Oaxaca Mexico: Still Cooking (in & out of the kitchen)

   

So in a fit of intelligence, I checked my schedule and realized I didn’t actually have to work until Thursday. I took the advice of Travis (commenter extraordinaire!) and finagled my way into a cooking class ($70US for one-on-one, hands on style class). So that is what I did Wednesday morning. Despite Tuesday night’s activities, I was clear-eyed enough to make it to Casa Crespo at 10am (what is up with these morning cooking classes?). Carlos was my host and the owner of this small B&B/cooking school. He is so multi-talented that I began to feel like a poorly educated underachiever with no focus and no goals. Then he started pouring the beer and that feeling went away. Seriously though, dude is an accomplished artist, tourism geek, world traveler, B&B owner and chef (and some other stuff I’m forgetting)! It was just the two of us and we had a ball. We walked (seemingly uphill both ways) to the local market where he took me to all of the stalls and talked about various veggies, techniques and peppers. The colors were vibrant and got me excited about the day’s class and meal. Well, this didn’t pique my appetite, but it sure caught my eye.

Oh wait. I totally got hit on by my cab driver. It was so funny that I couldn’t even be offended. These guys have balls (pardon the pun). We are chatting (in spanish) and he starts asking about my boyfriend/kid/housing situation and I ask him about his girlfriend/kid/housing situation. He has a girlfriend and loves the regular sex but wishes there were more of it! We were both just laughing and laughing at this, I told him that maybe she was tired and he said that maybe he needed a back-up and looked pointedly at me. I told him that I was old enough to be his older sister and that I was taking a break from romance. He told me to give him a call when my break was over. I had tears streaming down my face yall. It was one of those times where you only spend 5 minutes with somebody but you make a totally humor-filled, in-the-moment connection that you both recognize as special and fleeting. After he pulled away from the curb I wanted to shout: “well done young man, well done!” but I figured I was already running low on “cool points” for the day.

Now, lest ye loyal readers who don’t know me think I’m some man magnet, let me assure you that I am not. Well, not really. I haven’t posted any pics of me mainly because I’m “growing my hair out” into its natural state and this requires that I wear a bandana/headscarf 24 hours a day and I just can’t embarass my momma like that and have pics of me in a bandana all over Mexico, floating around the web. I WILL say though (and any of my exes who are reading this I need you to keep your lips zipped)…that I have a certain allure…my chubby charm as I call it, seems to attract both men and women and believe me, I am the least “saxxy” person I know in terms of flirtation/dressing provocatively, yada yada yada. What I DO have is a nice rack (well, I do) and a great sense of humor, a contagious smile and an air of unattainability that men seem to want to investigate. Either that or I give off some pheromonal scent that attracts the male beast in the 15-21 and 45-65 age groups. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not all that interested in finding out. But if you are a female in need of an ego boost or international romance, you need look no further than the men of Mexico.

Okay, back to the cooking class: Tortilla Soup (we fried up our own tortillas strips!), Salsa Verde (Green Salsa), Chicken Enchiladas, Salsa Roja (Red Salsa), Fresh Guacamole, Tortillas Con Carne (pork) and Flan (from scratch!). We drank so much beer and giggled so much that we were barely able to eat all that we cooked. I said barely. And doesn’t this make you question your optimist/pessimist philosophy? Me in my apron and favorite Pink Polo shirt. I recommend a visit to Carlos at Casa Crespo when you get here and try to get cabbie #OX45787. Whether you get “lucky” or not, he’ll probably make your day.

Wednesday: To be continued….

9 thoughts on “Oaxaca Mexico: Still Cooking (in & out of the kitchen)”

  1. D…From that alluring picture of you in the apron (by the way if your going to post porn on this blog let us know so we wont open it at work!) Looks as though your lost weight :)… but dont worry , I found it !! Keep it up and we’ll have to change your “Chubby Charmer” title to ” Petite Pimp”

  2. I wish I could bottle up some of that scent – I would like a 45-65 year old man here in VA.
    I don’t wish to go to Mexico or to have that much of an adventure (dinner dates and tame activities would be nice.
    The fresh veggies looked great–all of that sort of made me hungry.

  3. Mmmmmm. That is so nice – that people like to cook. Wanna come over? I made hotdogs in multigrain pilsbury dough crescent rolls and corn on the cob for dinner. Gourmet all the way baby.

  4. Love the pictures of the (hot) peppers – once thought I would impress locals by buying one and eating like an apple – good cure for the urge to impress total strangers. I really like the way you can just sign up – take a cooking class and presto – you have a usable skill. Really cool.

    Also, I count getting hit on by a guy younger than you but old enough to go out without his parents permission to be a good day. I seem to attract the same age brackets as you (only sometimes older) and have to feel kinda sad about myself when to try and connect to the age of guy hitting on me I find myself telling him stories about my 80 year old grandfather. Yeah, you found me out, I don’t have a father complex, I have a grandfather complex!

  5. D-

    So the adventure continues, can you imagine anything greener than those veges.. Well if you can it’s me. I don’t recall anything so vibrant in Baja.

    SO, how do in convince you to pose the recipe you learned for tortilla soup. I’m a tortilla soup addict since the green Tortise trip. Too bad Lyle and Jimmy have not done a cookbook.

    Thanks for the vicarious adventure, it keeps me from screaming and running out of the office some days.

    Cheers

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