Jose R. Ralat

Something has always gone awry during my recent trips to central and southern Mexico. Two hours into a June trip to Oaxaca, my wife sliced her head open. After a couple hours, she was stitched up and ready for the remainder of our five-day adventure. By the end of my first night in Puebla in late August, my big toe was bleeding for unknown reasons. My hotel came through with bandages, iodine solution, and cotton. While I limped during most of my nearly week-long trip, I was free to soak up the k…

Since the colonial era, Mexican cooks have adopted immigrant cuisines to create hybrid dishes. The taco al pastor, for example, uses pork from Spanish pigs cooked on a Lebanese vertical roasting spit. Mexican sushi was born of the same pragmatism and flair for innovation. In the late nineteenth century, Japanese laborers emigrated to Mexico to work on coffee plantations, farms, and railroads. Eventually, Japanese restaurants opened in Mexico City to serve the growing community. ICHI Restaura…

Imagine a burger recipe whose ingredient list calls for a “bun.” Then, once the burger is assembled, the “bun” holding the patty, toppings, and sauces disintegrates, tears, or breaks down. The cook would be distraught and probably hungry. Would the dish have been more edible if the writer had specified a potato bun, pretzel bun, brioche bun, or King’s Hawaiian roll instead of just a “bun”? Like a muffuletta must be on a focaccia-like, sesame-topped loaf; a jambon beurre isn’t possible without…

Taquero Benjamin Mondragon doesn’t fuss about whether he and his wife, Cynthia Perez, will have enough capital for their next project. He just gets started on the idea. “It will come,” Mondragon says of the money. So went the process of opening Tacos al Carbón Cabrón, their five-month-old taqueria on San Pedro Avenue in San Antonio, between the Olmos Park neighborhood and Loop 410. At first, they borrowed $15,000 to rent a long, narrow space for their restaurant. To save a bit of money on…

Aguachile can be a refreshing dish, but its invigorating effect comes at a price. “Chile water,” as it translates in English, typically consists of raw shrimp and sliced red onions that pickle slightly after being tossed in lime juice and powdered chiltepin, the red, bead-shaped pepper native to northern Mexico and the American Southwest. One chiltepin may rate from 50,000 to 100,000 heat units on the Scoville scale (for comparison, a jalapeño usually measures in the 2,500-to-8,000 range). The o…

Arturo Flores and Eduardo Mendoza can’t help but smile when they talk about Mexican wine. Standing inside their five-month-old, 330-square-foot wine shop, Vinito, their effusiveness lights up their faces. With their neat haircuts and trim button-downs, they resemble the proprietors of a big city storefront rather than one in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Oak Cliff, just south of downtown Dallas. Located near the corner of Polk and Jefferson, Vinito sits along the edge of the histor…

I’m not from Texas, and I didn’t get here as fast as I could, but as crooner and Klein native Lyle Lovett told me, “Texas wants you anyway.” My transition from Brooklyn to Dallas in 2009 was a bounty of culture shock. The politeness of Texans couldn’t have been any more different from the direct sincerity of New Yorkers. I moved here because I married a native Texan. After we had a son, we realized we needed a larger support system than we had in New York. So Texas—along with my wife’s mothe…

The Tex-Mexplainer series explores the ingredients, techniques, history, and culture of Mexican food in Texas. On May 13, an Indiana judge ruled that a taco is a “Mexican-style sandwich.” The contentious statement created a kerfuffle, with media outlets chiming in with their own opinions. Allen County Superior Court Judge Craig J. Bobay probably didn’t expect the national blowback when he sided with the Famous Taco owner Martin Quintana, who argued that tacos are sandwiches and therefore didn’…

In high school, my town’s Bennigan’s was where my friends and I filled up on Cokes, burgers, and Monte Cristos; we flirted, were friend zoned, and convinced the servers it was someone’s birthday when it wasn’t. The chain, which was started by Steak and Ale founder and Pillsbury executive vice president Norman E. Brinker in 1976, was where my parents often took my sisters and me for post-Mass lunches. Those were nervous outings. I didn’t want to get the Monte Cristo’s jelly or powdered sugar on m…

Whether for a weekend getaway hitting the trails in the mountains of West Texas or a summer escape to beat the heat with a dip in Hill Country watering holes, Texas is teeming with outdoor adventure in every corner of the state. And you don’t have to rough it to experience all that the vibrant urban hubs, Gulf Coast beaches, and vast mountain landscapes have to offer. Make plans to get your adrenaline pumping on a choose-your-own-adventure vacation, then head back to your basecamp at one of m…