Reflections

Am I a real Spanish-speaker now?

December 2, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

When I first got to Mexico 10 months ago, I felt jumpy and anxious almost every time I tried to speak Spanish. A fearful voice would pipe up in my head: What if no one understands me? What if I sound like an idiot? I look Mexican, but my accent blows. They’re going to think I’m a pocha. Maybe… I really am a pocha.

The more I talked, the more that feeling lessened. I dealt with the gas company when our meter broke. I ordered dozens of taxis, and requested an ATM card over the phone, and went to the dentist and the doctor. I bought chicken and beef from various mercados, and instructed them on whether I wanted it in filets, ground, deboned. I began to ask the people in the grocery stores for help when I couldn’t find an item, like the elusive cilantro.

A few days ago I was chatting with my Venezuelan-born friend Daniela. She mentioned how, despite living in the U.S. for years, she still doesn’t feel fluent in English, but she no longer cares about messing up. I realized: That’s me, too. I throw out words with abandon, sometimes without really knowing whether I’m correct or not. Maybe I’ll phrase the iffy word as a question — “Éstas pantalones parecen demasiado… apretadas…?” — or maybe not. The point is, I’m confident. I know I’ll eventually get understood. And if someone looks at me strange, I smile and start over. I know, in my heart, that not one bit of me is a pocha. I hate that word.

It’s funny, because this week at the FIL in Guadalajara, I’ve been hanging out with a bunch of American writers who don’t speak much Spanish at all. Yesterday we went to dinner and I was the translator. The translator! Not just for the food, but for cultural issues, such as how much to tip a taxi, why the check was taking so long, etc.

“So how did you learn Spanish?” a few people asked me. The question struck me as odd, because I thought it was obvious that I was still learning. But then I realized that I knew way more than them, and actually, maybe I knew quite a lot.

It’s weird, because part of me doesn’t even want to accept that this is happening. I’m in disbelief. Are my Spanish skills really good? Is it really true? The deeper issue here, for those of you who don’t know me very well, is my complicated history with Spanish. I never cared much about it until I got to college, and then suddenly I felt guilty and angry and sad that I never tried to learn.

The rational side of me is over the moon that my Spanish has improved so much. But emotionally I still can’t admit it to myself. Maybe I’m just being a perfectionist. Or maybe I’m still clinging to this fear that I’m never going to speak Spanish well, because I’m not Mexican.

Truly, I still have a lot to learn. I can’t think quickly on my feet in Spanish, or express every sentiment I’d like to. But I am happy with how much I’ve accomplished so far. I have carved out a normal, fulfilling life for myself here, based almost entirely on my language abilities.

I can at least admit that to myself.

Off to Guadalajara!

November 30, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Yes, I’m a traveling fool. I’m off to Guadalajara today for the Feria Internacional de Libros. It’s among the largest book fairs in the world — last year more than 600,000 people attended its various readings, events and panel discussions, spread out over eight days.

Los Angeles is this year’s invited city, so a bunch of interesting Latino writers with L.A. ties are scheduled to be there.

I’ll be posting updates, so stay tuned!

Off to Acapulco!

November 26, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Joy and I are skipping off to Pie de la Cuesta for Thanksgiving, where we’ll be stuffing our faces with fresh ceviche and shrimp cocktails instead of turkey and pumpkin pie.

I can’t even begin to describe what I’ve been thankful for over the past year. This life, the food, the people I’ve met… every day is an adventure, and I’m so grateful to be able to share it all with my husband, my favorite person in the world.

I hope you enjoy your holiday and find some time to reflect, wherever you are!

Has Google somehow realized that we live in Mexico?

November 18, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Went to enter my sister-in-law’s birthday in our Google Calendar today, and “Dinner at Pancho’s” popped up as the example. We don’t know anyone named Pancho yet. But still. Eerie.

The case of the missing flip-flop

November 11, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

One of Lola’s quirks is that while she’s cleaning, she’ll put things away in special, hidden places.

Once we couldn’t find our rubber wine stopper. I asked Lola, and she said she’d stuck it in a bowl of corks that we save for sentimental purposes. “It looked like a cork to me,” she said.

