traditional mexican cooking, one recipe at a time. now with a pizca of culture and travel.

AGUA FRESCA: AGUA DE PIÑA

During my last visit to Mexico City, I was a bit rushed to squeeze in my favorite places to eat since I was only in town for a few days before and after our family trip to Aguascalientes for Abuelita Ana’s birthday.

After visiting the Frida Kahlo museum with my suegra in the late morning and a quick stop at the mercado Coyoacán to pick up a few goodies to take back to Chicago, we headed to El Bajío in Polanco for lunch.

As we pulled up to the restaurant on the corner of Campos Elíseos and Alejandro Dumas, the afternoon sky turned gray and it looked as if it was going to rain. Just as we were seated it began to sprinkle and the dining room, usually bright with sunlight thanks to its large plate glass windows and a few skylights, grew a bit dim. One of the many things I love about Mexico City is how it sometimes rains in the afternoon just for a few hours and then the sun comes out shining again. The afternoon rain somehow always appears just at the right time for a siesta and reminds me to take it easy. It’s like mother nature’s way of telling us to rest and relax; to take respite from the daily grind to refresh our spirits.

Since we were in no hurry, what with the rain and all, we settled in to a cozy little table for two in the back near the beverage bar where they make the coffee and juices. We each decided to have agua de piña to drink, so when it came time to order we asked for a large pitcher to share. The pitchers used at El Bajío, and common all over Mexico, are made of a thick hand-blown glass with a cobalt blue rim. Sometimes there are little bubbles still in the glass – one of those slight imperfections that makes them so beautiful to begin with; a reminder that they’re handmade and each is unique.

My suegra has a set of these cobalt-rimmed drinking glasses as well as little tequila glasses in the liquor cabinet in the living room. I’ve always wanted to bring a set of these glasses home with me, but since my suitcase is usually full of other goodies, I never quite have the room. Someday I’ll reserve a spot in my suitcase for them to travel back with me, but until then I’ll just have to dream about it. And I’ve got many memories to choose from – every place I’ve ever been in Mexico, from Baja California Sur all the way east to Quintana Roo, I’ve been served aguas frescas in a cobalt-rimmed glass. Read more »

Bittersweet Birthday Wishes

Today is both a happy day and a sad day. Happy because it marks the first birthday of The Other Side of The Tortilla. Sad because it also marks the fourth anniversary of the day that José’s abuelita Elda passed away.

It is thanks to many family members on my suegra‘s side who have told me stories and shared snippets of abuelita Elda’s recipes with me that I’ve come to feel like I know a little piece of her, and it’s also how I ended up starting this blog to document my journey as I explore my own Mexican kitchen.

The truth is, though she’s no longer with us, the memory of her is ever-present.

As a wedding gift, José’s great aunt, Tía Chata, made us an exact replica of a carpeta (a kind of table adornment, sometimes small enough for a serving tray and sometimes large enough to be a tablecloth) that belonged to abuelita Elda. It’s nice to have something handmade with such love and painstaking care to decorate my home with and to show our future children. It will undoubtedly someday become one of our family heirlooms that will be passed on for generations.

One of José’s favorite recipes that his abuela used to make for him while he was growing up was arroz con leche. To this day, he’s never had a bite of anyone else’s arroz con leche that’s come close to his abuelita‘s. I plan to start tinkering in the kitchen to recreate her recipe sometime this fall, so wish me luck!

I can’t even cut celery in my kitchen without José reminding me that his abue used to make a sopa de apio. As my cuñada told me today, “we always knew going to abuelita’s house meant we were going to have good food.” I hope that someday my own nietos will say the same about me.

Among some of abuelita‘s favorite foods, according to my cuñada: pan dulce from El Globo with café con leche, hígado (liver), albondigas (meatballs in a red sauce made with tomatoes and chiles, served over rice and beans) and sopa de fideo. I can’t promise you I’ll try making hígado, but I’ve got a mean albondigas recipe I’ll be sharing before the end of the year. I also have an affinity for El Globo‘s sweet and sticky signature pan dulce, one kind of which I’ll be trying to recreate soon, too.

Tonight, we’re toasting with vino tinto and remembering her. I’ll be rifling through the stack of her recipes that I copied during my last visit to Mexico City decide what to take on next in the Tortilla Test Kitchen.

As always, thank you for letting me share my cuentos and recetas, and I look forward to sharing many more birthdays ahead with you. I’d love to hear in the comments your favorite recipe from the first year of The Tortilla or what you’d like to see in the coming year!

We’re busy polishing the silver…

As you may have noticed if you’ve visited theothersideofthetortilla.com over the last few days, things look a little different – and not quite right just yet! Please pardon the digital dust while I polish the site. We’ve switched to new hosting and we’re implementing some great new features for more fun here in the Tortilla Test Kitchen, including a new design and layout and a better commenting system.

In the meantime, if you’d like to view old posts and photos the way they used to look, you can do so by visiting the old site. All of that content has been moved over here but some posts need a little cleaning since they got tarnished in the move. You can still comment here if you like. Any comments left on the old site this week will be ported over to the new site so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

Don’t worry, we’ll be back soon, and we’ll be more brillante than ever before!

Regalos de boda y aniversarios

Two years ago today, José and I were married in Los Cabos, Mexico, in front of nearly 100 family members and friends. I can still remember most of the day very clearly, though it went by very fast. Sometimes, it seems like it was just yesterday.

We were first married in a small Catholic ceremony in a beautiful historic church in San José del Cabo with just our parents and witnesses, and then later in the evening we had a full Catholic mass on the beach with all our guests at the Westin Los Cabos.

The church where we were married, Misión de San José del Cabo Anuití, was a mission originally built by a Jesuit priest, Father Nicolás Tamaral, in 1730. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times, and the current twin-tower structure was last restored in 1932 after it was damaged by a hurricane. The church satisfied my love for history, architecture and art, all in one.

The whole day was completely perfect from beginning to end. Okay, it wasn’t completely perfect (it was blazing hot even after the sun set), but it was damn near perfect. If I could do it all over again, the only thing I’d do differently is savor each moment individually, like in slow motion. I’d hug each person a little tighter, and add a few more family members who couldn’t be there with us. Unfortunately, I can’t do it all over again. But I’m okay with that because I know that our wedding day was just about as perfect as they come.

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Mexico City: my visit to Casa Azul

At 247 calle Londres, where Londres meets Allende in a colorful old part of Mexico City called Coyoacán, lies the Casa Azul – the place where Frida Kahlo once lived and that is now a museum in her honor. I imagine that the blue walls both inside and out have probably been repainted several times over to maintain the vibrant shade of cobalt blue that I’ve never quite seen replicated outside of Mexico City, but I still had this eerie feeling when I stepped inside like I was stepping back in time. It’s a feeling I often get when visiting Mexico City – and in some strange way, it’s one of the reasons it feels like home to me. I had to suppress the urge to touch the paint, as if I might be lucky enough that a little bit would rub off and I could take a little piece of that cobalt blue home to Chicago with me.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve actually traveled to Mexico City by now, but the one thing I haven’t lost track of is how many historical and cultural places I still haven’t yet visited. Until a few weeks ago, Frida’s Casa Azul was one of them. I’d passed by it before, both walking and driving, on my way to the mercado in Coyoacán. Someday, I’ll visit every last one on my list. But this day was dedicated to Frida.

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