Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Greetings: Dairy-Free Pumpkin Flan Recipe. Pumpkins originated in Mexico.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope your feasting holiday is filled with family connection, good friends, relaxation, and the celebration of life — another year around the clock! I’m in Albuquerque with my son and daughter-in-law. It’s the three of us for Thanksgiving, by far my favorite American holiday. Before launching into sharing a recipe I prepared for our feast tomorrow, I want to shout out a big THANK YOU to Mexico for giving us the gift of pumpkins.

Pumpkins originated in North America and are thought to be around 9,000 years old. The oldest pumpkin seeds have been found in Mexico and date back to between 7,000–5,550 B.C. In Mexico, we call pumpkins calabacitas, a general term for squash. Mexico has given the world many food gifts, primarily corn, cacao, turkey (yes, turkey), tomatoes, vanilla, jicama, beans, and avocado. (Load up on your guacamole. We will be priced out of eating avocado if the US enters a trade war with Mexico.)

The word “pumpkin” comes from the Greek word pepon, which means “large melon”. The French called them “pompons” and the British called them “pumpions” before Americans changed it to “pumpkins.”  Pumpkins were a vital food source for Native Americans, who grew them along with maize and beans. This planting technique, called the “Three Sisters Method,” helped the crops sustain each other. 

I’ve been dairy-free for the last five years. I searched for a good recipe to substitute coconut milk instead of evaporated milk. I couldn’t find one. So, I took three different recipes with ingredients that looked appealing and modified them into one great and easy process. I used to own a gourmet cookware shop and cooking school, after all. I told myself, “I can do this!” And I’m passing it along to you.

Pumpkin Flan Recipe

Equipment: 9-1/2″ x 6″ x 3″ high loaf pan, electric hand mixer, shallow baking dish, saucepan, mixing bowls

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

First, make the Caramel Syrup:

  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
  • 1/3 cup turbinado sugar
  • 1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (mine is from Chiapas)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine the maple syrup, sugar, ginger, vanilla and salt in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for 5-8 minutes until thick and syrupy. Pour caramel into a loaf pan, tilting it to evenly coat the base and sides. Set aside.

Next, make the Flan Base:

  • 1 can (13.5 ounces coconut milk
  • 1/3 cup turbinado or natural cane sugar
  • 1 can pureed pumpkin
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspon ground cardamom
  • 1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2-1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
  • 6 large eggs
  • pinch of salt

In a large mixing bowl using an electric hand mixer, beat eggs until well blended. Then pour in the coconut milk, pumpkin, salt, and spices. Mix on medium speed until all ingredients are well blended. Pur the flan mixture into loaf pan on top of the caramel syrup. Set loaf pan into a larger baking dish. Fill larger pan with 1 inch of hot tap water.

Bake uncovered for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. To unmold, run a knife along the edges of the pan. Cover the pan with a serving plate and turn upside down to unmold. If the pan sticks, dip it in warm water briefly to loosen the caramel before you carefully invert the flan onto the plate.

Slice, garnish with crushed ginger snaps, and serve.

May your holidays be warm in spirit, filled with optimism and joy, and hope for a more enlightened future. All my best, Norma

Gratitude and Giving Thanks: ‘Tis the Season

First, thank you friends and readers for your years of following Oaxaca Cultural Navigator. I’ve been writing this blog since 2007. That’s 14 years reporting about Oaxaca (and Mexico) culture, traditions, textiles and the changes that have taken place over this time. There is a lot in the archives! I also want to thank you for your support of the artisan makers who I feature here. So many are grateful for our help and have expressed this to me recently, especially since COViD has all but truncated their ability to bring the beautiful things they make to visitors and collectors. You are their lifeline.

Elizabet Vasquez Jimenez, Triqui weaver, says, ¨A million thanks. You helped me so much because I had no sales in months. Thanks to God and for knowing all of you. Saludos y benediciones.”

Huipil woven on the back strap loom by Elizabet Vasquez Jimenez, Triqui indigenous tribe
Elizabet at our Day of the Dead expoventa, Oaxaca. She traveled 6 hours by van to show us her work.
Elizabet in her village, traditional Triqui huipil
Natural dyes, handwoven wool and leather bag, by Estela Montaño

Estela Montaño, woven bag maker, cried as she told me, “You kept us alive during COVID with your help. You sent us customers and we are grateful. You are all angels.”

We have been living with COVID for almost two years (since March 2020) and the pandemic has altered (am I’m thinking perhaps for my lifetime) how we make our way in the world with people we love and care about. I recently returned to Oaxaca after being gone for 19 months. I’m grateful my two adopted campo dogs, Tia and Butch, remembered me! I’m grateful to my Chavez Santiago family for their love and support over the last 16 years, making it possible for me to live with them and enjoy the astounding beauty of Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca.

