Finding Mexico in Chicago

Wordless Wednesday: Tortillería El Milagro Mural in Pilsen

2 · Jun 19, 2013 · 3 Comments

For many years while living in Chicago, I bought my tortillas each Saturday morning from Tortilleria El Milagro on South Blue Island Avenue in Pilsen. It was also the only place where I would ever buy ensalada de nopales, for which I’d have to wake up extra early because they always ran out quickly. On the back side of the building is this beautiful mural I often stopped to admire when picking up my tortillas. The neighborhood, located on the Lower West Side, is one of the city’s two Mexican enclaves, and is one of the things I most miss about living in Chicago. My weekly trips to the market, tortilleria and panaderia were like briefly stepping out of Chicago and into Mexico for a few hours at a time.

Does your city have something special that transports you to Mexico?

Alambre de la Patrona

17 · Mar 29, 2013 · 4 Comments

This taco de alambre recipe is a Mexico City-style taco made with thinly sliced pork, bacon, chile poblano, onion and cheese.

I haven’t written much here about my favorite taquería in Chicago, La Lagartija, but have always widely recommended the place to anyone who asked me in person, on Facebook or Twitter about where to get an authentic Mexican meal in my hometown. I wasn’t exactly trying to keep it a secret, but it’s definitely a gem and I always appreciated the neighborhood charm and the way that the meseras and owners always remembered us and greeted us like family. I have so many photos of memorable meals we ate there, and it was the only place in Chicago where we’d regularly eat tacos al pastor.

RELATED RECIPE: Slow-cooker carnitas

But one of my favorite standby meals there, the alambre, is both succulent and super easy to recreate at home. This recipe is my own spin on one of their alambres. The owners are from Mexico City, and the dish on their menu is actually a version of a popular dish at one of our favorite taquerías in Mexico City, El Charco de las Ranas. This dish is also sometimes known as alambre de chuleta and is best served with warm tortillas, but you can skip the tortillas if you like and just eat it with a fork.

alambre_de_la_patrona_tacos …

Día de los Muertos at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood

0 · Nov 15, 2012 · Leave a Comment

In Chicago, we’re very lucky to have a lot of Mexican food and culture at our fingertips. But one of my favorite places, particularly around Día de los Muertos, is the National Museum of Mexican Art. Located in the Pilsen neighborhood, the museum is free (thanks to sponsors) and open six days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Every year, they have an excellent exhibit for Día de los Muertos. This year’s exhibit, titled “Hanal Pixán” which means “food for the souls” in the Mayan language, is no exception. And it runs until December 16 if you haven’t seen it yet.

Every year, I love going to the museum around Día de los Muertos not only for the exhibit, but also for the calaveritas de azúcar (sugar skulls) that are handmade and decorated by the famous Mondragón family from Toluca, Mexico.

But one of the things I love most about the museum is open year-round: the Tzintzuntzán gift shop, which has all kinds of Mexican treasures from art to books and music to home decorations and more. Especially during Day of the Dead festivities, the gift shop is filled with Día de los Muertos trinkets and goodies—they’ve got papel picado (that is actually reasonably priced), shadowboxes with mini ofrendas, sugar skulls, paper mache food for ofrendas such as paper mache pan dulce, and the list goes on and on.

Below is a slideshow of some of my favorite items for sale in the gift shop during a recent visit.

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The National Museum of Mexican Art is located at 1852 W. 19th St., Chicago, IL 60608.

Have you been to the museum? What’s your favorite exhibit or thing you’ve seen in the gift shop?

Siempre junto a mi corazón/Always near my heart

0 · Oct 15, 2012 · 1 Comment

Over the weekend I posted a photo online of a locket that I wear often that always seems to get compliments from strangers. It’s got a vintage map of Mexico City on the outside (er, as close to the heart of Mexico City as they could get with the maps they had available), and on the inside, a tiny photo of the home where my suegros live.

If you’re a geography whiz, you’ll notice that the map on my locket is not quite accurate. But no matter. I love it anyhow.

I seem to have developed an eye for finding these kinds of unique pieces. I found and purchased this necklace at Chicago’s annual Renegade Craft Fair two years ago, from a little booth called The Weekend Store. You can purchase one here with a map of anywhere you like.

