Travel

Back from Tulum, and plotting my return

November 17, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

I’m not generally the type of person who goes gaga over the beach. Crayton and I prefer exploring big cities — we went to Buenos Aires on our honeymoon, Madrid when we were first dating, San Francisco on our first anniversary.

That said, I went completely and utterly nuts over Tulum. Like, sitting on the beach and muttering, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

The water was so bright and green and clear, it was otherworldly. (Had we been transported into another galaxy and I didn’t know it?) On a cloudless night, thousands of stars appeared, as if God had ushered in the evening by tossing a handful of beach sand over his shoulder.

On Friday, the first night we arrived, we stopped drinks at a trendy beach bar and I just kept staring dumbly at the sky. Most hotels cut their electricity off around 11 p.m. but this one didn’t. The result, while looking out over the water, ended up being this vast, inky nothingness topped by millions of twinkling points of light. Picture all of that, set to pulsing trance music. It felt like a party on the edge of the world, or what it might be like to live in a half-finished painting. For a crazy second I wondered if we really were living in a half-finished painting. (This trip exposed my suppressed Ray Bradbury side.) Crayton and I tried to pick out the Little Dipper, but we couldn’t remember exactly what it looked like, so we searched for it on Crayton’s Blackberry. Even out there we had data service.

Before we left for Tulum, I thought: We’ll go to the ruins! We’ll swim in cenotes! I’m a do-er, normally. But on this trip all we did was laze by the beach.

By Monday I’d memorized the waves’ slow, gentle crescendo, and the floury feel of the sand on my palms, and the sound of palapa fronds rustling in the breeze. I read one book and half of two more. We sipped beers under an umbrella and ate fresh ceviche. We had piña coladas on a terrace that overlooked the Caribbean. (Whereupon Crayton mused, “I think the beach is pretty much the only appropriate place for a man to order a piña colada.”)

I’d feared that Tulum would be too touristy, too trendy, and too full of vendors. But overall, it was exactly what we were looking for: a quiet, unbelievably beautiful place to relax. If you’re interested in the details (where we stayed and ate), I’ve left them below, plus a few pictures.
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Off to Tulum!

November 13, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Monday’s a Mexican holiday, so Crayton and I are heading out to Tulum for the weekend. It’s a beach area about two hours south of Cancun, famous for its white-powder sand and turquoise water.

Blogging may be light… but when I get back, I’m going to wow you with tales of my homemade granola with black sapote puree. Made some last night as a snack to take with us on our trip, and oh man it was good.

Looking forward to warmth again. Last night I seriously had to cover my face with the sheet and comforter, it was so cold.

*Photo courtesy of About.com, via the Mexican Tourism Board

Discovering Malinalco

November 4, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Malinalco is a small town about two hours southwest of here, and our friends Brendan and Joy have raved about it for months. Up until this past weekend, they’d gone three times already, staying at a rental house with a lush garden.

We finally joined them this past weekend.

And wow.

The town was framed by these lumpy, odd-looking mountains, covered in trees. And everything, and I mean everything, was blooming. Wildflowers sprouted up over the sides of the road. Bougainvillea draped over the sidewalks. Dozens of potted succulents sat in people’s front yards, spilling out of their pots and inching toward the ground.

We spent Dia de los Muertos there, and while there wasn’t a ton going on, we did walk to a 17th-century chapel in our neighborhood on Sunday night.

The bells had clanged all day on Sunday (literally: ALL DAY), and we wondered what was going on. So we walked up into the churchyard around 9 p.m. and found the bell-ringer sitting at a table, a rope wrapped partially around his foot. He was ringing the bell that way: lifting his foot into the air, and pulling the rope with his arm.

A different man, who wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, offered us atole and a “tamalito” from a basket. We took and ate and drank, and asked them about their traditions. (Meanwhile a drunk man in the background get yelling, “Preguntanles!” like he wanted to ask us a question. No one paid him any attention.) Turns out for Dia de los Muertos, church volunteers collect small donations of fruit, bread, or squash from the neighborhood. On the evening of Nov. 1 — that very same night we were there — they’d start ringing neighbors’ bells around 11 p.m.

