Living, Food, Mexico
I wrote this cookbook for the 10-year anniversary of my restaurant Cafe Juanita. I am filled with so much gratitude to the amazing team that works alongside me as we enter our 17th year in business.
If you have been to the restaurant we would really appreciate if you took a moment to post a review: https://g.co/kgs/kteosNN
Follow my personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livingfoodmexico/
Back in 2020 some feminist associations in Mexico called for a “Day Without Women” on March, 9 to denounce femicide, inaction by the authorities and, more generally, sexism in Mexican society.
While this tactic was used in the campaign and film ‘A Day without Mexicans (2004), to highlights the idea that the American economy is dependent on Latinos- gender inequality is not the same. The main point of the film was to show what would happen if Latino immigrants took the day off. Basically, the economy would take a massive hit.
However, I would argue that the last place women should be, to show an impact, is staying home. Home is already the domain of many women. The space we, as women, need to claim is public space.
When I was in college we had ‘Take Back the Night.’ The first Take Back the Night event began in England in 1877 as a women only protest against the violence and fear women encountered walking the streets at night. The first Take Back the Night March in the US was held in San Francisco in 1978 to protest violence against women, particularly sexual assault.
Ranked as the second-highest nation for femicides in Latin America, just below Brazil, Mexico’s cases show a sustained rise, recording over 920 in 2022. This count is perceived as even higher by most of the population due to the substantial number of unreported and uninvestigated instances.
According to the WHO, globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
Given the space we need to claim for ourselves is public space, I plan on celebrating my ability to go to work and move freely through the world, hopefully harassment free. Stand tall and take up space to show we will not hide away.
If you have not ventured to the highway around Huatulco lately you may not have noticed the growing number of migrants on their walk towards a better life. Many months ago on the south side of Copalita an immigration kiosk was erected and manned by immigration and army personnel. They pulled over buses and vans and had a tented area where I occasionally saw people who had been pulled off the buses and vans, for not having the proper documentation, waiting. When I happened to be standing next to a man in an immigration uniform at the bank, I asked him what they did with the people and he told me they sent them back to their country or at least to the border of Mexico.
In the last couple of weeks the number of migrants has steadily grown and in the past couple of days I have seen at least a few hundred people walking on my fifteen-minute drive home. A path just before the immigration kiosk has been forged so that they can avoid it altogether.
Yesterday I stopped and asked a group where they were from just before they got on the avoid-immigration kiosk path through the bushes.
“Haiti” one man responded.
“où allez vous?” I asked
“Les Etats-Unis” he said.
This morning while driving back in to work, moving in the same direction as the walkers, I stopped for two women. They climbed right in my car with a small baby and a few meters later we picked up a young man. I asked if they were from Haiti and they said they were from Guinea.
The immigration kiosk was just up ahead but we weren’t stopped, to be fair the two soldiers standing in front of it looked resigned to their inability to do anything.
We stopped just off the highway in Copalita and had breakfast. Guinea is 9345 km from Huatulco. Over breakfast we exchanged names and phone numbers.
Mari Assi, a robust young woman with a burn scar covering one hand and forearm was wearing sandals and carrying her 19 month-old daughter Fati. Her traveling companion was Aminata who had left her 13-year old daughter back in Guinea and the young man was Osmane. While French is the primary language in Guinea, due to its colonization by the French, their speech was also peppered with words of a language I didn’t know. They flew from Guinea to Nicaragua and had been walking/taking buses/ hitchhiking for 12 days. Their final destination goal: New York.
If you watch the news it will tell you about the atrocities happening in other parts of the world- military coups, crime, instability, places where women being raped is a regular occurrence. I don’t need look at the news to understand the why of what brought Mari Assi, Aminata, Fati and Osmane to be on the same road as me. I only need to look at their inadequate footwear, their clothes that have leaves sticking to them from sleeping in the bushes, to know they deserve more… more help… more humanity… and more compassion.
2. Healthy Food! An abundance of local fresh fruits and vegetables. Huatulco’s clean ocean also means fresh locally-caught fish!
3. Nature. Even just looking at the ocean or a light walk through the jungle will lower your blood pressure and stress levels. We will be surrounded by marina life, waterfalls, and birds.
