There is a restaurant in a 500 year old city deep down in the Sierra Occidental (mountains) where the head waiter knows my table preference. This waiter Carlos, who treats me like an old friend, doesn’t exactly know my name. He knows me as the son of “Senor Hans”. From my window side table, on a summer evening I can look down off the precipice of a fault line escarpment over the steeples and roofs of the Cathedral, churches, government buildings, and more humble establishments of this ancient Spanish town. Immediately below me is a Parque Juarez Zoo, with its oasis of tall trees and ponds. As I dine I can watch dozens—several hundreds in all—of graceful white cattle egrets glide in from day time feeding in agricultural fields surrounding the city to take overnight refuge in this urban arboretum. They sail in in fives and tens and eccentric solos to finally dive abruptly down through the crowns of the trees to ground level roosts. The last of them arrive as darkness falls and the street lights of the city and red tail lights of traffic rise up. It is quite a spectacle. The dinner fare is excellent and indigenous—we would say “Mexican” but why bother in what is after all Mexico. The garnishing Guacamole is especially delicious and when asked Carlos volunteers to secure the recipe for me. He returns and tells me that the Chef has been reluctant to part with this well protected secret of the house but has relented when told of my relationship to “Senor Hans”. I could reveal the six special ingredients to you on my facebook wall but that would violate a certain pact that I made with Carlos. But if you feel you have a special need for Guacamole as it really should be made, you could let me know.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:32:37 +0000