Santa María and Jesús

The gazebo in this photo was Mexico's contribution to the 1884 World's Fair, held in New Orleans. Given its Moorish design, it was known as the "Mexican Alhambra Palace." After the fair, the cast-iron structure was disassembled, brought back to Mexico City in pieces, and rebuilt in the Alameda Central. From its perch lottery winners were announced. Around 1910, it was replaced by the Monument to Benito Juárez (now on Avenida Juárez) and moved to the Alameda of a neighborhood called Santa María la Ribera.

Santa María la Ribera is one of my favorite areas of the city. It has had a bad rep since the 1840s, when a citizen council complained to federal authorities of thugs who roamed the area. Today, it's a traditional neighborhood, full of cantinas, modest restaurants and snack shops, that is in the process of gentrification. You can tell it's on the rise due to the proliferation of internet cafes, gyms, coffee houses and other businesses that tend to be patronized by the middle class. My friend Jesús Chairez (who has several blogs and websites about Mexico City) lucked out when he found an incredible apartment with this balcony that overlooks the Alameda. Everyone's luck runs out, though. He says his landlady is selling the building.

Las tres chifladas

This photo was not taken at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Nor do its subjects herald that the circus has come to town. They attended a recent cultural event in the centro histórico of Mexico City.

Bless this house

Looking for a barber shop nearby to my New Orleans apartment, I saw this house on Franklin Avenue, near St. Claude. Its message may be clear but the owner left a few details ambiguous. Is he saying that the Lord protects his house? Or that he actually lives there?

Beauty parlor

I was recently in Gomez Farías, Chihuahua, and found myself fascinated by this building. I'm not exactly sure why. I think it is the warmth of the words and illustration, and the contrast of the starkness around it. And the shin-level patina.

Nick Gilman and carnitas

In "Regrets," one of the short stories in my book Travel Advisory, a character refers to carnitas as "Swollen slabs of brown and fatty flesh -- hooves and haunches, maws and jaws, cross-hatched tripes, deflated udders, unidentifiable viscera gleaming golden with grease. Stringy, squiggly, plump as pillows, flat as pennies. All on offer in a hole in the wall, protected behind a glass shield, kept warm under an infrared lamp. Carnitas: Mexican mystery meat. This is as deep into a pig as you can go, puerco profundo."

Carnitas are, in fact, hunks of pork, shoulder or butt, mixed with the rest of the pig -- liver, heart, snout, skin, even reproductive organs. They are braised in water or milk, seasoned, subsequently fried and then chopped into bits before being made into tacos. The squeamish order pura maciza (only the white-meat flesh of the pig, unadorned by anything that has to do with bodily functions). But the surtida -- the whole lot mixed together -- is sublime. Before I was diagnosed with high cholesterol, I ate it all the time.

My friend Nick Gilman, pictured above at a presentation for his charming culinary guidebook, Good Food in Mexico City, not long ago  on his website touted La Reina de la Roma, on Calle Campeche between Monterrey and Medellín, as his favorite purveyor of carnitas. I couldn't agree with him more. Whenever I whistle in the dark past the cardiologist, I make a beeline for that changarro.