Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border
An empty canoe in Xochimilco, waiting for a mariachi band
My super cool sis- and brother-in-law came to visit us last week from New York. We squeezed in dozens of activities in six days, including street food burritos, conchas at Bondy and dancing (with bottle service!) at a Mexican club until 3 a.m.
Three places, however, emerged as favorites. Here they are:
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Last week, a friend and I went to a cute new cafe called Maison Belen. After lunching on some truly fabulous pasta with wild mushrooms, I had a dessert that pretty much blew my mind: A slice of cake, made entirely from compressed Maria cookies. That’s it above — it’s called a “tarta de galleta.”
If you don’t know Maria cookies, you should run to your local Mexican grocery store and buy some. They’re thin biscuits, lightly sweetened, and they’re perfect with coffee or eaten as a snack. When I got stomach-sick a few months ago, the doctor prescribed them on my list of “bland” foods, and they helped keep me sane while I shoveled in boring steamed vegetables and plain chicken breasts.
At the time, after eating Maria cookies for a week or so, my mind started to hum with the possibilities. Why not use them as the crust for a creamy banana pudding pie? Or maybe as the crust for a Lesley-inspired Chocolate Delight, one of Crayton’s favorite dishes that involves chocolate pudding and cool whip and cream cheese, which I’ve been wanting to tweak for years?
Of course, I haven’t done any of this yet (been too busy making my own hamburger buns and butter), but a bite of the tarta de galleta brought all my old desires back. I took a bite and think I moaned. The layered cookies gave the dessert a dense, almost pudding-cake like taste. And it wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet. Just thick. It had hips you could grab onto.
Gonna attempt to make this over the weekend. And I’m going back to Maison Belen, because it was seriously the sweetest place ever, overflowing with scones, cupcakes on pretty plates, desserts in glass cases, and colorful upholestered chairs. Pictures below.
Maison Belen, my new favorite Mexico City spot for a girls’ lunch
Location: Galileo 31, at the corner of Galileo and Emilio Castelar in Polanco
What I ate for lunch: fusilli with wild mushrooms
The silverware here is wrapped in a napkin, and tied with a grosgrain ribbon.
Plump, luscious scones
A dessert I did not get the name of, because I was too busy drooling
The small, inside dining room area seems perfect for sipping coffee and reading a fluffy magazine.
You have to try the lime meringue tart.
This little character is on all the menus, and the website. Isn't she adorable?
UPDATE DEC. 2012: I have learned since I wrote this post (more than 3 years ago now!) that the items pictured in the above photo are *not* alegrias, but pepitorias. And I still love them just as much. There’s nothing better for when you’re hungry and stuck in traffic in Xochimilco.
The first time I saw an alegría pepitoria, clutched in the hand of a Mexico City street vendor, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. “Alegrías!” the vendor yelled. “Diez pesos!”
The item, wrapped in cellophane, looked like a half-moon shaped party favor — one of those bright, tissue-paper spheres that you unfold and hang from the ceiling. Except it had little pumpkin-seed teeth lining its edges.
I wondered about the alegría pepitoria for a long time — what do Mexicans do with this? Do people really have that many fiestas, where they feel the need to buy party favors on the street? — until finally, when I was in traffic one day, I saw a family buy a package. The father opened it, pulled one out and ate it.
It was food!
Of course it was food.
But still: This thing looked like a paper taco that had the air sucked out of it. What…? Why…?
Strolling through the Alameda Central last Friday, my curiosity finally got the best of me. I bought a package and carefully laid it in my bag, so I could bite into later it at home and savor the first bite.
That evening, I tore open the package. I took out a pink one — three or four were included in the package — and bit into it.
CRUNCH.
Whoa. That was a seriously massive crunch. And then… oh. [Picture me munching thoughtfully.] This was like a wafer. Thin, sugary, but not too sweet. And wow. The pumpkin seeds were attached to the edges with honey. I’d wondered about that.
I bit into it a few more times, each bite capturing the same crunch you’d get biting into a fresh carrot. Took a picture before I could demolish the whole thing.
Next time I’m hungry for something sweet on the street, I’m buying a package of these odd little guys. And if anyone out there knows the history of how they’re made, please fill me in. All I could find on the Internet was info about the other Mexican alegrías — the bars made from honey and amaranth grain.