The COVID era brought many changes to all of us. We lost friends and neighbors to the virus. Some of us lost family members. Some of us still feel at risk and are wary of gathering this Thanksgiving and of socializing with those who are vaccine resistant. I hear from many friends that they are fearful of traveling outside their local area, let alone getting on an airplane to go to a distant land. These are polarizing and discomfiting times.

Left to right: Fernando, Barbara (visitor), Estela and Juana — Montaño family bag makers

This said, I’m extraordinarily grateful to those of you who are traveling with me to Mexico this year — 2021 and 2022. Thank you. I feel very reassured that when we practice COVID safety with vaccines and masks and hand sanitizer that we can stay healthy. Everyone on our recent Day of the Dead Culture Tour tested COVID negative the day before returning to the USA. For this, I’m incredibly grateful.

This has been a year of dramatic change for me. COViD isolation did me in and I made the decision just a year ago at Thanksgiving (where four of us huddled on the Taos Rio Grande Gorge mesa for an outdoor dinner), to change my lifestyle, leave downtown Durham, NC condo living in exchange for the austere beauty of northern New Mexico and the wide open spaces. Without COVID, I doubt this would ever have happened. At age 75, I decided to build a house! Crazy? Maybe. Liberating? Definitely.

House under construction, Taos Rio Grand River Gorge Mesa

When I left Oaxaca on March 12, 2020, my plan was to stopover in Huntington Beach, CA, to visit my son Jacob for a week and then to go up to Santa Cruz to see my sister Barbara before heading back to Durham for a while and then return to Oaxaca. I stayed with Jacob for two-months in a one-bedroom apartment. We juggled space and time. We bonded even more as mother and son. It was a blessing. I also got to know Shelley, who became his fiancee this year (they are getting married in March 2022). Her mom, Holly, has become a friend. COVID brought them closer together and they decided to make a life together.

Little did I know then that my boy would get approval from his office in March 2021 to work from home on a permanent basis and move to Albuquerque. We are now both living in the same state after being separated for over 30 years. Jacob and Shelley will be here this week for Thanksgiving, joining a group of 15 family members and friends under a heated tent outdoors on the Rio Grande Gorge Mesa. We are monitoring invitees for vaccines, exposure and overall COVID health.

It’s cold here in Taos, but the sun is shining, delivering beauty and hopefulness. Even the drying sagebrush is green today. Reminding me that even in the worst of times, there are many things to be grateful for. This, to me, outweighs the commercialism of the season and Black Friday.

Francisca Hernandez, master blouse embroiderer from Chiapas, says: “Thank you for the special orders over the last year. You have helped sustain my family. Otherwise, we would have earned very little, if anything.”

Francisca’s French knot embroidered blouse

I remember Oaxaca losses from COVID: Estela, a woman from San Bartolome Quialana, in the Tlacolula valley foothills who worked at Tierra Antigua Restaurant, always gracious, cheerful, helpful. Juvenal, my 52-year old friend, generous and compassionate, who left behind a wife, three children and new grandchild born after he died in a San Diego Hospital in February 2021. Juan Manuel Garcia, Grand Master of Oaxaca Folk Art, silversmith and filigree jewelry maker extraordinaire, died at age age 77 in January 2021. I miss them, and so many more. 700,000 is an unfathomable number. I am grateful to be among the living. I mourn our losses.

Juvenal with his family

Ím grateful for the vaccines that offer a miracle for life without risk of death or severe illness necessitating hospitalization. So much to be grateful for among the tragedy of our times.

This coming week, in the spirit of the season, I will be posting a Black Friday Sale either Tuesday or Wednesday. What I offer will all be hand-made, made in Mexico — and will be sure to bring joy to whomever receives them.

I also want to follow-up with the continuing discussion about Day of the Dead, commercialization of a pre-Hispanic tradition that has changed dramatically in the last two years. I want to share what readers sent to me and talk about whether Muertos has been co-opted by the film Coco, by the influx of mezcal drinking young tourists, or by COVID itself.

Day of the Dead, Teotitlan del Valle, photo by Carrie Wing

Sending you blessings for a holiday filled with gratitude, giving thanks, abundance, good health and joy, however you celebrate and with whom.

Norma

P.S. I’d love to hear what this year has wrought for you and your thoughts about gratitude and giving thanks at this season. Write me at: norma.schafer@icloud.com

Happy (Almost) Thanksgiving: “Un Año en Mexico” Anniversary

It’s Wednesday, November 27, a day before Thanksgiving — Dia de Accion de Gracias — is celebrated in the United States of America. How do we celebrate (if we do) living here in Oaxaca, Mexico — or anywhere else in Mexico for that matter? We get together with friends. Extranjeros united for Turkey Day. But here, it’s called a guajolote, the wild, indigenous turkey that has been domesticated for tenderness, usually topped with mole.

