Wahaca

History & Heritage, Learn at Wahaca, Links Roundup, Uncategorized, Wahacos, What's Happening

The Agustin Gonzales Rug Hooking Project

We were sent an email recently by Sara Worley, a customer who had come across this amazing community project in the small village of Agustin Gonzales located in the central Mexican highlands near San Miguel de Allende – The region that produces a harvest of the amazing nopales cactus that we use in our queso fundido.

20 of the ladies from the village spend their free time make rugs, inspired by the village life around them, and are selling them online to raise funds to send the girls in the village to school. You can find out more on their website. www.rughookproject.com

We thought it was a nice view into the life of rural mexico. Go girls!

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Links Roundup, News, Staff observations, Street Art, Wahacos, What's Happening

Photos from an Oaxacan

Last week we were lucky enough to get a visit from Daniel Molina, who came in to sample our wares. He’s a potographer from Mexico, Oaxaca to be precise.

Keen to support those from the area that has supported us so well, we thought we’d share some of the brilliant work he’s done, with you good people.

The selection below is taken from his gallery of pictures entitled, “This is not London”. Now, not wanting to be pedantic, but I’ve had a hard look, and I’m pretty sure it is, I guess that’s just the Mexican sense of humour. Anyway, we’ll let you decide.

If you like this small foray into Daniel’s work, then be sure to check out his website for more of the same. And indeed if you know of any other up and coming Mexican photographers or artists, please let us know by commenting below. We’d love to make it a regular feature on the blog.

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Links Roundup, News

Mexican Morsels: Edible Flowers

Photo from Askabir on Flickr via Creative Commons

Whilst Spring has forgotten about us in London, Mexico is blooming. Which is great news visually but also gastronomically. Using flowers in cooking has become quite trendy in Europe with restaurants like Roussillon, Bras and Wild Garlic using them in imaginative ways. So we were fascinated when we unearthed an incredible article about the edible flowers of Mexico which is accompanied by an MP3 interview (from a radio broadcast) and an awesome collection of photographs.

So, if you’re at all interested in Mexican, food, and flowers click on this link and drink it all in.

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Mexican Morsels: Stunning Post about Xochimilco Market

The Mija Chronicles

Sometimes you see a post and gasp. We challenge you not to be bowled over by this post by The Mija Chronicles about the vivid colours, smells and sights of Xochimilco Market just south of Mexico City. In particular look out for the frog leg tamales, pigs brains, gorditas and blue corn tortillas.

We’ve got a few posts up our sleeves about our trip around Oaxaca’s amazing markets and are looking forward to sharing them with you soon. There really are few things in life more invigorating than a Mexican market in full swing.

For more information about Xochimilco Market have a look at Wikitravel.

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Mexican Morsels: Creamy Avocado Salsa and the Battle of the Tamale

inside the beast by Darwin Bell via creative common on Flickr

With the temperatures soaring and planes doing the opposite, we thought we’d bring you some Mexican flavour.

We spied a great post about Creamy Avocado Salsa over on Mexican Foodie’s blog…

“If you like avocado you will love this creamy, rich fresh avocado salsa. The flavor of the ripe avocado shines and is enhanced by the other ingredients like lime, cilantro and serrano chili… Typically, you would use the salsa on chicken filled taquitos or flautas. It also works really well on shredded beef tacos or tostadas. I have been told that it also goes well with a nice piece of fish although I haven’t tried it that way. You might want to.”

Toasty, Tasty Tamales!

We also enjoyed reading about the epic Battle of the Tamales over on A Little Cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate. If the idea of tamales is making you feel peckish then find out how to make them here. Although you might need a whole day it will definitely be worth it.

Thank you very much to Darwin Bell and -Snugg- for the photos which we found in the Creative Commons section of Flickr.

For other great tamale pictures check out this Flickr group.

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Links Roundup, News

Mexican Morsels: Prawn Sandwiches for Easter

This week we’re going to focus on a great site that we’ve stumbled across called Mexconnect. It’s an online magazine that posts regular content about life in Mexico. We think it has been designed mainly to make us jealous!

The first article is by Daniel Wheeler, one of Mexconnect’s fantastic food columnists. He describes some tasty alternatives to red meat during the Catholic festival of Lent.

Another of their columnists is Karen Hursh Graber. She has written some delectable posts about spring berries (which are probably more autumn berries for us in the UK), but given the cold weather here, we’ll wait for a more suitable time to link to those and instead link to this article she has written on the cuisine of Oaxaca. At the end of her article she links to some great Oaxacan recipes.

The third article that we want to link to is a calendar of Mexican food festivals. If the articles above are tempting you across the Atlantic, this will be a good guide as to what you can expect in terms of culinary fiestas!

Finally this week, we found this article from Rancho Gordo who grow New World products in the USA. In this post they cook a dish from our favourite Mexican chef, Diana Kennedy.

