A pair of tight ass jeans clings to this gut, swollen in delight and trepidation.  I came to Mexico to cook but all I do is eat.  An angel has descended upon my shores:  she is sweet and frail and oh so quiet.

Oh so quiet.

She is, as it turns out, a chef.  A chef willing and dying to please.  Me.  Her señora, as she calls me.

I am in luck.

I am in awe.

I am totally beside myself.

Out from the pristine kitchen (she keeps this way) come fabulous combinations of her native Mexico:  chiles en nogada, fideos secos (served with ripe avocado and a drizzling of crema), sopa de Nogales, sopes, and tinga.  I eagerly eat it all in glee and she quietly (for she knows no other way) awaits my response, my reaction, my amazement, which always feels understated in the ...Read on]]>

A pair of tight ass jeans clings to this gut, swollen in delight and trepidation.  I came to Mexico to cook but all I do is eat.  An angel has descended upon my shores:  she is sweet and frail and oh so quiet.

Oh so quiet.

She is, as it turns out, a chef.  A chef willing and dying to please.  Me.  Her señora, as she calls me.

I am in luck.

I am in awe.

I am totally beside myself.

Out from the pristine kitchen (she keeps this way) come fabulous combinations of her native Mexico:  chiles en nogada, fideos secos (served with ripe avocado and a drizzling of crema), sopa de Nogales, sopes, and tinga.  I eagerly eat it all in glee and she quietly (for she knows no other way) awaits my response, my reaction, my amazement, which always feels understated in the enormity of flavors I dance in.

The other day she produced a soup of warm, green silk.

“What is this?” I asked, bemused and excited.

“Sopa de Aguacate,” she muttered, altering my crusted vision of avocado being only a salad item.  “Espero le guste, mi señora” she continued, thirsty for my approval.

The bowl was licked clean in a matter of minutes, its content once filled with elegance, creaminess, and intoxicating delight.  I asked for more and got some, all the while cursing my taste buds for being so alert (this will definitely cost me on the jean-tightness factor…) The soup was divine, delicious, memorable, enjoyed in the peace and quiet and cleanliness that realms in my Mexico home these days.  We are both pleased with each other.  My enemy remains a pair of stubborn jeans.

I am exhausted.  Drained.  Beat.  Just baked a cake:  Golden Yellow with Fudge Frosting, Grandma’s Fudge Frosting.  It’s the antithesis of a Cordon Bleu creation:  sloppy, uneven, crumbly as hell.  I slapped on the frosting, which was decadently swimming in way too much butter.  It slipped and skidded along the crevices and craters left on my imperfect cake.

Here’s the best part: the secret of all secrets – is that I was thrilled baking this cake, happy stirring its batter, goop flying out in between conversations with Daniela and Jonathan, who watched and helped along the way.  Eggs were cracked and dribbled, flour was stirred and spilled, and somewhere along the line even an entire glass of red wine was dropped and shattered.  But that’s okay.  Wine and glass got cleaned up and a new one poured.  And baking continued, right ...Read on]]>

I am exhausted.  Drained.  Beat.  Just baked a cake:  Golden Yellow with Fudge Frosting, Grandma’s Fudge Frosting.  It’s the antithesis of a Cordon Bleu creation:  sloppy, uneven, crumbly as hell.  I slapped on the frosting, which was decadently swimming in way too much butter.  It slipped and skidded along the crevices and craters left on my imperfect cake.

Here’s the best part: the secret of all secrets – is that I was thrilled baking this cake, happy stirring its batter, goop flying out in between conversations with Daniela and Jonathan, who watched and helped along the way.  Eggs were cracked and dribbled, flour was stirred and spilled, and somewhere along the line even an entire glass of red wine was dropped and shattered.  But that’s okay.  Wine and glass got cleaned up and a new one poured.  And baking continued, right up to its messy end where I placed the whole concoction in the refrigerator (to let Grandma’s Fudge set a bit)- smearing and dripping fudge bits on the side of the fridge along the way.

In ten minutes we will sample our Golden Cake and I bet it will be good…so good…way better than any praline or mousse or Opera I made with panic to detail, precision and fancy fussing.  This one here’s a homemade messy mess, like the wine, like the conversations, like our lives:  all the tastier, all the better!

He was the highlight of my afternoons in fourth grade.  I’d rush into our house in Venezuela after what seemed an interminable day at school and head straight for the television, turning on one of the four channels available.

