Dal Face

Today was fairly quite, except for the donkeys walking down the street downtown--four of then, lead by an old man in a sombrero, complete with colorful Mexican saddle blankets. I heard the clopping, turned round, and of course was unable to find my camera in time to get a good photo of them. Quite an endearing sight, though, burros en la calle.

Regardless of how quiet a day it is, I can always write about food. In my cooking class today we made quesadillas and Mexican cocoa. We actually made the corn tortillas by hand (though the masa had been purchased from a tortilleria), and filled them with queso Oaxaca (a stringy mozzarella-is cheese), zucchini flowers, nopalitos (prickly pear paddles, which we grilled and sliced), and a Mexican herb whose name entirely escapes me at the moment. It began with an 'E'... The cocoa consisted of milk, Mexican chocolate (the very same Abuelita chocolate you can buy at Albertson's), and a cinammon stick, which is what made it so tasty. Que rico! And very convinient to have a class in which you make lunch.

For dinner I decided to find a vegetarian restaurant recommended by my Lonely Planet book, called La Esquina del Sol. I took a bus down town (40 cents--the bus stops for you if you look at it with any sort of intent, even if you're not at a designated bus stop). I made my way through the wildly curving street, past a large church whose facade was being renovated. I spied people, the faithful, presumably, sitting inside. Just past the church, at the end of the street, was a restaurant I very well might have missed had I not been looking for it. It was, in reality, called "Yamura." "Solo Vegetales," read the small sign. I poked my head in, saw one other couple sitting in the corner. A boy of about ten, dark and round-faced, presumably the waiter (definitely a family establishment) came up to me. "Are you open?" I asked. "Of course," he replied, unspeakably polite, "sit where you like." I sat at a small, nicely set table. Under the white and orange table cloths, I think it was probably made of aluminum, as were the chairs under their classy black covers. "Are you familiar with out menu?" I was not. Hands clasped infront of im, he told me very professionally: "First we have a green salad with steamed vegetables, then dal [lentil] and vegetable soup; the main course is cauliflower pakora with rice, and for dessert we have yogurt with straberries." I certainly hadn't been counting on a four course meal; the guidebook had something about salads and soups and sandwiched, and a wide selection of teas, although it was probably talking about a restaurant that no longer exists... The food was good, considetring it was vegetarian Indian food in a country of staunchly traditional meat eaters. The boy brought the plates in quick succession, and I munched away as best I could. The walls, painted with green leaves and swirls here and there, were adorned with photographs of classical Indian dancers and Hindu deities. Two fluorescent lights illuminated the vases of flowers on the table; Jazz played on the stereo. The boy would go back and forth from the open floor-to-ceiling window, where he would wach passers-by on the street, to a stool behind the counter, where he sat beside a giant papier-mache angel and read the paper. His little brother, probaby 6 or 7, wandered in and out. It was Mexico at its most incongruous and delightful. The tab? $4.00.


Upon exiting, I noticed people still in the church. "Ave Maria..." sang a man's voice. And then again, but two or three voices now, sweetly harmonizing. "Ave Maria, Ave Maria..." With each Ave the harmony grew, the voices, clear and strong, wrapping each other, wrapping around me. I stopped, transfixed, for a moment. The sun, slipping into the west, threw a few golden beams against the wall behind me. The voices faded, and I walked on, into the fading light, and the smells and sounds of the street. Ahead of me, the moon, almost full, rose above the perilously perched houses of Guanajuato.