Probably just as good as Xochimilco itself is the market in the neighborhood. It was the first one we stopped into on our trip, so we just assumed it was normal. Turned out it is a slightly cooler than usual market, and man, was it bustin’ out with the food.
While Peter was buying snacks from ladies in sparkling aprons, I took a spin around the place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such luscious-looking lard.
As I said in an earlier post, chicharron here is better than I’ve ever seen. I wish I’d taken photos of the normal display technique: propping it up vertically inside a glass case, with a light behind, so it glows orange (paging Matthew Barney).
Instead, here’s some more prosaic chicharron for sale, still certainly flaky and delicious:
I haven’t seen such a variety of moles before either–in the Yucatan, there’s a smaller number of recados (spice pastes) on offer. This market sold them both as dry powders and as pastes, with almonds, with shrimp, with walnuts, with pine nuts….
But this is my favorite photo from the market, and perhaps from our whole trip. How fresh is food in Mexico? It’s this fresh!
OK, chicken butts–this concludes our Mexico City photo tour. Thanks a million for looking.
Now the question is: When can I go back? And what should we do next time?
Years ago, when I lived by 36th Avenue in Astoria, there was a restaurant down there called Xochimilco. It was slightly upscale Mexican (which I now realize is just normal Mexican), and even though I couldn’t pronounce the name, I did know it was this beautiful network of canals in Mexico City.
It didn’t seem to go with the restaurant, exactly, as it sat under the rumbling N-train tracks, but it seemed even more improbable to me that there was this lush area of gardens and canals in Mexico City, which in my mind was nothing but concrete and traffic and smog.
But now I’ve been there, and I can tell you it’s true. But it still seems like a dream.
We took the metro and then the nifty little tram. Here’s the boss’s office at the tram terminal:
That looks so calm and normal, right? No indication of what lay ahead… On the tram, Peter and I are the only non-Mexicans, and then I see a guy with stubble and a Sonic Youth shirt get on, and he comes walking toward us. Sigh–must Brooklynites follow us wherever we go?
He and his girlfriend stand near us, and proceed to start speaking…in Greek. So Peter joins in, and it turns out they live in Belgium and a very cool and nice. And good thing we meet them, as once we get to the boat docks, a short walk from the tram stop, it’s clear that we would’ve been a little sad and lonely, just me and Peter on a boat. Because these boats are big, built for giant family outings.
Nothing’s really going on at the dock, and we feel a bit sad, as we’d thought we could maybe share a boat with some Mexicans, and now we feel like we’ll be missing out, on our lonely, only-four-people boat.
Our captain says, No, don’t worry–there will be plenty of party for us. And he gets us a cooler full of giant beers, and we set off. Slowly. These boats have no motors–they’re just punted, gondola-style.
After a little bit, we turn out and onto a canal, and I think we all privately must’ve laughed to ourselves about feeling lonesome and like we were missing out. Because this is what we see.
Soon we’re up in the fray, which miraculously never turns into total gridlock, and our boat just glides between parties.
What’s great is that the boats are so big, and the families so big, is that there’s enough room for kids to split off on their own. I saw one boat with sullen teens flopped on one end, texting, while their grandmothers gossiped on the chairs nearby. These kids were taking a breather:
And we’d also stupidly worried we should’ve brought food. What was I thinking? You never have to bring your own food in Mexico. Of course there was someone–on a boat–ready to make us lunch:
Lunch service, on our own boat, included the festive checked tablecloth:
We glided around a bit more, got off and walked through a greenhouse, and spied this odd guy:
All this time, I haven’t mentioned the music. Boats full of freelance mariachis glided through, latching on to host boats to sing a few songs, then carrying on. We’d been mooching off of everyone else’s ambience, so near the end of our two-hour tour, we flagged down our own guys.
“Sing us songs that will make us cry!” we said. Not that we needed to specify–they could be singing about rainbows and kittens, and all we have to hear is those trumpets and that full-throated voice, and we’d be weeping.
That’s our Greek fellow passenger in the foreground. Thumbs up for Xochimilco. I think I want to go back and have my birthday there. Or your birthday. Or anyone’s, really.
OK, let’s get this one out of the way first. It’s ridiculous and unfortunate:
And this is also pretty unfortunate. But it happens to be in a very nice neighborhood.
