Living the Mexican telenovela

I am back in Edinburgh after 10 days in Mexico. Still slightly jetlagged, granted, but I am happy to report that I had a wonderful holiday. I stayed with my friends Ada & Mauricio and their adorable children Fernanda & Pablo (thank you so much!!!), who showed me around Mexico City, Taxco, Tepostlan, and Guernavaca and generally took extremely good care of me. I enjoyed every minute of my trip (apart from the long-haul flights, that is...)

The only downside to the trip was that at a true telenovela fashion, the bride called off the 650-person wedding just 2 days before it was supposed to take place, the upset groom fled Ciudad de Mexico with his family to lick his wounds, and we ended up going to just a nice no-wedding dinner with friends instead.. Oh well, there will be another Mexican wedding to attend in the future, hopefully...

Most importantly, I ate well during my trip. It will take a few days before I sort out my photos and start posting again, but here's a glimpse of things to come.

* My first ever hacienda lunch
* Ingredient spotlight: huitlacoche
* Fruit-shopping in Tepostlan and below my window
* OTT Mexican lunch experience
* Classy Mexican lunch at Villa Maria, Jerónimo
* Floating lunch in Xochilmilco
* Eating the national colours
* Mexican marketing tricks or how to make sure a customer will say Yes
* Mexican hot chocolate
* Another hacienda meal
* The no-wedding dinner

Some of them I will just mention in my future posts, some of them I will write about more in my "Eating Mexican" series. Hope you will be back reading!

Mexico, here I come!!!

I'm off to my very first cross-Atlantic flight early tomorrow morning and I'm heading to Mexico City. Over the years I've met many lovely Mexicanos & Mexicanas in Edinburgh, and got numerous invitations to visit. As this time one of my Edinburgh friends of 1998/1999 vintage, R, is getting married, I decided to take the plunge and go. I'll be gone for 11 days. The wedding - a 650-people Mexican soap-opera affair!!! - is the night before I return, so I am not sure how soon after getting back to Edinburgh I'm able to blog again;) We'll see.

But it suffices to say that I'm very much looking forward to the trip. I'm staying with my dear friends Angeles & Rafael in Mexico City. Angeles is a very good cook. She has a food technology degree and worked in a small bakery while Rafael was studying in Edinburgh - and I enjoyed many a nice meal at their place in Edinburgh 2000/2001. I'm sure I will be pampered this time as well.

I also anticipate couple of nice meals at Ada & Mauricio's place, my friends of 2001/2002 vintage:) Ada is a professional chef who has contributed to a cookbook about Veracruz food, and she was entertaining quite a lot when her hubby Mauricio was studying for an MBA degree here in Edinburgh. On the side, she also consulted some ready food suppliers on Mexican food, and refreshed and spiked up the menu for one of Edinburgh's Mexican restaurants, Viva Mexico - she even made it to the national newspaper!!! Apart from the numerous dinners at their home, I had also the pleasure of being one of the 'guinea pigs' that was invited to the 'main preview' of the new 3-course menu back in Viva Mexico in August 2002. It was absolutely delicious - and how could one not like it when the chef has taken the concept of 'personal touch' so far:



I will be staying in Mexico City most of the time, and unfortunately cannot travel out of town with neither Angeles or Ada - both of them have just had a baby (first and second child, respectively - and in the first case only last Sunday!). But some of my other friends have volunteered to show me around and maybe even take me to the coast for a couple of days. Who knows, I may be able to recreate the tan on the above picture - acquired during a 2-week conference/holiday on Santorini and Sifnos in Greece in 2002 in time for the wedding:)

But I'm pretty sure I will have lots to write about when I get back! Hasta la vista, amigos!

Estonian Recipes: kamakäkid or kama and mascarpone truffles

Photo updated in June 2009.

Here's a recipe for sweet tidbits made with mascarpone and the ubiquous Estonian ingredient kama. (I've written extensively about kama earlier here). Last night I made kamakäkid - a term that's not easy to translate, so I call them kama mascarpone balls.

Every country probably hopes that visitors will try some of their local traditional foods and fall in love with the cuisine. So lots of Estonian ethnic eateries would have a roasted and ground rye-barley-pea-oat mixture (alias kama) mixed with curdled milk on the menu. Alongside thick fried blood pudding slices, hearty sauerkraut stews and pickled cucumbers. Whereas this all sounds rather divine to me, to slightly more refined taste buds all that rusticism may seem a bit too much. They'd probably finish their dish, but would order something 'safer' and lighter next time.

Hence the attempt to lighten up and 'Westernise' the local food, sometimes quite successfully. In stead of fried black pudding slices you get dainty blood pudding chips, for example. Here is one such attempt to adjust a very traditional ingredient for Western - or even modern Estonian - palates. Instead of eating kama with fermented milk, it's mixed with mascarpone cheese, rolled into small balls and eaten with coffee.

For those of you who can't get hold of kama (eeh - that's all of you then:), try using oatmeal instead, as texture & flavour wise this is rather similar. If you do so, you may want to replace the cream liqueur with whiskey/whiskey liqueur (Drambuie). In which case you'd probably call them Cranachan mascarpone balls:)

Kama & mascarpone truffles
(Mascarpone-kamatrühvlid ehk peenemat sorti kamakäkid)

250 grams of mascarpone
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp raisins
2 Tbsp chopped nuts (I used walnuts, though hazelnuts would have been more 'authentic', as these are the only nuts that are native to Estonia)
3 heaped Tbsp kama flour
a generous dash of cream liqueur (I used Vana Tallinn cream liqueur, but Bailey's would do)

Mix everything together, put into the fridge for a while. Form into small balls, roll in kama or cocoa powder and keep in the fridge until ready to serve.

UPDATE 16.1.2006: Anne of Anne's Food successfully tried my recipe for kama truffles:)