Fresh Mexico_ 100 Simple Recipes for True Mexican Flavor - Marcela Valladolid [34]
Spoon the butter sauce over the gnocchi, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and serve.
Roasted Cabbage with Oregano and Oaxaca Cheese
Brussels Sprouts in Morilla Cream
Grilled Vegetables in Escabèche
Grilled Corn on the Cob with Jalapeño Butter
Chorizo-Stuffed Chayote Squash
Roasted Chipotle Acorn Squash
Torta de Elote: Soft Corn Bread
Frijoles de la Olla
Refried Beans
Sage and Sweet Potato Mash
Poblano Rice Gratin
Ancho and Pine Nut Rice
Árbol Chile-Infused Couscous with Dates and Oranges
There’s a reason I have no accent when I speak either English or Spanish: My mother wanted all of her children to take advantage of the fact that we lived on the U.S.-Mexico border, and during our formative years we moved back and forth between schools in San Diego and Tijuana.
I am happy to say that thanks to Mom, I can move seamlessly from English to Spanish. But I wasn’t so lucky when it came to other subjects in school, like history. One year I would be learning about Benito Juárez and the next, George Washington. This could get a little confusing, particularly when it came to the celebration of national holidays.
My family is composed of Americans and Mexicans. Half of us live in San Diego and half of us live in Tijuana, but all of us celebrate every holiday, whether it is traditionally Mexican or American. I dressed up for Halloween on October 31, and I also had the day off on November 1 for Dia de Los Muertos.
My cousins from Guadalajara, much farther south in Mexico, were perplexed by our unique holiday traditions. We do not have Easter bunnies in Mexico, so looking for eggs that had been laid by bunnies seemed absurd to them. And what the hell was a tooth fairy? In Mexico, El Raton Perez (Perez the Mouse) rescued the lost teeth of children from under their pillows and left fifty pesos behind.
I thought all of this was fabulously hilarious but my dad, who is an old-school Mexican, had trouble embracing the ways of the North Americans. Not because he had anything against those traditions; he just already had his own and found no reason to adopt new ones. Take birthdays, for example. He doesn’t really celebrate them. His mother, who was extremely religious, only celebrated her children’s saint’s days. All seventeen of them (yes, seventeen) were named after saints. My loving, kind, and generous father has no clue when my birthday is but I always get a phone call at 7 a.m. on the day of Santa Luz, after whom I am named Marcela Luz.
Over the years we’ve tried to observe all holidays, making small adjustments here and there to keep everybody happy, but suffice it to say, we sometimes run into trouble. Thanksgiving was the best example of our happy dilemma. Every year my dad points out what a confused bunch of Mexican-Americans we all are. We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Mexico, so Mexican schoolchildren don’t have the Friday after Thanksgiving off from school. Because we are a tequila, music, dancing, and firework-loving family (and because skipping class was not an option, per Dad), there is no way we could have Thanksgiving on a school night, so we just moved our annual Thanksgiving celebration to Friday.
My grandfather, Eugenio (also a chef), and my aunts assembled an extravagant meal consisting of dishes that had been passed down from both our American and Mexican ancestors. On the buffet table, the cranberry sauce sat next to the tamales. Brussels Sprouts in Morilla Cream were a requirement for my dad. As soon as I was old enough to help in the kitchen (and had earned enough respect as a cook to be allowed to participate), dishes like Sage and Sweet Potato Mash and Roasted Chipotle Acorn Squash became favorites. It was an incredible night and it’s one of the most treasured memories I have of my grandparents and the holidays at their house.
Many of the sides you’ll see here are adaptations of the dishes served at that Thanksgiving table, or they