Pan de Muerto

This traditional sweet bread is always difficult to find in New York. Pan Bimbo, the company that bought out wonderbread. In the past I have found it occasionally at Mexico 2000, my local Mexican grocery, but am always looking for the freshest bread.
pan de muerto is being baked and sold at tulcingo bakery on greenpoint avenue in sunnyside. Thy may even sell sugar skulls, a very hard to find item around NYC.

another food blog?

My goal is to catalog and share the research that I am doing on the history and evolution of Mexican food. I spent 2002 living in Mexico City with my boyfriend. When I returned to Brooklyn I found work at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant. This experience proved invaluable as I continued to practice my Spanish, learn more cooking techniques, and most importantly befriend cooks from central Mexico. This summer I did a ton of research for a project documenting the evolution of Mexican food.

I am interested in how traditional Mexican foodways changing, evolving, and vanishing. I think it is fascinating that tamales, hot dogs, churros and corn-on-the-cob smeared in mayonnaise, chile, and lime are constant street side both in New York and Mexico City. Many streetfoods are finding their way on to the menu of hip and pricy New York restaurants. I believe that this influence is representative of the larger cultural influence Mexicans have on the culture of the United States. And that the exchange often goes both ways.

A recent query for a mexican food blog on chowhound. I was both excited and a little apprehensive when I saw this thread a month ago, because I have thinking about launching this project for a while. While there are some great webpages, excellent recipes, none are comprehensive sites tracking information regarding mexican food products, recipes, and information concerning mexican culture and food history. So I hope to be the source that people go to for information regarding mexican foodways, recipes, and cooking.

Buen provecho!

so I decided to relaunch this project with a more specific focus on my research of Mexican food and culture. For now I will post some bits and pieces from websites related to mexican cooking and we will see where we go from here!

From the kitchen of 'El Indio' Fernandez///Mexico News

BY VICKY COWAL/The Herald Mexico
March 17, 2005

From the 1930s to the early 1950s Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez was a shining star in the heyday of Mexico's "golden age" of film. As both actor and director, in such classic movies as "Maria Candelaria," "Flor Silvestre," "Enamorada" and "Pueblerina," he sought to bring back old indigenous values and dignity. He also did a great deal to revive traditional culinary values. Throughout a 20 plus year period, in his immense house in beautiful colonial Coyoacan in Mexico City, in both his daily life and as host at his frequent highly popular parties for the artistic crowd, he set an example of trying to dress, drink and eat a la mexicana .

The house on Zaragoza in Coyoacan was known as "The Fortress of the Indian" as Fernandez was a Kikipu Indian from the state of Coahuila. While there is room after room in the house, the kitchen, according to his daughter Adela, was the welcoming heart of the household with its scrubbed red tile floor, white stucco walls, wood burning stoves and wooden beams from which hung all the accoutrements of Mexican cuisine: clay pots, wooden spoons, copper casseroles, straw fans, dried chiles, sausages and garlic to ward off evil spirits. The pantry was amply stocked with barrels of dried corn, beans, chickpeas and lentils, with hanging herbs and spices, honey, cheeses, wines and maguey-based spirits. Just imagine the enticing fragrances and colorful appearance of it all.

His large staff included cooks from many regions of Mexico and they prepared foods in the old style from their separate regions. The Oaxaquenas made chocolate dishes, those from Puebla mole poblano, the Michoacans fixed sweets, the coastal region cooks put together tamales. There was constant activity from very early in the day when the staff rose to pat out and cook the hundreds of tortillas that were consumed daily to the last late evening meal of El Indio and his guests.

The group that surrounded the eccentric bon vivant Dolores del Rio, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Lupe Marin, Maria Izquierdo, and almost every other cultural luminary of the era including many non-Mexicans such as Arthur Rubenstein who was said to have developed a taste for tacos and Andre Breton who liked (horrors) iguana skin was not precisely of the people, but the effort they were making to recapture the spirit of Mexico in all its aspects was legitimate and went a long way in helping to erase many of the excesses of the previous French-influenced period under the dictator Porfirio Diaz.

Adela Fernandez in 1989 wrote a short, loving tribute to her father in the way of a cookbook, "La Tradicional Cocina Mexicana y Sus Mejores Recetas," still in print in paperback and can be found in most Sanborns. There is a vivid description of how life was in the kitchen on Zaragoza in Coyoacan, a brief history of Mexican cooking and many fine recipes similar to those that were prepared at El Indio's. I have had to do a little work on the recipes as they are sometimes a bit more lyrical than exact, but I have not changed the basic idea or the ingredients.



SOPA DE AGUACATE

- 4 Hass avocados.

- 1 large white onion.

- 4 serrano chiles.

- 2 tablespoons butter.

- 2 tablespoons flour.

- 8 cups strong chicken stock.

- Salt and pepper to taste.

- Garnish: chopped cilantro, sour cream.

Carefully cut the avocados in half horizontally and remove the pits. Take out the pulp and cut in small cubes. Finely chop the onion. Seed and mince the chiles. In a bowl, mix the three together with salt to taste. Put the mixture into the 8 avocado shell halves and put one beside each table setting.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat and stir in the flour. Cook until just starting to brown and then whisk in the stock. Season to taste and simmer until it thickens a little. Pour into soup bowls and let each person serve their avocado mixture and pass the cilantro and sour cream. Makes 8 servings.



ZUCCHINI STUFFED WITH CHEESE

(Look for the round zucchini, calabacita criolla, sold in all supermarkets.)

- 1 bunch squash blossoms.

- 1 small white onion.

- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil.

- 2 tablespoons butter.

- 10 round tender zucchini.

- 1 slice bread, crusts removed, broken up and soaked in 1/2 cup milk.

- 1/2 cup grated Manchego cheese.

Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C). Lightly grease a baking dish large enough for the 10 zucchini.

Wash the squash blossoms gently. Dry , remove the centers and chop. Finely chop the onion. In a medium-size skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and fry the onion for 5 minutes. Add the squash blossoms and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring. Melt half the butter.

Boil the zucchini for 5 minutes. Remove from water and cut off the top ends. Scoop out the pulp and mix this with the bread that has been soaked in the milk, the melted butter and half the grated cheese. Add the cooked onion and squash blossoms and combine.

Stuff the zucchini with this mixture and place them in the baking dish. Sprinkle cheese over the top and dot with the rest of the butter. Cook until the cheese is melted and browned, about 15 minutes. Makes 5 servings.



HUACHINANGO A LA VERACRUZANA

- 1 large red snapper (4 to 4 1/2 pounds).

- 2 pounds tomatoes.

- 2 medium-size white onions.

- 3 tablespoons olive oil.

- Salt and pepper, to taste.

- 1/2 cup capers (alcaparras ).

- 1 cup green olives (aceitunas ).

- 1 jalapeno chile in vinegar.

Clean the fish and cut horizontally into portions. Purée the tomatoes in a blender, adding a little water if they don't purée easily. Halve and sliver the onions.

In a large clay cazuela (pot), heat the oil over medium heat and cook the onions for about 7 to 8 minutes. Add the purée, season with salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes. Add the fish pieces, the capers, olives and chiles and simmer until the fish is cooked and the sauce slightly thickened. Makes 6 servings.

