It seemed only fitting that I begin with food I crave. It's the food of my hometown. Offering comfort. Friendship. A fix. And with all the Tex-Mex cuisine purveyors in the city, operating at any given time of the 24-hour cycle, one can feed anytime. Often, it looks as though people do. Speaking of my hometown, this is our official city sticker:
I live in New York City, mostly. The City. But, when I am in San Antonio, my homebase, you can find my lunching Friday self fork-to-mouth at Rosario's, preferably on someone's business account.
Enchiladas Pollo con Mole, Rosario's, San Antonio, TX
Otherwise, I'm in my neighborhood, Government Hill, with friends at La Gardenia mopping up the remains of the Chile Relleno lunch special with a larded flour tortilla of extraordinary lightness and brioche-like melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Saturday afternoons, if the rare occurance of a mild climate touches upon the city, I am on my bike to Cascabel Mexican Patio, an interior Mexico gem with former dive cred that only the New Yorker in me can appreciate. However, if you knew what it was like before, and this is San Antonio after all, you'd agree that the fancified way is better. And by fancified, be assured of the following upgrades: Your chair will not give way, a 10-year is not serving you, and utensils are not plastic, if there were any at all come to think of it. And napkins? Forget about it.
But the food! Yes, the food.
Again, Cascabel has its following, even back in its anything-goes dive days. Advice alert: Arrive with hat, oversized sunglasses or your favorite disguise. Your lawyer, art dealer, real estate agent, or in-laws may be lurking under one of those purdy umbrellas attached to a picnicky table, so be alert. Or just look kinda dirty. Or better yet, do the right thing, be social and pleasant. It is the sort-of-south, after all.
Because the point is to eat. And the service can, well, let's just say, be indifferent to the fact that the reason you're at a restaurant is because you want to EAT. Indifferent, furthermore, to the fact that you are probably HUNGRY. (And yes, I do understand service is a bit more laissez-faire in the country of our lovely southern neighbor. And in France too, btw.) Smile, but let your little inner fascist take over. Ultimately, it's about the food.
When ordering, stick to the tacos and huaraches. The carnitas to choose from include al Pastor, al Carbon, and Puerco Cascabel. These are my favorites so I order a combination of the meats for my huaraches, which are smallish corn tortillas with a soft structure, yet thicker than the larger and thinner version. The meats are richly brewed with a score of seasonings, each varying in richness and heat. I like extra heat, so I pour on a few spoonfuls of homemade green salsa. Taste. Maybe some red. Encouraging this kind of display is the presence of varying degrees of finely and roughly chopped, multi-colored slaw of cabbage and carrots, offering a cool cautionary highwire act to my euphoric stoking heat. One can eat fork and knife or simply taco style. I perform a happy combination of the two. With pleasure. If tacos or huaraches are not for you, I recommend Cochinita Pibil, essentially pork loin roasted with orange and achiote, and a specialty of the Yucatan.
Cascabel's version reads like pulled pork eagerly playing the sweet v. heat riff. Complex, smoky, and with an underlying structure that commands respect, it is not to be missed. In NYC, my recipe is a mut of two respectable, though culturally different versions from StarChefs and the Universidad de Guadalajara.
Speaking of NYC, where finding my cooking and eating rituals most happily confined to my kitchen, one can also find a few friends and loads of books, my kitchen's library. Thusly inspiring the site's name. Also, if not pan-in-hand, it means I am finding time finishing graduate work in Media Studies and Film at The New School, hence the restaurant budgetary issues. Often I can be found at a particular enoteca in TriBeCa engaged in selling a very ancient product. But really, I create cooking moments, read cookery books and literature, shop the Greenmarkets, or search for the best grass-fed butter or something just so off-the-radar because I was asked or stumbled across it in a book or on the web.
"There is too much food in food writing." That was my thought, and my critique from the outset. I love writing about food like any other food writer, though I tend to see its imprints and implications in other areas where conversation is limited or closed off, like politics, adverstising, and all other media-related efforts utilizing old and new media alike to sell food, food products, or food moments. My approach, then, is more interdisciplinary. A more deep-drilling, rigorous and promiscuous approach whereby food writers and media makers can enter the overall food politics discourse.
Other pockets of time I am professionally engaged as a multi-media producer/writer/consultant focusing on food and wine. Among one of my current projects is a short documentary I am filming about mobile food trucks. I freelance my food writing before cutting my teeth in this field as a contributing food writer for the San Antonio Current. These days, my everyday food writing adventures can be found on here. When I can't sleep or just don't--I live in NYC afterall--I contemplate how I can finance another MA in Food Studies at NYU.