When I was in high school, I used to hate that my body didn’t look like all the other girls’. My jeans always fit a little too snugly in the rear, which embarrassed me, because boys occasionally checked me out and no doubt they thought I dressed that way on purpose. “I didn’t ask for this butt!” I wanted to tell my girlfriends, who all had average-sized rear ends.
Over the years I’ve made peace with my body, mostly. But wandering around with Crayton in the Zona Rosa on Saturday night, I noticed a few mannequins that were crying out for some Sir Mix-A-Lot companionship. Actually, I think my exact words to Crayton were, “DUDE! Do you see this? I gotta get a picture!”
At that moment, I felt a twinge of pride. Mexico loves voluptuous women and that just so happens to be me. Thank you, bodacious mannequins.
If perhaps you missed this controversial blog post on a Chicago Tribune-affiliated blog a few weeks ago, let me tell you about it.
Blogger Teresa Puente’s point was this: Rick Bayless has lately been anointed as the father of modern Mexican cuisine. And that’s a shame, because he’s white. So many other Latino chefs deserve to be recognized, she says. Why doesn’t the media focus on them?
As soon as Puente posted it, criticism flew that she was racist and deserved to be fired. While I think that’s a wee bit of an overstatement — ignorant and angry seem like more fitting words than racist to me — a kernel of her argument is right on. White chefs do dominate American TV. And yes, the media have a tendency to adorn one person as the holy expert on everything, just because it’s easier, and we’re all overworked, and some people have great PR reps who actually call you back by your deadline.
But Rick Bayless deserves his accolades. He is not the new kid on the Mexican block. His first cookbook came out in the 80’s, and actually had penciled drawings of dried chiles in it. And recipes for aguas frescas. Can you imagine what that must have been like back then, when “Mexican food” meant a greasy rolled-up tortilla covered in cheese? Hell, I barely looked at his first cookbook for the first time a few months ago, and it still blew my mind.
Lots of people heap praise on Diana Kennedy, probably the best-known authority on Mexican cooking. I own two of her numerous cookbooks, but haven’t done much beyond flip through the pages. Rick Bayless’ books, on the other hand, I’ve devoured. It’s like he really wants me to succeed and know the cuisine. Sometimes when reading Kennedy, I feel like if I don’t dry and grind my own corn for tortillas, I suck as a cook.
Anyway, I’m all for empowering Latinas, and newspapers creating platforms for people to subscribe to blogs with names like Chicanísima. (The blog is part of a community site owned by the Tribune Company, comprising bloggers from all over the city.) But I think Puente just set us back a few steps by embodying the stereotype of the angry minority woman throwing out baseless accusations. Wish she would have done her research before posting.
I have this weird obsession with pioneer days. Like, pioneer times, I mean — basically how the world worked before the Internet, the telephone, refrigeration. I have been known to say things like, “Well, in pioneer times they didn’t have [insert modern convenience here]. And they got by just fine.” I think this is practice for whenever I become a mom someday. That sentence was just made to be said to an eight-year-old child playing video games at the dinner table.
Anyway: last week I came across a blog post on how to make butter. And they made it sound so easy, I thought, why not? Show me my Laura Ingalls Wilder floppy bonnet and long skirt. (If only I had such things.)
So, last Friday, I followed the directions and poured a liter of heavy cream into my standing mixer. I turned it on high. I went to my kitchen table and surfed the Internet for maybe 10 minutes.
Went back to my mixer, and saw the butter had started to separate from the cream. And it had started to slosh around, spraying cream all over my nearby toaster oven, and the kitchen wall. Eeeee! I quickly formed a tent around the mixer with plastic wrap, changed out the whip for a paddle, and went back to my computer. (My Google Reader keeps me endlessly busy.)
Just a few minutes later, I checked on the mixer and found soft yellow butter, floating in a pool of cream.
BUTTER. I HAD MADE MY OWN BUTTER.
I felt like standing on the kitchen table and pounding on my chest. In a matter of minutes, I, your humble kitchen servant, had turned cream into rich, clean-tasting butter. Granted, this was not the best butter I’d ever had. It was nice enough, very similar to Land O Lakes. But still: I had made it.
On a giddy butter high, I decided to make ice cream with the leftover buttermilk. Unfortunately it didn’t have the tang of real buttermilk — it was milky and slightly sweet — but the Internet told me that if I left the bowl in a warm place for two days, I’d have fresh, homemade buttermilk. Maybe I’ll try that next time. Perhaps when I make homemade cultured butter.
My own little butter ball, meanwhile, ended up in a batch of homemade dark chocolate brownies. When I added the butter to my pot of melted chocolate, I almost thought my head would explode.