Mexico City's new wave of chefs generates heat

This is in reference to a Los Angeles Times Food Section article (Wed. 23 Feb. 2005), "Mexico City's new wave of chefs generates heat" by Corie Brown. I've pasted the article and recipes at the end of this post.

First of all I want to know how you make a margarita with volcanic ash.

Second of all I really want to scream the alternatives to these condici establishments and the old school upper class traditions of dining clubs. Martha Ortiz, one of the restauranteurs interviewed with her bodyguard at her side. Why? Because these kind of restaurants are a target for robberies. Full of wealthy people and their bodyguards daily. See the movie "Zero Van Cuatro" for an illustration of this. In a year in Mexico City I have never met or seen anyone with a bodyguard.

So how realistic is this? How can you spend a month's rent on a restaurant meal? In NYC I've spent half a month's rent on a meal, but in NYC I can earn a month's rent in 3 or 4 days. In Mexico City, it takes 2 or 3 weeks minimum.

egullet weighs in

notes Gabriela Camara with whom I'm now slightly obsessed.

This generation also has been eager to redefine what it means to be Mexican, says Gabriela Camara, a 29-year-old entrepreneur whose Contramar seafood restaurant is one of the most vibrant spots in Condesa-Roma. "These days, Mexico is hot in the art world. We have our own fashion designers, architects, musicians. Our actors are hot in Hollywood. Everything Latin has enormous possibilities," she says.
And it doesn't have the old limitations. When Camara and a group of friends fresh from university couldn't find a place they wanted to eat at, they opened Contramar, the city's first "beach food" restaurant. And from that moment seven years ago, business-suited professionals have lined up outside its door waiting to snag tables.
"Traditionally, good food in Mexico City was expensive French or Italian or Spanish, and then there were taco stands," says Camara, who now has seven restaurants, including two tapas bars, an Italian trattoria and an American-style diner. "My generation is willing to be Mexican without being traditional

she's right on the money about the expensive European restaurnants. What I am the most envious about is that when her friends couldn't find a place to eat at they opened Contramar as a casual beach-style palapa.

Gabriela Camara
No es chef pero le entra a la cocina. Y su restaurantes, en la cresta de lo hip, han hecho del buen comer su razón de ser.
texto:Rodolfo Gerschman

review of Capicua a tapas bar in la Condicci with a Catalan name

review of Primo, the Italian restaurant opened last year with a gringo chef from the Tasting Room

she's listed as a teacher for pricy Cocinar Mexico cooking program

she was awarded a merit prize for young restaurant owner of 2004: PREMIO AL MÉRITO EMPRESARIAL RESTAURANTERO ?NEMESIO DIEZ RIEGA? AL JOVEN EMPRESARIO RESTAURANTERO DEL AÑO
SRA. GABRIELA CAMARA BARGELLINI , RESTAURANTES ?CONTRAMAR? Y ?ENTREMAR?
MÉXICO, D.F.

"Mexico City's new wave of chefs generates heat" by Corie Brown, Times Staff Writer

Margaritas made with volcanic ash. Braised oysters with chipotle béarnaise. Foie gras with habañero-spiked guava. There's a revolution afoot in this city's restaurants.

The eyebrow reflexively shoots up. The first thought is globalization, that creeping sameness that threatens cultural individuality when tradition fades in favor of pop sensibilities.

But to understand what's happening with cutting-edge Mexico City cooking, it is important first to understand what's happening in the Condesa-Roma district, side-by-side Mexico City neighborhoods built at the turn of the last century. Located on the southern side of Chapultepec Park, the city's expansive green space just west of the old downtown, Condesa and Roma were all but abandoned after the 1985 earthquake sent wealthy Mexicans racing for the suburbs. The slide into decay was rapid in this crime-ridden city of about 19 million people.

Twenty years later, Condesa and Roma are among the city's most exciting neighborhoods as under-40 professionals embrace the city anew. These upper-class young Mexicans, better educated and more worldly than their parents, are tearing down rickety midcentury buildings to make room for edgy, modern architecture; they're diligently restoring historic homes and hotels. Bookstores and art galleries share the tree-lined streets with sidewalk cafes serving cuisines from around the globe — and Mexican food that doesn't remind them of their mother's.

These professionals have a serious restaurant habit, says Guillermo Osorno, the editorial director of dF, the capital's city magazine. The restaurant scene is booming, with three times as many top-tier restaurants doing a brisk business today compared with five years ago.

Going out for serious Mexican food is in itself a change in the culture. "In Mexico City, we feel that the best Mexican food is what we have in our homes. Mexican food in restaurants has always been a step down," says Osorno. "Now we have a kind of Mexican food that you can only find in restaurants. That's new."

This generation also has been eager to redefine what it means to be Mexican, says Gabriela Camara, a 29-year-old entrepreneur whose Contramar seafood restaurant is one of the most vibrant spots in Condesa-Roma. "These days, Mexico is hot in the art world. We have our own fashion designers, architects, musicians. Our actors are hot in Hollywood. Everything Latin has enormous possibilities," she says.

And it doesn't have the old limitations. When Camara and a group of friends fresh from university couldn't find a place they wanted to eat at, they opened Contramar, the city's first "beach food" restaurant. And from that moment seven years ago, business-suited professionals have lined up outside its door waiting to snag tables.

"Traditionally, good food in Mexico City was expensive French or Italian or Spanish, and then there were taco stands," says Camara, who now has seven restaurants, including two tapas bars, an Italian trattoria and an American-style diner. "My generation is willing to be Mexican without being traditional."

Camara's attitude is reflected in her food. Tuna sashimi tostadas with chipotle sauce and sauteed leeks are her signature dish: It's a simple combination that brings Japanese and French sensibilities to a Mexican standard.

A handful of women, including Camara, are making waves by treating traditional Mexican cuisine with less reverence. At Aguila y Sol, Martha Ortiz, 38, turns heads with her flamboyant presentations and unexpected combinations of common ingredients. And Monica Patino, 50, is redefining Pan-Asian dishes with the zip of Mexican chiles and herbs like epazote at MP Bistro Café.

Even Patricia Quintana, whose 1986 "The Taste of Mexico" is the featured cookbook for sale at the National Museum of Anthropology, is throwing hibiscus flowers into her mole and wrapping up masa-less tamales at her restaurant, Izote.

'Absurd' for some

Not everyone is charmed by the new Mexican cuisine. Diana Kennedy, the British-born author of the seminal "The Art of Mexican Cooking," characterized it as "barbaric" in an issue last May of Mexico City's dF magazine. "Ridiculous," she called Ortiz's dishes. "Absurd."

Kennedy, who has spent the past five decades chronicling the history of Mexican cooking and compiling the recipes universally respected as "authentic," was no kinder to Quintana, calling her new ideas "a horrible distortion" of Mexican cuisine. However, she wasn't universally dismissive of the movement: She proclaimed Camara's tuna sashimi tostadas to be "very good." Kennedy was not available for comment.

"It's quite a challenge for these chefs," says dF magazine's Osorno. He predicts that not all of this first wave of chefs will survive. Still, the popularity of culinary experimentation appears to be growing. "These new chefs have a public persona, like authors and artists. Their cookbooks sell well. The most powerful people in the country are always in their restaurants," Osorno says.