We thanked them and left. Sure enough, around 11:30 p.m. that night, they rang our bell. We gave them oranges and some bread we’d bought at the market that day.

It was a neat experience that could have been the highlight of the weekend. But then on Monday, the three women in our group decided to get spa treatments at a bohemian place on the outskirts of town.
They had a labyrinth and a gift shop that sold yoga pants and incense.

I had a 90-minute hot stone massage, where I pretty much melted into the table. Afterward, Joy asked me what it was like, and all I could say was, “Uhhmm… good.” My brain was too mushy to do any real thinking. (The best part: the massage was on sale for less than $60.)

You wouldn’t necessarily think a town in the middle of nowhere would have good restaurants, but somehow, it’s worked out that way.

The day we arrived, Joy and Brendan took us to one of their favorite spots on the square, where we had some fabulous-looking panuchos (a Yucatecan dish where tortillas are stuffed with beans, and topped with spicy shredded pork); and almond-crusted trout in tamarind sauce, and Jamaica flower-stuffed chicken.

I really didn’t want to leave. Alas, all good times must come to an end, so here I am, back in DF. But since I somehow lead an extremely blessed life, I’m traveling again today: Off to Taxco for a night with some girlfriends.

An old-fashioned dance

October 21, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

This is the last thing I’ll share about Monterrey, but while we were there last weekend, we came across a party in a covered plaza.

Dozens of senior citizens were dancing, holding each other closely, hands pressed into backs. At the far edge of the dance floor, someone was slicing a sheet cake.

I have no idea what they were celebrating, but the scene was so sweet, I had to record it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Zj9deZgsw&hl=en&fs=1&]

Eating my way through Monterrey

October 21, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Even though we were only in Monterrey for two full days — and we were sleep deprived pretty much the whole weekend, having woke up on Saturday at 4 a.m. to catch our flight, and then lying awake most of that night due to a rock concert outside our door — we managed to get a pretty good feel for regio cuisine. (A regio is the Spanish name for someone from Monterrey.)

I felt like I was in Texas a lot of the time. Tortilla baskets came with flour, not corn, tortillas. Waiters served chips and salsa as soon as we sat down, most places. The salsa reminded me of what you’d get at Mexican restaurants in San Antonio — something mouth-puckeringly tangy and watery. Some places served it warm.

We tried cabrito, or roasted goat, because that’s the regional specialty. El Rey de Cabrito — heralded by guidebooks as the city’s best — was a short walk from our hotel. A row of skewered, roasted animals sat in the window, in case you might have forgotten what you’d be eating.

The goat breast we got looked great, covered in a crackly brown skin, but it was a little too chewy and tough. I expected more for $200 pesos. (About $15 USD.)

My favorite spot ended up being Fonda San Francisco, a tiny, casual spot in the suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia.

Our cabbie got lost on the way there, but it didn’t matter in the end because we were the only customers, despite it being Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. (Everyone arrived after 9, fueling my lingering confusion about when, exactly, Mexicans eat dinner.) The menu had been painted on a chalkboard, and it included things like pork in plum-guajillo chile sauce, salmon gorditas, and sesame-seed enchiladas.

I wanted all of it. Unfortunately — damn you, stomach, for getting full on chips and guac at the Barra Antigua — I wasn’t extremely hungry. So we ordered three plates, in half-portions: fried goat cheese with strips of nopal; enchiladas in peanut sauce, and the pork in the plum-guajillo sauce.

I’m not the hugest nopal fan, but the goat cheese, which had been seared to deep-golden brown and doused in some type of honey vinaigrette, went perfectly with the tangy strips of cactus. We gobbled them up, and then sopped up the sauce with the restaurant’s thick, homemade corn tortillas.

It was the pork, though, that left me a little breathless. It was covered in a thick, deep-purple compote, and it fell apart as I scooped it onto my plate. I took a bite and felt my eyes light up, catch fire. I closed my eyes and desperately tried to record what I was tasting. Sweet… smoky… jammy…. what was this? I took a picture of my plate, but of course it came out horribly. And I didn’t want to keep taking pictures. This was the type of dish where you wanted to sit, eyes closed, and stay in the moment.

