Taste of San Miguel x 2
By Cathy Cooper Long; Photos by Suzie Hartman, Eunice Hundley and Cathy Cooper Long December 5, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Recipe submission deadline
Taste of San Miguel: The Cookbook
Tue, Jan 20, 2009
cathycooperlong@gmail.com 

Proceeds from “Taste of San Miguel” make these kitchens possible.

Not only is this event the party to plan your calendar around, it is going to be a cookbook, too!

Can’t figure out where to go for your next meal? Can’t decide between the dozens of outstanding restaurants in San Miguel? Don’t feel like cooking at home? No doubt, it’s a common dilemma for locals and tourists alike. But hey! ¡No hay problema! Now you’ll want to do both and the decision will be an easy one to make.

Mark your calendar (July 2009), start deciding what to wear, make sure you’ve got comfortable dancing shoes, set aside a nominal ticket price and come to the Second Annual Taste of San Miguel.

The event, held for the first time on August 11, 2008, was such a tremendous hit that the well-known SMA children’s charity, Feed the Hungry, is already planning a repeat.

Twenty-five of San Miguel’s finest restaurants, caterers and food vendors came together under one roof during the event and served up samples of their favorite specialties, all in one place and at the same time. It was a virtual smorgasbord of fine foods from all over town…appetizers, entrées, desserts, specialty drinks, wines and beers. If you weren’t there…well, you missed out on a major summer event.

No worries! You’ve got another chance, and the next time, in 2009, it will be even bigger and better than the debut event. All your favorite restaurants have already signed up for the repeat performance.

And, here’s the best part—even when you decide to eat at home, you’ll have the cherished recipes of some of San Miguel’s finest restaurants and best cooks right at your fingertips.

Taste of San Miguel: The Cookbook

This collection of local favorites is being compiled now and will be available for purchase at the July event. After that, Taste of San Miguel: The Cookbook, will be available at shops, tiendas, galleries and featured restaurants around town.

Local celebrities and artists, chefs from San Miguel’s finest restaurants, cooks from several of the 36 Feed the Hungry kitchens, and hopefully you will submit recipes. Such favorites as The Food Factory, Harry’s, Romanos, Casa Payo, Chocolates Johfrej, Ann King (Z Club) Catering, Petit Four, the Bagel Café and other extraordinary restaurateurs have already committed to serving up samples at the summer event and sharing a recipe or two for the cookbook.

Where to eat will no longer be a quandary. Eating out or staying in will be a no-brainer once you’ve sampled the food from practically every good restaurant in town. And you will have some of the best recipes in all of San Miguel. In all of Mexico!

Says Dave Brucia of Romanos, “Taste of San Miguel was a unique, fun event. We look forward to participating again next summer. And Feed the Hungry is such an outstanding organization, doing such important work. How could we refuse?”

FTH wishes to thank all the restaurants, sponsors and party-goers who made Taste of San Miguel such a smashing success in August. Because of the community support, the event proceeds enabled Feed the Hungry to open its 36th kitchen earlier this month to serve the San Francisco neighborhood and surrounding ranchos. The addition added 130 school kids to the thousands already served.

Do you or your organization have a favorite recipe you’d like to share with the world, while helping Feed the Hungry at the same time? We are now accepting recipes for possible inclusion in Taste of San Miguel: The Cookbook. We’d like Mexican, American and international recipes which call for ingredients that can be obtained locally. More information and a recipe form are at www.feedthehungrysma.org  or call the FTH office at (415) 152-2402.

Submit your carefully tested, proofed and titled recipe, along with your name and/or organization as you wish it to appear in the cookbook, email address and phone number to cathycooperlong@gmail.com  or drop it off at Feed the Hungry, Box 636, La Conexión, Aldama 3.

We are limited in how many recipes we can use, so in case of duplication or similarity, some recipes may not be included. But we want to consider yours, so please submit them no later than January 20, 2009. Get a form and get your recipe back to us so you can be a part of Taste of San Miguel: The Cookbook. And while you have your pen out, mark your calendar for Taste of San Miguel, the Event!