When I wear it, I somehow feel like I’m never really that far away from my México lindo y querido.

Do you have any special jewelry or trinkets that remind you of Mexico that you keep close to your heart?

Wordless Wednesday: Las Piñatas de Target

0 · Oct 3, 2012 · Leave a Comment

One of the great things about living in a city with a large Mexican population is that you can often find Mexican things in places you might not normally expect. This past weekend while running errands at Target, I turned a corner down an aisle I don’t usually shop in to cut through to another section and I saw these colorful piñatas.

I love piñatas because they make me think of Christmastime, spending La Navidad and las posadas with our family in Mexico.

Do you have any fond memories of growing up or spending time with family that involves a piñata? Leave a comment below to tell me!

Tacomiendo: Carnicería Guanajuato in Chicago

1 · Jun 29, 2012 · 4 Comments

I’m always on a quest for a good taco in my city, and thanks to the fact that there are tons of Mexican immigrants here, it’s not too difficult to seek out the best changarros for the most authentic tacos.

A few months ago, my friend Steve told me he knew this awesome place for tacos. Given that I have an incredibly high standard for what meets my expectations for a “good taco” or an “awesome taquería,” I usually nod and say something nice when someone tells me they had a good taco somewhere. My circle of trusted taco advisers is admittedly small. Yes, I’m a self-admitted taco snob. I bet you are, too.

But he was persistent about these tacos inside a little Mexican grocery store in his neighborhood. I’d been there before because I liked the butcher but the produce wasn’t great, so I didn’t shop there very often. And I knew I’d eaten at the taquería inside the store but I couldn’t say that I remembered it one way or the other. So we went out one Saturday morning for tacos with Steve to give it a shot.

This was the taco I ate. (OK, I ate more than one…) Mmmm, carne asada.

While not perfect (I’m not a fan of the double tortilla, for starters, and their salsa was a bit weak for my taste), I can’t list any other complaints because this taco de carne asada really hit the spot.

Two other factors won me over this time, despite being underwhelmed by my previous experience eating here. First, they’ve renovated and expanded the eating area so it’s no longer terribly cramped trying to eat lunch there (which can get pretty busy). And second, although they’ve usually got several different kinds of aguas frescas to choose from, the grocery section sometimes carries glass bottles of Yoli, a beloved Mexican lemon-lime flavored refresco. I admit I’ve been back there several times just looking for Yoli and have grabbed a taco on my way out.

There are plenty of other tacos on the menu, of course, and we’ve tried most if not all of them. José really liked the cecina. But I personally only return for the carne asada.

WHERE TO FIND IT:
Carnicería Guanajuato
1436 N. Ashland Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622

Have you been to Carnicería Guanajuato? What’s your favorite taco there?

Wordless Wednesday: Hot sauce heaven

0 · Jun 13, 2012 · 4 Comments

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I found myself all alone in the hot sauce aisle…

Yes, my grocery store has a salsa aisle. It’s a little slice of heaven, no?

What’s your favorite hot sauce?

What Las Posadas mean to me

1 · Dec 16, 2011 · 5 Comments

December 16th begins Las Posadas, the nine days of celebration leading up to Christmas Eve, also known as Nochebuena.

It’s customary for families to gather together, eat, sing and have a piñata at the party. Sometimes people celebrate posadas by going from home to home, singing the traditional song to ask for lodging the way Mary and Joseph did. But whether you travel around to different homes or stay in one place, there are certain elements of your family’s posadas that you inevitably love more than anything else, and will always try to recreate as you grow older, and especially as you have children so you can teach them your family’s traditions.

For me, the most beloved posadas tradition is making ponche Navideño. Every year, even if I don’t have access to fresh ingredients, I do my best to find canned, jarred or frozen ingredients for the things I can’t easily find in the U.S. Even though I know I’ll have it when I get to Mexico, I feel it’s really important to perfect the recipe at home with available ingredients.