Where will friends be? At potlucks in each other’s homes. In restaurants eating the menu del dia (the daily special). At the sold-out, 60-person bash put on by the Oaxaca Lending Library at a restaurant in the El Rosario neighborhood of Oaxaca. While most of us here, now, don’t celebrate Thanksgiving with family, we find an opportunity to eat turkey and acknowledge the blessings of our lives.

Wild turkey guajolote did not devour the boy Jose Arreola. Give thanks.

Which brings me to my friends, Chris Clark and Ben Dyer, who moved to Ajijic on the shores of Lake Chapala last year from Hillsborough, North Carolina. They lived just a few miles from me over there. Today marks their one-year anniversary living full-time in Mexico. Chris writes a blog, Color in the Streets, about moving to and living in Mexico from a very person point-of-view.

Chris’ most recent blog post, Un Año en Mexico, touched me. It is heartwarming, honest and clear writing that marks the milestone that one year brings of living here. I’ve been here for almost 14 years, and I take a lot for granted. Fresh eyes always help explain why we are here!

Cuni Cuni Guajalote. Yummy Yummy.

So, in the spirit of getting ready for Giving Thanks, I hope you enjoy reading what Chris writes. Happy Thanksgiving! And, oh, let’s give thanks for each and every day. We wake up each morning, and life starts again, refreshed, another opportunity to be all that we hoped to become in the world. (Not about waiting for Black Friday!)

And, the indigenous, Native American experience HERE — National Day of Mourning. Thanksgiving is a celebration of the conquerors! Let’s remember that.

Happy Thanksgiving From Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico

I woke up early with the wind at my back, ready to get a jump on the Day of Giving Thanks. In Mexico we call it Dia de Accion de Gracias. It is a good day to take a walk and think about all the goodness of life.

An early walk in the campo, Thanksgiving morning

It was close to eight o’clock this morning when I set out to the campo, the wild, unpopulated area of the village, beyond the pale of settlement. The sun was warm on my back. There was a breeze. The day was promising.

The first boundary marker, a stelae from another century

My three dogs were with me, Butch close to my heels, always guarding. Mamacita out in front. Tia running off after birds and rabbits, stopping from time to time to turn around and check my progress.  These are campo dogs, rescue dogs, dogs who have learned to be obedient and stay close.

Butch (foreground), Mama (right) and Tia along the path

This was a day of exploration. I went far beyond where I usually go along the narrow foot path ascending toward the mountain range that is a backdrop to Teotitlan del Valle, part of the Sierra Madre del Sur.  I imagine this to be an ancient trail, the border between our village and the two adjoining us — San Mateo Macuilxochitl and Santiago Ixtaltepec, that the locals call Santiguito.

From the third marker, views toward Tlacochuhuaya

As I made my way along the incline, I was careful not to stumble on loose lava and sedimentary gravel. Rock outcroppings offered natural stepping-stones.

Moonscape-style cactus off the beaten path. Baby Biznaga?

There are three border markers along this route. I had never been to the third. It was glorious out. I figured, Why not?  Life begins at the end of your comfort zone, I reminded myself once again. Let’s figure out where this goes.

A bouquet of lantana by the roadside, growing wild here.

As we reached the third, I could see there was no path up to it, so I made my own switch back path to scale the hill. The dogs followed. A ridge of rock offered me a natural seat from which I could see across the valley to San Jeronimo Tlacochuhuaya, beyond Santiguito. A perfect spot to meditate.

I imagined those who came before me, centuries past, who sat in this very place, keeping a lookout on the landscape below. In the distance, cooking fires curled skyward and a red-shirted farmer grazed his bull in the lush fields.

Downhill was easy, with a stop at the natural spring for quenching thirsty dogs. Then, a brisk walk home on the back road lined with dried corn stalks and wild marigold fields lining the road.

I covered three-and-a-half miles.

On the final stretch home, between marigolds and cornstalks

Today, a group of Estadounidenses will gather at Los Danzantes for a special Thanksgiving meal after a mezcal toast at the home of my friend Shannon. An adjoining table is with NC restauranteurs who are opening a Oaxaca destination at the Durham Food Court, two blocks from my apartment.

Thanksgiving menu at Los Danzantes, not traditional!

Today will be a change-up from years past. I won’t be cooking. Neither will Kalisa! (I hope.) Instead of sliced, roast turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, Jacki’s fabulous cranberry sauce, and an array of pumpkin pies, it will be turkey balls and pumpkin pancake at 7 p.m. Nothing traditional about this year for me!

Nature’s display of color, pure and simple

I’m reminded by my friend Betsy, an Anthony Bourdain afficionado, who said, Travel is the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.  And, my friend, Madelyn, who says, Take life with the wind at your back, moving forward, rather than fighting the headwinds that always set you back.

Happy Day for Giving Thanks.