A certain someone later enjoyed licking the bowl.
Butter recipe below.
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I didn’t keep up with much Mexico news while I was on vacation, but one headline caught my eye when I got back. The city has apparently outlawed non-biodegradable plastic bags.
This seems too progressive to be true. Mexico adores plastic bags. Somewhere, up in the heavens, there are wee half Mexican, half-plastic-bag children running around, because people here love plastic bags that much. You are offered one with everything, no matter how small the purchase is. (Okay, maybe that’s a lie: I’m not sure they’d offer you one for just, like, gum. But maybe they would at the Extra store near my gym, where the employees do outlandish things like refuse torn currency.)
It’s not just the grocery stores and convenience stores who go plastic-bag crazy. The indoor markets offer them, too, and so do the tianguis — plus they give out separate plastic bags for each batch of fruit and vegetables you buy. Street food stands use them too. Just a few days ago, I noticed a thin plastic, produce-style bag covering the plate that held my burrito. (I think this helps faciliate plate-washing.)
In fact, El Universal says most of Mexico’s plastic bags aren’t given out at the supermarket, but at these smaller types of stores.
Contrary to the CNN Newswire headline that swept various U.S. press outlets, Mexico City businesses don’t have to rush and change anything anytime soon. They’ve got a year to become compliant — which explains why I got several non-biodegradable bags at Superama yesterday. (They’re pictured above.)
Even so, when the year deadline is up, I’d be surprised if the smaller stores made major changes. Too many of them fly under the radar, and the law seems so murky at this point that if I were a business owner, I’d wonder if it was even serious.
Sanctions haven’t been decided on. (Officials are mulling them over the course of the next 90 business days.) And, from what I’ve read, the law doesn’t specify what exactly “biodegradable” means. Is that two years to blend back into the Earth? Five years? An El Universal TV report says that many Mexico City residents don’t even know about the law, nor do they realize bringing their own bag to the supermarket is even an option.
I applaud the Mexico City government’s effort, but this seems like too big of a task to take on. It requires not only educating people about recycling, but somehow keeping an eye on the thousands of businesses in this city, many of whom aren’t officially registered on city tax rolls. A better use of city money might be creating a citywide recycling program, which doesn’t exist here yet.
In the meantime, if anyone wants to reduce their own consumption — I’m guilty of forgetting my reusable bags at the grocery store all the time — reusable bags.com has some great stuff, if you have friends in the U.S. who can mail them to you. (Or hell, make your own produce bags from fabric at the Telas Parisina.) I just bought some reusable produce bags online and can’t wait to try them out.
This is what my husband said last night, when he draped our new Chicago Bears grill cover over our previously blue-tarp-covered grill.
I gotta admit, it looks way better now. It’s kinda like a big Bears linebacker, about to eat the face off some scrawny Packer.
My cleaning lady and I have a routine: she walks in, asks if she can sit down, and I say yes and then offer her water. We usually talk for about 20 minutes or so about life, her daughter, the things I’m doing not to remain “encerrada” in the house all day. (I swear up and down that I like being home, but she doesn’t believe me.) Eventually she grabs her checkered smock and gets to work.
A few weeks ago, maybe five minutes into our conversation, she said, “Can I ask you a question?”
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. A few days earlier, I’d read on Alice’s blog about how her doormen had asked her for money, and not knowing what to do and feeling weird, she gave it to them. A commenter said that whole experience was common, and that next time, she should pretend she didn’t have any cash, lest she be thought of as the American Bank Machine. I wondered if Lola was going to ask me the same thing.
“The thing is,” she began, “my phone is going to be shut off, because I haven’t paid my bill.”
The sinking feeling deepened.
“And… usually I would ask my other boss for a loan” — Lola has another job cleaning corporate apartments — “but I can’t right now, because his mother just died, and he’s been consumed with that.”
I nodded.
“So, I understand if you can’t, but I just thought I would ask: is there any way you could help me, and lend me the money to pay this bill?”
“Of course,” she added quickly, “you can take the money out of my check.”
I asked her how much it was, and she told me — it was about the equivalent of $100.
That’s not a huge amount for us, and we could probably pay it. But I felt offended and kind of ambushed that she was even asking, especially during our chit-chatty girls’ time. Hadn’t we kind of built a semi-friendship here, over these past few months? Didn’t she know that things would be stilted between us from now on, with this debt hanging over her head? Worst of all, after months of working for us, and me talking to her about my family and my life — had she only seen me as a bank the entire time?
