Nika's Birthday Carrot Cake

My son Nikolai was born on a night of a full lunar eclipse. I vividly remember that day and that night. When his warm, soft, and sticky body landed on my chest, I experienced a whole range of conflicting feelings. Relief from the pains of labor, joy, love, anticipation, and peace were mixed in my head in one messy post-labor daze.   My husband and I brought a child into this world. That fact seemed so strange and so profoundly beautiful. Resting in my arms, there was a boy that would change me and the world around me forever. His entrance into our lives has transformed everything we’ve known about sleep,  happiness, exhaustion, and the joy of discovery. With Nika, we have adopted this new restless curiosity that helps us explore the world like we have never explored it before.

We celebrated Nika’s fourth birthday in Mexico. This year, it was a culmination of our stay in Mazatlan and a bitter-sweet farewell to the warm and sunny days on the coast.   On that day, one happy and opinionated four-year old was merrily trotting around the patio waiting for his ultimate birthday treat—Nika’s Birthday Carrot Cake.  It was somewhat an emergency this year, an Iron Chef-type challenge with almost no kitchen equipment, an old gas oven, and a weird bottle of Mexican vanilla that suspiciously smelled like vinegar, but tasted like vanilla.

El Molcajete

Filled with Mexican Chihuahua cheese, packed with fresh shrimp and/or thinly sliced chicken or beef, and topped with roasted chili peppers, this dish has become one of my favorite memories of my time in Mexico. My father’s-in-law friend Paul invited us to a place called La Borchetta—a tiny shack facing a big supermarket in the center of Mazatlan where he and his wife have been repeatedly enjoying delicious meals served in lava rock vessels. I believe that only true “regulars” know about such places, because that small restaurant by the road had more customers it could handle that night.

Mama's Panko-Breaded Shrimp

Nothing compares to family dinners on a warm February night somewhere in Mexico... I remember the sounds of cicadas and crickets saying good-bye to the day and the smell of the salty ocean breeze paired so nicely with the sweet and firm bites of fresh shrimp fried to perfection in my mother's-in-law famous breading. We laughed, breaded, cooked, and ate on that night until the feeling of pleasant languor won us over and sent us to bed. 

One may say that we had the weirdest combination of foods on our plates that night… Fettuccine pasta was one of the side dishes.  Tossed with the home-made tomato sauce generously given to my mom-in-law by her Italian friends from Canada, the pasta dish was accompanied by a salad of Italian tomatoes mixed with minced garlic, roughly chopped onion, and dried Italian herbs.  Mama’s Panko-Breaded Shrimp crowned this rather Italian-looking plate. And somehow, these dishes worked together, because they offered simple, tasty, and honest flavors that can only be created on a night of pure harmony and bliss.

What Would Anthony Bourdain Do?

          I have been a fan of Anthony Bourdain since the first months of my post-immigration solitude. I did not drive a car, did not have any friends, and my husband was working full-time, so I just stayed alone in our house in the woods on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest, trying to figure out how long it would take to get my life back on track.  It was still quite hard for me to understand English spoken on TV, but in my desperate search for entertainment, I spent hours watching the Food Network and the Travel Channel. During those grueling months, I “got to know” the controversial food critic, chef, and traveler Anthony Bourdain through his renowned show No Reservations.  That show would become my introduction into the world of food, bizarre encounters, and not-so-touristy experiences.

          I guess it was logical then that I remembered about Bourdain when I entered the old Mexican market located in El Centro Historico in Mazatlan, Mexico. My parents-in-law brought us to the Mazatlan’s oldest open market to show Mexican culture at its most honest and vibrant best. The smell of fermented fruit, displays of fresh (and, ahem, sometimes not so fresh) fish, openly butchered meats and poultry, and buckets full of fresh seafood added to the colorful medley of fruit, vegetables, pastries, clothes, souvenirs and more.  
           I wondered what a famous traveler and a chef would say about the abundance of produce and an astonishing variety of meat cuts and meat parts lain in the open air before our eyes. I think he would be braver than me, because I would not try the mysteriously looking dishes sold by the vendors. Some dishes looked like sophisticated tamales, some were completely unrecognizable. And although the smell was extremely seductive, I opted not to try anything, but rather point my lens at these incredible representations of Mexican culture. I wondered whether Bourdain would also pause in awe in front of the colorful produce stands and whether he would want to blend in with the crowd as much as I did. I mused whether he would want to speak like a native and immerse himself in the world that runs its course while we are comfortably sipping coffee on our Northwestern mornings. I think he would.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I am going to cut right to the chase here. Recreating authentic dishes is a daring activity. Intimidating even. Especially, when you are a Belarusian who was lucky to try many exquisite Mexican dishes made by her Mexican American host mom and who has spent years chasing those flavors in her own dishes. When I tried a tortilla soup at the restaurant with a corny name Gringo Lingo (translated something like “White Slang” or similar), I have discovered that I really had a lot to learn about classic tortilla soup. My husband was surprised to taste that silky tomato broth garnished with tortilla chips, avocado, sour cream, and cilantro. That soup, he admitted, tasted nothing like its previous versions he had tried at Gringo Lingo’s. The soup was dusted with sweet paprika and had virtually no heat. Despite the absence of the spicy edge, there was something deliciously satisfying about its smooth consistency and sweet aroma.