Of Mexico City's new-wave chefs, only Camara started in Condesa-Roma; the other exciting restaurants are in Polanco, a chic neighborhood on the north side of Chapultepec Park. If Condesa-Roma is Greenwich Village, Polanco is Beverly Hills.

Patino, who dares to serve Asian food with a Mexican flair at MP Bistro Cafe, sees her food as part of a natural evolution. Kennedy gave Mexicans the "treasure" of their culinary heritage, Patiño explains. "When we want to know something about Mexican food, we go to Diana Kennedy. I can't read my grandmother's recipes. She wrote down 'add chiles,' but she didn't say what kind or how many." Now that the anthropological heavy lifting has been done, anything is possible, she says. "Before you can break the rules, you have to know them."

After establishing La Taberna del Leon as a standard-bearer among traditional Mexican restaurants, Patino opened MP Bistro Cafe to cater to a younger crowd. That menu includes Mexican corn chowder spiced with curry, braised oysters with chipotle béarnaise and dim sum infused with Mexican herbs.

Walk into Aguila y Sol and you're immediately struck by the decor, which celebrates Mexico's traditional culture: A huge volcanic rock metate (a traditional stone for grinding Mexican corn) sits near the door; antique Xochistlahuaca clothing from the state of Guerrero graces the walls. Upstairs in the stark white dining rooms, however, it's pure Nuevo Mexican: A suspended ceiling lighted from above provides architectural drama.

With the seriousness of an academician, which she was, Ortiz explains, "I really feel that Mexican cuisine is very sensual. It is made by women and comes from a great heritage of Mexican women. I want to honor them by making each plate an object of beauty."

Surrounded by the swirl of beautiful people who have made her 3-year-old restaurant a center of excitement, Ortiz has a bodyguard by her side. He's one of dozens in the restaurant, as well as on the street in front on a recent Tuesday night. In Mexico City, the rich and powerful are plagued by kidnappings, an economic more than a political crime in this stratified society.

Even amid such chaos, the food commands attention.

She serves fideo (vermicelli) sauced with black mole, garnished with fried chiles and queso panela and served with a spicy pasilla mole dipping sauce on the side. Mole, of course, is traditional, as is fideo; what's unconventional is serving them together. Even more radical is serving two moles, one on top of the other. "I don't change the recipe for the mole," says Ortiz. "It needs to taste like smoke and earth, the taste of brutality. I change the mix of the meats and the presentation." Sometimes she serves it with steamed and shredded duck sprinkled with black Asian sesame seeds.

Changing times

Mexico has changed, says Ortiz, the author of eight cookbooks, bestsellers in Mexico but not available in English. "We're starting to recognize that we can vote in new governments, we can make changes and we can make mistakes," she says, referring obliquely to her disappointment with President Vicente Fox. "Maybe the experiments won't take us to the best places, but we have to try. We're exploring our culture."

One of her more startling experiments was an all-black Day of the Dead meal that Ortiz created for a cooking class in Tepoztlán. Ortiz started the meal with margaritas made with volcanic ash, then served dark huitlacoche (corn fungus) quesadillas with goat cheese and black habañero sauce, duck in smoke-scented mole and sea bass with chirmole, a mole darkened with charred chiles.

Camara's simple seafood dishes at Contramar stand in stark contrast to Ortiz's over-the-top creations and Patiño's Asian fusion. Camara isn't a chef, nor has she written cookbooks. She was a history student following the footsteps of her Harvard-educated parents when she veered off that path to open Contramar in the then run-down western end of Roma. She and her friends took inexpensive industrial space, stapled straw mats to the ceiling, painted fish skeletons on the walls and opened a seafood restaurant to remind them of lazy days at the beach. One of Camara's first creations was the tuna sashimi tostada.

Camara gives her guests fresh-made corn and flour tortillas and a dazzling assortment of seafood dishes to fill them with. Octopus and shrimp seasoned generously with five different dried chiles. Thin slices of raw scallops covered with raw red onions in lemon juice and olive oil with cracked pepper and coarse salt. Sautéed soft-shell crab, roughly chopped with onions and cilantro. The line outside Contramar forms when the restaurant opens at 1:30 p.m. and lasts until it closes at 6:30 p.m., Mexico City's traditional lunch hours.

Most of the Nuevo Mexican chefs are women, says Camara, because women are the cooks in Mexico. But that's changing too. Two new chefs to watch: Benito Molina, who just opened a new seafood restaurant, Manzanilla; and Enrique Olvera, who is turning heads with his Spanish-Mexican experiments at Pujol.

"Each of these chefs is different," says Magda Bogin, a New York writer who runs Cocinar Mexicano, the cooking school that featured Ortiz's all-black menu. But as a group, they stand out in the topography of Mexican cooking. "Upper-class Mexican food was always the blandest, dumbed-down Mexican food," she says. "These women are changing that."

*

Contramar tuna tostadas with chipotle mayonnaise
Total time: 45 minutes Servings: 4
Note: From Gabriela Camara of Contramar restaurant

Chipotle mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 large egg
1/4 rounded teaspoon salt
1/2 cup light olive oil
1 chipotle chile

1. Put lemon juice, egg and salt in a blender. Slowly start blending the ingredients, adding oil little by little, until the mayonnaise is thick and you have added all the oil.
2. Add the chipotle chile and blend in. Makes three-fourths cup. You will have some left after making the tostadas.

Tostadas
1 1/2 cups oil (for deep frying)
8 (3-inch-diameter) corn tortillas
2 leeks (about 1 cup sliced)
2 teaspoons olive oil
Salt
10 ounces sashimi-quality tuna, sliced one-fourth inch thick then cut in half, if necessary
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 Hass avocado, peeled,pitted and cut into eighths
1/4 cup chipotle mayonnaise

1. Heat the oil in a deep skillet to 350 degrees. Fry each tortilla until crisp, about 2 minutes. Drain between paper towels. Set aside.
2. Slice the leeks (white part only) into one-fourth-inch-wide julienne. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over very low heat. Add the leeks, sprinkle with a little salt and cook until soft but not browned, about 5 to 7 minutes.
3. Marinate the tuna slices in the soy sauce and lemon juice for 2 minutes. Drain.
4. Spread 1 1/2 teaspoons chipotle mayonnaise on each tostada. Divide the tuna among the tostadas. Top the tuna with the leeks and add a slice of avocado to each tostada.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Homeopathy fights fire with fire///MEXICO NEWS

KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT/The Herald Mexico
March 07, 2005


Herbal healing has a rich and cherished legacy in Mexico, stretching from the rain forests of the south to the mystical deserts of the border region, and from the distant pre-Hispanic past to the current global herbal renaissance.

But the natural medicine of choice in today's urban Mexico is not herbalism but a relatively recent European import homeopathy.

A casual windshield survey of the sprawling capital gives a pretty good idea of homeopathy's popularity. Pharmacies featuring its tablets, dropper bottles and hallmark globules (Tic-Tac-like pellets fondly referred to as chochos or chochitos ) dot the colonias of all socioeconomic descriptions. Physicians' shingles on oaken sixth-floor suite doors as well as on crumbling cinder-block storefronts are about as likely to read medicina homeopática as anything else.

At 5 de Febrero and Chimalpopoca in Colonia Obrera just south of the Centro Historico stands the National Homeopathy Hospital, ordered built more than a century ago by President Porfirio Díaz, an early advocate for and user of homeopathic medicine.

