Fava Bean Soup

After a week's worth of splendid weather in San Miguel de Allende and festivities with family and friends leading up to Easter Sunday, getting back to the classroom has been, frankly, difficult. I love my job as a teacher and always delight in seeing my students after a long break. But I'm also thinking of my trip over Spring Break, the recent memories like the sun warming my back.

In San Miguel, the furiously twittering birds entice you out of your bedroom early in the morning. From the rooftop you observe the glory of each morning and consider the day's promises. Time's awastin', mi vida, levántate, the melodious birds also seem to be telling me.

This year, we had a special visitor. An elderly aunt who took a nine hour bus ride all the way from Monterrey to be with us. Tía Leyla is our regiomontana (a native of Monterrey, Mexico) Mary Poppins. She has the profound wisdom of her years and the exuberant energy of a 20 year old. She's a powerful storyteller, weaving tales from a remote past, she vividly brings to life the village where my father was born in Mexico. Each morning we made coffee and set the table, taking pleasure in small things, reminiscing, grateful for the opportunity to be together for what was left of our vacation.

Tía Leyla is the kind of person who makes you believe things will be alright; she calls everyone hijo or hija, even the cabdrivers. She has a wise nugget of wisdom for every occasion. She writes poetry (and recites it!). She is kind, intelligent, and a devoted Catholic. If you suspected that she is perhaps is little overzealous in her religious devotion, you would see her differently after a few days in her company. She doesn't preach, she practices and does so quietly. You will never hear a cross word or complaint coming from her.

So, if I bring you these Lenten specialities after Easter, you will forgive me because I did 'seize the moment' by spending this quality time with my aunt.

Let's start first with fava bean soup. Fava bean soup is something eaten in Mexico especially during the period of Lent and it's something we ate often this past week. My aunt and I prepared it with fava beans we bought at the Tianguis outside of San Miguel. There is a buttery, creamy texture to this bean soup that makes it very special.  You will find it very easy to make with the dry fava beans you find at the grocery store here. You can even make it with canned fava beans, but you will get a creamier texture if you make them yourself.

Fava Bean Soup

Recipe Type: soup

Cuisine: Mexican

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 3 hours

Total time: 3 hours 15 mins

Serves: 6

It is magic to watch these homely looking dried beans become this velvety, elegant soup. If you can make your own chicken broth for this, it's better, if not, use commercial broth. If you can make your own beans, it's also better, if not, use canned beans. But just try this soup, it's delicious!

Ingredients:

• 5 cups dry fava beans
• 3 roma tomatoes, chopped finely
• 1 medium sized onion, chopped finley
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• olive oil to cook tomatoes, onion, and garlic
• 3 cups chicken broth
• salt to taste
• cilantro for garnish

Instructions:

1. Soak the fava beans overnight.


2. Place them in a pot and cover them completely with fresh water.


3. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat, cooking them for about 2 hours.


4. Add the chicken soup; it should be a soupy, lumpy, creamy texture.


5. Separately, cook the onion slowly until it is almost transparent.


6. Add the tomatoes, and garlic and cook this mixture covered until it is practically dissolved.


7. When it is completely cooked, add this mixture to the pot of beans.


8. Cook for another 20 minutes, adjust for salt.


9. Serve in bowls as a first course, or in ramekins, as an appetizer, garnished with cilantro.

3.2.1230

La Madrina's Salsa Recipes

At last Thursday's cooking class at Casa Carmen in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I taught students how to make three salsas: basic, well-known, can't-do-without salsas. I decided on pico de gallo, salsa verde, (and its variation with avocado), and a dried chile salsa made with chile guajillo and chile cascabel. After all, what is basic to me may be exotic to others.

In my childhood home in Laredo, fresh salsas were as common at the table as the salt and pepper. It was my job to make the salsa while my mother prepared breakfast. I remarked to my students about the ease of making these salsas, and how unnecessary it is to buy a commercial sauce, not to mention the fact that it's a totally different thing, with all kinds of additives, sometimes including corn syrup. (¡Dios mío!)