I want our future children to know that it’s a Mexican Christmas staple and always have memories of the smell and taste. I want them to think of love and family and La Navidad when they think of ponche, just the way that I do. I always look forward to spending time with family in Mexico City during the holidays, and I know there will always be an abundance of ponche Navideño. It’s present at almost every family gathering but the most special thing about it for me is that it’s become a family tradition to make it together with my suegros, whom I adore con todo corazón.

We stand around the kitchen, my suegro chopping the caña (sugar cane), while my suegra takes care with the liquid measurements. I slice the guayabas and juice the oranges, add the canela and core the tejocotes. And before a few years ago when I finally put it on paper, our family recipe wasn’t officially written down anywhere with any information other than what should go in it. Learning how to make this family recipe with my suegros meant a lot to me in being able to eventually pass down this tradition.

So, last week when I was grocery shopping in a store I don’t usually frequent and I found a box of fresh tejocotes, I had tears in my eyes as I stood in disbelief in the middle of the produce aisle. This was the very first time I’d ever seen fresh tejocotes in a market near Chicago (also grown in the U.S., according to the box). Tejocotes have long been prohibited from being imported fresh from Mexico as a precaution due to the possibility of harboring exotic pests. Only in recent years have there been growers in the U.S. (mostly in California) who’ve begun cultivating crops of tejocotes, also known in English as Mexican hawthorn. I was surprised and overjoyed to see them in a local store. Though I was tempted to buy the whole box, I painstakingly picked through it to find the most perfect ones to add up to half a pound, just enough for one large pot of ponche.

This year, our family is still headed off on a vacation together as usual, but not within Mexico. As excited as I am to go somewhere new and experience new things, I can’t help but feel a little sad that I won’t be attending Tía Annette’s big posada Navideña in Mexico City.

I’ll miss sipping ponche and café con rompope and eating galletas with my other tías while catching up on all the gossip I’ve missed since my last visit. I’ll miss our tío dangling the piñata over the garden for the kids from the second story window, laughing and smiling as he tugs it just out of their reach. I’ll miss seeing how much some of the younger cousins have grown up this past year. I’ll miss Tía Nene and her famous pastel de dátil (something I still need to learn how to make). I’ll miss the nochebuenas, which are much more beautiful and exotic-looking in their native Mexico. I’ll miss posing for a huge family holiday photo, comprised of four generations of our beautiful family.

As I write this, my kitchen is perfumed by the scent of ripe guayabas, waiting to be made into ponche this weekend. There are oranges, tejocotes, canela and ciruelas pasas. I still need to find some fresh sugar cane; I have a good idea of where to get it locally, but I’ve still got some in a jar as a backup. And though there will be no cousins, tíos, piñatas, pidiendo posadas or certain favorite holiday foods this year, the memories will swirl steadfastly in my heart and my kitchen as I stew a big pot of ponche before I jet off to my holiday destination.

›› GET THE RECIPE FOR PONCHE NAVIDEÑO

›› WATCH A VIDEO OF HOW OUR FAMILY CELEBRATES LAS POSADAS (Includes lyrics to the piñata song and canciones para pedir posadas)

What makes you think most of las posadas? This post is part of a blog hop about posadas. I encourage you to check out some of the other related posts about how others celebrate the holidays in Mexico. If you’ve written about posadas, please feel free to add a link to your post!…
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Wordless Wednesday: Vienen las posadas

0 · Nov 23, 2011 · 9 Comments

How do I know posadas are almost here? One of my favorite ingredients in ponche Navideño showed up on the shelves at my Mexican mercado this past weekend… tejocotes!

What’s the one ingredient you see in the grocery store that makes you think of the holidays?

Calaveritas de Mondragon para Día de Los Muertos

0 · Oct 31, 2011 · 10 Comments

I recently visited the National Museum of Mexican Art, located in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, on a special mission: I was hoping to buy calaveras de azúcar for my altar de muertos. But not just any calaveras—I was hoping to buy handmade and hand-decorated calaveras from the famous Mondragon family.

Sugar skulls are truly an art form and the Mondragon family from Toluca, Mexico, has been making hand-decorated sugar skulls for around 150 years, spanning five generations. They’ve been coming to the museum to make them in Chicago since 1995 as a way for people to hang on to their culture so far from home and to share Mexican tradition and culture, they told me.

