Emily DeNitto of the New York Times wrote a very nice review on us this weekend you can read it here if you haven’t already. I have had experience in another restaurant with a Times review, it’s extremely intense and lots of fun. The good news for us is that we have lots of practice with high volume and we did know that the review was coming out. What you don’t know of course is what the review is going to say and what dishes are going to be featured. People come in with the paper and point, “I want that”. It’s really cute. I want to thank Ms. DeNitto for her nice words and that she gets what we are doing. It’s always been a challenge for us to stand firm for what we believe in as far as the Mexican food we are preparing here and now we have some great acknowledgment in a very important publication for all the world to see. Or at least all the world that gets the Westchester section of the Times which is good enough for us at the moment. Couple with the nice writeup by Julia Sexton in Westchester magazine about our masa, we really have people spreading the word for us. After all is said and done, the most important thing for us is the work which is made all the more rewarding by the fact that people are appreciating what we are doing. Creating everything fresh, from scratch, with ancient traditions guiding us has always been a pleasure and non-negotiable. When you have the New York Times writing that what you are doing is worthy, it’s a great rush. The food we create for the most part is humble, very honest and delicious. Hope to see you soon.

It’s been a really long time since I have blogged here. I hope you all come back now and check as I plan to keep it going. As this is being written I am planning a trip to the Motherland sometime later in the summer. I will be meeting up with Felipe at his home in Puebla and then hopefully travel on to Oaxaca which I have not yet experienced. I say hopefully because you really never know, it’s very easy to get distracted in Mexico and I tend not to stick to plans letting the adventure just unfold. I am going with a few clothes and empty luggage so I can fill up and bring back lots of stuff for us to use here. We had a sort of weird winter, weather had me worried but we are back on track now and getting stronger every day. We just unveiled our new summer menu last week and we added several new dishes. We didn’t take anything away either so it’s a bit of a challenge but so far it’s working out and well received. We have had a few people requesting less meat laden dishes so we added some vegetarian things and lots of great sides with which you could create a wonderful and healthy vegetarian meal. We have some beans now that are not refried in lard in addition to the real thing for those who have come to appreciate the lard factor. I was listening to Alice Waters and Ruth Reichl yesterday on NPR talking about “slow food” with Leonard Lopate and what they say makes so much sense. We have strayed so far in this country from the farm and the connection to where our food supply comes from, and we have learned to accept the inferior “fast food” which doesn’t just refer to fast food restaurants; it points to a way of farming and food production that grows food faster, cheaper, less tasty and of benefit to the large factory farms. The good news is that there are thousands of farms and farmers across the country who are still working the old way, growing food and selling it in season at the peak of ripeness and flavor, and people are catching on that there is a difference. Yes, this food is more expensive, and yes, the movement does appear to serve an elite group who can afford to shop at greenmarkets. But the fact that the “slow food” movement exists and there is greater awareness of where we went wrong in our food production practices, there is hope that we will see much more good local stuff at good prices and less of the mass produced stuff in the near future. But the more we can see our way clear to seek out and buy from good local farmers, the support helps them to keep the movement growing and make sustainable agriculture practices become the norm rather than the fringe. I have always been so proud that here at the restaurant, we do everything the old “slow” way and we do seek out local produce, meat, dairy and eggs whenever we can. It’s expensive doing business this way but it makes a difference. Enough for today.