landed!

Spent the last week in Guadalajara (with side trips to Puerto Vallarta and the town of Tequila). Today Cris and I flew from Guadalajara to Oaxaca, where we will be starting a three week culinary program led by our beloved pastry chef instructor Mark Hodgson.



Since we arrived earlier than the rest of our CCSF cohorts, we had some time to explore Oaxaca. Our transfer to the hotel was facilitated by a super enthusiastic foodie of a taxi driver (and thank goodness too, because as it turns out there are two Instituto Culturals in Oaxaca, so we had to do some asking around). Even though I knew that our small villa of a hotel was equipped with a pool, I still found it to be nicer than expected.



The first thing we did after dropping off our stuff was to find sustanance. At a small cart around the corner was a lady selling these gorditas - corn tortillas filled with shredded chicken and some finger-lickin' good yellow mole sauce.



We ate and walked to a restaurant we had passed earlier in the taxi, called El Rojo Gato. They had a menu del dia (fixed daily special) of spaghetti, beef milanese, ice cream and hibiscus tea. We ate and then went across the street to Carmelita Bakery for a lime meringue tart.



The afternoon was spent settling in. Each of our rooms is equipped with a kitchenette so we can do some light cooking.



This is the bedroom I'll be sharing with Sydney!



For dinner we walked around town until we found a tucked-away spot with colorful tablecloths and traditional Oaxacan cuisine. We ordered the platter that had a little bit of everything: tamale, plantains, emapanadas, pico de gallo, tortilla chips, all sorts of meat.



Then of course we had to walk all of that off, and discovered that Oaxaca is quiet yet still active at night.



And now we wait for the rest of the group to arrive!!!