Recipes & Reflections on Latino Food & Culture
Adriana Legaspi is dedicating her life to the preservation of Mexican culture and identity by promoting the importance of traditional ingredients and dishes. She runs the Gastrotour of Malinalco which offers participants hands-on cooking classes and tours of the market in Malinalco to buy organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs. What follows is the second part of our interview with Adriana Legaspi. … [Read more...]
April memories of Laredo are of citrus trees, the creamy colored azahar (orange blossom) opening to the sun with the promise of glossy ripening oranges in the fall. How fickle I was back then when I took for granted the proliferation of orange, grapefruit, tangerine and lime trees our father planted around the house. Is it any wonder that today I am so partial to food with a hint of orange or lime zest? How could I have known then that I would spend the next 35 years in a place where these trees do not thrive? This has not, however, stopped me from trying to grow them in pots in my sun room. Three years ago, I was in San Miguel de Allende at the home of a friend, eating oranges and limes from her trees. I stashed some of the seeds in my jacket, intending to dispose of them only to find them in my pocket months later after I'd returned home. On a whim, I planted them. And low … [Read more...]
Living in the Nation’s Capital has its perks. Among them, the springtime. A variegated season whose spectrum of color is highlighted for a few weeks by cherry blossoms that sprout across reaching branches and then blanket entire neighborhoods in cupcake pink as the blossoms flutter to the ground. There is also the magnificence of the historic monuments scattered around the city. Especially notable at night is the Washington Monument, a chalky-white obelisk rising to the heavens to pierce a midnight-blue sky. But, as the seat of American government, Washington can be a formidable place to live and work. Lobbyists work lengthy hours when Congress is in session and working parents remain “plugged in” while they read nighttime stories to their kids. During rush hour the collective mood on the Metro can be dour, as worker bees make their way to windowless offices in … [Read more...]
I would like to know who that first human being was who saw a washed up calamari on a beach and decided to eat it. Was she shipwrecked and starved or simply torn between the squid and the horseshoe crab? Or which bipedal primate thought to himself “Hmmm, perhaps I’ll throw down some grubs for dinner this evening.” Exactly how many people had to die before rational man figured out that too much Hemlock or Hyacinth is not a good thing? Just how long did it take for hungry people everywhere to refrain from heedlessly munching on Daffodil bulbs or ingesting pretty plants with innocuous monikers like Holly and Ivy? Well, we may never know. What we do know for certain is that eating too much and exercising too little is not good for us. Yet, as a society, we have ignored the dangers. In the last several decades, overweight and obesity rates have tripled in the United … [Read more...]
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