The ribbon cutting on November 10 at the 35th kitchen operated by FTH.

Feeding the four thousand

Feed the Hungry, a nonprofit organization registered in the US and Mexico, provides hot meals to more than 4,000 hungry kindergarten and primary school children every day. In many cases, the meal is the only nutritious food they receive. School attendance has gone up by as much as 20 percent after Feed the Hungry established a lunch program. In addition, FTH provides badly needed jobs for the women of the ranchos, as cooks and kitchen managers. Feed the Hungry is not a government agency but it does coordinate with the local agency DIF (Desarollo Integral de la Familia). Part of FTH’s success is because it’s a nonprofit organization run like a for-profit business: professionally, with fiscal responsibility, oversight, flexibility and dedication.

More information at //feedthehungrysma.org/. 

Cheap Eats
By Carol Schmidt

The better half

Media naranja translates as “better half,” a spouse, as well as half an orange.

Café Media Naranja at the intersection of Hidalgo and Calzada de la Luz, above the pharmacy on the southeast corner, is a tribute to the free-spirited creativity of the marriage of Rodrigo Pak Sautto and Bjanette Andersen, who for the past five years have run a small RV-based burrito stand during the summer in Montgomery Orchards farmers’ market in Rhinebeck, New York.

Neither had any restaurant experience when they met, though Rodrigo had always cooked for his grandmother, who guided his cooking. Oh, and he did attend Saturday classes at the Culinary Institute of America. It shows.

The burrito stand was great fun, but when their first baby arrived it became time to buckle down. Rodrigo is from the Dolores Hidalgo Sauttos but wanted to try a restaurant in San Miguel de Allende—Sautto is an important name in this town’s history, too.

For the past two years they have closed Café Media Naranja in the summer to reopen their burrito stand in the famous high-traffic farmers’ market. Next summer Café Media Naranja will be closed only April to June, as they try new possibilities in San Miguel all this winter to see what might lie ahead.

One possibility is adding dinners by reservation only, starting this winter on Thursday nights. Their usual hours are 8:30am–4 pm, Monday–Saturday, but they are open one night a week now, hoping to add a second dinner night soon.

The 125-peso fixed price Thursday dinner is not a “Cheap Eats,” but it sounds good. One recent week the menu was stuffed eggs bocadillo, proscuitto and feta salad with olives and capers, almond-crusted salmon with avocado pico de gallo or parmesan macaroni and cheese with organic lime spinach, dessert and a beverage.

Definitely cheap eats are their 45- or 55-peso complete breakfast packages featuring such attractions as goat cheese and roasted red pepper omelets. A bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese plus a salad is 60 pesos. A huge salami and gouda sandwich on a baguette with lettuce, tomato and chipotle mayonnaise, and a side of potato salad with a touch of curry, is 50 pesos.

That same wonderful potato salad accompanies their other sandwiches, including a BLT with lots of crispy bacon on multigrain bread for 45 pesos. Or change the potato salad for a tossed green salad for 20 pesos more.

Try a falafel platter for 50 pesos (much of the menu is vegetarian) or their meal-sized lentil and organic spinach or tortilla soups for 35 pesos.

Last time we went, a woman was coming down the stairs groaning in pleasure over the tortilla soup, saying it was the best she’d ever had. Next time I’m saying, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Add a side of fresh-baked banana bread for 12 pesos, brownies to die for at 15 pesos, or “nothing-but-fruit sorbet with agave nectar chocolate sauce” for 25 pesos. They make delicious smoothies, too.

Also new this year is a cooler of organic produce from Rancho Trinidad for sale, to save you a trip out of town. Offerings include lettuce for 10 pesos, spinach 15, arugula 15, granola 30, and raspberries 35. They sell out fast in the morning. And you can bring your laptop and use their free Wi-Fi.

While Rodrigo and Bjanette may be each other’s better half, they also place half an orange on breakfast platters.

Correction: Carnitas Vicente’s did not close permanently on Aurora. It has a new small canvas banner sign over the storefront when it is open and so the Dolores Hidalgo chain is still present in San Miguel, selling overstuffed carnitas gorditas with a cup of hot dog and bean soup for 14 pesos. 

