Cooking in Oaxaca

As many of you know, today was my birthday, and all day long I've received emails, e-cards, and comments on Facebook wishing me a happy birthday. It has been so fun to hear from so many friends today.

I had a wonderful day. I took a cooking class at from Oscar at Casa Crespo. There were five of us taking the class: a newlywed couple from Seattle, a mother and son from Boise, Idaho, and me. Pretty ironic we were all from the northwest. After a cup of coffee and discussion of what we’d like to prepare, we walked to the market to buy our ingredients.

Oscar talked a lot about how different fruits, vegetables and seasonings are used in Oaxacan cooking. I really enjoyed our tour of the market with him.

Back at Casa Crespo we made tortillas; two types of salsas, a roasted tomato salsa and a salsa verde; hisbicus juice; quesadillas with squash blossoms or chapulines; squash blossom soup; two moles (Oaxacan sauces) with chicken; and chocolate ice cream. Squash blosooms, above, are used frequently in Oaxacan cooking and our soup was very tasty.

Here I am combining roasted tomatoes, garlic, chili and smoked gusanos (worms) in a molcajete. This salsa was delicious!

Chapulines are grasshoppers, and are very, very popular in Oaxaca. In the zocalo old ladies walk around selling bags of chapulines, which people eat as a snack or use in cooking. The chapulines are toasted with garlic and lemon juice. We used them in our quesadillas. Yes, I ate grasshoppers! They were very crunchy, and had a smoky, not unappealing taste, if you could over the fact that they are a bug!

Oscar frying up some plaintain appetizers.

A beautiful clay pot, in which we cooked almendra (almond) mole. After we finished cooking, we sat down to a delicous lunch. I really enjoyed this class and can't wait to try some of the recipes at home.

The family, meanwhile, had a quiet day, which was good since both Davis and Selso have been a little under the weather.