Mixed Messages

All over the city now, there's a public service campaign to promote reading. Leer means to read. I'm not sure it was the wisest decision to flip the E like that. It's confusing.

-PJ

bathroom

Laundry Day

Crepas de Kimchi

Kimchi crepe stuffed with lentils and brown rice with poblano chiles, onions, and crema.

I've gotten plenty of practice making crepes at the restaurant because there's a cake of thirty stacked crepes we serve called "Mil Crepas". When I went to make some kimchi pancakes one morning, I decided to make them thin and stuff them with something. I put lentils and brown rice together in a pot to cook with a chile morita, bay leaves, and cumin seed.
The crepe batter was one egg, a handful of kimchi chopped small, a little flour, salt, crema and water. The consistency needed to be thin like milk so it could spread as much as possible when it hit the pan. When the crepes and the rice-lentils were done, I sauteed some julienned poblanos and onions in the crepe pan. Some of these went inside the crepe, others were strewn on top along with crema, cilantro, and parsley.

I swear it wasn't until I was rolling the crepes around the rice and beans that I realized I was also making a burrito. Burritos aren't really a part of the local food here, but the additional nod to mexico in this korean-french-mexican brunch made it more interesting for me.

-Kenny

wrought

Bacalao

I smuggled some dried salt cod (bacalao) into the US to make a traditional Mexican Christmas dish for my family. The fish is re-hydrated and cooked in a spicy tomato sauce with olives. What's so interesting about this dish is how many countries are involved in its creation. The fish is from Scandinavia, the flavors are Portuguese, and the tradition is Mexican.

-Kenny

Epiphany

On our holiday trip to the eastern seaboard, everyone kept asking the same question: What's it like living in Mexico City? It was hard to answer without sounding like I was exaggerating or lying. I just rambled on, "Well, sometimes it feels like you're in Europe. There's this church that was built in the 1500s and it's sinking -it's also an art museum showing anti-christian sculptures made out of action figures- and these kids outside were spraying shaving cream all over each other and there was a giant inflatable condom on the main square with Indians dancing all around in feathered head-dresses whacking people with basil..." This is all true (and surprisingly normal at this point), but squeezing all I had to share through my mouth was just too difficult. So please visit us.

We came back home to the DF this past Thursday in the afternoon. What luck. It also happened to be the 6th of January when Mexicans celebrate Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, the last hurrah of the Christmas season. Before unpacking our bags, Kenny and I hopped on the metro and headed for the carnival downtown. The experience was a concentrated slap in the face of everything we love about living here. We only wish we had some friends with us to share it with!


The rides were so close together, practically touching.



Yes, small children in large beach balls on water.

One potato, one potato chip.

Smells good.

Merry Christmas



Get a picture with The Three Kings and your favorite cartoon characters.



A classic Tilt-A-Whirl blasting dance beats with guys jumping up on your seat to whip you around even faster. Our friend Daniel Hernandez wrote about this.

We finished the night at our favorite cantina, drinking beers and listening to these guys sing the hits. Ahhh...