All about food, travel and life in Mexico! Jane Bauer is the lead instructor at Chiles&Chocolate Cooking School where she focuses on southern Oaxacan cuisine. Jane is also the owner of Cafe Juanita, located in Huatulco, Mexico and the editor of The Eye, Oaxaca’s English monthly magazine.
Living, Food, Mexico
Jane Bauer 
Hey Jane! I’ve been following you on you IG account. I’m going to Huatulco with my family from July 4 – 19 and would love to sit down with you for a beer. I’m a transplanted Mexican living in Canada for the past 20 years (why, why, WHY?!) and the Oaxaca coast is an area I’d love to eventually move to. I know you’ve done it and would love to chat! Want to meet up? 🙂 let me know what your schedule looks like in July!
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Dear Jane,
I loved your Modern Love column!
Best,
Anne
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Thanks so much Anne!
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I absolutely loved your piece in the NYT on Friday. Thank you for sharing it with us..
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Thanks David!
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Dear Jane,
I just read ‘He Had to Leave So I Could Breathe’ on Modern Love, and then I read it again. What a perfect piece of writing – it becomes so taut as the story evolves, and each word is so carefully chosen. Thank you.
Leanne
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Thank you Leanne!
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From Modern Love essay:
“She was older than him and hard like a statue…”
Should be: “She was older than HE…”
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Thanks
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Both “than him” and “than he “ are grammatically correct. The former treats than as a conjunction and so the pronoun remains in the nominative. The latter treats than as a preposition and you decline the pronoun into the accusative.
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Thanks Tara❤️
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Your writing witnesses experience and invites this reader to do so with his own experience. This is your gift …to treasure and share often.
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I couldn’t breathe until your story ended. Brilliant piece of tight writing. Modern Love can breathe again, it was getting a bit stale til now.
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Thanks Joanie❤️
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Exquisite writing. Every word perfect. (despite grammarmaven critique) Stunning threading of word to word, sentence to sentence. Breathtaking and satisfying, probably just like your food. Do you have writings elsewhere? I am hungry for more. (I know, I know. But hard to resist).
Kathleen
Galveston, Texas
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Thanks so much Kathleen! You made my day❤️
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Jane — Loved your Modern Love Column. Your writing took me on a journey through your thoughts and feelings. I felt like I was on the boat, eating, watching the swirl of wine, etc. Thanks for sharing!
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Also a huge fan of your story in Modern Love. Thanks for a beautiful story!
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Thanks so much!
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Modern Love was a finely wrought O.Henry classic, down to your dizzying last paragraph that leaves every sentient reader gasping, heart booming …..
Allen
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Thank you Allen
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Wow…I loved the piece, but I don’t know…maybe you’re breathing again, but are you LIVING? I took a “shouldn’t have” plunge 36 years ago, and we’ve been married 34 of them. Are you being fair to Tony and yourself right now? You’ll figure it out.
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Hey Babs, Thank you for taking the time to comment. I don’t think anyone who knows me would accuse me of not living. I’m so glad you enjoyed the piece.
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Sorry, meant no criticism at all…just to, sometimes, follow your heart vs. your head. Any maybe you have 🙂
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I physically exhaled at the end of your Modern Love piece, not realizing I had been holding my breath the whole time.
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Thanks so much Gigi!
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Did you end up with Tony or Tony’s friend????
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Wait for the next installment:)
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Hello Jane Bauer – I just e-mailed you through the TIMES and now write here. Your column was just terrific, pitch-perfect and a cliff hanger until the end. I write to ask if you are still with Tony – assuming Tony is real. Your situation reminds me of mine with my partner of eighteen-months (now, coincidentally, on a three week trip with her college-aged daughter to Oaxaca). Our core connection may be deeper than what you describe – we have re-connected after being very close years ago in college. And so, we continue to muddle through. Wondering what happened with you. Or if fictional, what happens to your character. Thanks. Phil
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Thanks Phil. The Modern Love column is non-fiction:) Keep muddling through- all you can do!
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🙂 Thanks, again, for your wonderful piece.
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Dear Jane – Thank you for you Modern Love piece. Such terrific writing, tight, emotive, visual, so much so that I found myself having word & phrase envy several times through the piece!
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Thanks Susan! I often suffer from word envy- so honored to know I provoked it in someone else.
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Your Modern Love piece was harrowing, haunting, scintillating and addictive. Be careful with such talent. Thank you.
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Just read ‘He Had to Leave So I Could Breathe’ in Spanish and I loved it!
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Thanks so much!
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Just re-read your Modern Love column and came here to ask if you followed your heart 🙂 Best piece of writing I’ve read in a long time. Reminded me of something in my own life.
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Greetings Jane!
We’re coming to Huatulco on March 5, for 3 weeks. We’ll be staying at Hotel Villablanca and I’m wondering if there are yoga classes in the area? Your name popped up a few times online, with excellent reviews about you as a teacher!
It seems that you have your fingers in many pies and I’m sure you’re very busy. I hope you don’t mind me reaching out.
We’re coming from Toronto.
We came across the Eye magazine when we were last there (Dec ’21) and glad to see it’s available online. I really enjoyed reading it.
I have a sneaky suspicion we might meet when we’re there. I hope it’s to experience one of your classes 🙂.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Alison Grundy
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