¡Oh! Y ahora, ¿Quién podrá defenderme?

This was the quintessential cry of distress heard (‘And now, who will be able to defend me?) before the superhero of the day, El Chapulin Colorado (The Red Grasshopper) would burst through a wall or jump from a window, shouting:

“¡Yo! ¡El Chapulín Colorado!”

El Chapulin Colorado was a shlumpy superhero- flabby, with a slight potbelly, and sporting a ridiculous red costume with cape and bumbling antennas.  On his chest a big yellow heart was emblazoned with the letters “CH” for Chapulin.

Not the glamorous sleek look of Batman.

Nor the agility of Spiderman.

Or definitely not the bulging muscles of ...Read on]]>

He was the highlight of my afternoons in fourth grade.  I’d rush into our house in Venezuela after what seemed an interminable day at school and head straight for the television, turning on one of the four channels available.

¡Oh! Y ahora, ¿Quién podrá defenderme?

This was the quintessential cry of distress heard (‘And now, who will be able to defend me?) before the superhero of the day, El Chapulin Colorado (The Red Grasshopper) would burst through a wall or jump from a window, shouting:

“¡Yo! ¡El Chapulín Colorado!”

El Chapulin Colorado was a shlumpy superhero- flabby, with a slight potbelly, and sporting a ridiculous red costume with cape and bumbling antennas.  On his chest a big yellow heart was emblazoned with the letters “CH” for Chapulin.

Not the glamorous sleek look of Batman.

Nor the agility of Spiderman.

Or definitely not the bulging muscles of Superman.

Of course, El Chapulin Colorado was a parody of all superheroes, but as a nine-year old, I didn’t quite get that.  What I got was the tales of a real human being who dressed in a ridiculous outfit and was blessed with innumerable luck, somehow managing to save the day ending each episode with his trademark words of wisdom:

¡No contaban con mi astucia! (You didn’t count on my shrewdness!)

He was flawed and I loved him for it.

I try to explain the wonders and joys of watching this show to my nine-year old.  I find it a trying process.

“What do you mean you only had four channels?” (And so it begins.)

“No special effects? (Big hazel eyes fill with disappointment.)

“But what does he do?  What does he do?” my son insists.  There must be some heroic trait I can cough up to attribute to my beloved Chapulin Colorado but the only one I can think of is how incredibly hard I’d laugh watching that show.  Chapulin lacks the proper curriculum for a kid from 2012, I presume.

Jonathan remained unimpressed.

We were walking around the marketplace the other day and came across a vendor selling a daily Mexican snack, roasted grasshoppers.

I knew this was my chance.

“This is Chapulin Colorado!” I proudly declared.

“Huh?” Jonathan answered, stopping dead in his tracks.  His innocent look instantly glazed with shock, disgust, and, (I dare you not to find this in any nine-year old boy presented with this situation)…curiosity.

I knew I had him.

“Yes, this is “El Chapulin Colorado” – he’s a super hero dressed up as the Mexican red grasshopper.

The lesson would not be complete without a full demonstration so I quickly asked the lady for a bagful of chapulines.

“Here, I dare you try one,” I coaxed.

Jonathan seemed intrigued that a bug had become my favorite childhood superhero.  Suddenly, El Chapulin Colorado became worthy of his interest.

“Okay,” he said, never turning down a dare.

Eyes wide and mouth even wider, Jonathan grabbed a tiny, dried up insect and popped it in his mouth producing a loud crunch crunch.

I waited, wondering if this would improve or destroy my case with Chapulin.

“Hmmmm!  It’s good,” he announced, grabbing another and another.

“I still don’t know why they’d name a show after it, but these are yummy!”

This was as good as it was going to get for me.  Better still, because Jonathan spent the rest of that afternoon munching away on his new snack and explaining to his sister and whoever else would listen that these dried up dudes were mom’s favorite superhero.

¡No contaban con mi astucia!

My grandparents would stare at me from dusty, chipped frames occupying the top of the heirloom mahogany furniture piece strategically placed in the entrance hallway of my childhood house in Venezuela.  Grandma Agnes, my mother’s mother, drew me the most with her mysterious smile and bright blue eyes that bore through the aged photograph creating a luminous space around her. She sat on a bench on a porch somewhere during summertime when it was lush and sunny, Vermont, perhaps?  Or maybe her native Philadelphia?  I’ve no clue.  In the photograph she is close to the age she died, her early 70’s, and I suspect this was one of the few times my family shared with her, assuming I was there.  I would have been a toddler wreaking havoc on the other side of that porch.