And there are other lovely combinations:
Excellent subway advertisements. Only because we were in Mexico City during Semana Santa, when crowds in the metro are at a minimum, could we take these photos without other people in them.
And then there’s this, much classier, in the Palacio de Bellas Artes. This font makes me want to buy tickets to anything.
Finally, back to the metro. You may know that Mexico City’s metro is notable for the fact that each stop has a symbol as well as a name, to aid illiterate riders. We happened to walk past the public transport office (honest, just happened to!), where we saw these sign showing the inspiration for several of the metro-stop symbols.
Favorite: It’s a toss-up between the duck and the grasshopper, I think. What’s yours?
And then I read the story and thought, “Wow, what a bunch of assholes.”
The story, see, suggests that it’s somehow a bad thing that Baghdad’s police department is now painted purple. I thought journalism was supposed to at least appear to be balanced, but there’s not a single quote in the article from someone saying how much they like the colors. Instead, it’s all a bunch of prissy architects whining–and basically agreeing that the old way, when Saddam Hussein controlled what color all the buildings were, was better.
Because how can you grouse about color, once you’ve seen it so exuberantly applied? Along with hot weather, fresh food and music that makes me cry, Mexico offers a glorious treats for the eyeballs, such as these:
El Camino Real hotel, midcentury fantasy by LegorretaToken Bug-matches-house photo, in Coyoacan, the Park Slope of Mexico CityI match the metro!Note the clothes drying too.Simply salmon, at the Trotsky Museum
And color isn’t just limited to buildings, of course. Here, in the market, enterprising lime-sellers put green shades around the lightbulbs above their stands, to cast an eerie glow.
And if you just want to buy color straight, here it is. As a bonus, I suppose it tastes like various fruit flavors.
Basically, I just want to say: Baghdad, welcome to the club. Don’t listen to the haters. If color makes you feel better, rock it–you deserve it.
Union power rocks. Maybe it’s because the union logos are so fantastic.
Here’s the same logo, painted on the Zocalo, and surrounded by shoes, I believe to represent all the people killed in the drug war so far.
And another on the Zocalo:
But by far the best was the very first one we saw. Stay strong, telefonistas!
The coolest part: After we crossed the street to take a photo, we saw that in front of the building, there was a stand set up selling tchotchkes featuring its bad-ass logo: notepads, coffee mugs, key chains, little hooks to hang your purse from the restaurant table. Seriously? Not only does the Mexican Syndicate of Telephone Workers have the most righteous logo in the country, they know it.
There’s no way to say this without sounding like an ass: When I signed up for a walking tour with Eat Mexico, I thought it would be a nice way to spend the morning, but not particularly educational. I mean, geez, I know what Mexican food’s about, right?
I know. I’m an ass! I already said it!
Within seconds of starting off on the walk, I was already learning that the pink tamales are the sweet ones. You’re probably thinking, well, duh. But I’ve never seen a pink tamale in the Yucatan! And it went on from there.
First of all, in the Yucatan, there’s nothing that starts with tl-, which is a Nahuatl-only sound. Here’s a fantastic array of toppings for tlacoyos, little blue-corn patties that are heated on a griddle and topped with Oaxacan string cheese and whatever your pleasure. The edges are folded over to keep everything in.
A finished tlacoyo, from another source
Another couple of blocks, after stopping for some chicharron that was as flaky as pie crust, I finally learned what tacos de canasta are. I’ve seen signs, and logically I know it means “basket tacos,” but hadn’t given it much thought, as, again, this isn’t something I see much in the Yucatan.
Turns out tacos de canasta are pre-made tacos filled with soft, mild things (potatoes, cochinita pibil). They’re usually stacked up in a basket and covered with a towel, to keep the steam in. People usually eat them for breakfast (Lesley warned us not to buy them in the afternoon, as they’re usually soggy by then).
And just how snazzy was our tacos de canasta vendor? This snazzy. He sold loose cigarettes too.
Near the end, we were almost maxed out, but we stopped for tacos al pastor. I eat these plenty in the Yucatan, but these were different–the pork was crispier, and more important, the pineapple was raw, which added a super-fresh contrast. (In the Yucatan, a slab of pineapple is stuck on top of the rotisserie, so it drips over the pork as it cooks, which isn’t worse…just different.)