Mercado Ignacio Ramirez

Mexican food markets are an assault on the senses with their glorious colors, sounds and smells. As part of the class, I took the students to the Ignacio Ramirez market.  We arrived just when a truckload of camomille was being unloaded. The scent overwhelmed us. My friend and neighbor, Canadian travel writer, Anne Dimon, of www.traveltowellness.com was on hand to photograph the scene.

Photo by Anne Dimon

Inside, there were the homemade cheeses: requesón, ranchero, panela, and queso de Oaxaca. There were the women with the nopales (cactus), the blue tortillas, the regular tortillas, fresh eggs, fried empanaditas made with piloncillo, candied chilacayote, three types of dried beans, herbs,  the place where you buy all grains and special spices, and an endless array of strange and unusual ingredients. It's a Pandora's box opening up a world that is unknown and undiscovered by many who travel to markets such as this. I am still trying to get a better understanding of the medicinal herbs sold there. Remarkably, for all the tourism this town has endured, it has retained its own authentic flavor.

We took it all in and headed back to Casa Carmen for class.

Back in the kitchen, my students laughed when I referred to the molcajete as the pre-columbian food processor while they took turns grinding on it. In fact, the molcajete connects us to the indigenous people of the Americas and to the method they used to prepare foods. It fascinates me to think about this three legged pumice bowl and how long people have used it as a cooking tool. Finally, we took turns tasting our finished product. Yikes! Are chilies spicier in Mexico?

My thanks to Cynthia Kulander, owner of Casa Carmen for inviting me to teach this class.

La Madrina's Salsa Recipes

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Recipe Type: Salsa

Author: Gilda V. Carbonaro

Ingredients

• Pico de Gallo


• 1 large tomato


• 1 small white or red onion


• 1 serrano chile


• ½ cup chopped cilantro


• Salt to taste


• Salsa verde


• 1/2 lb. tomatillos (about 4 green ‘tomatoes’ in their husks)


• 1 Serrano pepper (or more if you prefer)


• 1/2 to 1 clove of garlic


• Bunch of cilantro leaves (about 1/2 cup)


• 1/4 of a mid-sized onion


• Dried Guajillo/Cascabel Sauce


• 3 or 4 combination of chile guajillo and/or cascabel (these are dry chilis)


• 3 or 5 midsized tomatillos


• ½ garlic


• Salt to taste


• Salsa de Molcajete


• 2 cloves peeled garlic


• 1/2 white onion


• 1 extra large tomato


• 1/4 teaspoon seasalt


• 1/4 cup cilantro


• juice from one lime


• 1 serrano pepper (or you can subsitute a jalapeño)

Instructions

Pico de Gallo

1. Mince everything and mix.


2. Serve on grilled meats, or even on your scrambled eggs.

Salsa Verde

1. Brown the tomatillos on a ‘comal’, a stove top griddle, for about 10 minutes until you see black patches on all sides.


2. Remove most of the black peel.


3. Throw the tomatillo and the rest of the ingredients, which are raw, into the blender and liquify.


4. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro.


5. Note: A variation of this sauce is to add about half of a ripe, mashed avocado.

Dried Guajillo/Cascabel Sauce

1. Toast the chilis and tomatillo on a comal for about 15 minutes.


2. Throw in a blender and liquefy.


3. Serve in a salsa bowl.

Salsa de Molcajete

1. Dry roast the garlic, onion, serrano pepper, and tomato on a comal for about 5 minutes until they are slightly charred.


2. Peel the tomato.


3. In the molcajete grind the garlic, serrano pepper, onion (chopped fine) and cilantro with the sea salt.


4. Empty the contents of the molcajete into another bowl to make room to grind the tomato.


5. Mix everthing together again in the molcajete, squeeze the lime juice and fix for salt.


6. Notes: This makes a chunky sauce with intense flavors. You can add or diminish any of the ingredients according to your taste.