Another living monument to the discipline's prominence is the School of Homeopathy on the campus of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). The state-supported school, more properly known as the Escuela Superior de Medicina y Homeopatía, is the leading trainer of homeopathic doctors in Latin America.



TAKES ALL KINDS

While homeopathy clearly qualifies as a complementary or alternative medicine, it's free of the alternative-lifestyle trappings once associated with any non-conventional practice. "There's really no profile of a typical homeopathy patient," says Adriana de la Cera, who has a practice in the Roma area. "There's something in it for everybody."

This democratic distribution of homeopathy recipients may reflect the typical Mexican homeopath's status as a full-fledged physician, with an internship and year of social service under his or her belt, and a license to practice from the Health Secretariat. Though non-physician practitioners exist (sometimes called "libres"), generally when you go to a homeopath, you're seeing a doctor.

"We're medical doctors," says Jareni Gómez Seijo, a recent graduate of IPN's homeopathy school. "We finish the same seven-year curriculum as at UNAM or Anahuac or any other major medical school. But at the same time we complete the homeopathy program, so we come out with what's essentially a specialty."

Still, homeopathy differs radically from conventional practice. Swallowing homeopathic pills and pellets may feel like taking typical medicine, but what you're actually setting in motion is a far cry from anything Marcus Welby would go for.

That's because homeopathy's based on the notion that "like cures like." Hippocrates noted more than 23 centuries ago that certain symptom-producing substances could cure the very ailment whose symptoms they provoked. In the early years of the 19th century, a German physician named Christian Frederick Samuel Hahnemann, revived the old research and developed his "law of similars."

Thus was born homeopathic medicine ("homeo" being Greek for "same"). To this day, homeopaths refer to their opposite numbers in conventional medicine as allopaths, "allo" being Greek for "other" or "reverse."

"What the law of similars means in practice is that we cure sickness by using remedies that would produce in a healthy person the same symptoms found in the sick person we're curing," Dr. De la Cera says.

The idea of treating a headache with a substance that would give you a headache if you didn't already have one is, to say the least, counterintuitive. The payoff comes when another homeopathic premise is inserted into the equation, known as the life force or the dinamismo vital. This is actually a basic tenet in all natural medicine, from China to Chiapas the recognition that your body has the capability of healing itself, and that the role of medicine is not to bypass that capability but to assist it.

"What homeopathic treatment offers, basically, is reinforcement of your natural defense symptoms," Dr. De la Cera says. Homeopathy's trademark like-cures-like route to that reinforcement is to cause your system to respond to a potentially symptom-producing medication. That's actually more akin to a conventional tool a vaccine, after all, stimulates the immune system by introducing a weakened version of the disease-causing microbe than it is to herbalism. "Herbal remedies have actions," Dr. De la Cera says. "Homeopathic remedies generate reactions."

Nevertheless, homeopathy's fight-fire-with-fire approach would probably make it far less popular today if it weren't for another defining feature extreme dilution. Hahnemann was convinced that the more you dilute homeopathically active substances, the more potent they become. This theory of "potentization" is now a staple, and almost all homeopathic remedies are so highly diluted that they can be sold cheaply and safely over-the-counter with no restrictions.

The appeal of homeopathic remedies' safety and affordability offset any discomfort that the uninitiated may have about their origin as symptom-producing substances. Add to that their all-natural composition extracted as they are from plant, mineral and animal sources and you have an attractive alternative to allopathic medicine's pharmaceutical emphasis. "A lot of parents will bring their kids in just so they won't be getting more antibiotics," says Juan Carlos Campos, president of the National Homeopathic School's medical association. "And adults come in looking for a change from the kind of treatment they've been getting."

Not that it offers everything. Homeopaths recognize their limits and that allopathic medicine has a role to play. "One of the most important skills we're taught is how to differentiate between the two based on the patient's indications," Dr. Gómez says. "For example, most common light infections can be treated homeopathically, but certain more serious infections may call for antibiotics."



HAVING DOUBTS

Not surprisingly, the medical establishment casts a skeptical eye in homeopathy's direction. The issue is more efficacy than safety. Scientific researchers are ready to accept that a natural substance so diluted that sometimes not a single molecule remains (the "memory" of its former presence is therapeutic, homeopaths say) won't hurt anybody. But will it do any good?

Studies are few, and the results are mixed and sometimes contradictory. For example, a German study found a homeopathic nasal spray to be as effective in reducing hay fever symptoms as the most common conventional therapy. At the same time, though, a study published in The Clinical Journal of Pain concluded that arnica (one of the more well-known and oft-used homeopathic remedies) does nothing for muscle soreness.

The overall drift of the still-scant evidence is not in homeopathy's favor. But that may only underscore the marked difference between homeopathic theory and standard Western medical research.

Scientific medical studies favor randomized, double-blinded studies, meaning the subjects are selected by chance and neither they nor the researchers know who's getting the remedy being tested and who's getting a sham medication called a placebo. The idea is to eliminate unintentional bias that could skew the results.

But homeopathy works, its practitioners say, precisely because it's not random or blinded. On the contrary, it's based on interaction between the patient and the doctor, and the recognition that remedies work differently on different people. This is yet another "law" of homeopathy, that of "the individual.

"You're going to impose on any medication your own characteristics that will influence your reaction to it," Dr. Campos says. "That's why two people can come into my office with the same symptoms and walk out with two different prescriptions."

Hence your first visit to a homeopathic doctor will be a long one, with a lot of talk about your medical history, your social background, your childhood memories, your emotional aspects, and a number of other topics that might not seem to have much to do with your physical health.

"They're all tools for practicing a true integral medicine that considers the whole human being," Dr. Campos says. "There's a common saying that natural medicine treats the patient, not the disease. Or as put put it in homeopathy, there are no ailments, only ailing people."

Kellyg@prodigy.net.mx

Recipes to challenge your inner chef/////MEXICO NEWS

d.f. recipes

BY VICKY COWAL/The Herald Mexico
March 03, 2005

As mayor of Mexico City in 1993, Manuel Camacho Solis and a team of public relations whizzes had the imaginative idea to ask 50 of the city's top chefs to create their own dish for Mexico City, each one of which would symbolize the wide variety in the Mexican culinary tradition. So they rounded up a team of gastronomic experts and cajoled the chefs into flights of imagination and then put all the recipes into a cookbook, "Platillo Ciudad de Mexico," published by the tourism department and several other government agencies.

Unfortunately, the book is now very difficult to find (try secondhand stores), and in the end, the whole affair resulted in being more of a publicity stunt than a substantive contribution to Mexico City's food legacy. Nevertheless, it was a fun thing to have done and it's a great read for those interested in how restaurants prepare and present food.

When you read through the ingredients and all the steps necessary to get to the finished dish, you can well appreciate what makes restaurant food, in the best of cases, better than what you can do at home and also why you often have to pay a high price for such quality.

For example, not many of us have a supply of duck bones on hand in the kitchen to make just the right sauce for "Roast Duckling in Raspberry Sauce with Sweet Potato and Zucchini Julienne." There are just some dishes that are better left to trained chefs.

In light of this, I have chosen three recipes from the book that you can reproduce at home. I'm not saying that they will be a snap, but here they are for those with visions of being amateur chefs.

