Cooking Lesson and Lucha Libre

Dessert!

Friday during the day, we took our last test. It went well, and I finished in under four hours! That means that the first class for this program is now over. Hopefully I got an A! After that we went to a restaurant called La Fonda del Recuerda for a cooking lesson. We collectively made tortilla soup, chile relleno, nopal salad, flor de calabaza salad, and pears for dessert. I was on the dessert team, and it was such an amazing experience to cook with an amazing professional chef. His name is Leo and he is the son of one of the host moms here.

Our Pears

Final Product

Checking on the Pears

Flor de Calabaza Salad

Chef Leo: "Have you used a mixer like this before?" Pssht.

We boiled a mixture of water, sugar, orange peel, orange, and cinnamon sticks. We added wine and thyme once it had boiled. Then we put the pairs in and cooked them until they were "soft, and hard. A little bit crunchy." They cooked for about 20 minutes. Then we reduced the syrup and spooned it into the pears, and topped them with whipped cream. All of the food was fantastic, and Leo showed us the kitchen afterwards. It was so much fun!

My lovely group members

Cheese lover's heaven 

Homemade tortilla chips!

Margarita, asst. chef

Leo serving up the soup

Our meal!

Grown Men in Tights Doing Violent Acrobatics

We went to a lucha libre afterwards. If you've seen Nacho Libre...yeah. It was basically a big, staged fight between grown men in tights and masks. There were lots of flips and stuff and it was an experience. Not my favorite thing in the world, but I can say I saw it.

One of the wrestlers' masks fell off, and he wouldn't get up and show his face until he could get his mask back on. It was weird, since the guy who knocked him down (Rush) had his mask off the whole time. Turns out that there are some wrestlers who stay masked and people don't know their real name or what their face looks like. This guy, Thunder, has no info online. All I could find about him is that he's Australian.

Anyways, it was an exciting Friday followed by an even more exciting weekend. We went to Puebla, the town where the battle between the Mexicans and the French was fought, from which we get Cinco de Mayo, which isn't actually celebrated in Mexico. It was a blast, but between the test, the lucha, and the weekend away I know I'm way behind on my blogging. I will follow up with my post about Puebla either later tonight or tomorrow, but right now I already have to do some actual work for the next class, which starts tomorrow!