That Sweet Taste of Mazatlan Shrimp

El Paraje (The Place) Restaurant Camarones A La Parrilla (Grilled Shrimp)

My parents-in-law have been coming to Mazatlan, Mexico, for twenty years, so they have naturally become regular customers at the most famous eateries in town.  One of such eateries is a restaurant called El Paraje (or The Place) located on a street with a colorful name Camaron Sabalo (Or Shrimp Shack). Greeted by the owner’s son Victor, we concentrated on the menu that offered a variety of shrimp and lobster specialties. I craved the pure grilled Mexican shrimp (Camarones a La Parilla) and when my plate arrived, I knew I was in for a treat.  Adorned with a drizzle of butter and garlic, the shrimp were juicy, sweet, and firm to the bite. They still bore very subtle hints of the sea aroma reminding me that perhaps even that morning my dinner was still in the ocean. Not a bad thing when we talk about seafood. I did not even finish the sides of rice, vegetables, and baked potato that came with the meal, for I thoroughly enjoyed that subtle reminder that the best meals in life are also the simplest.

The First Taste of Mexico

Playa Gaviotas through the window of Pancho's Restaurant, Mazatlan, Mexico

Mazatlan, Mexico 2012. Camarones al Coco (Coconut Shrimp) at Pancho's Restaurant 

I first tried Mexican fare during that memorable year as an exchange student in Oklahoma. My Spanish teacher (and at that time my future second host mom) hosted a big party—a true Mexican feast with music, soft drinks, endless bottles of Corona, and hearty flavors of home-made Mexican food.  As I walked in the door, I was overwhelmed by such unique, unknown, and yet surprisingly comforting flavors of cumin, chili peppers, lime, and cilantro escaping from the kitchen. But I guess there was one more thing that added to the immediate charm of the evening. My first love, a handsome Mexican American boy, happened to be my Spanish teacher’s son and he was the one who greeted me at the door with a big smile and that inexplicable charming shyness that used to make my head spin.

The Beginning

Beginnings are hard, don’t you think?  Whenever you are starting a new family, a new career, or… a new blog for a writing internship project, things can get difficult very quickly.  I think I have been “writing” this blog in my head for almost two years, but now, when I am faced with the prospect of actually sharing my thoughts with the world, each word seems surprisingly intimidating.

I am drawing upon my memories, thoughts, events, and places that brought me to this small space on the web and I am remembering that hazy August day almost twelve years ago when scorching Southern heat enveloped my tired body at Oklahoma City International Airport. Sweaty palms, blue exchange student t-shirt, and a small backpack. My head was spinning. I kept repeating to myself, “I am in America, I am in America.” Nervous, tired, and happy, I breathed the air of the country I was about to explore from the perspective of a naïve seventeen-year-old Belarusian who fearlessly left her home country to explore the United States of America.

I anxiously searched for the faces of my host family in the excited and colorful crowd.  Oh, there they were! Balloons and flowers, first hugs. Then, heat, dirty van, screaming children, nausea, a stop at the Golden Corral, my first bite of shrimp, and the place I would need to call my new home for a year-long stay in a small town of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.

Despair, tribulations, and a new host family would happen later, but at that time, I quickly started to realize that there wouldn’t be a picture of quiet and peaceful suburban leaving in my exchange student tale.  I learned quickly that a culture shock proliferated throughout my body, reached my confused and tired mind, making me long for that indescribable smell of my home and… my mother’s borsch.