The soup is actually easy and relatively quick to prepare, but you will have to scout out the different kinds of mushrooms at a fancy public market such as the San Juan or Prado Norte in Mexico City. The chicken recipe requires more patience as does the salad which, as well, needs the same trip to an upscale market for the ingredients. I have made only the slightest changes in the text of the excellent English translation in the cookbook and I have not changed any of the ingredients.

PECHUGA DE POLLO SOBRE ALFOMBRA DE ADOBO .

From the very famous La Hacienda de los Morales, a true Mexico City landmark. Centuries ago a mulberry-growing hacienda, it is now a stunning restaurant with beautiful gardens and a huge amount of space. The food is almost as good as the atmosphere.



FILLING:

- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil.

- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced.

- 1 1/2 cups of fine bread crumbs.

- 1 1/2 cups (200 grams) of toasted ground pumpkin seeds.

- 2 eggs, beaten.

Heat the oil in a medium-size skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes Add the bread crumbs and ground pumpkin seeds and continue cooking until thickened. Let cool. Mix in beaten eggs to obtain a smooth paste.



CHICKEN:

- 6 boned chicken breasts, each cut in fourths and lightly flattened to make 24 scallops.

- 48 squash blossoms, stamens removed, opened and blanched.

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Place 24 12-inch squares of tin foil on a flat surfacre and brush with oil or butter. Overlap two squash blossoms on each square and on top place a chicken scallop. Spread evenly with stuffing, working from wide side to the point and roll so that the flowers cover the chicken. Twist ends of foil, place rolls on a baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes (test one to see if it is cooked through).



ADOBO SAUCE:

- 4 cups water.

- 12 ancho chiles, deveined and seeded.

- 1 medium white onion, chopped coarsely.

- 2 medium-size tomatoes.

- 1 tablespoon dried oregano.

- 2 tortillas, lightly fried.

2 slices toasted bolillo - 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds.

- Salt, to taste.

Bring water to a boil in a mediumsize saucepan. Add the chiles, onion, tomato, oregano, fried tortilla, toasted bolillo, cumin and salt. Cook over low heat for 45 minutes. Let cool and purée until well blended. Pass through a fine strainer to the same saucepan. Taste for seasoning and keep warm.

GARNISH: 12 large tortillas cut in triangles and fried; 24 black wild mushrooms, washed, stemmed and lightly sautéed; 4 ounces raw pumpkin seeds; 24 tiny tomatillos, skin cut into petals and fried.

To serve: Using a sharp knife make an arrow-shaped cut in the center of each tortilla triangle. Lift flap and lightly fry triangles. Spoon a layer of adobo sauce onto 12 plates. On top place two chicken rolls in a "v" shape and in the center place a triangle of fried tortilla with mushrooms inserted into the flap. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds. Arrange the fried tomatillos at the ends of the chicken breasts. Makes 12 servings.

ENSALADA LAS FLORES DEL MAL .

From Las Flores del Mal located within the Casa Lamm (See related article on Page 4).



FISH STOCK:

- 1 pounds fish bones, broken up.

- 1/2 stick butter.

- 1 white onion, sliced.

- 1 bulb fennel, sliced.

- 1 stalk celery, sliced.

- 1/2 head garlic, peeled.

- 1 bouquet garni of fresh thyme, celery and parsley stalks.

- 8 cups water.

- 2 cups dry white wine.

- Salt to taste.

Soak fish bones in water for 15 minutes. Drain. Heat butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat and cook the onion, fennel and garlic until transparent. Add the fish bones, bouquet garni, water and wine. Season to taste. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes. Allow to rest for 15 minutes, then strain.



CHILE MORITA VINAIGRETTE:

- 3 cups olive oil.

- 6 chiles moritas, washed, deveined and seeded - 2 cloves garlic, peeled and roasted.

- 3/4 cup red wine vinegar.

- Salt to taste.

In a blender, purée the oil, chiles and garlic. Strain. Dissolve the salt in the vinegar and add the prepared chile oil, beating with a wire whisk to emulsify the vinaigrette.



SALAD:

- 18 jumbo shrimp.

- 2 cups fish stock.

- 1 escarole lettuce (lechuga escarola ) - 1 head oakleaf lettuce (lechuga salmonada ).

- 1 head romaine lettuce (lechuga orejona ).

- 1 head ruffled lettuce (lechuga italiana ).

- 1 bunch epazote, leaves only.

- 1 bunch mint, leaves only.

- 1 bunch cilantro, leaves only.

- 1 bunch squash blossoms, yellow part only.

Poach the shrimp until tender in the fish stock. Pour 3 cups of the vinaigrette into a bowl, add the shrimp and marinate, refrigerated, for 4 to 6 hours. Wash and thoroughly dry all the greens. Select the most tender leaves of the lettuces and cut into pieces. Pick out the young leaves of the epazote, cilantro and mint; separate the squash blossoms into petals. Mix salad ingredients in a bowl and dress with the remaining vinaigrette.

To serve: Arrange dressed greens on plates, with 3 marinated shrimp to one side. Makes 6 servings.

Vicky Cowal is a weekly contributor to The Herald. VickyCowal@prodigy.net.mx

saint of the narcos

narcochic exhibit

museo del narco

sonora

i´m reading a book about narcocorridos- a modern form of norteño country music. the song are often commissioned by drug dealers and heads of cartels to document their crimes and triumphs. its fascinating especially as the current power struggles of these cartels are on the front page of the newspaper every morning. i have never followed these crimes and know little apart from the movie blow and my recent trip to marijuana growing county michoacan.

so that´s what i´m thinking about and i see this article about the efforts of sonora´s tourist office:Mexico: Rocky Point is safe, developing the article sites the millions of dollars in private investments pouring into the region. i´ve also read about that- money laundering!

whenever i think of sonora, i think of the writer who said he quickly learned that while at school social events in d.f. he could sit next to the prettiest girl in the room. when her boyfriend angrily approached the writer would just say i´m from sonora and the bofriend would disappear- not wanting conflict with a sonoran.




other tidbit: wi-fi and wi-max for mexico´s future

pulque program

i just caught the end of a documentary about the oldest traditional mexican drink: pulque. it was on canal 11´s program mexico desconocido, produced by the magazine of the same name.

2 pulquerias famosas were mentioned la hija del apache on avenida cuahtemoc in la roma and la xochitl

El maguey una viña del pasado

Del Pulque al Vino Tinto, sin Olvidar la Taberna

la famosa pulquería "La hija del apache"

outside of mexico city
pulque hacienda in hidalgo

more pulque tourism

el rancho San Bartolomé del Monte




p.s. a beautiful nopales page

chowing in mexico city: my advice to you

the first day or 2 you should watch what you eat & not eat on the street. once your body is acclimated, just be mindful of your surroundings. I always think that a healthy squeeze of lime and a generous amount of chile helps kill the bacterias. the only time i've gotten serious food poisoning has been off some mushrooms that i prepared at home.

in my experience, expensive restaurants have always been a disappointment: hostal santo domingo, cafe tacuba, area, the cave at teotihuacan... I did have an outstanding pan-asian meal at the Nikko. It wasn¥t even super expensive - $200 peso buffet & a $250 peso bottle of wine. Though its trendy to serve spring rolls & dumplings now, mexico lacks decent asian foods- maybe cause the asain community is so small. I know that there are a ton of Korean places on the edge of the Zona Rosa, but so far i haven¥t got past the grocery.

