last week we took a vacation to puebla, mexico. puebla is the 4th largest city in mexico, in a valley surrounded by volcanoes. not really a traditional tourist destination, but the culture and food is amazingly rich and varied. we were lucky to go during august, which is walnut harvesting season. this means the traditional pueblan dish of chiles en nogada was being served literally everywhere. sarah tried it on our first night there:

it’s basically a poblano chile, stuffed with fruit and meat and fried, served in a cold walnut/cream sauce and topped with pomegranate seeds. I was lucky enough to find a vegetarian version. the sauce is almost sweet and the whole dish was very rich.

like in every region of mexico we’ve visited, mexicans love the chilaquiles for breakfast, here’s a pic from the b&b we stayed at:

in the background there’s some eggs served with a house salsa, which is pretty standard also. I can’t remember the name of this popular lunch item:

but it’s basically a fried tortilla with huitlacoche (corn mushroom), inside, topped with salsa and crema. these are insanely filling and about $2.

we walked over to the local market and I bought some mole from this lady, she gave me this green thing to try that was kind of like a banana but had big seeds you had to spit out. sarah didn’t like this, but I thought it was ok. very sweet:

at the same market, we went to the local (and very popular) cemita shop. a cemita is basically a sandwich made on a round, sesame seed roll. they put a sliced avocado on it, followed by a chipotle chile, then breaded and fried chicken, a whole ton of the oaxacan string cheese (called quesillo), then some sort of ham, and they top it all off with some oil. lol. this place was mobbed and they had a huge sandwich assembly line thing going that would put subway to shame:

I got some awesome chiles from a chile store:

I tried to buy some brown ones, but the old guy running the store steered me towards these and said they had a lot better flavor.

sarah had these chalupas for breakfast. amazing thing to note: taco bell didn’t actually make up the term “gordita” as a marketing ploy! they actually exist in mexico, and various mexican ladies will cook them for you.

in cholula, which is a smaller town near puebla, we basically had lunch at the quesadilla stands every day. the guys who took us paragliding introduced us to these stands, it’s basically a row of mexican ladies who will cook you a quesadilla, cooked on a hot pemex oil drum top no less, with toppings of your choice. the beautiful thing is, mostly all the options are vegetarian, so there was a lot for me to choose from. blue corn tortillas are the most popular, and they always use quesillo cheese. you can pick huitlacoche, squash flowers, mushrooms, or chicharron (fried pork bits) to go on your quesadilla. we tried everything but the chicharron

also, they have a crazy drink they have for dessert which is basically crushed cocoa beans which are mixed with water and foamed. here’s our tour guides enjoying one. these guys were awesome btw, definitely knew how to eat well and enjoy life in general.

of course, without ice cream there is only darkness and death, and both me and the mexican population love us some ice cream, so we stopped by la michocan once or twice

for a random ice cream place, they had pretty insanely good ice cream. much, much better than a random ice cream place in the states. of course, one day when we were in there they were all chopping wild strawberries in the seating area, so that may have had something to do with the overall quality.

the digestif of choice in puebla is called pasita, it’s a raisin liqueur served with a submerged cube of panela cheese and a raisin on a toothpick

the drink to the left is rompope, a barely alcoholic version of mexican eggnog, invented by nuns in puebla. we drank the most pasita at a very cool bar called “la pasita”, which had a cool menu

and lots of cool artifacts around the bar

it looks sort of touristy from the pics, but really was just a cool place to relax and chill.

we stayed at a fancy b&b in cholula that served a 4 course breakfast everyday that was just ridiculous. yogurt with fruit and homemade bread

fruits with mexican chocolate sauce for dipping

really good, very fresh eggs

obviously, you can’t eat this way 3 days in a row without feeling a little ridiculous, but it was included in the price of our stay and to have breakfast by ourselves on their lovely patio was pretty damn awesome.

also, it wouldn’t be mexico without some delicious molletes

I think this is a pretty good, if somewhat incomplete summary of our culinary adventures in puebla. other cool things we did which I may or may not write about include eating in one of mexico city’s nicest mexican joints (with a writer from the economist no less!), eating at a few fancy places for dinner in puebla, and shopping for food to take back (mostly mole).

we’re going to puebla for a week, taking the following

books:
“sin in the second city” – steve levitt, the author of freakonomics, recommended this highly. about prostitution in chicago
“the count of monte cristo” – this is a classic and by many accounts a real page turner. trying to read more classic works of fiction since it’s an area I haven’t read much in.

movies:
“the italian job” – the classic 50s version, not the remake
“pirates of the carribean” – never saw it, ppl say it’s good, it’s a good way to kill 2.5 hours
“dial M for murder” – classic hitchcock.

I’ve been gravitating towards older movies since watching “the sting”. it’s worked out pretty well so far, I figure if it was made in the 50s or 60s, and you can get it on itunes, there must be some redeeming qualities to it. plus, so much of what comes out these days is just trash, moviewise. look who sounds over 30, eh!?

music:
too much to mention, notable stuff includes tony rice and norman blake’s duo bluegrass record, miles davis and charlie parker’s early quintets, sonny rollins’ prestige stuff, mahler’s 1st symphony, and sting’s “nothing like the sun”. hiram bullock, who passed away recently, played awesome on this album.

did the wod fromcrossfit virtuosity today because it looked fun and it’s a rest day on the main site. added 15 burpees/round to it because I like burpees.
3 rounds for time of:
15 Situps
15 Back Extensions
15 Knees to Elbows
15 Good Mornings
15 Burpees

the whole thing took me 12:48. also did weighted pullups, 3×5 w/30lbs, and deadlifts @ 255lbs.