"I am Mexican. I am not afraid... But I also respect the one who does not understand."

Conches are my all time fav pastry!!

...I read on a piece of wall art (pictured at the end of this post). The beauty, heart, and graciousness of its message made me cry. The rest of this post is not nearly as deep as this.

8/31, 630a

I wake up.

130p 

I leave the house. I have no idea why it took me so long.

My agenda is more targeted exploring. My goal is to hit an organic grocery store I saw in a flier and… the shoe store.

San Miguel has a shoe!! They’re not as ubiquitous* as avarcas were in Menorca, but they’re more comfortable and muuuuuuuuuuuch cuter! I see mention of them on one website (THIS is what you have the potential to miss when you don’t buy travel guides!!) and I mention the

New Shoe Swoon

shoes to Lynn, Stella & Usche’s mom. She’s got a closet of them and offers me some she never wears.

YES!! Yes, please! A thousand times yesssssssss. (PS She wears my size. #blessed)

San Miguel Shoes have a few different styles I want to research before I buy my own pair(s?). I hit Lynn’s shoe store recommendation first and I’m not as feverish about them as I was when I was in Lynn’s closet or every other store in Menorca. I’m going to be here a while. I WILL find the shoe store that makes me sweat.

Via Organica lives in away from the tourist part of town I’ve mostly

Just take all my money with this.

been and it’s CUTE. I’m a sucker for street art of which there is a lot. It’s early in the day (relatively speaking) so the restaurants are either quiet or closed, but I know the vibe of this neighborhood. It’s very East Austin/East Hollywood where cool and hip is replacing older traditional. Once I make the connection, I’m less enchanted but I’m not mad at it. Good street art with a message goes a long way with me.

I step into Via Organica and lose my mind. All I know is when I finally left, I’d spent a bigger chunk of money there than I have at any other one spot I’ve been to. It was like a Whole Foods seedling with all the goodies, costing all the money, minus the size and mass produced feeling. Put anything - oil, air, dreams - in a mason jar or eyedropper bottle and slap a handwritten label on it and

Echoes of Whole Foods 

I’ll give you all of my money for them. 

I swear, I just went in for ginger. 

Anyway, I run out of the store before I can find anything else to buy and realize I’m hungry. My eye had caught on a temporary sign hanging over an archway that advertised comida rico before I got lost in the space time continuum of Via Organica. On a whim, I forgo the new and hip for old traditional. 

I forget to take a picture of the outside so I can’t remember the name of the place, but I know the feel. I walk in and I’m back in my grandma’s kitchen when she used to care for me, pre school. The sign is temporary because I think this is someone’s home.

I snuck a picture of the señoras cooking.
No good reason.

There are a few tables set up. The menu is written on a piece of paper in magic marker and I have 5 choices: among them are salad, crispy tacos, spaghetti or rice, and tortas de carne.

I order tortas de carne. Instantly, a young girl brings me a pitcher of limeade, a bowl of soap de fideos (noodle soup), a dish of warm tortillas and salsa. I’m ecstatic. When I get the tortas, I realize they're not gorditas (they're meat cakes), and who cares because this is the best meal I’ve had since I got to Mexico? And? It cost 60 pesos ($3) which is less than 10% of what I’d just dropped in the organic market. I want to screw every restaurant choice in favor of townie goodies like this one.

I spend the rest of the day working on this blog. 99% of the time, I love writing these posts. I love it so much, hours can fly as I write, rewrite, edit pictures, blah, blah, and I don’t notice the time flying. Not today. Today sucks. I’m in my head, I’m thinking too

My best meal yet...

hard, I’m trying too hard. I beat myself up about it. I'm taking the weekend off.

130a 

Lightening crashes and my doggie cries. God’s not bowling tonight, it’s collapsing buildings with a wrecking ball; thunder rocks the house. My sleep was all stress dreams anyway, so waking up to hug my terrified dogs was a welcome respite*. 