Another time, the shower door knob broke off. We kept the part in the bathroom, but after a few weeks, it disappeared. I asked Lola about it.

“Let me think,” she said. “I know it’s around here somewhere….”

She puttered around in the TV room for a few minutes. Then: “Here it is!” She unearthed the knob from a ceramic pitcher.

“I put it there so it wouldn’t get lost,” she said.

When Crayton’s flip-flop vanished a few weeks ago, he assumed Lola had something to do with it. I thought she’d put it in his closet — after all, that’s where shoes go, right honey? — but when we looked, it wasn’t there.

I think Crayton was starting to get a little impatient, because one day he asked me in a very sweet tone if I wouldn’t mind looking for his lost shoe.

This was not an odd request, considering I’m the finder-of-things in our relationship. I always know the contents of the refrigerator, the pantry, the closet. You need an umbrella? We have seven scattered all over the house, and I could tell you exactly where they are. (The home is my domain, people.)

I promised I would look for the flip-flop. But time got away from me, what with traveling and making nicuatole. So Crayton began to make little comments.

“Wow, it’d be really great to have my other flip-flop.” With a wistful look in his eye.

“You know, when we go to Tulum” — we’re going this weekend — “I’ll probably be the only guy there without flip-flops.”

Finally, finally, I had time to look yesterday. The issue had started to eat away at me. Where was this infernal flip-flop? I checked all areas of the closet, no go. I checked the nooks of the entertainment center. Nothing.

I checked under the bed, even though Crayton told me he’d already looked there.

And there, sitting next to our breakfast-in-bed trays, directly below the center of our bed, was his forgotten, lost sandal, marooned on an island of laminate flooring. I couldn’t reach it, so I grabbed one of the trays and pushed, and the flip-flop emerged out the other side.

As soon as I had it, I sent Crayton an email. Subject line: “Flip-flop found.” Text: “Boo-yah.”

“Where was it?” he asked me later.

I told him, and he looked just the teensiest bit embarrassed.

“I looked there!” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t find things.”

Tacos and Indio beer

November 10, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

One of my favorite beers in Mexico is Indio. It’s caramel-colored, and lightly malty. It goes down — not gonna lie to you — like wine.

Indio isn’t sold in the U.S., even though Femsa (the company that owns Indio) exports some of its other Mexican beers, such as Sol, Bohemia and Dos Equis.

Last night, I tried to go to spinning class at the gym next door, but it was canceled. So at 7:30 p.m. Crayton and I were looking at each other kind of guiltily. Do we stick to our fitness plan and go our real gym? (The spinning-class joint just offers classes — no machines.) Or, since it was already getting close to 8 p.m., do we stay in and order tacos and maybe drink a few beers? And… watch the last episode of Mad Men on iTunes?

The latter won. I called El Caminero and ordered chicken, bacon and onion for me, and chorizo, bacon, cheese and poblano peppers for him. When the food arrived, we sat on the barstools next to our kitchen counter — an area I’ve now deemed “The Taco Eating Space” — and opened the warm styrofoam containers. A stack of corn tortillas sat on top of the filling, keeping it warm. (How do the folks at El Caminero think of this stuff?)

While we were waiting for the taco man, Crayton went to Oxxo to pick up a six-pack. He came back with these really cool, art-styled Indio bottles. It’s apparently a temporary promotion. We got the “Pop Art” style label.

A close-up of the cardboard packaging that came with our six-pack of Indio

A shot of the cardboard packaging that came with our six-pack

The tacos were fabulous, by the way. We inhaled them and left the salsas in our wake. These two little guys are in the fridge right now, waiting for me to finish them off over lunch. (Do lettuce wraps with pure salsa filling sound weird?)

For the other female Indio-lovers: I present you with Indio bottle cap earrings.

Taxco and the blahs

November 6, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Been feeling a little burned out lately. I don’t want to cook. (Nibbling on cheese and tortillas and calling that dinner.) I don’t want to take the recycling or run to the dry cleaners. I don’t want to do anything, except lay on my bed and read.

