Lesley Tellez

An update from Mija, three years later

July 12, 2018 by Lesley Tellez

I didn’t mean to take a three-year hiatus from blogging. But, as it turns out, being a decent wife and partner, having a baby, publishing a cookbook, writing freelance food articles, and being CEO of a growing food tourism business are a little too much for one woman—even me, the woman who thrives on doing a million things at once—to juggle at one time. Something had to give in 2015, and that thing was my blog.

I have really missed writing here, though. I miss having a space to talk about what’s on my mind. That’s really why I started blogging in 2009, although it eventually morphed into a space devoted to Mexican food. What’s on my mind lately churns around more than Mexican food. (But I am still interested in that, too.) One of the reasons I stopped blogging was because I wasn’t sure I could still share those other things here. Now my attitude is: why can’t I?

So what am I thinking about lately? Parenting. My identity as a working mother. (That is my now-3-year-old in the photo above.) Creating a healthy and thriving business, and making sure my team is challenged and fulfilled. My future food projects. And transitions.

Crayton got a job opportunity in Los Angeles in 2017, so in January of that year we shipped off from New York for LA. I was really happy to be back in Southern California and close to my family. He didn’t have a specific contract or length of time for the job, but I hoped for at least five years. The universe had other plans, though. Earlier this year Crayton was offered a promotion for a management position back in New York.

I didn’t want to leave. California felt right to me. New opportunities were starting to shake loose, and I was looking forward to sitting with these thoughts of what it meant to be home and view the same landscape and feel the same air that I did as a kid, and to just be in this exciting epicenter of Mexican-American culture, which I had not really explored yet as an adult.

None of those reasons felt compelling enough to put my foot down and say no to a move, especially when considering how potentially awesome this move would be for Crayton and his career. And how much it might benefit our son, too. So we moved back. We got here in April of this year. Total time in LA: 14 months.

Between you, me, and the fence post—as my mother-in-law says—there are days when I still wonder whether this was the right call. Our “second time” life in New York is actually pretty great, and much more convenient and stress-free than it was the first time around. But I still miss not being home, and not being in the same time zone as my dad and my mom and my brothers, to be able to give quick them a quick call in the morning before I start my day. I still think about what staying in California might have meant for me. I am still not comfortable with the idea that I have become a “trailing spouse.” (Is that what I am?)

There’s another big change coming, too. I’m expecting our second child in October.

How we will manage two children in a small New York apartment, and how I will continue to be an entrepreneur and writer and CEO and mother, while also stoking other creative irons I’ve got in the fire, are all things that are on my mind. But hopefully I will be able to come here more often and write more. That’s my goal, anyway.

Looking forward to being here more, soon.

Me in May 2018, in Long Island City.

A Taco Crawl of Sunset Park, Brooklyn

June 10, 2015 by Lesley Tellez

Tacos in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Photo by Mira Evnine.

When I began testing recipes for my cookbook, lots of people asked whether I could find the right Mexican ingredients in New York. When I said yes, they said, “Are you buying them in Sunset Park?” I didn’t know Sunset Park, a neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn, south of Red Hook. I had been buying my ingredients in the small Mexican bodegas near my house in Queens. Since Sunset Park was about 90 minutes away from me by train, I made a mental note to visit at some point….

On Cinco de Mayo: 10 things to love about Poblano food

May 5, 2015 by Lesley Tellez

Puebla is perhaps the only place in Mexico that celebrates Cinco de Mayo. The day honors the Mexican Army’s victory over the French in the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

For this Cinco de Mayo, I wanted to share more about the food in Puebla, which is some of the best in Mexico. All of these photos come from my own archives, meaning I took them myself.

Maybe someday we’ll see some of these snacks on American Cinco de Mayo menus.

#1: Poblano Chalupas

Poblano chalupas are crispy tortillas doused in red and green salsa, and drizzled with hot fat. They’re simple and delicious, and on the streets they’re usually served directly off a hot comal onto your plate.

#2: Pelonas

Puebla is a mecca for snacky sandwiches, each made with its own particular kind of bread. This crispy-fried pelona, stuffed with shredded meat, came from an antojitería downtown.