4. Movement- Our retreat includes daily yoga and meditation adjusted to your level and needs. Reconnecting with your body is an amazing tool to heal your mind.
5. Cleansing- Our itinerary will lead you through a series of activities to bring flow into your life both physically and emotionally.
We Are Water Retreat: Unlock your inner strength and learn to flow
March 20th-25th, 2023
Huatulco, Mexico is the perfect backdrop to reconnect with yourself.
Join Jane Bauer and Kary Vannice for an oceanfront 5-night women’s retreat in paradise. This retreat includes daily yoga and meditation, gourmet healthy meals, excursions into nature for all fitness levels. Facilitated workshops and connection with other participants will help you come closer to your true purpose and allow you to embrace more joy.
You’ll return home feeling relaxed, restored and ready to move forward.
Jane Bauer has been teaching yoga since 2006. She is a restaurant owner and cooking school instructor.
Kary Vannice helps women with personal transformation, a positive mindset, and self-acceptance at Get Your Vibe Right.
Cost 1400 USD
(300 USD to reserve your spot)
Includes: 5 nights accommodation
All meals, excursions, and activities.
“The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.”
E.M. Forster
This is my editorial from the August 2019 issue of the magazine The Eye.
It’s our annual food issue! This month our writers explore lesser known ingredients and share their experiences of new food in new places. If you know me in person you know how important food is to me. I embrace the ethos that the best way to learn about a culture is through it’s food. So when I want to learn about people I ask ‘what are you eating?’
I just got back from a foodcation where I baked croissants in Paris and drank Pouilly Fume in the Loire Valley with a vintner whose family has been making wine for generations. I eased into long afternoon lunches of foie gras, leeks and red wine. Instead of post-meal siestas I took my cues from Paris’ best flaneurs and sat by the fountain in the Tuileries Garden people watching and enjoying the spectacle that is Paris.
Next I went to Delhi, India, where the chaos could not have been more different from the refined precision of Paris. I made butter chicken with chef Neha Gupta (www.saffronpalate.com) and while we made rotis we discussed what it is like to be women in business. This was especially interesting as very few women work in restaurants or hotels in India and the chance to interact with women was limited. Later in my journey, in Rishikesh, I was invited to join a home cook, Rashmi, while she prepared a feast of lentils and rice that was mouth-watering. It was an honor to be invited into her home and to participate in her everyday life.
There are many similarities between Indian and Mexican attitudes towards food as well a crossover of ingredients. Both cultures have a welcoming spirit and there is always enough to feed unexpected guests- the more the merrier. Ingredients seem to expand as you cook them and a small bag of groceries miraculously makes enough to feed a crowd.
While you may not be able to coordinate your own foodcation to Paris and India, you can have one right at home. Get together with friends, cook, explore new cuisines and new ingredients- invite the neighbors you never speak to over for paella or curry or tacos. Expand your palate and you will expand your circle of friends and knowledge of other cultures.
Happy eating and cooking!
Jane
“The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.” Marcus Tullius Cicero
The biggest villain of our time used his political position to divide the world. He rose to power “through charm, violence and cunning negotiations. He was an excellent speaker and surrounded himself with people who, like him, were not afraid to use violence to fulfill their political objectives.” historyonthenet.com
Once elected, as head of the state, he convinced lawmakers to grant “him temporary “emergency” powers for four years, enabling him to act without the consent of parliament or the country’s constitution.” He then divided his nation by singling out minorities and effected “decrees and regulations on all aspects of their lives. The regulations gradually but systematically took away their rights and property, transforming them from citizens into outcasts.” encyclopedia.ushmm.org
This leader is so despised that I once met a man who confessed that he had his name changed to prevent any associations with the genocidal maniac. A leader who separated families and put children in prisons- their only crime being their birth. When I first heard of this monster at the age of ten, I remember asking my mother ‘why didn’t you do anything?’ She would have barely been out of diapers when he reigned but it made me realize how helpless we can be in the face of such evil. It makes itself known in small increments and we are like lobsters in a pot with the temperature rising. We are unaware of our eroding morality as the bar for what we will tolerate moves further and further away from decency.