Truth be told, the only memory ...Read on]]>

My grandparents would stare at me from dusty, chipped frames occupying the top of the heirloom mahogany furniture piece strategically placed in the entrance hallway of my childhood house in Venezuela.  Grandma Agnes, my mother’s mother, drew me the most with her mysterious smile and bright blue eyes that bore through the aged photograph creating a luminous space around her. She sat on a bench on a porch somewhere during summertime when it was lush and sunny, Vermont, perhaps?  Or maybe her native Philadelphia?  I’ve no clue.  In the photograph she is close to the age she died, her early 70’s, and I suspect this was one of the few times my family shared with her, assuming I was there.  I would have been a toddler wreaking havoc on the other side of that porch.

Truth be told, the only memory I have of Grandma Agnes is of a visit she made to the hospital when I was three.  I remember being afraid, I recall a thick needle stuck in my foot and the glass bottles of whatever they were giving me, IV fluid for my dehydration caused by a stomach flu I suspect,  going clink, clink, clink.  I was in a room, or a hallway or some place that was a pace away from the bathroom and my nana, Pura, whose hand I clutched with a deathly grip, begging me to release her for one minute so she could pee.  ‘I’ll be right there, I’ll be right back’, she promised, but still that served as no consolation for a terrified little girl who continued to grasp tightly, disregarding any bladder needs.

And there was grandma Agnes. On a rare visit to Venezuela to see her long lost daughter (that bohemian, uncontrollable gal who ran off to South America to marry the strange Israeli man). Agnes had come.  Down the hall of the hospital I saw her walking towards me.  She wore a celeste dress draped with a finely knit white cardigan and as her slow shuffle got closer to my panicked self, I noticed a warm smiled coated her face instantly making me feel safe and soothed.

This is all I remember of my mother’s mother.  This and that framed photograph waiting to fall from termite damage.  My other grandparents all passed away before I was born and so the only memory of them lie frozen in those three images next to Grandma Agnes.  It is of another time, another place, someone else’s memories.

But not my husband.  He explodes with memories of his grandparents.  They are woven into the fabric of his youth:  his abuelo Pauxides taking him to the cockfights in Curarigua, his abuela Koko trying to tame a rambunctious and daredevil child who would be dropped at her doorstep for the summer in Barquisimeto, no questions asked.  And then there is his father’s mother, abuela Margarita, and her simple but illustrious grace.  Her fervent dedication to her children, her insistence on them applying themselves and improving themselves through education, something she was never privy to.  Her sons were good listeners and went on to become doctors and engineers.

And of course, there were stories of Abuela Margarita’s cooking.  Wastefulness being a pet peeve of hers as a result of the hard times she became accustomed to during her married life, Margarita would produce memorable dishes with whatever was in the fridge.  My husband  lost his abuela years and years ago, but his eyes still tear up as if he was still in her kitchen describing her preparing her meals.

“Breakfast was the best” he always claims, that same mischievous juvenile spark abuela was subjected to bouncing off his eyes.  And then he delivers. On any night where we’ve had pasta we know we are in for a Margarita breakfast treat the next day.  It may not be the most glamorous of foods, but Abuela Margarita’s Spaghetti Tortillas are easy and sure crowd pleasers.

My husband does just as his Abuela Margarita did… a bunch of spaghetti, a slew of eggs, and an assortment of whatever goods he finds in the fridge:  in our case it is always several kinds of cheeses, loads of parsley, chopped meats (ham, or salami works great) and any vegetable you have left (mushrooms and peppers work fabulously).  Lots of freshly ground pepper is a Martinez must and fast cooking at a high heat so the pasta is sure to get crunchy on the outside is the secret.

We sit down to this meal and the table fills with crazy stories and funny tales of the Martinez family.  We are recently moved into our home in Mexico.  There are no photographs on the walls or on a mantle to stare at and try to create memories with.  The images of the Martinez grandparents are loud and clear, resonating from my husband on to his children, who chomp happily on Abuela Margarita’s signature dish and beg their dad for one more tale about her.