Sugar skulls are often used as a decoration for an altar de muertos or given as gifts for Día de Los Muertos. It’s common to also put the names of family members on the forehead of the sugar skull. Some families only put names of the deceased, while others put names of the living on them as well.

Alejandro Mondragon Arriaga and his wife Elvira Garcia Zinzu travel with one of their daughters to Chicago to make their famous sugar skulls at the museum every year while the rest of the family stays behind in Mexico to make them there. Their family is one of less than a dozen left who are dedicated to this traditional craft, Elvira told me. At one time, she said, there were dozens and dozens of families who made them and sold them all over Mexico….

Flores de calabaza at the farmers market

1 · Aug 5, 2011 · 2 Comments

I’ve been ~~stalking~~ visiting my local farmers markets lately looking for flor de calabaza. And every week since they started bringing them three weeks ago, I’ve arrived too late because they sold out before 9 or 10 A.M. So this past weekend, I got up early on Saturday hoping to get my hands on some, only to discover I’d arrived just a bit too late.

But my lovely friends at Nichols Farm advised me to show up at another market location they visit on Sunday mornings in Wicker Park and to arrive just before they opened. I got there just before 8 A.M. and was able to get a big bunch (15 flowers!) as well as snap these photos with the bucket still full of florecitas!…

Wordless Wednesday: quesadilla de huitlacoche

0 · Aug 3, 2011 · 11 Comments

Over the weekend José and I had dinner at Fogón, an upscale Mexican restaurant that opened this spring in a neighborhood near where we live. I’ll write more about it another time, but I had to share a photo of this earthy-tasting, perfectly over-stuffed quesadilla I ate as an appetizer—it had cheese and huitlacoche (also known as corn smut or corn truffle), epazote, salsa rustica with black beans and was topped with a small dollop of creme fraiche and light greens. It’s the culinary equivalent of black gold! (More on the topic of huitlacoche soon, I promise!)

How do you like to eat huitlacoche? Have you ever had it before?

Wordless Wednesday: Salsa taquera

0 · Jul 27, 2011 · 15 Comments

I’ve always been fascinated by the different salsas served alongside my meal at any taquería. I ate all three of these (rojo con chile de árbol; verde con chile serrano y aguacate; cebolla roja con habanero) at my favorite taquería in Chicago, La Lagartija, this past weekend. They were just too pretty to not take a picture! One of the things I love about eating at taquerías is that each one has different salsas, and often the salsas are just as important as what goes in the taco.

What’s your favorite kind of salsa?

Wordless Wednesday: Taco de cecina

5 · Jun 22, 2011 · 15 Comments

I ate this incredible taco de cecina last week at La Lagartija Taquería here in Chicago, our favorite changarro. With a homemade tortilla, a light smear of frijoles and a perfectly salted cut of cecina, I was in taco heaven. I topped it with cebolla, cilantro and a drizzle of salsa roja. It’s not on the everyday menu (it was off the daily specials list), but it most definitely should be! If you haven’t had cecina before, it’s a salted and partially dried thin cut of beef (kind of like how some steak houses serve dry-aged steaks).

What’s the best taco you’ve eaten recently? We want details!

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Benito Juárez!

0 · Mar 21, 2011 · 3 Comments

Feliz cumpleaños to one of Mexico’s most famous presidents, Benito Juárez, who was born on this day in 1806. This monument pictured above, gifted to the city of Chicago in 1977 by Mexican president José López Portillo, stands along Michigan Avenue in the Plaza of the Americas next door to the Wrigley Building and across the street from the Chicago Tribune.

Often regarded as Mexico’s greatest and most-loved leader, Juárez died of a heart attack in 1872. If you need to brush up on your Mexican history, read about Benito Juárez and what he did for the Mexican people both before and during his presidency. You might also be surprised to know that he spent a short time living in New Orleans from 1853-1854. Juárez came from a Zapotec family in Oaxaca and served in a variety of political positions during his career. Today, there are numerous monuments and locations dedicated or named in his honor. In Mexico City, the international airport is just one of many, many locations named after Juárez.

