Food is Art – upcoming Events

Paula Lambert

Food is Art, the project my daughter, Marissa Sanchez-Bastien and  I coordinate for the Mexican Cultural Institute is really taking off with chefs and food producers from all over the country and Mexico submitting proposals for events featuring their product or specialty.  Paula Lambert of the Mozzarella Cheese Company in Dallas wants to come and teach how to make queso de Oaxaca (Oaxaca string cheese). 

We are thinking of dates for our summer events  so if you will be in New York City in August and  interested  in participating in one of our programs send me an email to zarela@zarela.com

Along those lines, Heritage Foods is donating a whole pig to us and Alex Garcia is hosting a group of 20 chefs or very experienced cooks to work with the pig from head to tail  as we did on our ranch in Chihuahua state in northern Mexico. We  will prepare all the wonderful dishes and products we made when we shared our Christmas pig with  the cowboys and their families.  It was a time of celebration–the women would come to the casa grande (“big house”) and we would all chip in to make carne adobada sprinkled with chile seeds and air dried on a line outside the kitchen door and brought in every night so that the dew doesn’t get them wet again and moldy.  This was my absolute favorite and will be on the class plan.

I love making chorizo, and we will make it, but also green longaniza from El Estado de Mexico (the State of Mexico) and maybe one more item of tocineria as charcuterie is called in Mexico.

Tamales and carne con chile colorado will be next and as the meal cooks we will fry fatty

pieces of meat and make carnitas in a large copper pot** and home-rendered lard in another. We’ll take the cheeks and make delicious tacos de cabeza and the we’ll prepare a delicious pozole with the rest of the head.  You get the idea.

Though she is still trying to decide on a date (most probably July 31)  Sue Torres of Suenos restaurant,  who always makes me feel so good, will take you on a tour of the Greenmarket and not only help you identify Mexican herbs like epazote, papaloquelite, pipicha, hoja santa, and Mexican oregano and show you where you can buy them but teach you how to cook with them at her restaurant.

Because September is  the actual anniversary of both the Bicentennial of  Mexico’s Independence from Spain and the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, our calendar is getting quite full.  I will be giving a talk on the Mexican Corn  Kitchen