Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Grawrrrrr in lands near, far, and farther away zipolite
zipolite
zipolite is a beautiful place with crashing melodic surfable waves,naked tanned bodies, and inexpensive food and places to stay. it also seems to have some kind of forcefield surrounding it that makes you want to do absolutely nothing and venture nowhere. we have spent nearly eight days here now doing nothing morethan a dip in the sea a beer and a hammock. even less arguing seems to happen here as it seems to take too much effort.(dont get me wrong we still argue like dogs but not every second of evey day like before)
please excuse my poor grammar and punctuation as i am on my kindle and in zipolite and do not want to bother with fixing it.
anyway
zipolite is a nice place with a hippie vibe and lts of pot to enhance that. apart from that i love it here though and would gladly return to do some more nothing in the warm sun and cool pacific waves
How to Make the Best Mole Negro MAR 28 2012
How to Make the Best Mole Negro
First, find a Spanish translator and have them call up Soledad Ramirez Heras, a 71-year-old grandmother of eight, who gives day-long classes out of her home in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Señora Soledad can make any of the dishes that give this southern Mexican state a place among the world's great cuisines -- tamales, pozole, chiles rellenos, estofado, and the chili-rich sauces that have earned Oaxaca the name "Land of the Seven Moles." But her specialty is the granddaddy of them all, a smoky-sweet chili-chocolate sauce the color of compost on a redwood forest floor: mole negro.
Amidst stacks of dishes and the dozens of ingredients that make up the russet-red dish, Soledad bustles around her blue-tiled kitchen with the certainty of a master carpenter finishing a cabinet. She is 71, a grandmother of eight, and only as tall as my shoulder. I found her by chance and Google, on the One Fork, One Spoon blog. I had to email blogger Grace Meng for her phone number.
Through twists of fate she later spent two decades teaching her craft to foreign travelers and chefs at the language school Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca. Now retired, at her family's insistence, she offers private lessons in her home -- perched on a steep hillside overlooking the capital city -- to those travelers who can find her.
To reach Soledad's house, you call her to set a date and time (no later than 9 a.m. if you're making mole negro, an all-day affair), and she meets you on the steps of the cathedral in the zócalo, Oaxaca city's main square. You ride a rattling bus with her to the western outskirts of town and steeply up; Soledad and her husband, daughter, and granddaughter live on the slopes below Monte Albán, the hilltop ruins where the ancient Zapotecs worshipped their gods and sacrificed their enemies more than 1,000 years ago.
The lesson begins with perhaps the most perfect cup of hot chocolate ever brewed, dark and nutty and not too sweet. Every Oaxacan homemaker worth her salt has her own recipe, a precise combination of roasted cacao beans, sugar, almonds, and cinnamon. Soledad will tell you hers.
She spreads the mole negro ingredients out on the glass table: four kinds of dried chilies, raisins, almonds, onion, ginger, garlic, tomatillo, tomato, plantains, marjoram, thyme, oregano, chocolate, and more. Her recipe includes elements so precise that they can't even be measured in teaspoons: seven whole peppercorns, two hierbasanta leaves, and six cloves. "I am a traditional cook who learned, not in a school, but in the school of life, with very good cooks as teachers," she says.
Oaxacans traditionally serve this centuries-old dish on special occasions, especially Día de los Muertos, the November day when tradition holds that the spirits of dead loved ones return to visit the living. Soledad herself made mole negro for 80 guests at her own wedding celebration.
The preparation starts with boiling chicken for broth. You sauté the vegetables and toast the herbs. You fry bread and plantains to give the sauce substance.
The treatment of the chilies is key. Chilies are mole's identity, and what makes the dish essentially Oaxacan. The land here produces the peppers in copious quantities, and the mountainous, coastal state has so many microclimates that certain species grow only in a single town. Mole negro gets its smoky flavor from the squat, brown chilhuacle.
As a child, Soledad learned to make a simpler mole, without pricey chilhuacles, which her family couldn't afford. The humbler version was tasty, she says, but the special chilies make it "more complex."
To prepare the chilies, you must vein, seed, and toast them to an absolute crisp, without burning. Soledad does most of the work, but she finds ways to make her students feel involved -- chopping tomatoes, seeding chilies, counting almonds. "¡Muévelo!" she'll call out, as she momentarily leaves the stove to rustle up another ingredient. "Stir it!"
Soledad represents the true lineage of Oaxacan cuisine, the way it existed for centuries before there were Spanish conquistadors or celebrity chefs or Fodor's-rated restaurants in the tourist zone. The dishes were traditions passed down from woman to girl, generation to generation, in country kitchens equipped with grinding stones and wood fires.