Check out some additional photos and details about the Chicago monument on the Public Art in Chicago blog.

Do you know of a monument or location dedicated to Benito Juárez? Leave a comment with where it’s located!

Mexique: Celebrating Mexican Cuisine with a French Twist

2 · Dec 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago I attended a dinner given by the Mexico Tourism Board and Chef Carlos Gaytan at his restaurant, Mexique, in honor of the recent UNESCO designation of Mexican cuisine as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Tourism Board over the last several weeks has hosted authentic Mexican dinners in a number of major North American cities to celebrate, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Miami, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver, so I was thrilled to receive the invitation.

Did you know that French recipes and cooking techniques during the French occupation of Mexico in the 1860s became an important element in the evolution of modern Mexican gastronomy?

Gaytan’s concept behind Mexique is modern Mexican food with French influence. Hailing from Huitzuco, Guerrero, Gaytan’s love of food helped him rise from pantry cook to executive chef. He trained with French chef Dominique Tougne of Bistro 110 (Gold Coast) and has also spent time in the kitchens at Bistrot Margo (Old Town) and the Union League Club (Loop), all in Chicago. If you live in Chicago or are visiting, I highly recommend you visit Mexique for a meal.

One thing that left an impression on me at the dinner was when Carlos explained why he doesn’t serve mixed drinks in his restaurant: they take away from the palate and so instead, he serves wine and tequila. And God bless him for telling everyone in the dining room that tequila should be sipped. Someone at a table near me chimed in that “only heathens drink tequila shooters,” which caused an eruption of laughter at my table.

And I can’t end without showing you what we ate. It was a lovely four-course tasting meal with excellent wines and ended with tequila. I can’t wait to return to Mexique for another meal!

PRIMERO: Ceviche

Ahi tuna, avocado mousse, chipotle aioli, mango habanero galette…

Chicago’s own Mercado Navideño

0 · Nov 29, 2010 · 3 Comments

This past weekend I attended the Mercado Navideño at the National Museum of Mexican Art here in Chicago with my friend, Daniela. It’s been awhile since my last visit so I was eager to see the new exhibits as well. But I loved all the gifts, decorations and crafts that remind me so much of the Museo de Arte Popular (of which I have only ever visited the gift shop) in Mexico City. I sent a picture message from my iPhone of the beautiful paper maché piggy bank to my suegra because she collects all kinds of puerquitos (little piggies). She loved it and said when I arrive, we’ll make plans to go visit the museum since she couldn’t remember ever taking me there before.

If you live in Chicago or are visiting during the Thanksgiving holiday next year, check out the mercado – it’s typically the Friday through Sunday right after Thanksgiving. Some of the items were pricey (compared to purchasing the same item in Mexico) but for the most part, they had a lot of beautiful gifts at reasonable prices. And you can’t visit the National Museum of Mexican Art without also making a stop in the gift shop on your way out! I loved the mini papel picado, juguetes and all kinds of books about Mexican art and culture. I may go back soon for some books on regional art and food!

What’s your favorite kind of Mexican popular art?

The photos in this post were taken with my iPhone 3Gs using the Polarize app by Christopher Comair.

Spotted in Chicago: Hojas de Maguey

36 · Nov 7, 2010 · 1 Comment

Just when I’m missing Mexico and checking my calendar to see how many days are left until I leave for my holiday trip next month, I find something amazing and unexpected in the grocery store that makes me feel relieved that a little piece of Mexico is never too far away. Thanks to the fact that there are more than 1.5 million Mexicans in Chicago, and therefore no shortage of Mexican grocers, I can often find foods or other Mexican things I’m missing within a 10 or 15-minute drive from our apartment.

These leaves, called hojas or pencas de maguey, from the maguey plant (also known as agave) are often used as an envoltorio, or wrapper, to cook barbacoa. Seeing them at the grocery store this week reminded me of a recent trip to Querétaro with my suegros, while we were en route from Mexico City to Aguascalientes to celebrate José’s abuelita’s 90th birthday.

More on that trip (and barbacoa) later this coming week – I just couldn’t resist sharing the highlight of my day!