A field of yellow next to the casita

The gift of the season, 75 degrees Fahrenheit

 

 

 

 

Roasting a Thanksgiving Turkey in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca

I bet you thought I disappeared! This is my first post since returning to Teotitlan de Valle, Oaxaca, a week ago.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I came back to my casita filled with aromas created by professional cook Kalisa Wells, who has been house sitting my two adopted street dogs. All kitchen surfaces were covered with culinary ingredients. It was a sight to behold.

A cook’s kitchen, filled with every imaginable local chile variety, herbs, spices

And, then, Thanksgiving was a mere four days later.

Cuni Cuni Guajalote. Yummy Yummy.

From Durham, North Carolina and via Facebook, I ordered organic turkey raised in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca from Cuni Cuni Guajalote before I left. This took some sleuthing, hunting down their whereabouts via the Facebook group Clandestine Oaxaca Appreciation Society — the source for everything Oaxaca.

La dueña de Cuni Cuni — Araceli Jimenez

As it turns out, we decided on two smaller birds instead of a 9 kilo (20 pounder) when we did the pick up at La Cosecha organic market at Macedonio Alcala #806 — enough to feed a crowd that kept expanding beyond local family and intimate friends as I settled back in to village life. We were worried about one big turkey fitting into a basic gas oven.

Merry, Kalisa and Rosario with preparations underway

It was the roasting pan and rack that had us stymied. Neither of us brought a sturdy vessel or rack from the USA and the only thing we could find were flimsy aluminum, so we bought three and stacked them. There were no racks to be found as I cruised the aisles of the super mercado.

Kalisa’s Camote (Oaxaca sweet potato) Pie with the flakiest pastry crust

My eyes lit on a stainless steel dish drainer. Sure, it had those upright racks to hold the dishes vertical and immovable tall sides. I bet my friend Arnulfo and I could figure out a way to modify this, I said to myself. Into the cart it went.

And, here’s how it turned out.

Flattened, cut dish drainer. Be sure to remove plastic feet!

One of the great pleasures of being in Mexico is that we learn to innovate, modify, imagine and manifest. Things we need don’t always come easily, but there seems to be a way to improvise and make it work. I have learned this from my Mexican friends who are masters at adaptation.

Friends and family enjoying Thanksgiving dinner on the patio

And, if you live in Oaxaca, I encourage you to think about ordering your Christmas turkey from Cuni Cuni Guajalote. You will love it. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Yes. This is NOT your Sam’s Club or Walmart frozen commercial turkey.

Organic beet hummus appetizer — veggies from Tlacolula market

How we roasted the turkey!

Kalisa loves butter. I found the local dairy-cheese man from the Teotitlan del Valle market and bought up all the butter he had. Probably five pounds. Kali coated the turkeys in butter, stuffed them with oranges, rosemary, apple peels (no pits), celery and carrot ends, covered the turkey with foil and put it into a hot 450F degree oven for about 20 minutes. Then she lowered the heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and continued to roast covered at 18 minutes per pound until the drumsticks wiggled easily and the juices ran clear. We didn’t have a meat thermometer. We were also cooking at 6,000 feet altitude using an oven with Centigrade settings, so we converted everything.

Jacki’s family sweet potato recipe

  • 300F = 149C
  • 350F = 176C
  • 400F = 204C
  • 425F = 218C
  • 450F = 232C

We needed this conversion for the camote and apple pies, too. But had to jack up the heat because we are running off a propane tank at a higher altitude. So, it was check, check again, triple check.

Thanksgiving buffet feast.

NOTE: We did not stuff the turkey because this is the most common culprit for botulism.  The turkey must be completely thawed and at room temperature to be stuffed and cooked successfully without risk of infection. Many people stuff a partially thawed turkey (oh, it’s just a little cold in there, it’s okay) and the inside becomes an incubator for the bacteria.

An array of artisanal mezcal

Everyone who came brought something to contribute: mashed potatoes, cranberries, Boulanc rolls, salad, organic black beans, tortillas made with local field corn, chocolate, wine, beer, mezcal. Yes, I smuggled fresh cranberries from Whole Foods but Jacki found them locally.

Setting the table, Teotitlan del Valle.

Earlier in the week, Kali and I made a visit to Macrina Mateo Martinez in San Marcos Tlapazola to get large platters that would serve as pie pans and some extra dinner plates.  They are my go-to family women’s cooperative for fine barro rojo that those of us who live here love to use.

Mama Dorothy’s Apple Pie baked in a barro rojo plate

I’m very happy to be back in the village, surrounded by mountains, warmed by the sun, a hammock on my rooftop handwoven by the daughter-in-law of Mitla’s Arturo Hernandez. Despite the barking dogs and crawling critters, I am now embracing a slower pace of life — for the moment.  Tours and workshops start up in mid-December!

Feliz Fiestas, amigos.