Story continues below
In fact, if there are more than about three students in her class, Soledad moves the lesson to her more spacious outdoor kitchen, which is outfitted with just such tools. In the shade under a metal roof, she works on a wide griddle called a comal and a metate, or grinding stone (hers is a flat rock that her father reputedly fished out of a river and carved for her mother). Flowering vines climb the nearby garden walls, and a breeze drifts through.
"Our ancestors didn't have gas," she says while stirring a giant pot with a hand-carved wooden spoon. "It gives a touch more flavor. All the modern things take away some authenticity."
Soledad is at once disarmingly warm and decisive, cheerful and firm in her opinions. She admonishes you that everything in life must be done "con mucho amor," and she credits God for all good things.
"For me, in every student I have, it is like planting a seed in the Earth," she says. "That seed will grow and give fruit. In 20 years you will still be doing what we're doing, and you're going to teach it to others. For me it's something very big," because as busy, modern people increasingly buy their salsas and mole pastes at the store, "Mexican cuisine is dying."
Speaking Spanish is not necessary for taking Soledad's classes -- she knows all the necessary English words for cooking tools and ingredients -- but if you go with a Spanish speaker who can translate you'll also receive some unsolicited words of wisdom on cooking and life.
"One has to always have very clean hands, because we use them a lot," she says, scraping chili paste from a bucket with her bare fingers. A short while later, she counsels me, a journalist: "You have to have passion for what you do, in journalism or in cooking. If you have passion for cooking, the food comes out tastier. If you cook out of obligation, it doesn't come out the same." Soledad utters these teachings as if they were unassailable truths of nature: Fruit grows on trees, and wooden cooking utensils preserve the food's flavor.
She leads you through the seven-hour process of making mole negro with not a hint of hurry. The dramatic peak -- a flash of extreme cooking in this otherwise tranquil kitchen -- comes when you toast two tablespoons of chili seeds. The seeds house the peppers' heat, like little packets of gunpowder, and toasting them vaporizes all that picante power into the air. Even Soledad, the veteran, runs for the door and doubles over on the patio, coughing.
Once the ingredients are all properly fried or toasted, you blend them together. Soledad once did this by hand, on ametate. Now everything goes in her Osterizer blender, and she admits she has her eye on a fancier one (that particular trapping of modernity, it seems, is OK).
The cooking journey could be its own reward. But happily, at the end, you eat.
A good mole should be a true blend of flavors, Soledad says, with no single ingredient that dominates the others. Each Oaxacan mother and grandmother has her own formulation. Soledad's is not too sweet. She cautions, "If you overdo the flavor, that will be fatal."
Our labors concluded, Soledad pours the thick sauce over pieces of chicken, and she and I sit down together to taste our creation. Far from her early years of slaving away in wealthier people's kitchens, she now claims her deserved seat at the table, too.
We start with a toast of locally-distilled mescal, Oaxaca's fiery cousin to tequila, and then dig in. The smokiness of the chilies and the sweetness of the chocolate blend in intoxicating harmony. The complexity of the flavor commands you to set all distractions aside, to think of nothing else but the kaleidoscope in your mouth. I'm sure the tomatoes, tomatillos, oregano, and almonds are in there, but I can't distinguish them in this delicious mix -- success.
Soledad is satisfied. When she teaches someone to cook, "I'm transmitting to the student a part of what's ours, a little piece of Oaxaca," she says. "I am giving them the best of me."
Grace Rubenstein
You won't find Soledad Ramírez Heras in any travel guidebook. She doesn't have a website, a business name, or even an email address. And the fact that this gem of Oaxacan gastronomy is a semi-secret only makes her private cooking classes more appealing.Señora Soledad can make any of the dishes that give this southern Mexican state a place among the world's great cuisines -- tamales, pozole, chiles rellenos, estofado, and the chili-rich sauces that have earned Oaxaca the name "Land of the Seven Moles." But her specialty is the granddaddy of them all, a smoky-sweet chili-chocolate sauce the color of compost on a redwood forest floor: mole negro.
Amidst stacks of dishes and the dozens of ingredients that make up the russet-red dish, Soledad bustles around her blue-tiled kitchen with the certainty of a master carpenter finishing a cabinet. She is 71, a grandmother of eight, and only as tall as my shoulder. I found her by chance and Google, on the One Fork, One Spoon blog. I had to email blogger Grace Meng for her phone number.