#3: Crystalized Fruit

Crystalized fruit, cooked for days in sugar and calcium hydroxide, is a typical dessert across Mexico. This stand — outside a market in Atlixco, Puebla — offered a particularly stunning array of colors. From left to right, the vendor is selling sweet potatoes, candied squash (calabaza en tacha), tejocotes, figs, and chilacayote squash.

#4: The Nuns

You can’t talk about food in Puebla without mentioning the nuns, who had a huge influence on the city’s culture and gastronomy. This is the kitchen from the ex-convent of Santa Mónica, where chiles en nogada were supposedly invented.

The nuns are also credited with inventing…

#5: Mole Poblano

Mole poblano is Puebla’s signature sauce, which contains, depending on the recipe, chocolate, dried chiles, raisins, plantain, toasted or burned tortillas and spices, among dozens of other ingredients. (Obligatory Mole Police addendum: while mole poblano contains chocolate, not all moles do.)

Mole pots are still made by hand in Puebla. At this workshop in an older section of downtown, men load the pots into large kilns.

Neighborhood mills like this one in Cholula still exist in Puebla. Residents can grind pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, nuts and spices for pipián, a typical mole dish.

#6: Fresh Baked Bread

Bread, as I mentioned before, is hugely important in Puebla, tracing back to the Spaniards who grew some of Mexico’s first wheat there. Vendors still sell all sorts of bread daily. Bonus points if you can tell me what each of these breads are called.

#7: Tlacoyos

Tlacoyos, a popular street snack in Mexico City, are a big deal in Puebla, where they’re often stuffed with alberjón, a type of garbanzo bean. On the streets they’re cooked on the comal until crisp. And they may not be called tlacoyos, either; some regions refer to them at tlayoyos.

#8: Molotes

Molotes are oval-shaped balls of masa, stuffed with cheese, huitlacoche, potato or other fillings, and fried. They’re crunchy on the outside and softer in the middle. (And don’t forget the salsa for drizzling on top.) They are the bomb.

#9: Cemitas

Perhaps Puebla’s most famous sandwich, exported to cities across the States, cemitas popularly contain a fried, breaded steak topped with a tangle of cheese, chipotle or jalapeño strips and avocado. The bread is also very important — my favorite kind, sold at the Puebla market stand above, is slightly sweet and crunchy.

#10: Chiles en Nogada

Traditionally offered in July through September only, the baroque chiles en nogada — comprising a chile stuffed with sweet-and-savory meat — is one of my favorite Mexican dishes. (Again, thank the nuns.)

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

This post was updated on May 1, 2018.

Eat Mexico the cookbook, now available for pre-order

May 1, 2015 by Lesley Tellez

My Mexico City cookbook — the project that sprung partially from this blog, and my food adventures and tours in the city — is now available for pre-order! You can find Eat Mexico: Recipes from Mexico City’s Streets, Markets and Fondas on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Powell’s. It’ll be released officially at the end of May/early June.

I’m really proud of how it turned out. Mexico City’s food and culture and vistas jump off the page, due to Penny de los Santos’ excellent photography, the vision of the team at Kyle Books, and the super cool design from DF-based Little Mule Studio. On my end it felt like a privilege to write about wandering through the streets and markets, and the dishes and ingredients that have made such a big impact on me: masa, tortillas, chiles, beans, tamales, moles and salsas.

I’ve written a series on Serious Eats about what it’s been like to write a cookbook, and I’ll be writing one more installment that describes what happens after you turn in the manuscript. In the meantime, if you want me to do an event in your city, let me know! I’ll be sharing some tour dates with you as it gets closer, plus hopefully some recipes that didn’t make it into the book. I’ve also got some fun ideas for giveaways on the blog once the book officially hits the shelves, so please stay tuned.

As always, thank you for reading and sharing this experience with me over the past few years. It’s been completely wild to think that I arrived in Mexico in 2009 without an idea of what I’d do with my time, while mulling in my heart of hearts that I’d like to write a book. Looking at my early advance author copy today, I almost can’t believe that I did it.

Meet my newest creation: my son, Tomás

April 22, 2015 by Lesley Tellez

For the past six to eight months I’ve been working on finishing my Mexico City cookbook, which is finally complete. (More on that shortly.) But the biggest news of all is… I had a baby!

Tomás was born two months ago.

