Chocolate and churros

Little in life is reliable, but you can count on El Moro, which is open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. El Moro is a joint on the Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas #42 in the Centro Histórico. It is a cafeteria that serves the traditionally Spanish combination of hot chocolate and deep-fried, sugar-coated doughnuts called churros.

The hot chocolate at El Moro comes in four varieties (special, French, Spanish, or Mexican, in varying degrees of sweetness). To be frank, neither hot chocolate nor the brick-heavy churros is precisely my idea of comfort food. Still, I am extremely comforted whenever I go to this place. Maybe it is the fact that it has been here forever. And maybe it is because some of the waitresses seem to have been here since opening day.

Department of self-congratulation

When you write a book, you never know what's going to happen. Sadly, most of them disappear into black holes, never to be heard from again. I am relieved that the critical response to First Stop in the New World, my panoramic look at Mexico City, published last June by Riverhead, was so overwhelmingly positive. (Click here to get to its Amazon page and read fragments of the reviews.)

There were more surprises at the end of last year. It was named one of the best fifty non-fiction books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle (click here) and one of the ten best books of the year by an internet site called The Globalist (click here).

My other book, Las llaves de la ciudad -- a collection of magazine pieces about some of Mexico City's most extraordinary citizens -- was named one of the 12 best books of the year by Críticas, a magazine that reviews books in Spanish in the U.S. (Click here.) It is in bookstores all over Mexico. After a long delay, it is finally available on Amazon (click here), at Barnes & Noble (click here) and at Borders (click here).

Night of the living uniforms

(Photo by Everett McCourt)

When out-of-towners come to visit me, I send them off to the Anthropology Museum or Frida Kahlo’s house by themselves, and catch up with them later for lunch at the cantina. But one “gallery” where I have accompanied friends countless times is Oskar, a store on Avenida Insurgentes and Calle Chihuahua in the Colonia Roma. Here you can buy uniforms of any kind – night-duty nurse, coffee-shop waitress, French chambermaid, eager bellboy, pit-stop girl and the like.

(Photo by Everett McCourt)

All the mannequins appear to be about 40 years old and wear wigs with the corresponding decades of neglect. They look like shipwreck survivors, or people who've had their hair cut with a lawnmower. Their hands – those that still have them – tend to make expressive or even extravagant gestures, sometimes bent into positions impossible to duplicate in real life. Some are in disturbingly suggestive poses.

(Photo by Everett McCourt)

If you are interested, there is a little more about Oskar in my book, First Stop in the New World (see books page). A word of warning: If you come here hung over, it could be a little frightening. It's almost possible to imagine the mannequins as human beings. Oskar would be a great setting for a horror movie, with the protagonists trapped inside and the mannequins coming to life.

(Photo by Everett McCourt)

On the road

By the week of June 9, my book about Mexico City, First Stop in the New World, should be in stores across the U.S. Hence, for the next three weeks or so I will be in el norte promoting it.

I will be appearing on various radio programs, but also making appearances to talk about the book and sign copies.

Here is the schedule of events:

Thursday, June 12 Idlewild Books, 7pm 12 West 19 Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) New York

This event is sponsored by the Mexican Cultural Institute and a cocktail reception will follow.

Monday, June 16 Mount Pleasant Branch Public Library, 7 pm 3160 16th St. NW Washington, DC

Tuesday, June 17 Housing Works Bookstore Café, 6:30 pm 206 Crosby Street (one block east of Broadway between Houston and Prince Streets) New York

This event will be a conversation between the great Guatemalan-American novelist Francisco Goldman and me. There will be beer.

Saturday, June 21 Mexican Cultural Institute (co-sponsored by Cervantes Center), 5pm 125 Paseo De La Plaza, Suite 500 Los Angeles, CA 90012

Thursday, June 26 Martinez Bookstore, 7 pm 1110 N. Main Street Santa Ana, CA 92701

If you're around any of those places, please come. And if you know anyone in those cities, please spread the word. As far as the blog is concerned, I hope to keep updating it while I'm on the road. In any case, keep watching this space.

Mexico City soul food, part one

If there is such thing as a Mexico City municipal dish, it would have to be tacos al pastor. A variation on Middle Eastern shawarma, it is made from pork (don’t tell Allah), marinated with various spices, including a heavy dose of annato, which gives it a shrill orange color. The slices of pork are mounted atop each other to form a huge orb, and impaled on a metal stick, which revolves around a vertical charcoal grill. The fire from the grill is turned up as orders are placed, and the taquero slices from the most fully cooked part to fashion the taco, which is adorned with cilantro, onion and a slice of pineapple.

Although this version of events is not universally accepted, supposedly the taco al pastor is the invention of a woman named Concepción Cervantes, who discovered shawarma on a trip to Lebanon, and debuted her version at a taco stand called El Tizoncito in 1966. That taco stand – now a well-appointed little restaurant – is still on the same street corner of Tamaulpas and Campeche in the fashionable Condesa neighborhood. (There are twenty franchises of El Tizoncito in Mexico City and around the country.)

My favorite tacos al pastor are located not at El Tizoncito but at Tacos Álvaro O., on calle Álvaro Obregón, nearly at the corner of Tonalá, in the Colonia Roma. The ones pictured are at Tacos Frontera, further down Calle Álvaro Obregón.