Soledad represents the true lineage of Oaxacan cuisine, the way it existed for centuries before there were Spanish conquistadors or celebrity chefs or Fodor's-rated restaurants in the tourist zone.Soledad started cooking at age nine in Ejutla de Crespo, her remote hometown in the mountains south of Oaxaca city, as a job to help her widowed mother support the family. As an adult she managed to run her own small restaurant for several years in the city center, which she loved, until her husband insisted she stay home with the children.
Through twists of fate she later spent two decades teaching her craft to foreign travelers and chefs at the language school Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca. Now retired, at her family's insistence, she offers private lessons in her home -- perched on a steep hillside overlooking the capital city -- to those travelers who can find her.
To reach Soledad's house, you call her to set a date and time (no later than 9 a.m. if you're making mole negro, an all-day affair), and she meets you on the steps of the cathedral in the zócalo, Oaxaca city's main square. You ride a rattling bus with her to the western outskirts of town and steeply up; Soledad and her husband, daughter, and granddaughter live on the slopes below Monte Albán, the hilltop ruins where the ancient Zapotecs worshipped their gods and sacrificed their enemies more than 1,000 years ago.
The lesson begins with perhaps the most perfect cup of hot chocolate ever brewed, dark and nutty and not too sweet. Every Oaxacan homemaker worth her salt has her own recipe, a precise combination of roasted cacao beans, sugar, almonds, and cinnamon. Soledad will tell you hers.
She spreads the mole negro ingredients out on the glass table: four kinds of dried chilies, raisins, almonds, onion, ginger, garlic, tomatillo, tomato, plantains, marjoram, thyme, oregano, chocolate, and more. Her recipe includes elements so precise that they can't even be measured in teaspoons: seven whole peppercorns, two hierbasanta leaves, and six cloves. "I am a traditional cook who learned, not in a school, but in the school of life, with very good cooks as teachers," she says.
Oaxacans traditionally serve this centuries-old dish on special occasions, especially Día de los Muertos, the November day when tradition holds that the spirits of dead loved ones return to visit the living. Soledad herself made mole negro for 80 guests at her own wedding celebration.
The preparation starts with boiling chicken for broth. You sauté the vegetables and toast the herbs. You fry bread and plantains to give the sauce substance.
The treatment of the chilies is key. Chilies are mole's identity, and what makes the dish essentially Oaxacan. The land here produces the peppers in copious quantities, and the mountainous, coastal state has so many microclimates that certain species grow only in a single town. Mole negro gets its smoky flavor from the squat, brown chilhuacle.
As a child, Soledad learned to make a simpler mole, without pricey chilhuacles, which her family couldn't afford. The humbler version was tasty, she says, but the special chilies make it "more complex."
To prepare the chilies, you must vein, seed, and toast them to an absolute crisp, without burning. Soledad does most of the work, but she finds ways to make her students feel involved -- chopping tomatoes, seeding chilies, counting almonds. "¡Muévelo!" she'll call out, as she momentarily leaves the stove to rustle up another ingredient. "Stir it!"
Soledad represents the true lineage of Oaxacan cuisine, the way it existed for centuries before there were Spanish conquistadors or celebrity chefs or Fodor's-rated restaurants in the tourist zone. The dishes were traditions passed down from woman to girl, generation to generation, in country kitchens equipped with grinding stones and wood fires.
Story continues below
"Our ancestors didn't have gas," she says while stirring a giant pot with a hand-carved wooden spoon. "It gives a touch more flavor. All the modern things take away some authenticity."
Soledad is at once disarmingly warm and decisive, cheerful and firm in her opinions. She admonishes you that everything in life must be done "con mucho amor," and she credits God for all good things.
"For me, in every student I have, it is like planting a seed in the Earth," she says. "That seed will grow and give fruit. In 20 years you will still be doing what we're doing, and you're going to teach it to others. For me it's something very big," because as busy, modern people increasingly buy their salsas and mole pastes at the store, "Mexican cuisine is dying."
Speaking Spanish is not necessary for taking Soledad's classes -- she knows all the necessary English words for cooking tools and ingredients -- but if you go with a Spanish speaker who can translate you'll also receive some unsolicited words of wisdom on cooking and life.
"One has to always have very clean hands, because we use them a lot," she says, scraping chili paste from a bucket with her bare fingers. A short while later, she counsels me, a journalist: "You have to have passion for what you do, in journalism or in cooking. If you have passion for cooking, the food comes out tastier. If you cook out of obligation, it doesn't come out the same." Soledad utters these teachings as if they were unassailable truths of nature: Fruit grows on trees, and wooden cooking utensils preserve the food's flavor.
She leads you through the seven-hour process of making mole negro with not a hint of hurry. The dramatic peak -- a flash of extreme cooking in this otherwise tranquil kitchen -- comes when you toast two tablespoons of chili seeds. The seeds house the peppers' heat, like little packets of gunpowder, and toasting them vaporizes all that picante power into the air. Even Soledad, the veteran, runs for the door and doubles over on the patio, coughing.