Carol Schmidt and Norma Hair run www.fallinginlovewithsanmiguel.com , which features more than 70 “Cheap Eats” restaurants, Carol’s Blog, 1,000 SMA photos and jigsaw puzzles, their 700-member forums, San Miguel FAQs and Mexico news.

Casa de Sierra Nevada named to Guanajuato Treasures Quality Club 

Casa de Sierra Nevada was recently awarded membership into Programa Club de Calidad Tesoros de Guanajuato (Guanajuato Treasures Quality Club) for 2009. The eight-year-old program is directed to all establishments that voluntarily accept an exhaustive analysis and control of installations, equipment and service. Those who prove worthy are invited to join the club. The club provides an annual selection of small hotels and restaurants with a distinctly Mexican flavor which offer attention to detail and comfort as well as professional, personalized service.

The Guanajuato club is part of the Treasures of Mexico Club. The states of Michoacán, Morelos and Puebla have other Quality Clubs. In 2008, only seven establishments were chosen in the state of Guanajuato and only 43 throughout Mexico. 

House & Garden Tour
By Jennifer Hamilton

Five ponds cascadin, glass roof retracting and palm trees a’growing

House & Garden Tour
Sun, Dec 7, tour departs at noon
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
US$15 or 150 pesos
Breakfast at Café Santa Ana starts at 9am

1. This fantastic home and beautiful gardens were constructed over, under and around a former 40-year-old residence. Nearly everything new is pure Mexican including materials, workmanship and furnishings.

A series of five ponds cascade from one to the other over rocks and gardens which appear to have been there forever. Seven rooms in this incredible house are available for rental as a luxurious bed and breakfast. The owners have their private quarters on the top floor.

2. This home on a quiet street contains hand-cut stone floors, a retractable glass roof and lush plantings inside and out, blending the outdoors and indoors into a lovely setting.

An outdoor sala contains two seating areas, a polished cement fountain sits to the left, surrounded by softly undulating columns and arches, a movable glass roof and vines hugging the walls. 

A hand-carved cantera fireplace is in the corner and an enviable collection of masks and religious objects sits above.

 The dining room faces the ramada, with a dramatic arched ceiling above the dining table, a large tin-framed mirror on one wall to reflect the outdoor area and archways and an impressive collection of “greenware” from Michoacán on the opposite side.

An entertainment area houses a collection of antique Mexican sombreros and a beautiful retablo. Large glass doors look out into the multi-level garden abundant with vines, roses, stone pathways and a fountain.

The ground floor master bedroom contains delicate draperies, a hand-carved wood bed and a nicho filled with colorful folk art. Upstairs is the perfect guest get-away with its carved bed, bay window and a striking beamed ceiling. Another outdoor entertainment area, with built-in seating and colorfully striped cushions, provides an unparalleled view of the dome of La Parroquia.

The wide terrace wraps around the house, offering views to the north, east and west.

3. Our last property contains three vine-covered, red-walled patios and 12 enchanting and colorful rooms all uniquely furnished, filled with pillows, colorful folk art and draped in yards and yards of fabric.

Most of the rooms are fashioned from polished cement and painted in bright colors with many containing beautiful old carved wooden doors. Sunken bathtubs, huge mirrors and old fixtures adorn many of the bathrooms. Bedroom suites on the second level all have their own private patios.

A plant- and flower-filled roof deck has a wonderful view through the trees of the San Antonio Church and looks down into the pool and hot-tub area with its bar, bamboo indoor/outdoor entertainment area and large seating area.

Ancient tall palm trees grow along the south wall. The center patio is spacious and open with many arches, cantera columns and a soothing cantera fountain placed in the center, ideal for summertime outdoor dining.

The living room, with its wooden angel and candle chandeliers, is decorated with crosses found in Oaxaca (three are also in the patio leading to the pool/bar). Two beautiful framed matador’s suits of light in the outside hall were found in a bullfighter’s museum. Original old tiles brighten up the kitchen.