Mexico City
011-52-5564-5281

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.