In Mexico, the word torta most often means a sandwich on a bolillo, or French roll. However, as in this case, it can also take on its original Spanish meaning of a flat, round cake or, figuratively, food shaped like that. Friar Geronimo most probably used a round cazuela to make this layered rice dish, thus calling it a torta. The original recipe […]
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Throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere, spring means warmer weather and, for many, the gardening bug is biting. In Mexico, we have lived in everything from a small apartment with a diminutive balcony, to a large house with a sizeable yard, and have grown some basic kitchen ingredients in each of them. Now that we […]
Continue ReadingOne of the regions of Mexico most indelibly fixed in my mind is the Yucatan, probably because the sights, sounds, flavors and aromas are so sensual that they create truly visceral memories. When my husband and I reminisce about our journeys throughout Mexico, especially the long road trips taken in our trusty old Ford pickup, […]
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Although it is tempting to describe a fellow human as Nut of the Year (as in “My landlord is crazy, he’s gotta be nut of the year”), in this case, we’re referring to the pistachio, which has been named Nut of the Year 2015 by Baum and Whiteman, a food consulting company that follows culinary […]
Continue ReadingFor months after we moved to Mexico several years ago, my favorite place to eat here in Cholula was a hole-in-the-wall tortería called Tortas Alex. Although a Mexican torta goes far beyond what is normally described as a sandwich – it was something delicious, satisfying and comforting when we needed it most. This was long before tortas […]
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Mexican Kitchen The warm season in Mexico is not summer, but spring, especially right around Semana Santa, which is probably why many people try for an Easter vacation near water. Whether heading for the beach or the local balneario (usually a huge outdoor pool) most have two things on their minds. One is a dunk in the […]
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Wings have landed everywhere. There are endless varieties of these once humble chicken parts, and numerous restaurants are dedicated to serving them. Mexico is no exception to the wing craze, but the many establishments offering these tasty nibbles seem to focus on American style preparations. There are versions of American barbeque wings, hot wings, honey […]
Continue ReadingAs anyone who has ever eaten a comida corrida – the “daily special” at restaurants in Mexico – knows, the course called sopa seca will either be a plate of rice or some shape of pasta with the ubiquitous tomato sauce. Up until recent years, this sauce hadn’t varied much since the colonial era, but the influence of Mexican […]
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Mexican Kitchen The winter season brings with it a culinary conundrum. Part of you craves the comfort foods, mostly creamy and carby, that the cold weather seems to inspire. Some of this is induced by childhood memories of Mom baking bread and cooking hearty stews as chill winds blew outside. Another part of you is […]
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The rich, yellow-green pulp of the avocado, nowadays most frequently associated with the ubiquitous Mexican dish known as guacamole, was once an appetizing mouthful for the mastodons that roamed the American continent, spreading the seeds of the fruit they swallowed whole. Thus the avocado tree, a native of the Tehuacan Valley of Southern Mexico, whose seeds have […]
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