Things Are Cookin'

Good morning from Oaxaca, on my last day here! I am in where I began in Cafe Los Cuiles, my favorite cafe here in the city. My mom left very early this morning and then I packed and got ready to spend my last day wandering around the city. There are couple museums that I didn't get to yet and so now I plan to check them out today. I also want to take some last photos of this beautiful city.



So yesterday, with my stomach on the mend, my mom and I took a cooking class. I found this class online, and we made our reservation a couple days ago, although we had to change it when I got sick. We arrived at Casa Crespo, a bed and breakfast a few blocks away, and met our host and teacher, Oscar. We sat down with him in his lovely home and we began by talking about the menu (which we really appreciated due to our questionable stomachs). We talked about the different options and also discussed choices that would be feasible for us to reproduce when we got home. Once we decided, Oscar collected his market bags and off we followed him to the mercado, about 5 blocks away. Once there, he knew exactly which stands to go to, to get each item for our meal that we planned (meal, not dish... we made a TON of food).

Once back at his house, we went to his kitchen and met Jose-Luis, he "business" parter/head chef/man-candy (my own classification for him). Too bad I forgot to take any pictures of him... Also in the kitchen was an assistant (I didn't get her name unfortunately), but she served as a sous chef, dishwasher and general helper with everything. It was great having her to help us! We started out by working on making some salsas, a green tomatillo, and a regular tomato salsa, that mom ground in a stone, and he also showed us how to make tortillas from the masa that we bought at the market. Later we had a mid morning snack with the tortillas and salsas by making some quesadillas with pumpkin flowers and oaxacan cheese (quesillo). Mom even ate one with chapulines (grasshoppers). GO MOM!!! It tastes like chicken.... (actually just tastes like a salty condiment. No big flavor). I explained to Oscar how strange it was to us because in America we don't eat bugs... generally we try to keep them "out" of our food. Still, the Oaxacan people consider them a staple of protein and eat them often.

Later in the class we worked on a delicious pumpkin flower soup, with poblano chilis, sweet corn, onions and garlic in a chicken broth base.... DELISH!!!! My favorite thing of the day. I MUST find a way to get pumpkin flowers in the states so I can recreate this dish. Might have to start a garden...

Then we began to work on the mole sauce for the day that was a non-traditional, not one of the 7 real moles, but interesting... with an almond base. We roasted almonds, peppers, tomatoes, spices, some bread and a few other things I can't remember, and then put them in the blender. That would go on top of the chicken we were cooking also. For dessert, we made some sorbet out of a berry called "nanche" (Oscar used an ice cream maker for that), and we also made the most amazing chocolate dish with crepes... that I made (my first attempt and flipping a crepe). This dessert had a chocolate sauce made from homemade chocolate (that Oscar made himself) and then we shaved it into powder, and cooking it in a double boiler with milk, cooked some plaintains with sugar and cinnamon and then folded it all up together into an enchilada-style pile of goodness! I only at a little bit of it but it was MAGNIFICENT! Here's a pic of what it looked like... And can you believe this whole meal was Weight Watchers???? NOT!!! I didn't eat too much, and actually didn't finish one of the dishes, but rather had a taste of each one. Wow, after 3 days of not really eating much and being sick, this was a fabulous meal and it was not too heavy. While we ate with Oscar and Jose-Luis we talked about their plans for their B & B which is also a restaurant at night, and how Jose-Luis plans to cook amazing food, using local ingredients in completely different ways. He spent a lot of time in Los Angeles and actually went to Santa Monica High School for a while, so we talked about that some. Oscar is working on a cook book now of his Oaxacan recipes and also manages www.go-oaxaca.com. Super interesting guys and a great experience!! My and I both concurred on a day well spent.

The rest of the day was spent doing some last minute shopping, having a farewell dinner with Susan, and then getting packed up. A perfect end to a nearly perfect vacation (minus the Saturday night fever).

COME TO OAXACA!!!! YOU WILL LOVE IT HERE!!!