7. Grinding roasted tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and onion in a mortar, gives them a complexity of flavor you wouldn’t otherwise get.

Happiness is a Wild Avocado

I've packed a set of handpainted cups from San Gimignano, a weathered cutting board, two old cork screws, a pair of mismatched dishtowels and assorted kitchen knick knacks no one wanted when my two sisters and I divided our mother's things after she passed away. My husband has packed his own treasures: his Pavoni coffee machine, his pizza peel and, of course, some basic tools. We've packed our hearts in these bags.

I'm on the plane looking down below at Mexico's majestic mountains, at a land where we will eventually live.  Squinting down at the winding roads below, I wonder how many times my family has been back and forth across this forsaken land, led by whatever heart wrenching forces drove them to first leave from north of the Rio Grande to travel south, then from south to north and now, in my case, from north to south once again. The spirits of the women in my family who preceded me, surely must be waiting with a welcoming rebozo in hand to drape around my shoulders for the chilly mountain nights I will encounter. “Hija, por fin has regresado” they'll whisper to me.

I long to take in the vibrant colors and smells, the riotous noise of the perennial fiesta, the lament of the ubiquitous mariachi, and most of all, a quintessential feeling of belonging. A part of me wants to hold on to what I leave behind, but the pull is strong to look forward and not back. For now, my adrenaline is pumping, thinking about the friends I will visit, the trips to the market I will make, the food I will prepare, and the restaurants I will try in San Miguel de Allende, the place I will someday call home.

I arrive and one of the first things I find are glossy-black, wild avocados.  My aunt Gloria used to call them aguacates criollos. They have a thin, aromatic peel that can be eaten along with the creamy green meat. The peel tastes somewhat like Thai basil.

What to make?  Wild avocado tacos.

Buy only the smooth black ripe ones. Slice them in long thin slices. Arrange them in warm corn tortillas and top them with fresh cilantro, salt, and finely chopped onion. Squeeze lime juice and sprinkle with salt. Go up to the rooftop with a cold beer and take in the view of the glittering night sky or devote your gaze to the glow of the Parroquia below. And make a wish.

Note: If you don't have access to wild avocados, use ordinary avocados. (But don't eat the peel, for heaven's sake!)

Tacos de Huitlacoche

This past Columbus Day (also known as Día de la Raza in Latin America and Indigeneous People's Day in the United States) weekend I was back in San Miguel de Allende visiting friends and taking advantage of the long weekend. The weather was delicious with nightly rains quenching the hillsides and leaving the cobblestones glistening in the morning sun. The rains are also responsible for the abundance of huitlacoche, a corn fungus that Mexicans consider a delicacy.

In Mexico, huitlacoche enjoys the same culinary standing as truffles do in Europe, though it doesn't grow underground and isn't as costly.  The high regard for huitlacohe is an ancient sentiment.  The Aztecs revered all forms of maize, especially huitlacoche, a Nahuatl word some linguists decipher as meaning "ravens' excrement."  It is true that huitlacoche is not exactly pretty; the deformed, irridescent, and spongy kernels are powdered with black spores and look a little like, well, bird droppings.

Fresh huitlacoche is not hard to find in Mexico.  I saw a young woman selling it right on the cobb but often I buy it from Josefina, my elderly friend from the sierra, who removes it from the cobb and sells it packaged in baggies.

Huitlacoche's taste is difficult to describe; the flavor is not quite like porcini or truffles, but there is some similarity.  Fresh is better though difficult to find in the United States.  Canned huitlacoche is more readily available, which requires a longer cook time to dry out the liquid.

Doña Beatriz

This recipe belongs to Doña Beatriz, a legendary cook from Casa Carmen in San Miguel de Allende.  She doesn't put cheese in her tacos but to add cheese, cut thin slices of a soft cheese like queso de Oaxaca or Monterrey Jack and warm it on a corn tortilla, topping the quesadilla with cooked huitlacoche.