So far motherhood has been challenging, exhausting and, at the beginning, terrifying — who was I to take care of this little being? Lately I’ve started to chill out a bit and realize that none of us actually know what we’re doing. The key for me has been to keep trying. And to soak up all the joy that hits me when he smiles.

Mija is now a mom.

Mexican food find: Endotzi huitlacoche

September 11, 2014 by Lesley Tellez

In New York, I can’t find fresh huitlacoche anywhere, and the canned stuff is pretty awful: musty and mushy, and too slick and black. A friend told me about Endotzi, a small company based in Mexico that recently started exporting to the U.S.

So far you can only find it online in one place, Old Mexico Gourmet, but it’s worth ordering. The kernels — which you can actually distinguish one by one, unlike the messy black canned stuff — are plump and flavorful, and a purplish-blue color like they’re supposed to be. A few months ago I sautéed some with a little American corn and serrano chile, and spooned it into a quesadilla. The taste brought me right back to Mexico.

I’m hoping more stores in New York will stock it. In the meantime, I will definitely be ordering more, particularly as gifts for my Mexican foodie friends.

The pozole and the giant pig’s head

May 14, 2014 by Lesley Tellez

I admit I hadn’t really thought the whole thing through when I decided to make pozole with a whole pig’s head.

Josefina had suggested that using a pig’s head was the most authentic way to make pozole, and other cookbooks, including Diana Kennedy’s, had agreed. I had already made pozole with pig’s feet and pork shoulder and it turned out well enough. What if the pig’s head tasted better? Didn’t I owe it to myself to at least try?

So I took the subway and walked, in the rain and howling wind, about a half mile to the International Meat Market in Astoria, where I purchased a 9-lb. frozen pig’s head. Only after I was headed home — in a taxi, because there was no way I was trekking on foot with nine pounds of meat on my arm — did I realize that I didn’t have a pot large enough to cook it. Moreover, why did I not ask the butcher if he had anything smaller?

I called Fany. “Do you have a pot I can use that would hold a nine-pound pig head? I’m making pozole.”

Fany, who rents a commercial kitchen space, did not ask for further details bless her heart, and she offered the use of a 20-quart pot. “It needs to sit on two burners,” she said.

Three days later — after thawing the head in the fridge, cooking up a 12-quart pot of pozole corn, and taking a car to and from Fany’s kitchen in Red Hook — I returned home with the gigantic pot, ready for the next step. I placed the pig head in the pot and filled it with cold water. The head immediately started to ooze blood, turning the water pink.

I tried to move the pot to a more inconspicuous area of the kitchen — both for safety’s sake and because, let’s be real, I didn’t want to look at a whole pig head in water for the next several hours — but I couldn’t lift it. The pot was too heavy.

“Crayton!” I called into the living room. “Shaw!”

My husband and my friend, bless their hearts, helped me change the water two more times. (Diana Kennedy’s Essential Cuisines of Mexico had suggested changing the water “as often as is practical.”) We heaved the pot onto the edge of the sink and I slowly drained the pink fluid, then placed the pot on the floor and filled it up with several large mixing bowl’s-worth of cold water.

Finally it was midnight and time to go to bed. But I still had to put the pig’s head in the fridge to soak overnight.

Working quickly, because it was late and I was exhausted, I removed a middle shelf in the fridge and threw away everything but the essentials, while Crayton and Shaw measured the available fridge space. They placed the pig head on the bottom floor of the fridge, above the crisper. We wedged the pozole corn on a shelf above.

The next morning at 7 a.m., I changed the pot of pig-head water one last time, even though my back felt a little creaky.

Finally it was time to cook the head. I covered it in more fresh water and a little onion and garlic. It simmered away, uncovered, for about three hours. The aroma was intense: pure and clean and rich, like the best slow-cooked stew. It was the kind of smell that travels down the hallway of our apartment building and invites us when we got off the elevator. (We have several great cooks on our floor.)

More than one cookbook had cautioned about not overcooking the head, and so once the meat was tender and slightly falling off the bone, I turned off the heat. But then… how could I have not thought of this? How do I get the pig head out of the broth? The head was too heavy and well-cooked by now to lift out by the ears. They’d come off if we pulled on them.

Crayton and I carefully placed the hot pot on the kitchen floor and stared at it.