I want to try El Bajio, too, but it cracks me up that for some reason its on every gringo list of PLACES THAT ARE SAFE TO EAT AT along with Hostal san domingo, cafe tacuba, all the ex-haciendas...maybe when i get that expense account job...

And compared to the deliciousness found at normal fondas, restaurants & puestos. Lately I am not a norteamericana tourist-my boyfriend & i work for pesos- that combined with a not long ago career in waitressing & a life in nyc- makes so many of the above average $ places not worth it for me. Food served cold and really bad service ( ie the waiter not being able to tell you whats in the house special cocktail,waiting 45 minutes for a drink) drives me insane. So discovering a perfect salsa at a fonda or the freshest agua de piÒa or hyper delicious al pastor rocks my world you will find that mexico city is a bazaar. the sidewalks are lined with vendors & comedors. follow your senses! look for homemade tortillas!

some random reccomendations:
churros & chocolate at churreria el moro. its near the Alameda & a d.f. institution. i've had better churros on the street but the chocolates are fantastic

have a pombazo sandwich at the weekend market at coyocan. then have a buÒuelo & an atole. also have a coffee at any of the el jarochos in the neighborhood.

buy alegrias, little amaranth bars sold everywhere for 1 peso

enjoy the seafood. esp cocktales Boca del Rio on San Cosme has decent cocktales for d.f.- though they don¥t touch the freshness of the shrimp coctales, eaw oysters, or langostinas i ate sitting outside in La Barra & Sontecompan.

sanborns is great for clean bathrooms & magazine browsing. the food is not so hot. in all the reading i had done before coming to mexico city, every one was like Sanborns is so great...i was disappointed that it seemed like a Denny¥s Mexicano...and a friend got food posioning there. After living here more than a couple of months, i began to love Sanborns- for the clean bathrooms, the public reading room (so many of my favorite us magazines are just not worth 75 pesos!) and then i started noticing the merchandise: swiss chocolate, PUPa cosmetics from Italy, pretty books, rollos de chocolate... I did all my christmas shopping at Sanborn¥s and I had it prettily gift-wrapped - in like 20 minutes!
And i love how Sanborn¥s is used for business meetings!

have lunch or drinks at a cantina

look for barbacoa on saturday or sunday in residential areas. there are places that just pop up on the weekend.

eat lots of mexican candy

eat quesadillas, sopes &/or hurraches that are sold by little old ladies on street corner during the day. this is the real deal- she makes the tortilla with fresh blue corn masa, you can try prehispanic delicacies like huitlacoche or flor de calabaza, and the homemade spicy salsas.

tacos el pastor are better after a couple of beers

tepoznieves ice cream, if its not too cold. I think Tepoznieves is great, b/c they consistantly have more tropical flavors & higher quality...and way cheaper than a $100 peso pint of Hagan Daz... Too many La Michocanas serve ice cream that has been melted and refrozen 20 times... Love zarzamora y queso or mamey yogurt at super soya, too !

if you go to a grocery store buy nestle's guanabana yogurt. its amazing- one of the best things in mexico.

there is so much amazing homemade food available. to me this is the best- 2nd only to eating at some one's home.

Oh, yeah, i've never had anything exceptional eating at the city markets. except juices or licuados.

Eating in the provincias! Now that¥s another page!

cross-posted on lonely planet and chowhound

thanks for all your comments!

Just when you felt recovered from the holidays...

BANG! Another holiday springs up on you! Today is Dia de los Reyes Magos!!!

Last night we had to go to Wal-Mart after work at 10pm. The street market was live- everyone we saw was carrying toys and gifts! It had to be their busiest day of the year.

Wal-Mart, which has had an additional warehouse full of toys opened since the end of November, was open 24 hours as was the city that was built on the plaza of the monument to the Revolution. These places were packed not just with shoppers, but also beggars, craft vendors, parking guys, and guys selling extra strength garbage buys- oh and the camotero that passes by my house at 7:30 was still there when I went to sleep at 1:30am!

January 6 is the day that the 3 Kings bring Mexican children toys! Kids write notes & stuff them in balloons that they release to the magical Kings. In some places, they leave shoes outside to be filled with treats!

Last night, Jorge brought home Rosca de Reyes the food mascot of this holiday. Its a crown shaped sweet bread topped with candied figs and containing little doll babies that represent baby jesus. They say don¬¥t cut the rosca with a knife because, you could kill the baby jesus. This morning I found the doll or muÒequito in my 1st bite! I guess I¬¥ll be having a tamale party on Febuary 2!

Of course, at wal-mart, they had supersize Rosca de Reyes- the size of a truck tire!

check out the fotogaleria

how to make Rosca de Reyes

going home to hot chocolate & more rosca!

yesterday i was feeling fresa

so i went to the Condesa.

actually i was craving fashion and scenesterism after 10 days in Tampico, so i dragged Jorge to La Condesa to cruise the vibe.

La Condesa (the countess) is a beautiful tree filled neighborhood that is built around several pretty plazas (including Parque Mexico & Parque Espa–a). I read somewhere that it has the highest concentration of art deco buildings out side of my old stomping ground, Miami Beach. It«s considered fresa-which translates top snobby/prissy- because its a hot, expensive neighborhood full of cafes & bars. The cafes, shops & foreigners give the area a slightly more cosmopolitan international vibe that your average mexico city neighborhood.

Our first stop was the super cool Cooperativa 244. Its a cooperative of 7 designers of jewelry, accessories & clothing. They have gotten a lot of press for a gorgeous wool dress that has little balls on the chest. Surprisingly, I can«t find a photo of it on the web.

i was so happy that the designs were clever and the craftsmanship excellent. There wasnt anything i really really wanted to buy...well there was but it was either too small or too fancy for my current lifestyle or too expensive for what it was.

my favorite things were this pink A line skirt that comes with interchangeable patches to decorate ($1300 pesos- U$120), a bathrobe made of a bright flower pattern cotton knit, a groovy flower pin with a fat rock of turquoise in the center ($1100 pesos- less than U$100), oh and the strapless wool dress ($8000 pesos- almost U$800) and they have great shoes from spain, argentina & guadalajara. Also brilliant corsets & mini skirts- some made of odd curtain-y & tablecloth-y fabrics.

There was nothing I could buy at the moment but its good to know that they are there and if i land my dream job with a decent wardobe budget i will buy clothes there. The women working were eager to custom alter the designs.

Later we ate mexican-japonese food at Japon Nez Sushi Lounge. What is it about sushi-ish places that try to be discos ? Hello Sushi Rock, Planet Thai, Swim, Avenue A Sushi! Japon Nez has a DJ thursday thru saturday and hip urban style, but it took 40 minutes to get a cocktail. THe green tea ice cream (the first time Jorge tried it) made it all worthwhile.

