The Dinner Goddess

Hit the streets with The Dinner Goddess...
By Lila Shaw Lash, June 8, 2007

San Miguel can be quite the foodie’s town. Dozens and dozens of restaurants to choose from—some great, some not so great—nice wine shops, great cheese shops, panaderias, several proper European-style bakeries, my personal mecca, Bonanza, and open-air markets to make you drool.

The makings for a life-altering Mexican feast are right at your fingertips—chiles, cremas, salsas, cheeses, fresh tortillas. You name it; you can probably find it. The local organics are growing—go to the Bioagrimex market at La Carpa, every Saturday, starting at 10am. The goat cheese made locally, which is available at Luna de Queso on the Ancha, will blow your mind, and I have yet to see lime and chile put to better use then squeezed and sprinkled on top of my papaya. In my experience as a personal chef in San Miguel, I have an eye-opening, mouthwatering experience each time I hit the pavement with my shopping bolsa.

With this column, you’re hitting the pavement with me. Alice Waters began the revolution over 30 years ago, and I follow dutifully in her footsteps. Buy local, eat seasonal, eat organically, when possible.

Eat and love it! I’ll be exploring what’s fresh, where you can find it, how to prepare it and how to fall in love with cooking in San Miguel de Allende all over again. My goal is to empower all of us to love cooking here in town and to embrace our locally available treasures, whether it be queso oaxaca and blue corn gorditas or coconut milk and jasmine rice.

One of the things I truly love about living and cooking in San Miguel is the interesting diversity that rises from the meeting of a strong, involved expatriate community with such a vibrant, colorful Mexican town.

I will admit that unless you live near Athens, Greece, kalamata olives will probably not be perfectly local, and unless I live near Bangkok, Thailand, my coconut milk is obviously not local either, but it’s the sentiment that counts. The idea that we’re all shopping locally, that we’re exploring our mouth-watering surroundings, that we’re supporting the small family shops and farms, that we’re eating organically when possible, eating seasonally always, with foods to warm you when you’re cold and to cool you when you’re hot.

For starters, I feel qualified to guide this journey due in part to my work with another culinary project, The Dinner Goddess SMA. Each week, I send clients a menu with entreés and desserts to choose from; their choices are then delivered the following week to their homes. I live in the markets and vegetable shops. It is my job to source the best ingredients possible, to find the gems that evade the easy glance. I ask the shop girls and guys what's fresh, how long the figs will be good, how long a squash blossom will keep in the fridge (not long, by the way) and what came in that morning.

So, with The Dinner Goddess’s biweekly food column, I hope to do my part in promoting my personal philosophy of shopping locally and eating seasonally. Sure, we all make the regular trek to Querétaro or Celaya for our two liter bottles of olive oil, great balsamic vinegar, the highly coveted organic chicken stock in those convenient little one liter boxes; but those are our staples. What about the other things? My favorite meat shop is La Lonja, on Mesones, just up from Bonanza. Venturing into this meat shop, you can find the most plump, flavorful chicken breasts I’ve ever tasted—the slightly yellow color comes from the marigold petals the birds are fed to naturally fight parasites. Hitting the markets with your bolsa can be quite the sensory experience—if you eye something long enough, I guarantee you’ll get offered a free sample. I dutifully visit Dominga every Sunday, and she always throws in a few mini-mangoes or peaches for me to sample—and always asks after my boyfriend and our lovely labrador puppy. Yo
u can find Dominga in Mercado Ignacio Ramirez, the third stall down on the aisle, you can't miss her. By supporting all the little tiendas, loading up your bolsitas and staying local when you can, we help preserve the San Miguel that we all love so much. What UNESCO recognizes in the buildings and plazas, I recognize with Dominga.

All that being said, I invite you to come along with me to pick up ciabatta at El Maple, to treat yourself to some of that mouth-watering spicy Italian or chicken with basil and lemon peel sausage from BBQ Bob’s and to buy as much fresh asparagus as you can eat from the guy hollering on the street. Just enjoy this foodie town, ’cause I can guarantee you it’s out there just waiting for all of us to savor.


Stay tuned. On June 22 you’ll learn what you need to know about visiting a local Mexican meat shop with The Dinner Goddess!

Lila Shaw is a personal chef involved with The Dinner Goddess SMA, a weekly e-mailed menu delivery and catering service. For more information, write to shawlash@gmail.com  or visit www.dinnergoddess.com.