My mother’s terrycloth robe appears in my thoughts every morning.  If my eyes were to see such a thing today, draped on a dummy, let’s say, I’d believe it to be horrendous:  a putrid mocha-colored sea of fuzziness, with a plain beige belt strap and a black trim.  I can’t think of any skin tone that would benefit from it, and most certainly not my mother’s with her pale skin and salt and pepper hair.  So not her color.

This was a sophisticated and fine lady we’re talking about.  Marilyn Dorothy Graham Flynn was grand.  A graduate from Vassar, she was super smart and had the quality of a Hollywood star with sparkly eyes, a killer smile and the most graceful poise around.    Black and white pictures of my father and her dating emanate her strength and beauty next to a ...Read on]]>  

My mother’s terrycloth robe appears in my thoughts every morning.  If my eyes were to see such a thing today, draped on a dummy, let’s say, I’d believe it to be horrendous:  a putrid mocha-colored sea of fuzziness, with a plain beige belt strap and a black trim.  I can’t think of any skin tone that would benefit from it, and most certainly not my mother’s with her pale skin and salt and pepper hair.  So not her color.

This was a sophisticated and fine lady we’re talking about.  Marilyn Dorothy Graham Flynn was grand.  A graduate from Vassar, she was super smart and had the quality of a Hollywood star with sparkly eyes, a killer smile and the most graceful poise around.    Black and white pictures of my father and her dating emanate her strength and beauty next to a puddle of mush and awe (dad).

And this force that was my mother went on to tackle life with zest and courage:  moving to the exotic country of Venezuela at a time when no one did such things with an even more exotic man (Jewish and Israeli!) who ripped her from her family’s suburban Anglo-saxon  identity landing her in a tropical chaos of bananas and car fumes. But mom embraced it all, every second of it, raising three girls in a rambunctious house she pretty much ran on her own while said husband traveled and traveled and traveled.

And then she began to cook.

A woman mocked for not knowing how to scramble eggs became the queen of cuisine:  tackling thick and musty volumes of French Culinary Arts and Mediterranean cooking and melding those with the wonderful pockets of her own imagination making for unforgettable meals.  I was blessed with an array of delicious soufflés, roasts, cakes, and her signature dessert of Ile Flotante, requested at every birthday dinner.  I couldn’t have asked for a better role model and mentor.

Except for her breakfasts.  In that terry cloth robe.  You could put her in the jungle, you could have her beat egg whites with the ease of a signature French chef, but some things were not to be messed with when it came to her routine:  breakfast was one of them.  For all the glamour, grace, beauty and adventure with which she tackled life, this woman ate the most boring thing each and every single morning:  toast with cream cheese and raspberry jam.

“Mom, seriously?  Again!”  I’d say, half in shock half disgusted, as my thoughts raced through the plethora of available, tasty breakfast offerings.

She’d look at me and smile, taking another messy bite out of her toast slipping with the sweet ooze created by the warm marriage of white and red goop.

“Don’t you want an arepa con queso guayanes?”  I tempted, thrusting the warm Venezuelan corncake nestling fresh white cheese.  I was answered with another bite of bread and a savage dip of the knife into the jam.

I always found it unappetizing to reach for that jam, say for a quick P&J sandwich, and find the insides of the jar tainted with white strips of cream cheese.  There was only one culprit and I’d instantly go and complain:

“Ewwww, mom, disguuuusting.  Seriously, use two knives.”

She was patient and kind and always quiet, throwing me a small smile I thought I understood but really had no clue what it meant.

I read:  “So sorry. Won’t happen again, even though you know it will, time and time again”

She meant:  “One day you will remember this.  One day you will find yourself in your own comfortable robe, at your own table, eating your own toast and jam and cream cheese, and you will remember this.”

That day has come.  I am in Mexico.  I can have the most elaborate breakfasts of eggs and tortillas and sauces and beans, and yet, I find myself longing for, craving for, my mother’s breakfast.  Each morning I find myself turned into her:  toast, raspberry jam, and a small but important adjustment:  crema de Oaxaca, Oaxacan cream.

This stuff is for the Gods …and my waistline.  I buy it off the local cheese truck every Saturday morning.  The cheese guy pulls out a hugs plastic bag, snips a hole in the corner, grabs a Dixie cup, and pours it in.  He then puts a piece of plastic wrap over top and, if you are lucky, throws a rubber band over it to seal the deal.  It’s as simple as that.  No FDA, no pasteurization, no questions asked.