We checked out a couple of other cute boutiques in the neighborhood. Lots of restructured, punky t-shirts & t-shirts with silly or crude sayings. ...a cool denim shop full of denim corsets, jackets made of pants and skirts...also very cool floors in a couple of these shops... good to know its there.

notes from christmas vacation-

12.20  fought like hell to get out of the city...nearly knocked over
by families lugging couch sized cardboard boxes & suitcases the size
of bicycles. it took half an hour to get our bags in the bus...but it was
cool how everyone was talking to their seat mates- all going home to the
Tuxtlas

12.21 arrival in Catemaco around 8 am. walked up the street to where the
pick ups to the other towns. sucked down a hot rice with milk drink (arroz
con leche) and it was a quick ride to Sontecompan- the next town towards
the coast- no idea what would lie ahead, but a lake. The boat captains that
greeted our truck said that a boat to La Barra, the mouth of the sea was
$300 pesos, as we stepped out with our backpacks, the rate became $20 pesos
for a collectivo and yes, the captains knew a Juan who rented rooms.
15 minutes & a private boat ride later, we happily discovered the perfect
place to unwind. Rancho Los Amigos. 6 cabanas ascending a hill on the lake.
We chose the highest, nestled among the pines planted by the dueño-
a view of the sea. Later took a 5 peso boat ride to the beach. sat down for
a fresh seafood feast and many chelas then walked off for the next
populated beach-  Playa Escondida- an hour by foot, they said... maybe
3 sun & wind drenched hours later we arrived in a little hotel/restaurant
on the corner of beach. It was Jicacal. Gorgeous area.

12.22 another day at chilled out all morning...tried to visit another beach,
but the pick-up trucks weren't really cooperating so we took advantage of
out location & took a dip the lovely pozo de los enanos- spent the rest
of the afternoon in an open air bar restaurant eating amazingly fresh seafood
and caguamas where we were the only eating customers but many were
crowded around a blue demon film.

12.23 arrived in pueblo Viejo, veracruz. our arrival was celebrated by a
huge breakfast of scrambled eggs with blender salsa and a mountain of lard
fried black bean bocoles.

12.24 noche buena dinner: chicken stuffed with a mixture of ground beef,
pork, carrots, peas onions; mexican style spaghetti*, a dessert of apples,
canned pineapple, grapes in crema topped with chopped walnuts.

*spaghetti served with a sauce made of melted american cheese (queso amarillo)
& margarine with a few pureed tomatoes tossed in. oddly comforting, very
much like norteamericano macaroni and cheese.

12.25  bussed over to Playa
Miramar the beach at Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas- a suprisingly nice beach,
clean, big, nice sand, lined with rickety wooden beach chairs and umbrellas
and practically in the shadow of PEMEX  headquarters. it was cool, but
people were swimming. we opted for drinking beer on the beach, and supporting
the beach front economy by partaking in stuffed crab & seafood empanadas.
also chased seagulls and walked almost to the end of the beach. i would stay
there, maybe at the ritz or one of the other inexpensive looking hotels.

12.26 Tampico was annoying full of christmas shoppers. None of the 1 hour
photo places would deliver my film in 1 day. We drank delicious fruit aguas
in the plaza. Then went to the cinema to see Lord of the Rings 3- only to
walk into Aragon speaking spanish.

12.27 rancho of jorge's grandmother. an hour in the back of a pick up truck
from Tampico is the river town of Panuco, Veracruz. Follow the river way
down a dirt road though corn fields is Tampuche and Jorge's mother's mother's
ranch. They grow corn & beans, have several goats, a couple of trees,
numerous chickens & 2 cages full of parakeets hanging in one of the trees.
i helped pick black beans from the milpa and gather lemons, limes, green
guavas, & mandarin oranges from the trees. Unfortunately bananas, plums
& papayas were not in season.

12.28 Tamuin, San Luis Potosi. ate a delicious little torta de pierna,
very much like a pulled pork sandwich back in the USA. saw some ruins. walked
around and around in the zocalo with the rest of the young people of the
town. slept in a road house type place. they sold bacon wrapped hot dogs
with real fresh buns- not bimbo

the north winds arrived in the night making it a hell of a lot colder.

12.29 Xilita pretty little mountain town. visited sir edward james former
house and surrealist sculpture garden. lots of walking and stair climbing
in the jungle. ate dinner in a 17th (?) century house, La Casa Vieja. my
first salad in a week.

12.30 in Xilitla, we checked out the market & tianguis. i bought some
fluorescent pink yarn, ate gorditas, and churros fresh from the kettle. In
the afternoon we returned to Pueblo Viejo- via Ciudad Valles. a short walk
from the bus station is the museum of the Huasteca, a lovely modern building
that holds a of of information of the discovery & excavation of the pyramids
at Tamuin. including many small artifacts donated by local people. 5 peso
donation.

12.31 another midnight supper with the family: toasts with cidra (alcoholic
sparkling cider), pierna (leg of pig- what do we call this in english- roast
pork?) that marinated in chilies & other spices for 24 hours, then simmered
on top of the stove all day, mashed potatoes, mexican spaghetti again, apple
cream salad again.

1.01 visited the only upscale part of Tampico i saw- sanborns. cappuccino.
movies

1.02

1.03 returned to d.f -greeted by sunshine & empty streets

more old photos of Tampico

will add more detail as soon as i have time. The Sontecompan area especially cool...

happy

new year!

how are you?

i just came back to mexico city this morning from my christmas vacation in veracruz. the city is eerily quiet as most people are still on vacation. what did you do over your break? what did you do new years?

i am a bit of a crossroads as far as what i want to do next. i have a lot of desire to return to nyc & the working life...but can't imagine leaving jorge here. so maybe i¥ll come back for a little bit, as i have a ticket for the end of january and my tourist visa will expire then.

miss you

lots of love,

Lindsay

i¥m not homesick, but...

even though i am here in veracruz dining daily of soft, white handmade tortillas made with fresh masa. this article in the new york times is making me drool! every once in a while, i used to stop at hot bagels on grand street after i crossed the williamsburg bridge on my bicycle. the real deal oldschool bagel- no schmear needed. i would take these to work and my boss would forgive my tardiness.

xmas shopping

...things have definitely been getting interesting around here. i¥m starting to notice that everyone is carrying around gifts, pointsettas, even christmas trees. a few weeks ago the street & market vendors really started to ramp up and are in full swing now. my local mercado san cosme has doubled in size as folks seliing christmas trees, pointsettas and other greens for the nacimientos ring the market. nochebuena beer popped up in the oxxo.

i went to wal mart during lunch today to buy a few things for our trip & could barely get through the aisles. everything from shaving cream to air freshners, cookies, perfumes are packaged as gift sets and piled high in places that you used to be able to push your cart.

and mexicans aren¥t even big present givers! i swear this conglomerate is pushing u.s. influences HARD. the christmas merchandise was up before dia de muertos & there was tons of halloween stuff.

so i did my shopping right in my neighborhood: sanborn¥s & manos que curan
you know i love sanborn¥s (the shop not the food) but man! christmas time it is the bomb! if you need a present fast- they¥ve got it. beautifully packaged european perfumes, cute foto albums, interesting cd compilations, Pupa cosmetics, silver, books, cakes, chocolate shaped like nativity scenes, christmas trees, elf boots or little tiles decorated with nochebuenas for less than U$ 5...

manos que curan is a little soap factory across from my dry cleaners. they make lovely soaps, lotions, fragrant oils and whatnot. cucumber & cactus, amaranth (a very important pre-hispanic grain) milk & honey exfoiliating soap, chamomile for the sun damaged skin soap, cinnamon soap, rosemary for oily skin soap, & that famous coffee- supposed to be great for removing odors soap, and heavenly rose petal soap seconds for about 35 cents! their smelly oils are beautiful, the bottle holds whatever flower or herb scents it and is packaged simply with a cork and sealed with wax.

yes mexico is a great place to shop.

only 2 days until christmas vacation

and i can not wait!

the last few weeks have been super cold here in d.f.- though i just did the converstions to Farenheit- not half as cold as new york city! and i¥ve been giving english classes from 7am to 9pm. so b-o-r-i-n-g. so i¥m heading off to steamy veracruz.

i¥ll be spending the holidays (december 24 & 25 and new years) with jorge¥s relatives in pueblo viejo, veracruz just on this side of tampico, tamaulipas. The rest of the days we¥ll be exploring that region. looking to do very little but eat mariscos, read (i have james michener¥s MEXICO tome) and soak up sun. (note to anyone planning on visiting mexico city in the next few months: ITS COLD!)