We have very conveniently bisected the world into good and evil which allows us to step over to the good side and feel ok about the chaos around us. We rise above the fray in our self-righteousness and we point the finger at the drug dealers, the ring leaders of organized crime, the terrorists, we watch Narcos and we tell ourselves we would never be that bad.
It is the comfort that we are ‘good’ that makes it possible to read the news about children being put in cages or traveling on rafts across dangerous waters to escape violence. Geography is the only thing that separates us from them, yet we see their situation as outside of ourselves. We do our part by sharing a post on social media and then we go about our business, our conscience relatively unscathed.
But if we want to be really good, really humanitarian, don’t we need to step back take ownership of our cog in the wheel?
I recently toured the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It was haunting to see the rooms where she spent WWII hiding for her life. I cried at the testimonials they showed at the end of the exhibition about what an icon Anne Frank has become and how brave she was. I didn’t cry for Anne. She was an ordinary girl facing horrible adversity- inhumane adversity! I cried for all the ordinary girls currently facing inhumane challenges today and I do nothing. We all do nothing.
We are the villains when we endure leaders who put power above human dignity.
The editorial from this month’s The Eye magazine.
“For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected.”—Michelle Bachelet, head of UN Women, former president and defense minister of Chile, in The New York Times
Most people are astounded at the giant leap humanity has taken with regard to technology in the past 100 years. Equally astounding are the small steps we have taken on the status of women.
Yes, women now have the vote (since 1918 in Canada, 1920 in the US and 1953 in Mexico) and can own property, in North America at least. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent US organization,
When it comes to property ownership, women are not equal in the eyes of the law. According to the World Bank, close to 40 percent of the world’s economies have at least one legal constraint on women’s rights to property, limiting their ability to own, manage, and inherit land. Thirty-nine countries allow sons to inherit a larger proportion of assets than daughters and thirty-six economies do not have the same inheritance rights for widows as they do for widowers.”
Even though we vote there is still a great disparity of representation of women in political spheres. It just doesn’t make sense. Women represent half the global population and in several studies it has been shown that women have a higher tendency to make decisions that benefit the community rather than just themselves. This is why organizations that give out small business loans favor women. Making decisions that benefit a community, organization and accountability are all qualities that make me think women are ideal politicians.
In 2019, women are still under-represented on the international political stage. We earn less than men and are at a higher risk for physical assaults and human trafficking. I don’t know how if we have come so far in the past 100 years; tv, cars, the internet, mobile phones, MRIs, ultrasound machines, cardiac defibrillation- with all these inventions to improve our quality of life, how have we lagged so far behind in our humanity? Why is it taking so long for women to be equally represented in politics?
It’s also not as simple as electing women. Why are fewer women running for office? Is it lack of opportunity, poor education, cultures that limit women to staying home and having babies? Is it the tolerance of misogyny from world leaders and super stars or the acceptance that our bodies are branding and marketing tools? I don’t know.
This progress is too slow.
Jane
My editor’s letter from the February 2019 edition of The Eye magazine.
‘Silence is a source of great strength. ‘
Lao Tzu
I am a big fan of quiet. It is why I don’t mind long bus journeys or often prefer to stay home rather than go out and socialize. While I enjoy talking with people, I take great comfort at the end of the day in the quiet of the world.
Last September I attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat held in Oaxaca City through Vipassana Mexico. I felt slightly daunted about the no talking, no eye contact days that would stretch ahead of me, but I was more worried about forgoing my evening wine and reading (yes, no reading or writing!) than embracing the quiet. The retreat was held in a convent in the center of the city and the sounds of the outside world gave some solace to our otherwise silent days that began at 4:30am with a couple of hours of meditation before our vegan breakfast.
There were about 50 women attending and 20 men; however, the only non-gender-segregated space was the meditation hall, where women were on one side and men on the other. It was a beautiful experience to be in a woman-only space and not be distracted with small talk or worrying if people like you – I could just be.
There were a few difficult moments but as I felt my heart slow down, my mind followed, allowing me to truly embrace the present moment. During difficult times I would stroll through the gardens of the convent looking at flowers or slip my shoes off and luxuriate in the feeling of the ground underfoot.
When the 10 days were up I felt completely rejuvenated.