If you see any interesting morsels from Mexico, please let us know!

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Links Roundup, News

Mexican Morsels: Carnitas, Rats Ears and Cafe de Olla

The Mexican links have come thick and fast. Here are our favourite blog posts from the world of Mexican food blogging from the last week:

1. Mexican Food Drinks and More shared two brilliant posts this week. Check out their soft, juicy carnitas and spiced Mexican coffee.

2. Authentic Mexican herbs are notoriously hard to get hold of if you aren’t in Mexico. But if you are interested in a herb nicknamed Rats Ear, then hop over to Rancho Gordo. It’s otherwise known as Oregano Indio and is used in countless Mexican dishes.

3. Chilli Up North must be one of the UK’s most passionate chilli fanatics. His piece about Fire Foods Chocolate Chilli Drops is well worth a read. They sound vicious!

4. We were delighted with this review by London Eats of Wahaca from a vegetarian’s perspective. Thanks for your kind words and great photos.

5. Tommi’s Mexican cookery masterclass went really well. If you are interested in seeing the pictures then have a look at this set by L&G Images on Flickr:

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Mexican Morsels: Chillies, Taco Trucks and Tamales

We’ve got our RSS reader trained on some amazing Mexican food blogs such as Mexico Cooks, A Little Cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate, Mexico Food Drinks and More, The Great Taco Hunt and Rachel Laundan’s blog to name but a handful.

Here are our favourite posts from the last week or so:

1. On Mexico Cooks you can read about the amazing world of fresh and dried chillies that are available in Mexico as well as what to do with them. It’s a great guide. It’s the sort of thing you read and can almost feel your eyeballs and nostrils stinging from the heat. You’ll also find a special guide to Mexican food for lent.

2. A Little Cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate writes about her quest to make the perfect tamales. It’s a great guide to making this iconic Mexican dish and makes us wish we were back in Mexico.

3. Meanwhile, over on Trend Spotting site, We Heart Stuff, they’ve written a super piece on a luxury hotel in Veracruz called Maison Couturier. It’s staggeringly stylish and would make an incredible base from which to explore. But you may have to be a Premier League footballer to afford it.

4. Rachel Laudan has written an interesting piece that about the way Mexcians served couscous in the 1800s which reads as if it were written in Morocco.

5. For a more lighthearted read about the taco trucks of West Coast America, look no further than The Great Taco Hunt.

6. And closer to home, check out Kavey Eats’ post about her evening learning to cook Mexican food with Tommi in aid of the Blaggers Banquet.

We hope you like the links, and if you come across any Mexican blogs that you think we might be interested in please let us know.

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Blaggers’ Auction

Blaggers' Goodie Bags by Food by Mark

Cecilia and Mark had a fantastic time at the Blaggers’ Banquet. By all accounts it was a sensational success, with over £6,000 being raised for Action Against Hunger. If you want to read more about the event from a variety of perspectives then have a look at…

The early stages…

and this post by Gin and Crumpets about the initial get together at the Draft House

The frantic preparations… by Princess and the Pea and Scandilicious

The view from the pass… by Gourmet Chick and Kavey Eats

The wine experts’ perspective… by Fiona Beckett and The Wine Sleuth

A photographer’s snapshot by Food by Mark whose image is at the top of this post

And most importantly devour Niamh’s amazingly moving post…

But the fun hasn’t stopped. And neither has the fund-raising. If you visit the Blaggers’ Banquet eBay store you can bid on the first batch of lots including:

An Interflora “Hamper for Him”
An awesome Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer
A visit for two to Artisan du Chocolat Atelier
Afternoon Tea for Two at the Ritz
A White Christmas Tea Collection from the White Tea Company

And look out for your chance to bid on Mexican cookery lessons from none other than our very own Tommi!

Thanks to Food by Mark for the image – have a look at the rest of his fantastic images here.

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Help us with our Christmas list

With the shops ferociously stocking up on a seemingly endless list of new food titles for us to read over Christmas, we thought it would be a good idea to check out what you think about the latest cookery books hitting the shelves. We find that it’s the best way to narrow down what we’re going to be asking Santa for this year.

We were very excited to see that Dan from Essex Eating has reviewed Coco, a book which has got to be right up there on the wish list. Needless to say we were also very jealous to read about the event that Phaidon had hosted to celebrate the books launch. It sounds like a night to remember.

Another enlightening review was penned by a forkful of spaghetti, this time for Tasmin Day-Lewis’ Supper For A Song, which definitely sounds like one we’re going to have to check out.

And if you’re looking for something a little different, it sounds like The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann will be an amazing read, according to Helen from World Foodie Guide’s review.

So, if you’ve been hitting the shops early this year and want to help craft our Christmas list, please send us a link to your review. We have a feeling that there’s going to be some seriously heavy stockings at the end of our beds this year.

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