The flavor that explodes in one’s mouth is indescribable.  Everything you know your arteries shouldn’t have and more.  And gosh darn it the thing goes amazing with raspberry jam and black bread!  Mom was right on target with her combo and all I can think of is how much I’d love to share this with her right now.  We’d send that Phili cream cheese out the door and create a new annoying goop combo with the crema Oaxaca.  I long to have mom’s palate dance with mine.  Instead, I leave long white marks of Oaxacan cream in my jam.  It’s my tribute to her.  It’s my celebration. It’s my acknowledgement:  mother knows best, especially with goopy messes and terrycloth robes.

Bloodthirsty people are much the rage these days.  I dare say, passé.  Just look at the explosion of pubescent pale lusting vampires and their beguiled, love-torn victims.  They, like the characters in Harry Potter, managed the unmanageable in our Twitter generation:  captivation in a book.  And not even a book:  a series.  The Twilight Series first came out in 2005 and quickly paved the way for fanged friends to enter our day-to-day vernacular.  Of course, it was instantly followed by a barrage of cheesy copycats and, inevitably, it arrived in a theatre near you.  On television the theme seems to have gone viral.  Enough already!  Aren’t we sick of vampires yet?

It would seem not.  Not even on a dusty, windy, forgotten road in Mexico, heading west from Zamora to Guadalajara. You can find them there.  The make-up may not be ...Read on]]>

Bloodthirsty people are much the rage these days.  I dare say, passé.  Just look at the explosion of pubescent pale lusting vampires and their beguiled, love-torn victims.  They, like the characters in Harry Potter, managed the unmanageable in our Twitter generation:  captivation in a book.  And not even a book:  a series.  The Twilight Series first came out in 2005 and quickly paved the way for fanged friends to enter our day-to-day vernacular.  Of course, it was instantly followed by a barrage of cheesy copycats and, inevitably, it arrived in a theatre near you.  On television the theme seems to have gone viral.  Enough already!  Aren’t we sick of vampires yet?

It would seem not.  Not even on a dusty, windy, forgotten road in Mexico, heading west from Zamora to Guadalajara. You can find them there.  The make-up may not be as good but the  special effects are even better.

We were first intrigued by the flaccid vampire look-alike blowing in the wind.

“Stop!” Our energetic kids demanded in naïve delight.  “There’s a vampire there, stop!”

Expecting nothing more than just another Kodak moment for the books, Husband and I pulled over, albeit a bit intrigued by the avid dedication to Halloween emanating from the tiny street stand in the middle of nowhere with a vampire.

The stand ended up being a make-shift bar, promising this local drink called “Vampiro” I had never heard of (and I am a proud graduate of the Columbia University Mixology class!)  Being the lightweight drinker that I am, my stiffest drink is usually compromised by a hearty Cabernet.  But this I had to try.

Ernesto, the dusty-road bartender, produced a gallon-sized plastic bag and swiftly filled it with a dizzying array of ingredients.

He poured precise measurements into my bag and then shook it fervishly, wrapping the whole bundle up with tape after deftly inserting a thick straw in a tiny aperture left on top.  My red I.V. was handed to me and I took a bloody gulp.

Sweet, salty, spicy and sour danced in my mouth at once, giving me enough chance to feel slightly giddy and yearn for more.  The bag felt chilled in my hand and wobbled deliriously as I slurped at my cocktail.  Slurping would turn out to be a mistake, making me grateful I wasn’t in charge of handling the acute curves our impending drive promised.

Husband looked at me with concern and jealousy.  He knew I was no more than a wine wimp and here I was coddling with Vampiro a bit too heavily.

“Hand it over,” he grumbled.  “Let me try it.”

My eyes shot out a possessive glance.  This vampire was mine.  Like the pages of hungry lust that kept all those teenagers enthralled, I clutched my bag tightly and refused to let it go.

“Sorry, buddy,” I managed to blubber out before returning to my unbridled sipping, “it wouldn’t be responsible for me to give you any of this right now.”

I thought pulling out the responsibility card might do the trick, but before I could finish, Husband had already approached me and snagged the baggie from my clumsy grasp.  One sip said it all.

“You’re drinking this?”  He laughed, knowing how much trouble I was already in.  “Enjoy, sweetie,” he coaxed, giving me back my vampire.  I was in for a visit with delight, followed by dizziness, and then a pounding headache, cursing myself for being led astray by a vampire, knowing I should just stick to wine.

