Wednesday 2nd November see’s the culmination of Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations and we wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun, so we’re joining the party by giving away a free glass of tequila and sangrita to anyone who comes in for lunch or dinner tomorrow.

In Mexico, Day Of The Dead is a festival to celebrate the lives of friends and family who have passed away, and often sees groups of people partying on down at their family cemetery. This festival’s incredible colour and imagery is a great example of why we love Mexico quite so much. In fact, you can check out some more about it here.

Everyone who wants one gets a free tequila, the only thing we ask is that you sip it, and don’t shoot it down in one. This isn’t your average tequila – We’re giving you a measure of multi-award winning El Tesoro de Don Philipe, one of the world’s finest. To complete your full introduction to the world of top tequilas, we’ll be giving you a glass of our homemade sangrita to accompany it – Just as it’s drunk in Mexico.

We hope we’ll see you down here to join in the fun.

This weekend sees the opening of Miss Bala, Mexico’s official entry for the 2012 Oscars, and yet another film that has got the critics going absolutely crazy form Mexican cinema. And because we love you all very much, we want to send you to see it and then invite you along for a meal round at ours afterwards.

Miss Bala tells the true story of Laura, a young woman from Baja California who dreams of becoming a beauty queen but instead finds herself delivered into the hands of a violent gang of Mexican drug smugglers. Combining explosive bursts of brutal action with mesmeric sequences of balletic beauty and searingly vivid imagery, Miss Bala has taken worldwide festival audiences by storm.

We’ve teamed up with the film’s UK promoters and have 5 pairs of tickets to go and watch it at the Odeon on Panton Street (just off Leicester Square) during its opening week, and they’re ripe for the winning. If that’s not enough, each winner gets a £50 Wahaca cheque to come for a meal too. Not a bad night out at all. To be in with a chance of winning, all you have to do is email us at ola@wahaca.co.uk with the answer to this rather tricky question:

Which Mexican state is the film set in?

We’ll be picking our 5 winners at random on Friday 28th October, so get your entries in ASAP. The 5 winners will receive a pair of tickets to be used at the Odeon on Panton Street before the 4th November and a £50 Wahaca cheque to spend on a meal for 2 at any of our restaurants.

¡Buena Suerte!

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!

Those of you who have been reading our blog over the last few months will have seen the competition that we ran to send one festival loving author to Mexico to report back on the Guelaguetza festival in Oaxaca. Last month we chose a winner and right now Mark Weir, is getting stuck into a few tacos and (hopefully) donning an elaborate headdress whilst joining the carnival atmosphere as the parade winds through the streets.

This is not Mark Weir

We had loads of entries in the competition and were truly impressed with the quality of the reports we received. It made it really difficult to choose a winner, but it was Mark’s descriptive style and ability to get himself into and out of various scrapes whilst exploring the back end of the Czech Republic that singled him out as a man who should be jumping on that plane to Mexico. Have a look and let us know what you think:

Language, lyrics and getting lost at the ‘Rock for People’ music festival in the Czech Republic.
By Mark Weir

It’s quite a beautiful feeling. That you can still experience a foreign land without having to download an app for it, surviving on a big smile, a polite nod and plenty of hand gestures instead. It’s humbling too, wandering from stage to stage like a mute, relying on the patience of others, the fortune of getting someone at the bar who takes the time to talk in broken English. I’ll return again soon, Hradec Kralové. You won’t be any easier to pronounce, but at least I’ll know where to find you.

Watch out for more of Mark’s writing coming your way as he takes up the position of our roving reporter telling us all about his trip to Oaxaca in the next edition of OLA LONDON, which will be ready for you to ogle at in October.

Thanks once again to The Mexican and Oaxacan Tourist Board, British Airways and Hostal de la Noria for helping us send Mark to Mexico.

Tomorrow, February 2nd, the Dia de la Candelaria festival will be celebrated across Mexico. The tradition goes that whoever is lucky enough to find the small baby Jesus figurine in their Rosca De Reyes cake on the 6th of January should treat all of their friends and family to a meal of tamales on February 2nd. Anyone eagle eyed enough to have read about this year’s winter menu will have spotted that Tommi was hugely excited to be able to put two types of tamales on our menu for the first time. And very delicious they are too!

So, never one to let up the chance to have a bit of a party, tomorrow, we’ll be giving free tamales to anyone who comes in with a small baby Jesus figurine. OK, that might be a bit tricky. We’ll be giving free tamales to anyone who comes in with a picture of a baby Jesus figurine, and funnily enough, we’ve put one just here:

So, if you feel like getting into the Mexican party spirit, print out this picture, and head over to Wahaca any time tomorrow and get your tamales on!

