Benedict XVI: the Pope in Mexico makes Catholic news
His predecessor Pope John Paul II visited Mexico on five occasions and was much beloved here. I was just a child during the last papal visit in 2002, a rowdy little Catholic boy who wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. read more
Mexico City: Forward looking city with a pre-Hispanic past
What can one say about Mexico City? It's the capital of Mexico, the biggest metropolis in the Western Hemisphere and the world's eighth-richest city. It's also a first-rate tourist attraction.
Locat...
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Down and Delirious in Mexico City: Memoir by Daniel Hernandez digs deep into youth culture
Mexican-American author Daniel Hernandez has hit a fresh nail on an old head by exploring different youth cultures in Mexico City. Youth is a favored subject for a modern mass media obsessed with this ...
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Flirting in Spanish: What Mexico taught me about love, living and forgiveness
The story began in 1992 in San Miguel de Allende. Susan, in Mexico less than three months and having "decimated whatever savings I once had," supplemented her meagre but easy-earned modeling income by teaching English.
Carlos, the poor Mexican teenager, was indeed wise for his years; after her first class was over, he alone "remained, still seated at the second desk in the middle row, watching me." read more
Infernal Drums
"He found a cheap room at a dive called Hotel Milan in Old Town — the historic center of a coastal metropolis split into neatly demarcated districts of progress and poverty on a peninsula snaking up the coastline of Nayarit."
In Mazatlan he joins up with three New Zealanders, harmless jerks, introduces himself "and played at acting the chum." In San Blas — "on a spit of white land divided by estuaries, surrounded by jungle" — they buy some cheap dope, but the transaction turns out to be a set-up read more
Mexican Queretaro-style lentil soup with nopales: Sopa de lentejas con nopales estilo Queretaro
This recipe, adapted from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, contains the characteristically Mexican ingredients nopales, fresh green chiles and cilantro.
Ingredients
½ cup brow...
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Fragrant, flavorful allspice: An essential Mexican seasoning
Mexican-style rabbit in red pipian with wild mushrooms: Pipian rojo con conejo y hongos silvestres
This colorful alabrije rabbit by Jacobo Angeles races across the Mexican mountain meadows.
© Alvin Starkman, 2008
I taught this in a cooking class I gave last summer in Cuetzalan, Puebla, where I ...
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Mexican chicken and allspice stew: Chilpozontle
A specialty of the Puebla mountain town of Zacapoaxtla, this Mexican dish uses allspice leaves as well as berries in a savory chicken stew. If you can't get allspice leaves, fresh bay leaves work well....
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Mexico City's Modo Museum whets the collecting appetite
I once lived next to an elderly woman in Mexico City whose home was a veritable museum of unique and occasionally bizarre collectibles. Her living room was given over to the collection and there was ba...
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Miel de maguey: an ancient Mexican sweetener brings hope to modern villagers
Reading the recent Mexconnect article Tears of the maguey: Is pulque really a dying tradition? brought me to the realization that here in Cholula, many of the pulquerías (pulque bars) have slowly and ...
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Mexico City's San Fernando Cemetery for famous sons, present or not
The San Fernando Cemetery first began operating in 1713. The poor were first buried there, in the section known as the "Panteón chico." Later, aristocrats nudged their way in, and then in 1835 the "Panteón grande" was constructed and it became an all-purpose public bone yard.
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Leonora Carrington in Mexico City: perspective of a person, place, and time
Tears of the maguey: Is pulque really a dying tradition?
If pulque can create such positive results in all of our daily lives, why is it in danger of extinction? What happened to pulque? It appears to be the victim...
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Anthony Wright pens his first Mexico novel: Infernal Drums
I first came to Mexico in early 1992, and it was very much a deliberate choice since it is obviously a long way from Australia. Not exactly a run over the border. My plans were to travel around the world for a year and return to Australia. I was determined to write in Mexico because I was interested in the Beats and the fact that William Burroughs wrote Junkie in Mexico City.
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