I grabbed the largest strainer I had, hoping to maybe scoop the head out from underneath, but the strainer barely fit over the snout. My tongs were too small, too, and I silently cursed myself for giving away the extra-large grill tongs we’d kept for years for no reason.

 What we needed was a lever of some sort to lift the head out of the broth. But nothing I had was strong enough. And then I remembered the wooden spoon I’d bought in Puebla, for mole. It was about two feet long and made of solid wood. I bought it for purely sentimental reasons — it was the spoon I’d use to stir my dream mole pot someday, in my dream outdoor kitchen. I’d never used it for anything and it had also sat for years in my kitchen.

But right now it was going to lift a cooked pig’s head out of boiling broth.

I wrapped my hands in several layers of dish towels. Crayton used the wooden spoon to lift the pig head ever-so-slightly out of the broth. Trying to be as agile as possible (this is when yoga comes in handy), I squatted down and grabbed the head on both sides and then lifted it up. The head dripped streams of hot broth. I placed it a cutting board, where it released more broth, which puddled off the side of the countertop and onto the floor.

We’d done it!

But we still had to carve it. Or, I did.

None of the recipes I read had described how to carve the head in detail, and I was way too tired to consult the Internet. (I had just cooked a mo-fo pig’s head!) So, after letting the head cool off a bit, I took my sharpest knife and sliced off the meat as cleanly as I could, praying that there were no savory inner parts that I was missing. When I’d done a more or less decent job, I looked at the small pile of meat on the cutting board, and the possibly 20 quarts of broth on the stove. This was not going to be enough meat.

It would have to do. We boxed up four quarts of broth for the freezer, filled up our 12-quart pot, and tossed the rest down the drain, about 18 cups worth. (I know, I know. But seriously — where was I going to put it? I had no room in my fridge and several other recipes to keep testing.)

The broth, by the way, was the best I’ve ever made.

Crayton texted me a picture the next morning, when I got on a plane to Mexico. (Forgot to mention that I was also leaving for Mexico the very next day for two weeks.) “Breakfast pozole,” his message read.

My pozole recipe will be in my upcoming cookbook, with adequate advice about cooking a pig’s head. If you find yourself inspired to cook pozole now, here are a few other non-pig-head recipes to check out:

Pati Jinich’s Pozole Rojo
Pozole Blanco from The Latin Kitchen (recipe by Melissa Guerra)
Rancho Gordo’s Pozole Verde

Why I’m in love with Mexican pan dulce

April 11, 2014 by Lesley Tellez

A bread cart in Santiago Tianguistenco, Estado de México, in 2013.

I am pained when I walk by a bakery in Mexico and can’t go inside.

It’s like going to a shoe store for me — I want to look at every single piece and wonder if maybe it’s my type. I usually stick to conchas because I’m obsessed, but there are plenty others I like too: the campechanas topped with burnt sugar that remind me of the best, crispiest pie crust; the puerquitos that taste like piloncillo and molasses; the cocoles, lightly sweet and sprinkled with anise seeds, which taste just about perfect with a cup of coffee.

Mexico’s history with breadmaking dates to the beginning of the Spanish Conquest, when, according to Spanish chroniclers, a freed slave named Juan Garrido — one of the first black men in Mexico — planted the first wheat seeds, which had been accidentally included in sacks of rice. The first wheat mill opened in Mexico in 1525. Over the course of a few centuries, bread consumption grew slowly, until eventually, in the 19th century, it became present on most tables next to tortillas.

According to CANAINPA, Mexico’s largest union group for bread makers, there are currently more than 700 types of bread registered in the country. Another article I’ve read places the number of unique Mexican sweet breads at 1,200 (!), with savory breads numbering 400. Interestingly, as CANAINPA’s site notes, the modern panadería — a place where each customer grabs a set of tongs, and serves herself — did not exist until the 1950’s. Before that, Mexican bakeries kept the bread behind glass display cases.

If I’m being honest, most breads I’ve eaten at neighborhood bakeries in Mexico City look beautiful but don’t taste like much. I’ve eaten the best bread in pueblos, or at nicer restaurants like El Cardenal that use good-quality ingredients. I think change is coming, though. More and more of Mexico’s high-class food scene has embraced typical Mexican ingredients; surely recognizing traditional breads will not be far behind.

Here are some of my favorite pan dulce photos from my archives. Feel free to share your favorite type of pan dulce with me in the comments!