Crayton surprised me. He’d been eating his pork in silence, when he said: “I know this sounds weird, but this reminds me of smoking a cigar. But in a good way. You know? Doesn’t it have that smoky, tobacco taste?”

I nearly fell out of my chair. Wasn’t that supposed to be my line?

And then I felt a twinge of pride. I’ve trained him well.

IF YOU GO

Fonda San Francisco: An intimate fonda with a creative, traditionally Mexican-inspired menu.
Los Aldama 123, Col. San Pedro Garza García
(81) 8336-6706

Cafe Infinito: A dark, romantic spot in the Barrio Antiguo with great thin-crust pizza, and an affordable wine list.
Jardón 904 Ote., in the Barrio Antiguo
(81) 8989-5252

Barra Antigua: We hit this Barrio Antiguo sports bar for beers and bontanas. Highly recommend the chips and guac. (Unless you’re dining at Fonda San Francisco later, in which case, I would try to save room.)
Ave. Constitucion 1030 Ote., in the Barrio Antiguo
(81) 8345-4848

El Rey de Cabrito: Great norteño ambience, with its roasted meat in the window and kitschy decor. The food is pricey and somewhat mediocre, but if you’re dying for cabrito, it’ll do.
Avenida Constitucion 817, in the Barrio Antiguo
(81) 8345-3232

Día de los Muertos in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán

October 12, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Remember my trip to Patzcuaro? It was a research for an article on Día de Los Muertos there. The article was just published American Way magazine, American Airlines’ in-flight publication.

Check it out here.

And now, since I’m currently sick, I’m going to go back to sipping manzanilla and ordering groceries online from Superama. But I can’t pick anything too crazy, because then they might not have it, even though it appears right there on the screen. (They let you order it, and then they call and say, “Señora Lesley? No tenemos espinacas. Lechuga romana está bien?”)

If you know of any homeopathic ways to relieve sinus pressure, I’m all ears.

My week of gluttony, Southern-style

September 21, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

I’m back from the South, and I feel like a stuffed penguin.

A few pounds is worth it, though. (Half of me just cringed. It is?) Yes. It is. Sometimes you have to ignore pesky little “calories” and submit to the lure of bacon, cheese and mayonnaise. Just for a few days.

Sometimes you gotta just order a pimento cheese sandwich for lunch, bulging with grated cheddar and mayo.

And then go home and make a buttermilk pie for dinner.

Sometimes you have to buy honey-roasted pecans from a small-town Georgia gift shop, because, well, it’s a small-town Georgia gift shop. And they serve the nuts in paper cones!

But all that doesn’t even come close to my most gluttonous of gluttony acts, committed while we were in Atlanta. My friend is a restaurant critic there, and last Friday, he took us out for a fabulous meal at Cakes & Ale, a “farm-to-table” style restaurant (in the parlance of our times) where most of the food is made with locally grown produce.

While we stuffed our face with fried okra with homemade ranch, smoked salmon with beets, rabbit terrine, trout, bean salad with bacon, and the most heavenly pork chop ever, covered in crunchy breadcrumbs and fried in clarified butter (somewhere, I just heard my mom gasp) — we happened to bring up hamburgers. My friend mentioned that a restaurant nearby had one of the best burgers in Atlanta. Would we be interested in dining there, after this meal?

Only someone as loony about food as I am would suggest eating dinner at two restaurants in one night. But I loved my friend for it. With stars in my eyes, and a burger-inspired flush in my cheeks, we headed to Holeman & Finch Public House in Buckhead.

The H&F burgers are kind of a cult thing in the city right now — they’re not on the menu, and the kitchen just rolls ’em out at 10 p.m. You get them while they’re hot.

At about 10:30 p.m. — even though I’d already eaten a three-course dinner — I had the juiciest, moistest burger I’ve ever had in my life.

The next day, I nursed my food hangover with salad and water. But Sunday, there was more.

