Home with a croqueta preparada









The greatest guavas

We were meandering through the Mercado de Coyoacan, the large market in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City, strolling through rows of stalls filled with all manner of colorful tchotchkes, home goods and clothing, trying to make our way to the heart of the market where the food was. Along the way, we passed tubs piled high with candy and dried fruit, butchers at refrigerated cases, lunch counters selling tostadas and quesadillas prepared on the spot, and wandering singers and musicians serenading the lunchtime crowd.

In that blur of near-sensory overload, between the colors, sights, sounds and smells, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye as we passed a produce vendor: guavas!


If you could only smell these beauties!

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Wish I was eating pastries instead


Oh hello, paradise.




Delicious destination: Mexico City










New and improved old remedy

Unlike most people, I don’t have very many fond memories of my mom’s cooking. It was the rare combination of ingredients that resulted in something I ever really enjoyed and when there was success it was usually something impossible to mess up, like boxed mac and cheese or a pot of rice and beans (something we ate constantly in my half Costa Rican household.)

But perhaps the most repugnant flavor combination my mom made my sister and I suffer through was actually not even a meal or something edible per se, but a home remedy for when we were sick: honey and garlic. She had the familiar honey bear ready to go, several whole raw garlic cloves sitting at the bottom, like insects trapped in amber, and the first complaint of a sore throat or a cough in the night would result in a goopy, sticky, horrible spoonful of the stuff.

The pungent spiciness of the garlic bled into the honey, tainted the sweetness and made a wholly new thing, a Frankenstein’s monster of syrup that was bitter and thick and vile to my young taste buds. The jarring clash of flavors coated my throat, maybe quelling a slight tickle but leaving behind a deep mistrust and dislike of honey that lasted into my 20s.

I was recently at Leuca, a Southern Italian inspired restaurant in Williamsburg, when during a family style meal, a plate of sheep’s milk ricotta was placed near me with a side of bread. I picked up the menu, wondering what the gold colored syrup pooled in the ricotta was, when I read the words: hot honey and garlic.


Leuca’s sheeps milk ricotta with honey and garlic

Well, I’ll be dammed. We meet again.

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