9/1, 730a

I get up. I have plans this morning so I have to squeeze my usual 6 hour routine of God Knows into 2 hours. Yesterday’s crappy evening lingers until I do a yoga podcast by my all time favorite yoga teacher, my first yoga teacher ever, Elsie. Her class has me all kinds of purging and crying and loving and forgiving myself on my mat, thank goodness.

Estella's comida

930a 

I meet my neighbors Melissa and Mark at their house next door. They have friends in town for the weekend and have graciously invited me to join them in all their (awesome) plans. I meet Louis and Grace and Lee and Anne. Like all good Texans (and Alabamans), they make me feel like one of their own within seconds. This weekend is going to be fun!

We walk to TOSMA (Tianguis Organico de San Miguel de Allenda), the “Gringo Market” (nicknamed for all the whiteys that head over for their organic produce) a weekend farmer’s market and food court. The food stands all look outstanding and I order a huarache, because I’ve never heard of it before (besides the sandal).

A huarache is a thick, oval-shaped (sandal-shaped, if you will) corn meal pancake covered in refried beans and your choice of 15ish toppings, plus onions, cilantro and salsas. I get chorizo & potatoes, mushroom & cactus, and spinach. Of course,

Estella's huarache

it’s FANTASTIC. My friends get some of the most beautiful tamales I’ve ever seen and this egg thing that’s probably great, but I’ll never know because eggs are disgusting. 

Awesome thing I've noticed: cart vendors provide real clay or plastic plates and cups to use and return. Street vendors cover their plastic plates in plastic wrap so they can easily reuse and the vendors in the Gringo Market washed their dishes on the spot. It's a super smart way to cut down on disposable trash, and eating off a beautiful clay plate makes the dish a dining experience instead of just another taco.

We head to the farmer's market section. I have a wild hair to make

a vegetable soup so I buy a king’s ransom of organic veggies and fresh tortillas for about five bucks. This is nothing like the Hollywood Farmer’s Market.

View from our table at La Santisima Trinedad

330p

I head out with my friends to a winery called La Santisima Trinidad. Melissa has purposefully not said a lot about this place, nor even really said the name much so that we could all be sufficiently blown away. And we were.

La Santisima Trinedad is a winery and restaurant (and hotel and polo field and community, I guess) that lies on what might as well be Tuscany. Vineyards, olive trees and lavender blanket the land, so much so that if you live here, you have the option to sell or keep what your land produces. (Which I think is AWESOME.) 

My table full of new friends :)

We have an incredible lakeside dinner outside, tour the garden all our food came from (I eat an olive straight off a tree! I instantly regret it! It was SO BAD!), and drink lots and lots of red wine. I think I talk A LOT about how Hollywood doesn’t care. Red

Hey winos, check out
this red blend.

wine smudges my memory enough so that I know I talked a lot more than I usually do to new people, and 'Hollywood is Awful' is one of my go-tos. All I know is my hosts and friends are super sweet, and I get invited to the next day’s activities so it must not have been as insufferable as I’m imagining.

As we ride home in the shuttle, the sky goes from light to dark in minutes and we drive directly into a hailstorm. Our very, very responsible shuttle drive pulls into a gas station to wait out the storm, so not to worry family, I made it through to write this post.

BONUS: While we're grounded, I remember to ask Melissa about San Miguel shoes. She tells me if I really want shoes, I need to go to nearby León for the day. That's where they make all the San Miguel shoes, and therefore that becomes my new North.

*I think searching my mind for the Spanish I need has opened up other language corridors. This is likely the first time I've personally used "ubiquitous" and "respite" (I had to look each up to make sure they meant what I thought they meant) in conversation and they just dumped on the page with the rest of my writing. That's super cool!

"Living is wonderful!"

I just loved this.

"I am Mexican. I am not afraid. I love my culture. I love my people. I love their laugh, and I love their smile. I love my fields, and the brown of it's land. I love my homeland. And I defend it to death. But I also respect the one who doesn't understand."

What a grand day, courtesy of Melissa & Mark!

Lifetime wish list item: these tiles in my home. You can probably see my drool on them in this pic.