Photos of tacos courtesy of Kelly Castellanos-Evans

Doña Beatriz's Tacos de Huitlacoche

Recipe Type: Appetiser

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 2 to 4

Ingredients

• Ingredients:


• 2 1/2 cups of huitlacoche


• 2 roma tomatoes


• 1 small onion


• 1 clove chopped garlic


• 1/2 cup canola oil (approximately)


• Fresh cilantro


• Salt to taste


• Corn tortillas

Instructions

1. Clean the huitlacoche by removing the tiny stems or feet (la patita) from where it is attached to the cobb (these have a slightly bitter taste).


2. Cook the onion first until it is soft, then add the roma tomato; cook until it dissolves, then add the huitlacoche.


3. Cook this mixture for about 10 minutes, until it is all softened, add salt to taste.


4. Warm your corn tortillas on both sides on a comal.


5. Place a spoonful of the mixture, garnish with a slice of fresh tomato or a slice of avocado and chopped cilantro and serve with your favorite salsa.

Fideos y Frijoles

Basil sprouting out of the stone next to a wild milkweed plant in Casa Carmen Bed and Breakfast in San Miguel de Allende.

To be in San Miguel is to experience total hospitality, civility, gentlity, and beauty. Whatever this maligned country of Mexico is undergoing, this place is certainly an oasis. I am once again enjoying the warmth of Casa Carmen, the bed and breakfast here in San Miguel de Allende where I bring my students for a Spanish immersion program every summer.

This week, my husband and I are here together, visiting friends and enjoying the many culinary delights the city has to offer.  My husband is an Italian who is passionate and knowledgeable about cooking.   Being married to him these many years, it is no surprise that in this Mexican-Italian marriage there is so much blending of what we both love.  For example, pasta and beans.

In Mexico, it is hard to avoid beans in all their different forms. Here at the market, I always find pale green frijoles peruanos (Peruvian beans) and make a dish that would be welcome on any table in Italy. It is a replication of a dish called pasta e fagioli, an Italian peasant food.  All of the necessary ingredients can be found in Mexico or in the States. Of course, the pasta itself can be any kind of small pasta. This dish is a marriage of cultures and convenience and, I must say, a love match. I'll call it Fideos y Frijoles a la Italiana.

Fideos y Frijoles a la Italiana

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Recipe Type: Soup

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 3 hours

Total time: 3 hours 20 mins

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped pancetta or bacon
• 1 stick celery, minced
• A few celery leaves roughly chopped
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 large carrot, chopped or minced
• 3 tomatoes, chopped finely
• 4 cups (approximately) of white navy beans or cannellini, or pale green Peruvian beans
• 1 cup small pasta or broken spaghetti
• Salt to taste in sauce and in pasta water
• 1 cup basil leaves

Instructions:

Beans

1. Drop them in boiling water and turn down the heat.


2. When the water is at a low simmer, lower the heat and cover the pot with the lid slightly shifted to allow some steam out of the pot.


3. Let them cook at a low temperature for about 3 hours. About midway through the cooking, add a clove of garlic and salt to taste.


4. If you run out of water, add more, but you should only add boiling water. Adding cold water will make the beans hard.


5. The beans should be soupy when they are ready and very soft.

Sauce

1. In a pan, brown the bacon in the olive oil until golden brown.


2. Sauté the celery and carrot in the same pan for a few minutes then add the garlic.


3. Add the tomatoes and continue to sauté for a few minutes, then cover and keep on low heat until all the ingredients are "guisados" (cooked in the oil).


4. Take a small portion (about a cup) of the beans and put them in the blender so that you can thicken the soup in the beans.