The main thing i¥m worried about is not being able to find a decent & inexpensive place to stay. The first time i went to Vercruz was the 5 de mayo long weekend. After spending 1 & 1/2 hours in a taxi, the only place we could find was a hotel de paso (complete with black lights and mirrored ceiling!) which was like $500 pesos ( they normally charge by the hour) and we had to slip more $$ in the revolving door to stay until 10am...the same in catemaco- we ended up staying in a taxi drivers home.

so we are starting our trip in the southern part of the state of veracruz. i want to see what that part of the Gulf is like. I have been researching places like Tecolutla, Nautla, & Tamiahua - La Costa Esmerelda- near Poza Rica, not far from Tampico. so i am afraid it will be too crowded. And I have been researching the beaches *there is also a good hand drawn map about halfway down the page* south of the puerto of Veracruz: the ones that i think you can only get to from Catemaco Playa Escondido, Montepio, La Barra any places near...I imagine there is some sort of local transportation.

we bought our bus tickets today- you have to buy before a big holiday because everybody hits the road. I would have gone sooner, but haven¥t been paid all of my measly salary y. as it was our first 2 destinations were sold out. the only thing available for friday was a 2nd class bus to catemaco (where we went in may)

i wanted to stop in this UNESCO historic town, Tlacotalpan but because there are only 3 or 4 not very cheap hotels - thought we could spend the morning before we push on to the coast. guess not this time... everything i¥ve read says you have to get the transportation to the coast from catemaco & we know that there is a bus station, so its fine to arrive at 5am.

we will definitlely spend a day or 2 in Papantla. buying Vanilla Bean crafts! Does anyone one have 1st or 2nd hand info on these spots or if not we will head up to Tapantla- the home of vanilla & el tajin. or we¥ll go there after christmas & before new years day (another dinner) there are beaches near tampico & also we¥ll take a day trip to las pozas where an english eccentric built a surreal kingdom around these naturals pools.

my first posada

why i love mexican parties:

everybody shares this common background that inevitably comes out in song or playground chants "QUE CANTA ! QUE CANTA !"

there´s always a least a little bit of food. maybe just potato chips or peanuts that are chili coated. or maybe something more elaborate: alahambres cooked on the grill with peppers and onion, sopes, pozole YUM!

someone always takes charge of bartending/distribution of the chelas normally the host or his or her friends

parents are hidden away in the kitchen or in a bedroom

or if its a larger event 3 or 4 generations are present at their respective tables.

everyone takes turn dj-ing and the selection of music often becomes a collective activity.

and best of all they are in mexican homes which I love. the home may be furnished with paintings of the last supper and or la virgen of guadalupe... and other tchotkes.

the party that i went to last night in Colonia Popotla was in a home decorated to the nines by its occupants wiith ceramic animals, dolls made of papier mache, a tea pot shaped like a cat, life-sized stuffed dogs, rubber snakes...a massive nacimiento, a robotic santa server, a miniature santa's village, some super kitsch ashtrays shaped liked dogs...and all shared with a dozen fish, birds, cats, 5 dogs, a snake & a hamster

we busted up a beautiful foil and paper covered, star shaped pinata filled with peanuts, tangerines, jocotes, sugar cane and lollipops...hoisted on a rope by the host juanito standing on the garden wall. one of our english teacher friends crouched in the corner trying to get action shots as everyone else stepped way back

"Extranjero !" several nodded in unision- piñata bashing can be a very dangerous- its considered an extreme sport in these parts! everyone lunged for the candy i collected fruit and stuffed my pockets with peanuts.
Later we were invited back into the house by juanito´s mother for la cena- the dinner. We didn't even have to sing. I was impressed with the meal- tuna with tomatoes, olives and herba ans a sort of fettucine with sliced ham, served with fresh bollios. I think the festive napkins and green plastic plates probably cost more- I love that!

we drank more tequila and squirt or coke and chelas and our collective focus turned to the music while my personal focus turned to the amazing flan that la señora served.

oh my god, when did i start loving flan?

happy virgin of guadalupe day!

pilgrims from all over mexico have come to honor la virgen de tepeyac. some have been walking or riding in trucks for several days and others have set off just today and are walking or riding biciycles together. most have a portrait or sculpture of the virgin strapped to their back. Others walk on their knees, some with cactus strapped to their back for extra suffering.

tonight in the zocalo we see some of the 3.5 million pilgrims taking a break en route to the basilica- many rubbing their sore feet and some sipping tequila. occasionally groups of young men pass on their bicycles, whistling to let the cars know they are coming. There is a group of bicitaxis in the zocalo center. some are carrying passengers, some have beautiful mobile shrines.

the following is paraphrased from a couple of articles in El Universal/Miami Herald

She is still known as Tonantzin Guadalupe-Tonantzin meaning Our Lady in nahuatl.

La Tonantzin or Coatlicue was the wife of the god Quetzalcoatl, Ometeol or Huitzilopochtli. She is the mother of all creation- the sky/heaven & the earth. They had a son-Tonacantecutli- the god of our flesh.
Originally Coatlicue's templo was on top of Tepeyac, she had a huge following. Campesino juan diego, saw la virgen while walking in Tepeyac in 1531. He reported his experience to Spanish Bishop Juan de Zumarraga, who demanded proof of the miracle. Four days later, on December 12 (now, the day of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe), while in the presence of the Bishop, the image of the virgin as we know her appeared on Juan Diego's cloak.

Many mexicans contiued the ancient tradition of making a pilgrimage to the goddess Tonantzin- it wasn't so important that her name was changed to the virgen of guadelupe. Some say that the indiginous religion merged with the catholicism- or catholicism stomped it out. Juan Diego was sainted a few years ago.

Mexico comes from nahuatl (the language of the aztecs): metxchico, metxli=moon, chicli=bellybutton, co=in;en el ombligo de la luna= in the bellybutton or center of the moon

The name that they gave la Virgen in nahuatl was "Te Coatlaxopeuh" (she who comes flying from the light) or "Tequantlanopeuh" (she who was born in the tips of shame). Also and more probable:"Te" that wants to say stone; "Coa" signifies serpent and "Xopeuh" that wants to smash: she who smashes the stone serpent. pronounced like:"Tecuatlacupe".


Love y besos
Lindsay

posters on Paseo de Reforma Guadalupe: On my body as in my soul