Here’s some Ts and Cs:
One free tamale dish offered per printed picture, and no more than one per customer.
Offer only valid during restaurant opening times on Februrary 2nd 2011.
Anyone found not having fun may be evicted from the restaurant at any time, or asked to stand in the corner with a bag on their head, it’s a party after all.

Last year’s Wahaca Scholarship was won by Jo, our assistant manager in White City and so she packed her bags and off she went to Mexico! Here’s her report on her trip, the sites she saw and the things she ate. It’s enough to make the rest of us very jealous. Over to Jo…

When I won the Wahaca scholarship and was rewarded with a trip to Mexico I knew there would be a lot to discover, but what I saw totally exceeded my expectations.

Places, people, smells everything was new for me and so exciting.

We started our journey in Cancun where we met our Mexican/ Mayan tour guide Victor. Victor has grown up in the Yucatan Peninsula so we were assured he would show us the real Mexico. A few hours later as I was sitting in my hotel room, margarita in hand, it seemed like a good chance for a rest, but Victor had different plans.

Our hotel was situated in a very small village next to Chichen Itza so Victor decide to give us a tour around Maya-land.
That day he introduced us to a whole population of Iguanas and explained how they would become our friends as they can be found in pretty much all of the archaeological sites we’d be visiting over the following 7 days. After a little bit of a safety talk, we felt much more at ease around them. In fact, later that night we discovered they were also living in our building… I have never heard Kate screaming so loud before!

Our week of touring would take us throughout the cultural sites in our region, listening to Victor talk about Mayan history. I felt like I was in a totally magical world.

From standing in front of the third biggest pyramid in the world CHICHEN ITZA, (one of the seven modern wonders of the world and such a beautiful way of showing the Mayan calendar), to EK BALAM a huge Mayan city which overwhelmed us with its immense size and spectacular views. We were totally moved by the archaeology that we were shown and will never forget the sites that we visited.

After a whole week, thousands of pictures and even more stories my mind and my heart has been infected with one thought: will we ever be able to truly appreciate the true depths of Mexico’s heritage? Victor, in his 35 years of experience has seen more and more of his culture, restored every year. Even in this region there is so much yet to be uncovered, and I’m sure it’s just a question of time and money until the 8th wonder of the world is revealed!

After each long day there was time for food and drinks – something that working for Wahaca has made me really passionate about. I was desperate to try as much Mexican food as I could and compare it to the different tastes in Wahaca.

My aim was to find as many dishes we selling in Wahaca as possible, so that I could then tell our customers what taste better, worse or just different.

At first I struggled with the menu as it was all was in Spanish, but after a while familiar words started to appear, one in particular that I knew I had to try in Yucatan Pibil!

Yucatan is a heart of pibil country and we proudly sell lots of pork pibil in Wahaca so I was very excited when I tried my tender, juicy pork taco and absolutely couldn’t tell a difference! They looked, smelled and tasted the same as ours!
Thoughout the trip I tried some amazing food. I had Guacamole every day, chicken tinga tacos, lots of frijoles, quesadillas, sopa de lima (which I think we should add to the menu, it was so tasty!) and all of it tasted just like the dishes I had got to know at home.

And even though every night we ate in different restaurants, for pudding we always had the same – Flan! And trust me when I say it was heaven.

After that trip I knew Mexico would be one of the places I would always want to come back to. There’s so much more to learn and so many more dishes to try! I hope it’s not too long until I can return to continue my Mexican adventure.

From Tuesday 2nd to Thursday 4th November, we’re celebrating Day Of The Dead at Wahaca, with a free glass of tequila for everyone. Not just any tequila either – It’s our brand spanking new, multi-award winning house pour, El Tesoro Reposado that’s on offer to anyone sensible enough to realise that tequila doesn’t have to mean a wincing face and a morning of regret. Oh no, this stuff is good. There will also be plenty of our home made sangrita available (That’s the nice spiced tomato and orange juice that’s every tequilas favourite sidekick).

If you’re not sure what Day Of The Dead is all about, it’s one of our favourite Mexican festivals and worth checking out. It coincides with all saints and all souls day and in Mexico it’s a way of celebrating the lives of friends and family who have died. It sounds like it would be quite a sombre affair, but not a bit of it. Any excuse for a party eh!