I told her I needed to talk to Crayton first.
“Of course,” she said.
“When is the bill due?” I asked.
“Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?
“Well,” I said, irritated, “let me run to the supermarket, which I have to do anyway, and I’ll call Crayton on my way there. I’ll let you know what he says.”
She thanked me profusely for even considering it.
On my walk to the grocery store, I tried to think about what to do. I called Crayton, but he didn’t pick up. My inclination was to pay the bill, because I knew she was good for her word. But I couldn’t get over the fact that she’d even asked me in the first place. Didn’t she know that was rude? Why was she not considering how this makes me feel? Was she secretly some sort of housekeeper con-artist who befriended her employer and then escaped with the cash?
Suddenly I realized how American I was acting. Maybe she didn’t know asking for money was rude. Maybe in Mexico, it isn’t rude, because so many people don’t have money and need it badly. Lola is a single mom who works cleaning houses, and the simple fact of the matter is, she can’t afford to pay her bills. And a home telephone line is like gold in this country. You need it to sign up for all sorts of services. Reconnecting a line costs hundreds of dollars.
I called my landlady, who is Mexican, to ask for advice, but she wasn’t home. I emailed an American friend who’s been in Mexico for two years and she basically said, follow your gut. I also finally reached Crayton. He told me he was fine with whatever I wanted to do.
I tried to recognize my American-money-attitude for what it was, and then push it aside. The core issue here was simple: Lola needed money. I had it. Worst comes to worst, we’d be $100 poorer, if she decided not to show up at work the next week. But I trusted that she’d come back.
When I got back from the grocery store, I told her yes, we’d pay the bill for her. But just this once.
“Of course, of course, I wouldn’t ask again,” she said. “I know you’re not rich. But I just thought, well, maybe they can help me.” Then she smiled a big smile, and thanked me over and over.
Since then — we’re going on about three weeks — life has been normal. She’s showed up to work just like she always has. She walks in, puts her stuff down, and asks to sit, and I say yes and offer her water. We chat. I turn on her favorite radio station, hits of the 70s and 80s, while she cleans the kitchen and the bathrooms.
My Mexican landlady did end up calling me back, by the way. She said it’s quite common for a housekeeper to ask for money.
“You’re not obligated to give her anything, but if you trust her, I would do it,” she said. “The fact is, they need it.”
I never asked Lola why she hadn’t paid her bill in five months. (Yes, it was five months overdue.) But she pays to send her daughter to school, so I’m guessing it was something having to do with that. I have my fingers crossed that this doesn’t happen again, because I would really, really hate to say no.
I have seen the light, and it is fatty, soft and pearlescent.
It’s lard. And it’s freaking heavenly in biscuits.
Made a batch of biscuits this morning, for the first time in years. My friend Tricia is hosting a South Carolina shrimp n’ grits meal at her house later today, so I decided to whip up some biscuits to go on the side. I’m always looking for excuses to try out Southern dishes, being married to a Southern boy. And I hadn’t tried the biscuit recipe in The Gift of Southern Cooking, my favorite Southern cookbook ever. It called for lard only. No butter.
Luckily, lard is everywhere in Mexico. After doing the stairstepper for an hour at the gym this morning (ironic, no?), I stopped by our local teeny mercado, and bought 10 pesos worth. In USD that’s less than $1, and it equaled about two cups. It looked like a French cheese. Isn’t it pretty?
When I got home, I mixed together my flour and baking powder, and then squished in the lard with my fingers. I rolled out the dough and proceeded to cut out the biscuits with a drinking glass. (Biscuit cutters don’t reside in my house.) Unfortunately, I ignored the “DO NOT TWIST YOUR BISCUIT CUTTER INTO THE DOUGH!” rule, because really, I’ve always twisted my cutter, in the umm… maybe three times that I’ve made biscuits. How the heck else do you make a clean cut?
I should have headed Mr. Peacock and Ms. Lewis’ advice, though, because when the biscuits came out of the oven, they were disappointingly flat. Crunchy and hot and yummy, but flat.
The next round, I did not twist. Too bad I only had three biscuits left to make. But they emerged light and fluffy.
Who knew twisting your biscuit cutter would make such a difference?
Recipe below, if you want to try it yourself. Just please, please don’t twist your biscuit cutter into your dough, or else this biscuit will swallow you with his gigantic biscuit mouth.
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