5. Put these blended beans back in the pot.


6. Add the bacon, carrot, tomato, etc. sauce and cook for 5 minutes.


7. Put the pasta in boiling, salted water in a small pot and, before it is completely soft, strain it and add it to the beans. Let it cook for another 5 minutes. Don't let the pasta get too mushy.


8. Serve in deep bowls and garnish with sprigs of basil.

Notes

My mother always cooked beans in a clay pot, but any stainless steel pot will do the job. You can shorten cooking time by soaking the beans overnight, throwing out the water the next day and cooking them in fresh water. Also, if you have a high quality extra-virgin olive oil on hand, drizzle a bit on the served plate. You will get the scent of the oil plus the fresh basil as you take your first spoonful.

Como Chiles en Nogada

Chiles en Nogada always remind me of Laura Esquivel's novel, Como Agua Para Chocolate. When I taught students at a private all-girls school in Bethesda, May was the much-awaited month in our Spanish Conversation and Composition class where we would begin to read from the novel and watch the movie. I had watched the movie for all the years I had taught at that girls' school, sitting on the edge of my chair, commiserating with Tita, the heroine.   Each year felt as if it were the first time I watched her transform the cold wind that blew through her heart into a magical ritual surrounding the daily preparation of the family's meals. The thing that struck me in different ways as I watched the movie each year was what the ceremony of shared and lovingly prepared meals means as a spiritual 'glue' in a family.

I chuckle to myself now whenever I remember the impact of the ending on the entire classroom of girls, (yes, including me!).  Our feminine hearts beyond consolation, we would all sob loudly and with complete abandon, aghast at the realization that the happiness we wanted for Tita was a transcendental one.  She and Pedro, the man she had loved for so long but who had been married to her sister, would ignite at the moment of their union and would perish in an explosion of flames, throwing us into further spasms of emotion. Years later, teaching in an all-male equivalent of the girls' school, I decided to show the movie to the adolescent boys in my Honors Spanish class. My notion that men are from Mars and women are from Venus was confirmed! The boys broke out into hysterical laughter at the end of the movie.

In any case, besides the knowledge of Spanish gained from the study of the movie, I hope that my students, both genders, came to understand the role of food and its preparation in the life of a family. Undoubtedly, it is through food that many of the unwritten lessons of a culture are learned. Each year, I take a group of students to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for Spanish immersion. One of my favorite things is to introduce them to chiles en nogada.

Chiles en nogada is a dish originally from the colonial city of Puebla, but here in San Miguel, it is prepared in many restaurants.  Doña Beatriz' chiles at Casa Carmen are the best, in my opinion. Needless to say, there are a million ways to prepare stuffed chiles in Mexico.  Chiles en nogada is an elegant Mexican dish that is as beautiful to look at as it is delicious to eat. This version is adapted to make it slightly easier to prepare. The sauce is made without the walnuts, (no tedious peeling of walnut skins) they are simply added as a garnish. In fact, another variation is that the sauce has cilantro blended into it. It is, nevertheless, quite an elaborate affair, albeit all worth the trouble.

Chiles en Nogada

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Recipe Type: Entree/Plato Fuerte

Author: Gilda V. Carbonaro

Serves: 6

Adapted from Doña Beatriz's recipe at Casa Carmen, San Miguel de Allende

Ingredients

• 8 poblano peppers


• 2 ½ cups crème fraiche or clotted cream and some amount of milk to water it down


• cup parsley, chopped


• 10 sprigs of cilantro with the bottom part of stems twisted off


• 1 lb ground meat


• 2 or three chopped onions


• cups raisins


• Olive oil for the ground meat and for the green sauce


• Fresh pomegranate seeds (if they are available) for garnish


• Walnuts for garnish

Instructions

Chiles

1. Grill the peppers over an open flame and then put them either in a plastic or paper bag to sweat for about 15 minutes.


2. Peel them, slit one side, clean out all the seeds, rinse them well and set them aside. The more thoroughly you clean them, the less chance you will get a really spicy one. You can do this a day ahead of time. To avoid a really 'hot' pepper, rinse them in a mixture of vinegar and water.