We’ll also be giving you the chance to win a signed copy of Tommi’s book each day of our celebrations – To enter you need to fold up one of our origami skulls (that you’ll find in the centrefold of our new Ola London) and upload a photo of yourself to our facebook page. We’ll pick our favourite each day who will be the happy recipients of a book so they can recreate those Mexican masterpieces themselves at home.

So if you fancy a bit of a knees up, and want to get your hands on some of the world’s best tequila, (yes we think it’s that good), then come along from Tuesday 2nd to Thursday 4th November.

If, like us, you’re a fan of the British Museum, and especially the Rulership and Ritual: Maya relief of royal blood-letting display, then here’s something to float your boat: As part of the BBC’s History of the world in 100 objects, Historian Simon Martin is leading a lecture about Maya art, and the unique window it gives on ancient American culture.

A queen pulls a thorny rope through her tongue as part of a sacred ceremony

The lecture kicks off on Thursday 8th July (That’s tomorrow, if you’re reading this today) at 18.30 in the Stevenson lecture theatre and tickets are £5. Check out www.britishmuseum.org for more details and to book your place.

Easter is a big deal in Mexico where over 90% of the population is Catholic. The Easter period, known as Semana Santa, starts on Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos) and comes to an end on Easter Sunday (Domingo de Pascua). But unlike in the UK, where Easter is mainly about chocolate eggs, roast lamb and school holidays, Mexicans approach Semana Santa with the explosive zeal that you’ll also see in Día de los Muertos. You can read more about the ins and outs of the celebrations and the culture of passion plays on Go Mexico.

But the most fun part about Easter in Mexico is the ritual explosion of Judas effigies. It takes place on Holy Saturday and is supposed to represent revenge for the betrayal of Jesus. Apparently the ritual was banned in Guadalajara after a few people died. Just have a look at the video of a witch being blown up below to get a flavour!

Semana Santa is also a riotously vibrant time for Mexican food. For wonderful stories about ice cream made from the ice from Mount Popocatépetl as well as recipes for the likes of Horchata, Agua de Chia and Pambazos head over to this article on Mexconnect by Karen Hursh Graber.

Further Semana Santa reading:

Mexconnect articles about Semana Santa
Go Mexico
Semana Santa photos on Flickr
Semana Santa Celebrations in Oaxaca

Our friend Jimena Gorraez – Belmar who works for the cultural minister for Mexico in London, is going to be updating us on Mexican culture in London and around the world with a few guest blogs. Mexican culture is taking over the London scene with so many exciting things to look forward to… Moctezuma at the British Museum now open, The Latin Film Festival, Gabriel Orozco exhibition at Tate Modern (coming soon apparently), and visits from some legendary Mexican chefs such as Monica Patino and Diana Kennedy.

Today Jimena is talking about Malcolm Lowry, the British poet and novelist most famous for his novel, Under the Volcano that he wrote while living in Mexico.

Little is known about the fascination that Mexico caused on some of Britain’s most important 20th century writers. The country was a magnet for those seeking a little bit more than an adventure but somehow ended finding a piece of heaven on earth.

This is precisely what happened to Malcolm Lowry whose centenary is celebrated from 24 September at the BlueCoat Arts Centre (www.thebluecoat.org.uk) in Liverpool. The programme will include a special section on his Mexico years which proved crucial in his life and literary career.

Malcolm Lowry went to Mexico in 1936 after spending some time the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In an attempt to save his marriage to the famous French actress Jan Gabrial, the couple moved to the city of Cuernavaca. The marriage did not last long and Lowry was left alone in Mexico.

However, the city became the setting of his masterpiece Under the Volcano, also considered one of the greatest novels of the 20-century. In Cuernavaca, Lowry found the perfect landscapes for his groundbreaking novel.

Under the Volcano tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, a British Consul posted to the small town of Quauhnauhuac (easily recognised as Cuernavaca) and his experiences during the Day of the Dead in 1938.

Later on, he moved to the beautiful city of Oaxaca where his alcohol problems aggravated to the point that rumour has it that Lowry forgot the first draft of his manuscript in bar. Luckily for us readers he got it back pretty quick.

Although living a turbulent and difficult life, it is undeniable that Lowry’s years in Mexico proved to be the most creative of his career. An author that did not published much in life but who left an invaluable legacy for literature lovers and who saw in Mexico a true source of inspiration.

Malcolm Lowry

www.thebluecoat.org.uk

Like

Unlike