Still, the dance of flavors remained a bright and happy memory, and as I reached for my emergency stash of Tylenol, I can only say what all the love-torn protagonist of vampire sagas say:  for that vampire, I’d do it all again…

There are ancient churches, picturesque plazas and corners filled with history in the colonial Mexican town of Morelia, but when I heard about a Museo de Dulce, a Museum of Sweets, I got excited. Forget thirst for knowledge, appreciation for architecture or understanding of traditions, my taste buds where doing the talking and the walking in this town as I led my family on an frenzied hunt for this museum. I had heard that this region, the region of Michoacan, was well-known for its sweets and I wasn’t sure what I would find:  old sugar grinders?  Fuzzy black and white blow-ups of traditional candy makers at their task?  Fruit roll ups from 1902? What I found was equally surprising as their ‘museo’ was no museum at all, but rather an actual labyrinth of shacks heavy with candy and sweetened by singsong of hopeful ...Read on]]>

There are ancient churches, picturesque plazas and corners filled with history in the colonial Mexican town of Morelia, but when I heard about a Museo de Dulce, a Museum of Sweets, I got excited.
Forget thirst for knowledge, appreciation for architecture or understanding of traditions, my taste buds where doing the talking and the walking in this town as I led my family on an frenzied hunt for this museum.
I had heard that this region, the region of Michoacan, was well-known for its sweets and I wasn’t sure what I would find:  old sugar grinders?  Fuzzy black and white blow-ups of traditional candy makers at their task?  Fruit roll ups from 1902?
What I found was equally surprising as their ‘museo’ was no museum at all, but rather an actual labyrinth of shacks heavy with candy and sweetened by singsong of hopeful salespeople:
“Que lo ofrezco que le ofrezco, pasale pasale, andale” (What can I offer you, enter enter enter)“El dulce de Michoacan, la Morielita, laguayabalaguayabalaguayaba” (The sweets of Michoacan, the Morielita, guava guava guava)“Vendo dulce vendo dulce tamaranidomangopiña tamarindomangopiña”  (I sell sweets, I sell sweets, tamarind, mango, pineapple, tamarind, mango , pineapple)
Every stand had a different tune, even though they all where overloaded with the same stuff.
“Don’t buy from just one place,” my husband reprimanded as my eyes grew wide at the first stand and my hands began to feverishly grab every diabetes-inducing concoction in sight.  “Let more than one person make some money.”
This is why I love the guy, because even in a Mexican candy land that propels me into sugar craziness, he can keep a level head.  Cool, calm, and collected, he is.  And a humanist at heart.  I would have hugged him but that would mean putting down my rollo de guayaba and my tiritas de tamarindo and I wasn’t about to do that.
Instead, I did the next best thing and conceded.
“You’re right, babe,” I replied (cleverly not putting down any candy.)  This was our mutual cue to keep on trucking, down lanes of sweetness with objects that resembled fruits before they were sequestered by sugar and candied, crystallized, or coated into bliss.
We left with more junk than we’d eat in a lifetime.  But everyone was a winner on this round.  I had satiated my appetite with loads of sweets I’d never eat, my husband had done a good deed in helping local businesses, and the singing, well, it continued well after we left, but with an extra pep in its beat.

The skeletons that surround me make me smile.  Some hold cigarettes, others pet dogs (in skeletal form, of course), and more daring ones balance baskets of flowers on their hard heads.  It’s the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, here in Mexico:  a holiday officially celebrated October 31 through November 2 to commemorate the lives of everyone’s loved ones who have passed away.  For these three days gravesides become picnic areas as entire families join to rejoice and remember their loved ones, making sure to offer them their favorite treats, graveside.  But the festivities begin way before that… “Calacas”, or skeletons, adorn every street vendor’s sidewalk offering.   Bright orange cempasuchil (Mexican marigolds) flowers, used by the Aztecs to mourn their dead, are the official floral offering for the dead and are mandatory at every corner florist, and then ...Read on]]>

The skeletons that surround me make me smile.  Some hold cigarettes, others pet dogs (in skeletal form, of course), and more daring ones balance baskets of flowers on their hard heads.  It’s the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, here in Mexico:  a holiday officially celebrated October 31 through November 2 to commemorate the lives of everyone’s loved ones who have passed away.  For these three days gravesides become picnic areas as entire families join to rejoice and remember their loved ones, making sure to offer them their favorite treats, graveside.  But the festivities begin way before that… “Calacas”, or skeletons, adorn every street vendor’s sidewalk offering.   Bright orange cempasuchil (Mexican marigolds) flowers, used by the Aztecs to mourn their dead, are the official floral offering for the dead and are mandatory at every corner florist, and then of course, there is Pan de Muerto, or Bread of the Dead.