Maybe I’ve been cooking too much? Spent most of the past two weeks writing and developing recipes for an online recipe-writing course. Or just — doing too much. “The envelope thing,” as my mom likes to say. She means, You’re pushing the envelope.

Yesterday I was in Taxco, and the day before that, Malinalco, and two weeks before that, Monterrey, and the week before that, New York. Two weeks before that, Atlanta.

I’ve enjoyed my trips. And I should feel blessed that I’m even taking them, instead of complaining about how I’m taking too many. But now that my schedule is “back to normal,” I think I need to veg out for a few days, just so I can feel normal again. Do you ever feel that way? How do all you frequent travelers stay sane?

(Wondering, too, if the bags under my eyes are on their way to becoming permanent. Maybe this is what happens at 31. You don’t get sleep for two weeks, and boom: you wake up with an irreversible facial deformity. Damn you, bikram yoga, for being so expensive in Mexico. Bikram is my tried-and-true eye-bag remover.)

So yes. All of this is a long way to say that I enjoyed my trip to Taxco yesterday, but perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t immediately returned from another trip someplace else.

I went with three girlfriends and we stayed at the beautiful Casa de las Palmas, an old colonial mansion with a terrace that overlooked the city. We walked up and down Taxco’s steep, narrow streets, and poked around jewelry stores, and had drinks at a rooftop restaurant that overlooked the square.

I bought a few pairs of earrings, and two pieces of folk art. The weather was sunny and warm enough for short sleeves.

The view from the terrace at the Casa de las Palmas bed and breakfast in Taxco, Mexico

The view from our terrace at the Casa de las Palmas

So. Guess I’ll go take that recycling now. And I will also drag along my computer, where I will find a cafe, and get lots of brilliant work done.

How to cook a tortilla

October 27, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

When I was growing up, my mom used to heat up tortillas by placing them, one at a time, on our stove’s gas flame. We usually had flour instead of corn, and she’d put one on the flame and then go away for a few seconds. When the air started to smell like charred toast, she’d come back and flip it. One side of the tortilla would be covered with black, burned splotches.

“You burned it!” I’d tell her.

She’d say: “I like them that way.”

I used to think eating burned tortillas was weird. But lately, I’ve started leaving my corn tortillas on the flame just a little bit longer. The burned parts give it this smoky, carbony taste, and it makes the tortilla a little crisper, without turning it into a tostada.

Here in Mexico, our stove has a comal between the burners. I used it once to heat up my corn tortillas, and I’m kind of ashamed to admit that I didn’t like it too much. The tortillas came out too soft. Not enough burnt parts.

How do you like your tortillas? And how do you cook them?

The great huazontle disaster

October 26, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Last week, while grocery shopping at the Superama in Polanco, I got seduced by a big bunch of huazontle.

It sat in the herb section, towering over the epazote and parsley like emerald-green heather. (Huazontle, pronounded “wan-ZONE-tlay,” is a tall, wild green native to Mexico. People here remove the rough stems, cover the buds with cheese and eat them.)

I had a vague recollection of trying huazontle once, and an even vaguer recollection that I didn’t like it. But — this plant was so pretty. I may not have liked it before, but that was when other people had cooked it. In my own kitchen, with my All Clad cookware and pantry full of vinegars and oils, I could whip the huazontle into submission and make it taste the way I liked.
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My first pan de muerto

October 23, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

It’s Day of the Dead season in Mexico City, meaning pan de muerto has suddenly appeared in all the bakery windows. The light, sugary loaves taste faintly of orange, and they’re criss-crossed with doughy ropes meant to signify “bones.”

After trying them on my last Concha Taste Test, I wanted to learn how to make my own pan de muerto. So I trolled around the Internet and found a four-hour class at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Santa Fe.

I hesitated signing up at first, worried that I might not understand Spanish baking terms. Or, heaven forbid, that we’d have to stand in front of the class and introduce ourselves. Would I say I was an ama de casa, or an escritora? What if we had to say why we’re taking this class? “Me gusta hacer panadería” would probably sound really lame.

Then again, fearing something means you should probably jump right in. So on Tuesday, I arrived at the class kitchen with an apron and two dish towels tucked into my bag.
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