For brunch, we dined at Greenwoods on Green Street, a home-cooking restaurant in Roswell, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. Our plates filled the entire table. You could seriously barely see the wood.

We had fried green tomatoes….

And corn muffins… made with white corn, not that blasphemous yellow stuff.

We had fried chicken, with a sheen of oil still clinging to its crunchy, hot flesh.

I ordered a truly insane slab of meatloaf, topped with a few curls of onion.

And then came the pie.

Apple. Buttermilk. And dark chocolate, topped with messy tufts of whipped cream.

When we got to the airport a few hours later, I could barely keep my eyes open. “Just let us win!” the pie whispered to me. “Just go to sleep!” But I stubbornly stayed awake. The pie and its sugar-coma powers would not take me down.

So, now, finally back home in Mexico City, I am wearing my elastic-waistband pajama pants and wincing at the thought of putting on jeans to go to the grocery store. But I need detox food — veggies, fruit, tofu. Crayton rolls his eyes when I crow, “I’m going on a detox!” because I never stick to it, but this time I swear it’s true. It’s soups and salads for me, for the next few days. And I don’t want to see red meat again for two months.

Three spots you must visit in Mexico City

September 7, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

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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Burgers, fries and pies

August 19, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

I may gain five pounds on this trip, but I don’t care. Sometimes a girl needs a cherry milkshake. With real flecks of cherry in it.

Got one yesterday at Big Tom’s Drive-Inn in Olympia, and it was everything I hoped a cherry milkshake would be. Sweet. Tangy. Creamy. Difficult to slurp through the straw.

Oh, and I got a burger and onion rings, too. It came with a side of “goop,” a mix of mayo and mustard and sweet relish. It’s the yellow stuff below.

Then I made cherry pie later.

Today I’m doing bikram yoga for the rock-bottom American price of $15 (it’s $22 in Mexico), and hopefully I will sweat out all the toxins from yesterday.

But when I come back, I’m having a slice of the blueberry bread that’s in the oven right now.

Moody, magical Patzcuaro Michoacan

June 29, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

This sounds kinda dorky, but one of my secret pleasures in life is contemplating the clouds. (I’m actually a wee bit of a closet hippie.) When I lived in Boston, I couldn’t get over how fast the clouds moved. They were like trains, pushed this way and that by the wind.

In Patzcuaro during the rainy season — which is now — the clouds are so amazingly beautiful, they’re like people, almost. They’re grayish and menacing, and they hover over the mountains as if to say, “We all know who’s really in charge here.”

In my hierarchy of Patzcuaro beauty, the clouds come first; then the mountains, then the lakes, and then maybe the cornstalks that grow all over the side of the road. And then maybe the amazing loaves of crusty, caramel-brown bread that sit in the bakeries.

(Can you tell she’s in love?)

We jetted off to Patzcuaro just for a night this weekend. It was my second visit there, and thankfully I didn’t have a stomach bacteria this time. Joy and her husband invited us — they’d visited Patzcuaro a few weeks ago, and were going back to buy a copper vase they’d seen in Santa Clara del Cobre, which sells all sorts of great copper handicrafts.

In Patzcuaro, we stayed at the Hotel Ixhi, which was nice even if the staff was a little disorganized. The views there couldn’t be beat:

We wandered around Patzcuaro’s historic Centro for a few hours, and had wine on Ixhi’s porch as the sun went down. On Sunday morning we drove to Santa Clara del Cobre, and I fought the urge to buy a copper sink. Although I really really want one in my house someday.

Sweetbread for sale in Patzcuaro's Plaza Grande

A street in Santa Clara del Cobre

A stall from Patzcuaro's Sunday market

Crayton and I also bought a piece of art from La Mano Grafica, a cool gallery next to the Basilica. It’s a print from Artemio Rodriguez, a Michoacan native who spent some time in L.A. (His exhibition space is in Patzcuaro.) Didn’t realize this until I got home, but he’s the same artist who did the woodcuts for Dagoberto Gilb’s book Woodcuts of Women, which is one of my favorite books ever.

We drove through a horrible rainstorm on the way back, but overall, it was a perfect weekend trip.

Still thinking about those clouds…

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