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Feliz Navidad, My Christmas memories

I think sometimes we forget our roots and we just immerse ourselves in our lives and take everything for granted.

After living in London for more than 9 years now, I think this is the first Christmas when I have really missed the festive season in Mexico.

I wanted to tell you about a few of the things I love about Christmas at home in Mexico.

To start with we have the “posadas” witch means “shelter” that are held in neighbourhoods around Mexico. This celebration recreates Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay in Bethlehem and are held from 16th of December to the 24th of December.

The celebration consists of a procession with candles, sometimes with individuals selected to play the parts of Mary and Joseph, or sometimes images are carried. The procession will make its way to a particular home (a different one each night), where a special song is sung. In this song those outside the house sing the part of Joseph asking for shelter and the family inside responds singing the part of the innkeeper saying that there is no room. The song switches back and forth a few times until finally the innkeeper decides to let them in. The door is opened and everyone goes inside.

Then the hosts give the guests food, usually tamales and a hot drink – like ponche or atole. Then there are piñatas and the children are given candy.

I remember doing this for many years in my grandparents house, we were a big family at that time living all close to each other plus we would have different posadas every day with a different neighbour! A never ending celebration, with so much food and drinks… just imagine how we would end up like for New Year…!

I remember my favourite Christmas were always with my grandparents, we all used to get together on the 24th from lunch time, my grandma would cook for all of us (around 20 of us!), then at night we will go to the church with my granpa, then come back drink some ponche and dance some salsa, I used to hate dancing but now I actually like it. We would then have a feast of my grandma’s cooking romeritos, mole, chicken achiote and spaghetti (Mexican style!). At that point we drank, we ate, we went to the church… but the most exciting part were the presents! We all used to exchange presents and I used to get full of clothes… not very exciting but still very nice. I think my best Christmas was when I got an electric guitar, I never knew how to use it though.

All the family used to stay overnight and Santa would come overnight. So you can imagine all my cousins at 5am waking up everybody showing off our new toys!

People say that good memories stay forever and that these are the treasures of human kind, I hope you enjoy this treasure!

Feliz Navidad y prospero año nuevo.

Julio

Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > Our News

Today in Trafalgar Square, Feeding the 5000

Tommi & Tristram - thrilled with the turnout today despite the cold and snow!

Tommi and I just got back from the freezing conditions and snow in (of all places) Trafalgar Square, where Tommi was giving a cooking demonstration as part of the feed the 5000 event.

Please click here for link to an article in the Daily Mail.

Tommi in action

Tommi handing out some of Wahaca's chilli seeds to those who came along to watch.

It was a great event and an amazing cause – we were so thrilled to be involved. We look forward to doing more on this in the future.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > News > Our News

Feeding the 5000, Trafalgar Square December 16th

Pop by Trafalgar Square on Wednesday 16th December to witness the Feeding of 5000 between 12-2pm for some lunch. Tristram Stuart has organised with a partnership of campaigners, charities and other supporters to serve lunch to 5000 members of the public to highlight the problem of food waste, and the many practical ways to solve it. Wahaca’s Tommi Miers will be doing a live cooking masterclass between 12-2pm to show everyone how to best use their leftovers or food that would otherwise be thrown away.

Rich countries like the UK currently waste up to half of their food supplies therefore all the food handed out on the day to passers-by will be made from fresh and nutritious ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted.

The menu will include a winter-busting curry made from vegetables cast out because they are not cosmetically perfect and freshly-made fruit smoothies, pressed on the day by customised bicycles.

Organised by the author and food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000 will highlight the work of the partner organisations, Save the Children; ActionAid; This is Rubbish; and FareShare.

The organiser Tristram Stuart explains:

“Feeding the 5000 is a wonderful partnership including food companies, farmers and charities. The aim of our lunchtime feast is to highlight how food waste can be avoided by putting food to good use i.e. feeding people.”

A few facts:

There are 4 million people in the UK who are unable to afford a healthy diet. Food is a basic human need.  There is plenty of it in this country and FareShare works with the food and drink industry to ensure quality surplus food – that would otherwise go to landfill or be recycled – is given to the vulnerable people who need it most.

UK households waste 25% of all the food they buy. This is Rubbish works to raise awareness of how individuals, as well as retailers, can reduce the amount of food waste they produce.

According to Save the Children, 3.1 million children die from hunger every year while billions of pounds of food are wasted. The average UK family wastes around £480 worth of food a year. For that price three children could be saved from malnutrition. Rich governments should be encouraged to make combating hunger a priority and ensure that resources saved by reducing food waste are put into feeding hungry people around the world.

Hope to see you there! For more information click here. Also worth checking out Tristram’s book on the subject called Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by clicking here.

News > News > Our News

Ice skating in Canary Wharf

It is that great time of year December, when everything is all festive and Christmas is getting close. London is my favourite place at this time of the year as there are so many exciting and festive things to do. Ice skating is such a great outing out with family & friends and with this one in the heart of the Wharf… it is perfectly close to the new Wahaca for a pre or post skating meal!

Click here to book your tickets. Its up until February as well so plenty of time to get down there.

What's Happening > Contributor Competitions > What's Happening > Guerilla Chilli Growing > What's Happening

The little chilli growing competiton heats up

You might have seen our post launching the little chilli growing competition to all the Canary Wharfers who picked up one of our chilli growing kits, encouraging them to send in photos of how they are getting on.

Well, we’re delighted to say that the responses have already started coming in and it seems that they’re quite a green fingered lot.

Although the Chilli Spy was initially dubious about the actual size of their shoots, Jo and Soph from Morgan Stanley look to be having some great success, with at least 30mm of growth.

We wonder what their secret is. Any tips that you want to share guys?

Over at Barclays Capital the competition is really hotting up, so much so that Neil has applied some real science to his seedlings. He’s created a mini greenhouse to maximise the light and apparently it’s helped his chillies shoot into the lead.

Neil told us that it was so simple to do, and it really paid dividends. Here’s his helpful guide:

1. Take a two litre bottle of water.
2. Cut the bottle in half lengthways (empty the bottle first!).
3. Take this semi-circular section and cut it to the width of your chilli pot.
4. Push the bottle greenhouse into the sides of your pot to cover the chilli seedlings (remember to leave space for air to get in).

We love it!

So if you’re a wannabe Titchmarsh who’s picked up one of our pots, and are just praying for the day that you see your first signs of life through the soil, get in touch and let us know how you’re getting on. Send your story along with some pictures of how you’re getting on to loswahacos@wahaca.co.uk and you’ll be in with the chance of winning a meal for 6 at Wahaca.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > Food & Drink > Supplier Articles

Local chilli expert becomes a regional food hero!!

Matt from Market Kitchen and Joanna Plumb outside Edible Ornamentals shop

Big Congratulations to one of our chilli suppliers, Shawn and Joanna Plumb at Edible Ornamentals who are the East Anglia winners of the Local Food Hero Award.

We think its great that a chilli grower won this and hope more and more people will grow chillies or buy chillies and then use them at home in their Mexican recipes.

The criteria for Local Food Heroes are businesses that provide the very best in food quality and service, have commitment and passion together with a strong connection to the local area. Food lovers across the nation were asked to nominate their favourite business which help put food onto our plates, that meet these criteria whether they be growers, farm shops or restaurants.  Viewer’s voted on the Good Food website, and the most popular 10 businesses in each region were assessed by a panel of experts, with the best three selected to appear in the new TV series on the Good Food channel’s Market Kitchen.

Go Shawn and Joanna and thank you for growing such great chillies for Wahaca.

Click here to find out more about Edible Ornamentals and their great produce.