Picadillo:

1. Cook the ground meat in about ¼ cup of olive oil for about 15 minutes at medium to high heat, add salt to taste, and pepper.


2. Lower heat and add the parsley, two of the chopped onions and continue cooking for another 15 minutes.


3. Finally, add the raisins and cover, cooking for another 10 or so minutes. This picadillo (pronounced picadiyo) is the stuffing for your chiles.


4. In a 1 quart saucepan cook the other chopped onion in about ¼ cup of olive oil until it is transparent.


5. Then, add ½ cup of the cream and continue to cook for another five minutes.

Sauce

1. In a blender combine the cilantro, roughly chopped so it doesn't break your blender, two of the peeled chiles without their stems and the rest of the cream.


2. Add salt and pepper to taste and blend this green mixture with the cream and onion mixture in your saucepan.


3. Cook for about 10 minutes until it is well-combined.


4. At this point, add the milk to make the sauce more liquid. This will be your sauce that you will pour on your stuffed chiles.


5. Stuff the chiles with your picadillo, then place the chiles in a pan where you will warm them covered for a few minutes so all the flavors meld. They are often served room temperature.


6. Variation: Add ½ chopped fennel bulb to the picadillo around the time you add the onions.

Notes

Chiles lose their fire when they are de-seeded and washed. This can be done a day ahead of time.

Also, for a thicker, greener sauce have extra peeled chiles on hand to add to the blender.

I Heart Mercados

One might assume that growing up in Laredo, Texas gave me the experience and pleasures of the open air farmers' market. In fact, the grocery shopping experience was sterile in Laredo; even H.E.B., that big Texas chain that seems to have every Mexican ingredient you can think of was just a small, sleepy, supermarket back in the day. The forbidden delights of ripe stacked mangos, wild avocados, chirimoyas, guayabas, canteloupe, and watermelon sweltering in the Nuevo Laredo market heat across the river from Laredo, was a temptation to bear stoically. What you could eat on the spot was all you were going to get; naturally, you couldn't take fruits and vegetables across the Rio Grande. But the luscious taste and smell of this fruit in the midst of the clamorous Nuevo Laredo market on a warm summer day with my parents was knowing that all was right in the world.

[caption id="attachment_1106" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="A typical mercado in Mexico"][/caption]

I'm fascinated by markets, in fact, I don't ever want to live too far away from one, as crazy as it may sound. I love the shouting, the bantering, the smells, the colors. I love not knowing what will surprise me and get my attention. I love knowing about the lives of those that grow my food. I'm lucky to live in the Washington, D.C. area, which has excellent access to locally grown food. And I'm especially fortunate that I travel extensively to two other places that have incredible markets: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and Florence, Italy. When I arrive at either of these two places, I drop my bags and head for the market.

[caption id="attachment_1110" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="A mercado in San Miguel de Allende"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1109" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="A mercato in Florence"][/caption]

This week I am in Florence, ogling the spring vegetables that the old familiar farmers bring in from the hillsides of Tuscany here at the Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio. I have known many of these characters for years now and they know me...no matter how dumpy I might look as I head bleary-eyed to the market...I'm “signora bella” to them and I'm worth an extra sprig of basil or parsley thrown into my bag with a friendly smile and advice as to how to prepare my purchases. Today there's wild asparagus, harvested from the hillsides. Tiny round zucchini with flowers still attached. Wild strawberries (fragole di bosco) and baby artichokes. I could go on, but you get the picture. What really catches my eye today is that kind of green bean that is called Italian bean in the U.S. But it's the kind of green bean my mother used to make a dish she called ejotes con carne de puerco.

[caption id="attachment_1111" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Italian green beans"][/caption]

I wanted to buy only a small quantity of the beans but there was no way this was going to happen. In the interest of freshness, some of the farmers here don't like to take the produce back at the end of the day. They would rather practically give it away. So, one of my favorite farmers packed up a two-kilo bag for which he charged me only one euro; he knew it was late and the chances of selling it were dwindling. Not bad. But I'll be eating green beans for a while.