Our last stop was at a carnitas stand, where Lesley broke down the vocab for us–words like suadero and guiche I’d never even thought to look up–and explained how carnitas is really a texture experience, and people mix and match pork parts according to how much bounce and chew and crunch they want. A-ha.
But the high point, at least in terms of personal milestones, was eating…eyeballs! This never sounds like a great idea, but I’ve been particularly squeamish about eyeballs ever since my brother dissected one from a cow in high school, then brought it home in a plastic baggie and left it in the fridge right at eye level for a week. And Peter told me how he’d had to eat a lamb eyeball in Greece once, and it popped a little and had something hard in the center.
So there we were at a stand that was advertising tacos de ojo, and Lesley pointed this out. Janneth, Lesley’s friend and a tour-guide-in-training, noticed us all shuffling around looking anxious, and she said, “I’ll get some. I’ve never tried them either.”
The guy at the stand dug into the stewed cow skull, scooped out the eye and lot of other meat around it, and threw it on his chopping block. And then, just like every other taco meat, it got hacked up into little tiny bits. A little anticlimactic, but a huge relief. Here’s Janneth and the finished product, looking surprisingly benign:
It tasted like…beef. Very mild beef. I’m not entirely sure why anyone would choose ojo over lengua, say, but I’m glad I’ve tried it, as now I won’t live in fear. And if I hadn’t gone on this tour with Eat Mexico, I never would’ve gotten there.
A few minutes before the whole eyeball-taco frenzy, a man had asked Janneth what our gang was up to, eating miniscule bites of tacos and taking photos left and right. Her answer: “Somos gastronomicos.” And the guy looked happy and congratulated her.
Ah, Mexico–where you can still proudly say, “We’re foodies.”
Mexico City is heaving with commerce. Maybe not quite as much as Bangkok, but the sidewalks and storefronts are pretty crammed with opportunities to buy, buy, buy. Limited space and competition mean it’s important to display your wares in a sensible manner.
Here are just a few examples of excellent pegboard salesmanship on display throughout Mexico City:
But the real prize goes to this cactus-paddle stacker:
Just a quick note to say hello/temporary good-bye to Jeff Orlick, the man, the myth, the legend. You might know him from the various Queens food events he organizes–Roosevelt Ave street-food crawls, five-borough pizza tours and the phenomenal Flushing Mall Grazing Experience a few months back.
(The FluMaGraExp was the realization of mine and Peter’s dream of the “golden chopsticks”–a surcharge you pay in a restaurant that allows you to taste everyone else’s food. Here’s Jeff’s report on it.)
Anyway, Jeff was over here working a bit, and even got into a bit of a nice 10am-ish-to-3pm-ish groove. He was busting out brand-new ideas all the time while he was here. And then I realized I’d neglected to tell him I was taking off for Morocco, and that he couldn’t come over anymore for a while. Sorry, Jeff! But we’ll get back to it.
But he did say of the co-working plan, “I’m a total convert. The instant you went downstairs, I started going on Facebook.” See! See! Together, folks, we can get sh*t done! And thanks to Jeff, I managed to focus enough to get my book proposal wrapped up before leaving. (More details later. I hope…)
So, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, and I hope we can get back in the work groove. As ever, drop me a note if you’re interested in working over here–see the general info page for more.
Whenever Peter and I travel, we usually find ourselves at the end of the line. This isn’t metaphorical–it’s real, and it’s a conscious choice. We look at the transit map, pick a point off on the fringes, and head for it.
Mexico City is inconceivably vast. We bought an enormous foldout map that covered two-thirds of the twin bed in our hotel room, and the areas tourists normally go to (Condesa, Roma, Centro) covers about a square inch. Coyoacan, where the Frida Kahlo museum is, is a couple of inches south.
So Peter decided we’d go to the end of the new suburban rail line, Cuautitlan, up in the north. The train was pretty slick.
And so was the station.
The end of the line is pretty shiny.
It’s not even near the edge of the city, but it’s a start.
Those green lines are bus routes heading into even more remote suburbs.
The train ends in a giant big-box-store-architecture kind of terminal, with a mini-mall.
Cinder blocks and I-beams spell progress.