THE DETAILS
- To schedule a class with Soledad, have a Spanish speaker call her at (+52) 951-512-2162 or email one of her children: Oscar Javier Martinez at oxama@hotmail.com, or Yolanda Patricia Martinez atyolamtzcobao@hotmail.com.
Soledad charges 500 pesos (about $40) per person, or 400 pesos each in a group of three or more. A student several years ago typed her most popular recipes into a booklet, which Soledad sells for 70 pesos -- surely the best cookbook bargain you can buy.
The cooking journey could be its own reward. But happily, at the end, you eat.
A good mole should be a true blend of flavors, Soledad says, with no single ingredient that dominates the others. Each Oaxacan mother and grandmother has her own formulation. Soledad's is not too sweet. She cautions, "If you overdo the flavor, that will be fatal."
Our labors concluded, Soledad pours the thick sauce over pieces of chicken, and she and I sit down together to taste our creation. Far from her early years of slaving away in wealthier people's kitchens, she now claims her deserved seat at the table, too.
We start with a toast of locally-distilled mescal, Oaxaca's fiery cousin to tequila, and then dig in. The smokiness of the chilies and the sweetness of the chocolate blend in intoxicating harmony. The complexity of the flavor commands you to set all distractions aside, to think of nothing else but the kaleidoscope in your mouth. I'm sure the tomatoes, tomatillos, oregano, and almonds are in there, but I can't distinguish them in this delicious mix -- success.
Soledad is satisfied. When she teaches someone to cook, "I'm transmitting to the student a part of what's ours, a little piece of Oaxaca," she says. "I am giving them the best of me."
HUATULCO AND HOME….. Posted on March 27, 2012
HUATULCO AND HOME…..
Back in Huatulco we had a few days to watch for weather windows and prepare for the next step, crossing the Tehuantepec to Chiapas on our way to El Salvador. We looked after Boat Dog Rosie for Jean-Guy and Fran(Gosling) while they did a bit of traveling with Ken and Carol(Nauti Moments). During this period, Janet was experiencing some difficulty with digestion and swallowing. After a particularly bad bout, Marguerita phoned her friend Miquel, a general surgeon and he suggested an appointment that same day at 5:30. After checking me out, he thought an endoscopy was in order and got an appointment for Friday morning. It became pretty obvious to all, including Bill who was watching the screen that there was a problem. I had a good sized growth.
It was full speed ahead to get Optical Illusion “put to bed” and get flight tickets home for Monday morning. Steve and Linda helped as much as they could along with Marguerita and Goya. J.G. and Fran and Carol and Ken pitched in as well upon their return.
We had a major issue at the airport and Marguerita and Goyo were getting nowhere with the agents. We needed a soft carrier for Alaska Airlines and Interjet would not let Amber travel without a hard carrier because she had to go cargo! We did not have one, noone had mentioned it to us and in our haste we never gave it a thought. Amber would have to stay since we had no time to get another carrier. Bill would not let me go home alone so we were at a stale-mate and running out of time. Out of nowhere a man appeared and asked us if we were the people with the “cat problem” He had a carrier in the back of his pick up and had been forgetting to take it into the house for 3 months. We could have it! He would not take any money for it and insisted that it was ours to take.
We want to thank this guardian angel for helping us out because we had completely run out of options! Marguerita and Goyo would have kept Amber because they love her, but it would have made their travels considerably more complicated. We gave him our card but got no information from him.
Eighteen hours later with a 5 hour stop over in Mexico City we arrived at YVR. We had a few problems along the way getting Amber through all the security but we did manage. At YVR we were sent to Agriculture and delayed there for quite a while just going through the procedures. They charged us $33.60 to process her. At 1:30 a.m. there were a lot of agents hanging around doing nothing but making jokes. “Don’t let the cat out of the bag, John” was the most common. We were not impressed and Fran was about to give up on us and head home thinking we had missed the plane!
However, we made it home and Amber was as good as a cat can be. She got to ride with us in the cabin on the last 2 legs and was very good!
Thanks to our “on ground crew” in Vancouver including friends Ann and Dick,Dr. John Todd and Dr. Dave Revitt we had an appointment with Dr.Lim our GP, had blood work and saw Dr Ashrafi the Thoracic specialist all on our first day home. Since then we had had many tests and are now awaiting results. It is malignant but we need the CT and PET scan results to decide on the plan of action. A week or so from now we will know what the future has in store. So, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. That’s it folks!
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