Ex-Votos: The Art of Giving Thanks

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Dia de los Muertos 2021

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Rain! A torrent of mud and stone

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#AquiNadieTruena

 

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Keeping Quiet

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Cicadas - The Song of the Rainbirds

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Ajijic - Pre-Columbian Memories

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Letters in the time of corona virus

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Daughters of The Sun - Migrations of The Monarch Butterflies

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Happy New Year!

We decided to witness the dawning of the New Year 

over Mexico with an early hike to the chapel in the hills 
overlooking the lake. A great way to say good morning 

to the new decade!

Wishing everyone a joyous New Year!

3 Exhibits at Museo de las Artes in Guadalajara

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A Christmas Letter - 2019

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Guadalajara Book Fair 2019

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Dia de los Muertos - 2019

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Punta Ixtal - Primal Migrations

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Galo de Allende - A Visit To The Goat Farm

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Carnival - Ajijic, Mexico, 2019

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Ajijic is getting Too Crowded!

Postales del Paraiso

Everyone talks about the multitude of new arrivals that continue to flood into Ajijic and how fast the neighborhood is growing. Everywhere we go it keeps getting more and more crowded.

Just this week we’ve got three new additions to the neighborhood!

If this keeps up we’ll soon be running out of room!

Abuelinda's Cooking School

Postales del Paraiso

Abuelinda's Cooking School

It’s a Mexican history lesson, it’s a cultural emersion course, it’s a health seminar, an international economics tutorial, an anthropology lesson, a culinary shopping experience, and it’s a cooking class!

Linda has been cooking in Latin America and the Caribbean for 35 years, and the classes that she offers are an astonishing mix of everything she’s encountered during that time. Every Wednesday she offers a “Tianguis to Table” class which starts in the local open air street market called the tianguis (tay-yán-gays) learning about and selecting local fruit, vegetables, Mexican foods, and then returning to Abuelinda’s kitchen and preparing a meal. She also offers classes from the culinary worlds of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla, all unique, all fascinating.

We started early one morning at the local tianquis  where blue plastic tarps tethered haphazardly to trees and each other arc low over the jostling crowds. The  rows of tables that line the cobblestone streets feature beautifully crafted corn-husk dolls, excruciatingly detailed beadwork by the local Huichol Indians, magnificent woolen shawls and clothing from the highlands outside of Chiapas, homeopathic remedies, and an astonishing array of fruits, vegetable, meats, fish, cheeses.  Queso fresco and panela cheeses, spiny nopal cactus, plump blueberries, roasted garbanzo beans, natural pig skin pickled in vinegar (cueritos), or fried (chicharrón), candied quince, fresh fish, chickens, flowers, The variety is endless!

We bought ingredients for our afternoon menu of Chiles en Nogada, deep green poblano chilies, a pork shoulder, plump raisins, dried mango, candied bisnaga cactus, pears, apples, peaches, plantains, Mexican canela, pomegranates, Queso de cabra, walnuts, rice, the list goes on.

But it was in Abuelindas kitchen that the real magic happened. We were each guided through an assigned a task, charring the poblanos over an open flame, dicing the pork, mixing and grinding spices in a molcajete (volcanic rock mortar & pestle), chopping fruits, seeding pomegranates, all accompanied by a running commentary and explanation of our many unfamiliar ingredients, and delightful stories about the cultures and cuisines of Mexico.

And then the best part. We got to enjoy the fruits of our labors. The roasted, smoky, earthy flavor of the poblano chile is the essence of Mexico, and when stuffed with the warm picadillo filling of diced pork, fruits, nuts, herbs, and spices, covered in a cool, creamy walnut sauce, and sprinkled with tangy, tart, pomegranate seeds, the result is simply heaven! I could eat this every day of my life!

There's a Plastic Baby Jesus in My Cake!

If you’re fortunate enough to be enveloped by the warmth of family and friends in Mexico during the Christmas season you may be lucky enough to find a baby Jesus hidden in your dessert as you celebrate the Twelfth Night, or Dia de Reyes, (Three Kings Day) on January 6^th.

If you love fruit cake or panettone you’ll love Rosca de Reyes (wreath of the kings), a sweet bread with candied fruits that celebrates the arrival of the Magi. The tradition in Mexico is that whoever finds the baby Jesus in their slice of confection is blessed, and is bestowed the honor of preparing tamales and hosting the celebration of Candlemas on February 2nd.

Sometimes you’ll find multiple baby Jesus’ in the Rosca de Reyes because making tamales is a marathon effort that often involves all of the women in a community. Each woman brings one of the ingredients and each person is responsible for a portion of the production; preparing the masa harina,  cleaning and sorting the corn husks, making the dough, preparing the ingredients, making the sauces , filling the tamales, carefully tying them, steaming the tamales. This is an all day affair that often extends into the evening with all the women in the group gathered in a kitchen, ranchero music playing in the background, and children underfoot. So regardless of your esteem for Punxatawnee Phil, you’ll be too busy making tamales that day to pay much attention to whether the groundhog sees his shadow. But I'm getting ahead of myself, more on Candlemas later.

Three Kings Day is also the day when gifts are brought, not by Santa, but by the Three Kings. Children put their shoes outside their door along with a handful of straw (for the camels and the occasional elephant) and during the night gifts are placed in their shoes. Traditionally these were small hand-wrought toys fashioned from clay or painted sticks, but today of course includes cell phones and upgrades to your favorite electronic device.

This is the feast of the Epiphany as it’s known in much of the world and it brings a celebration of many things. In the Western Christian religion it celebrates the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ, and in some Eastern denominations the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, and in those communities not so strictly bound by religious edict, it's time to box up the Christmas lights and cart the Christmas tree to the local landfill.

In Mexico these celebrations are all intricately woven into the pattern of life. Each celebration is intertwined with the previous one as well as the next throughout the year. Deeply held traditions connect past and future passing these wonderful ceremonies from one generation to the next.