This sweet concoction begins to appear in early October and is seen in all sizes with all sorts of fillings in ever pastry store in town.   Circular in shape with extra dough used on top to resemble bones, it is finished off with a hearty  coating of crunchy sugar.  Inside, you will find a rich, buttery dough, very similar to challah bread.

Pan de Muerto takes center stage in the offerings on altars that families make for their dead (who doesn’t love sweet dough?) alongside those beautiful flowers, packs of cigarettes and bottles of tequila.  If you are lucky, you will be treated to one filled with chocolate, or better yet,  dulce de leche.  That is, if the dead feel like sharing it with you.

One of the main reasons my family moved to Mexico at the end of this summer was so that my children, ages 12 and 9, would learn Spanish.  They were born and raised in South Florida, guided by a pair of expat parents raised in Venezuela and coddled in a culture swimming with Latin American influence, so, it is not a language they are completely foreign to, but still, they are gringos, and we felt the best way to fully turn that language skill around was by living in a Spanish-speaking country. We’ve already seen results in the short month we’ve been living in Mexico.  My son watches the early morning kiddie shows as he gets ready to school.  It is stuff he’d never dream about back home- Dora the Explorer, Handy Mandy, and Wonder Pets.  These are all phases he ...Read on]]>

One of the main reasons my family moved to Mexico at the end of this summer was so that my children, ages 12 and 9, would learn Spanish.  They were born and raised in South Florida, guided by a pair of expat parents raised in Venezuela and coddled in a culture swimming with Latin American influence, so, it is not a language they are completely foreign to, but still, they are gringos, and we felt the best way to fully turn that language skill around was by living in a Spanish-speaking country.
We’ve already seen results in the short month we’ve been living in Mexico.  My son watches the early morning kiddie shows as he gets ready to school.  It is stuff he’d never dream about back home- Dora the Explorer, Handy Mandy, and Wonder Pets.  These are all phases he long outgrew.  The difference, of course, is that these are all in Spanish, and now our mornings are filled with the same sickly sweet lyrics we were subjected to five years ago, only this time…in Spanish!  (‘El telefono, el telefono suena…es hora de despertar.’)
Both kids seem to be assimilating to their new culture at light speed and the language seems to be no exception.  Aside from sharing new candies and lollipops (‘covered in chili powder, mom!’) they are answering back with the slick smoothness of a native, “No manches, guey” (translates roughly to ‘no kidding, dude’.)
I am a fluent Spanish speaker, born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela.  And yet, I am learning fast, I don’t quite speak Mexican.  Certain Spanish words I have used all my life for one thing mean something totally different here. Or worse, are completely useless here because they represent something totally different and/or indecent.Foods are an equal literary maze.  Give me a menu at an authentic Mexican restaurant and I am stumped.  Quite simply, stumped.  It is my goal to work on that while I am here and become a fluent speaker.  I’ve already started!  When I first arrived, there was a big buzz about the best spot for tortas for a quick comida. My Spanish tells me that comida means ‘food’ but it turns out, comida is the Mexican version of my almuerzo, or lunch.  People in Mexico go to la comida when they go to lunch.  If they are short on time, they have a quick torta, which had me stumped once again because for me, torta means cake, and, as much as I love a good cake, I know better than to devour one for lunch.
The Mexicans are kind and gracious and immediately forgiving so there was little shame on my part when I made the first inquiry about their habit of cake eating for lunch.  “We’ll take you to have the best torta” my Mexican guide offered as a memorable lesson in language.  And that’s when I learned (and will never forget), the art of the Mexican torta:  a delicious sandwich crammed with meat, smashed avocado, pickled jalapeño, lettuce, tomato and onions. Sometimes refried beans are slathered on there too.  Of course there are many different fillings, but the classic, and my favorite, is with Torta de Carne Arrachera, flank steak sandwich.  Translastion:  yum!