[caption id="attachment_1108" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Farmer at the Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio"][/caption]

So here I am, mixing it all up, keeping alive my memories of my mother and Laredo. Thinking of all the roads taken and not taken, as I quietly stir my ejotes here in Florence.



Ejotes en Carne de Puerco

Ingredients:
2 pork chops cut into small cubes
1 lb. Italian beans chopped ½ inch wide approximately (regular green beans will work too)
4 medium sized ripe tomatoes, chopped
5 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp. freshly ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
corn or canola oil to cover ¼ inch of pan
corn tortillas to accompany this dish

Preparation:
Heat the oil in a pan and add the cubed pork along with the garlic cloves. Cook at medium heat until the meat and the garlic cloves are a golden brown, add the onion and cook for another 10 minutes. Add  the tomatoes and green beans and continue to cook for another 5 minutes, add salt and pepper to taste and the freshly ground cumin. Lower heat and cover, cook until the green beans have softened and the tomato has dissolved.

Note:  For a vegetarian version of this dish, simply leave out the pork.  The cumin gives this meal a fragrance that allows it to stand on its own simply made with vegetables.

Unfortunately, my dinner guest devoured the meal before I had a chance to take a photo of the finished product.  Perhaps this will inspire you to shop at your local farmers' market this weekend and make this recipe!  Let us know!

For the Love of San Miguel de Allende

It would be easy to be selfish and keep the secret of San Miguel de Allende to myself.   But what the heck, Martha Stewart "discovered" it several months ago.  Granted, American GIs started going in droves to this colonial town in central Mexico in the late 40's when Stirling Dickinson, the larger-than-life American expatriate impacted the life of this town forever after.  In 1948, Life Magazine published a three-page spread entitled “GI Paradise: Veterans go to Mexico to study art, live cheaply and have a good time.” This was Stirling Dickinson's legacy.

In the intervening years, this sleepy town—and the cradle of Mexican independence—grew and became flooded with expats from all over the world, especially Americans.  It also became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Unfortunately, in 2009, stories of the spread of swine flu discouraged tourism.  This was compounded by the astounding stories of how large swaths of Mexico have been taken over by drug cartels, reversing the prosperity the town had enjoyed since those heady days of Stirling Dickinson. The irony is that San Miguel is safer than most American towns and life on the main square is lived almost as it was a hundred years ago.

I am a teacher and several years ago,  with the collaboration of colleagues in my school, we created a program for our middle school students in San Miguel. This is how I ended up in a cooking class with Paco Cárdenas Báez, a pastry chef who owns Petit Four.  Paco's class is foodie heaven.  He takes his students to the market to meet the "real" people of San Miguel: women who sell nopales, blue handmade tortillas, huitlacoche, and roasted corn.

He invites his pupils into his home to cook in a kitchen that is al fresco, the chef and his eager protégés bathed in the golden light of San Miguel.

The Aztecs knew what chocolate was about. So does Paco.   Here is his decadent chocolate mousse with tequila for you to enjoy this Dia del Amor, Valentine's Day.

Chocolate Mousse a la Mexicana Recipe by Chef Paco Cárdenas from El Petit Four M.R.

Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
¼ cup tequila reposado (aged)
1 cup fresh mixed berries
Optional: ½ cup bittersweet chocolate for decorative flakes; pour on a granite top and scrape with spatula

Preparation:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the cream to soft peaks.
Pour the tequila on top of the cream and mix well.
Melt the chopped chocolate and pour it on top of the tequila cream.
Whisk together until smooth.

To serve:
Place the mousse in a pastry bag with a striped nozzle and pipe the mousse  (or spoon it) in martini glasses, garnish with fresh mixed berries and dark chocolate flakes.