The mall is pretty normal: grocery store, couple of phone stores, a Ticketmaster outlet, a popsicle vendor. Oh, and a pawn shop with the cutest logo ever.
Pawn Power!
Another sign this mini-mall is not in America: the sex shop.
Excuse me, not a sex shop...a love store.
We finally wandered out into the real world of Cuautitlan. It looked pretty much like every midsize, reasonably prosperous Mexican town.
There’s a church, and some topiary. And a park with a clock tower.
There’s some architecture that looked like it could be in Astoria.
We ate some remarkably scrumptious esquites–corn off the cob, with chile, cilantro, cheese and a huge gob of mayo. (Note to Yucatan esquiteros: Up your game, dudes.)
It was starting to rain, so we high-tailed it back to the station, briefly stopping to do the math on how much our dream house would cost us here in Cuautitlan.
About US$45,000. Not bad.
We sat back on the train and watched the rainstorm roll in.
By the time we got back near the center, Mexico City felt a little smaller. Barely.
At a party recently, I asked a woman about her summer travel plans. “Well, my husband and I had this trip to Egypt and Israel planned,” she answered, “but I guess that’s not a great idea now…”
At the time, I weakly replied, “Oh, I’m sure everything in Egypt is fine….”
Now I wish I’d pushed the issue. Because now I’m home, combing through my photos from my last visit, in 2007, and thinking how much I’d like to be there right now. And how it would in fact be just fine to be there now.
Yes, there has been violence since the uprising. And there was this story about a crime wave in Egypt in the New York Times last week. But let’s put this in perspective. There was previously zero violent crime in Egypt—Cairo, despite its population of 19 million, was one of the safest cities in the world (ah, the bittersweet bonuses of a police state). So any lawlessness is instantly a “crime wave.”
Don't these boys look perfectly nice?
Well, yes, but: Lara Logan, you’re saying. Harassment of women on the street is not a new issue. But all that you, as a tourist, have to do is avoid mobs of agitated, shouting young men. So don’t go to a soccer game, and don’t join a street protest. But you’re perfectly OK sitting in a cafe drinking tea or walking around a museum.
One simple way to avoid all the post-revolution anxiety is to leave Cairo. I recently got an email from acquaintances who reported having a great time in Luxor and Aswan—they had all the ruins to themselves. The only drawback with traveling now, they said, is that the vendors are all a bit desperate due to low tourism, so sales pressure is high.
But…that’s Egypt. You’ll never have a sales-pressure-free vacation there no matter what. It’s practically where tourism was invented—I’m sure Herodotus got the hard sell too.
Of course something bad could happen tomorrow. But it’s important to remember that something bad can happen at any time. I mean, don’t remember this 24/7, or you’ll be paralyzed with fear. But just know that travel–and life in general–involves a degree of uncertainty, no matter where or when you do it.
One thing that could happen: You could lose your legs.
I was living in Cairo in 1997, an otherwise unremarkable year, when a tour bus was bombed in front of the Egyptian Museum, spitting distance from where I sat in class every day. Not long after, there was the terrible massacre of tourists in Luxor. Despite these two events, I still felt safer in Cairo than in most other places I’ve lived, and every Egyptian I knew went out of their way to tell me they were so sorry and shocked about what happened.
And I was sorry too, as I saw my friends who worked as tour guides lose their work overnight. That’s why, when I hear someone express worry about going to Egypt now, I think, “Stick with it! Those people need the money!”
Not that your trip should be a charity case. But the last thing Egypt needs now is for its tourism industry to collapse. What’s especially wonderful about the mass uprising this winter was that it was by Egyptians, for Egyptians, and there appears to be a greater sense of pride and independence across the country. But that doesn’t mean Egypt can be so independent as to not rely on outside money from tourism.
In fact, I think there’s no better time to go to Egypt than now. You’ll be showing your support for the country at a time when it needs it most. You’ll get to talk to Egyptians directly about what they think can and should happen next–so many social issues are out on the table now (see the movie Cairo 6,7,8 if it’s at a festival near you!).
But perhaps the best reason to go: Years from now, you can look back and say, “I was in Egypt the year everything changed.”
(Curious what to do in Egypt once you’re there? I just wrote a post about what I’d see in Cairo on Gogobot, a great new travel-info-swapping site.)