For more on Mexican pan dulce:

The Nuestro Pan Dulce blog catalogs different pieces of Mexican sweet bread en español, and it’s highly worth a visit to begin learning how to tell these breads apart.
My favorite Mexican food experts, Yuri de Gortari and Edmundo Escamilla, made a great video that showcases a local Mexico City bakery and talks about the history of wheat in the country. (You can also hear the gas guy shouting “Gaaas!” in the background around the four-minute mark.)
No mention of pan dulce would be complete without the story of my old encounter with the bike-riding pan dulce vendor (complete with audio!) in my former neighborhood.

My sources for this article:
1. El Pan Nuestro de Cada Día — Sonia Iglesias y Cabrera, Samuel Salinas Álvarez (CANAINPA 1997)
2. “Saborean Mexicanos el Día Del Pan” — Notimex, El Universal, Oct. 15, 2005

Bread outside a market in Puebla. You don’t generally see the pink-sugar variety in DF.

Sweet rolls in Tenancingo, Estado de México.

A bucket of pan dulce at a roadside stand between Mexico City and Puebla.

A basket of sweet bread in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca.

Cake inside a bakery in San Luís Potosí.

Conchas in San Luís Potosí.

Lightly sweet pan dulce in a fonda in Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca.

A market in Oaxaca City, 2012.

Vanilla and chocolate conchas, among other items, in a market in Oaxaca.

Cheesy pan de Zacatlán at Puebla’s Mole Festival in 2012.

A pan dulce cart in the Centro Histórico, Mexico City.

Homemade orange-pineapple juice

March 21, 2014 by Lesley Tellez

Lately, whenever people ask me, “How’s New York?” I answer, “Fine.” Then I realize that might sound negative, so I add, “Good! Fine. You know. Good.” What I really want to say is: I’m not sure if I like this place.

Yesterday the temperature hit 51 degrees, it hit me that maybe it was just winter that I didn’t like. In the sunshine, with the slush finally melted and people milling about running errands, untethered by scarves and jackets, my neighborhood seemed like a real neighborhood again. People walked a little slower on the sidewalks. The open doorway at the Chinese grocery store around the corner suddenly seemed more inviting, as did the roast ducks hanging in the window at Shun Wang. Even the eight-minute walk to the 7 train seemed brighter, maybe literally because of the sun.

All of this happened to coincide with another discovery: New York actually gets pretty great oranges and pineapple. I’ve grumbled much of the winter about the city’s lack of fruit variety (sorry if you had to hear my discourse on apples), but then I discovered that my local bodega carried guavas, the kind that hit you with their perfume immediately. Another bodega carried fresh, juicy pineapple in February.

Combined with a bag of juice oranges that I bought on Fresh Direct, I decided to make a juice yesterday in the blender, reminiscent of Mexico’s streets. The guavas weren’t quite ripe this time around, so I used orange, pineapple and grapefruit. (I don’t have a juicer, so I hand-squeezed the orange and grapefruit, making sure both were at room temperature. It was easy, and actually pretty cathartic.)

The juice was perfectly sweet and tart, with a bit of pleasant bitterness from the grapefruit. Think I may be on my way to loving the city again.

Homemade Orange Pineapple Juice
Makes about 3 1/2 to four cups (enough for at least four juice glasses)

Ingredients

Juice of 1/2 grapefruit (about 1/2 cup)
2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice (about 5 to 6 oranges)
2 cups freshly chopped pineapple

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender, and blend on high.

2. Strain into a pitcher or airtight container. Serve immediately, or chilled.

Scenes from a Mexico City Street Food Tour

March 16, 2014 by Lesley Tellez

One of the things I’m most proud of is starting Eat Mexico, my tourism company that gives walking tours of Mexico City’s street stands, markets and taquerías. Our five local guides — three in Mexico City and two in Puebla — conduct the tours, and my fantastic manager Rebekah carries the day-to-day. I’m in the background, helping develop routes and managing the books, and occasionally answering questions from clients.

We recently had a photographer, Teddy Wolff, visit one of our Street Food tours, and his photos made me ache for the city and the food that I love so much.

I realized that I haven’t posted many photos of what we do at Eat Mexico on this blog, so here’s a peek at our Street Food Tour, from Teddy’s files.