This month our readers explore spiritual journeys and you can see from the articles that what each of us defines as a spiritual journey is very individual. The word spirituality is connected with the Latin word “spiritus”, meaning breath. In French there is the word “esprit” referring to a person’s joy or vivaciousness.
What moves you? Beyond the drudgery of the tasks of everyday living, what does your spirit yearn for? Maybe when you read this question the answer leapt into your mind without hesitation. Maybe your mind flitted and you are not sure what could possibly be the spiritual journey for you.
Sit in silence. Listen to your breath. The answer will reveal itself.
Took a bit of a hiatus on reposting my editor’s letters from our magazine, The Eye, but hoping to catch up in 2019:) Every January we theme the issue based on the upcoming Chinese New Year. For more great articles check out http://www.theeyehuatulco.com
If you love Mexico then you will love our content!
Editor’s Letter January 2019:
“Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.”
― Winston S. Churchill
I am really enamored with the idea of raising a pig. I would feed it green apples and then I would make bacon. There was a couple from Texas in my cooking class a few years ago and they told me that it was a rite of passage for their daughters to raise and slaughter a pig. While I love the idea of this I know that when the time came, I would falter and end up with a pet pig rather than pork belly.
Salt, air, time and quality pigs are the secrets to producing mouth-watering jamon serrano. I had heard of a man near San Jose del Pacifico who was curing ham and could not wait to try it. As I made the four-hour drive from Huatulco, I swapped the heat and humidity for crisp air and pine trees, adding layers of clothing as the car climbed from sea level to 10,000 feet to San Mateo Rio Hondo.
Emiliano, originally from Spain, is making some of the most sought-after cured products in Mexico and he counts several Michelin starred restaurants as his customers.
The adobe house nestled on a hillside, at the end of a narrow muddy path, is a bit of a trek to find. In the main house is a kitchen with a long table set up with marinated local mushrooms, quality olive oil and thick crusty bread. A fire burns low in a fireplace, helping to cure the dozen or so hams that hang from the ceiling.
We started with a tasting of jamon serrano, blood sausages and sobresada. Sobresada is a sausage made of ground pork and paprika that requires certain weather conditions – high humidity and mild cold. The sobresada was served on toast with local honey – it was fantastic and I have thought of it many times since I took that first bite. We washed down these culinary delights with a Spanish vino tinto.
Out back is a rustic setup of pig pens. There were a couple of pigs in each spacious pen and several different varieties. The pigs came out to say “hi” as they sniffed my fingers, I wondered if they knew I had just been gorging on their cousins. The pigs are slaughtered at about 14 months old after subsisting on a diet of pine cones. They are hung in front of the fireplace to cure for about 18 months.
Happy Year of the Pig! Make it a good one! Eat, drink, be merry and follow the adventures!
Jane
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
Margaret Atwood
March 8th we will celebrate another International Women’s Day. It is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and has been observed since the early 1900s. So just how much have we accomplished in the past 100 years?
In 1920, women were granted the right to vote in the United States. In Canada, most provinces had granted the right to vote by 1922, with the exception of Québec, where women were denied the vote until 1940. First Nations women did not earn the right to vote until the 1960s. Today, despite the ‘right’ to vote, many women globally do not have a voice in the politics that affect their lives.
While we have seen more women in politics, corporate positions and earning potential- although women still earn less than men for the same work. There are still armies of women around the globe who are single mothers, carrying the emotional and financial burden for their families. Lack of access to education, birth control and healthcare often make it impossible for low-income women to change their situation.
While in the public sphere there has been a lot of legislation put in place globally to protect women, most women still live with the awareness of physical risk of being a woman. In Canada on average, every six days a woman is killed by her intimate partner. Internationally, “the primary victims of human trafficking are women and girls, the majority of whom are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Traffickers primarily target women because they are disproportionately affected by poverty and discrimination, factors that impede their access to employment, educational opportunities and other resources” http://www.stopvaw.org.
But employment and wealth won’t necessarily protect women from the violent culture we have created, as evidenced by this year’s #metoo campaign.
So, while we are celebrating the past strides we have made, both men and women, to create a better and just world, let’s acknowledge how much still needs to be done and the rough road ahead.
See you next month,
Jane
Jane Bauer 