Inhala, Exhala

Walking, eating and breathing in Mexico City

Welcome readers — the new subscribers who’ve signed up in the past few weeks and months, as well as those of you who’ve been here since the beginning. I’m grateful for all of you! Field & Pantry newsletters are often essays about food experiences, with an accompanying recipe, but a few times a year, when I’m away from home and away from my kitchen, I post more of a food and travel essay, not so different from some of the work I used to do for The Globe and Mail newspaper. Today’s is one such post. I hope you enjoy it.

When I was twelve years old, my mother took my sisters and me to Puerto Vallarta. Mom’s friend had loaned us the use of her condo for a vacation, and my dad was working — I think it was Christmastime — and would join us several days later.

It was my first time in Mexico and I was flooded with new tastes and sights and smells: a perfect taco with the shell pressed right in front of me, yeasty conchas from the panaderia, a glittery blue beach (which I now know was due to bioluminescence, but at the time was simply magical). I don’t remember incessant rain, but that must have been part of it, too, because after a number of days, Mom got fed up and decided she would relocate my three sisters and me to Mexico City.

It was a gutsy move. The year was 1979 and not a lot of moms from Edmonton, Canada, were taking their four kids to the sprawling hustle and bustle of CDMX. Looking back, it seems both in and out of character: Mom was never afraid to do her own thing but was, whether she recognized it in herself or or not, a very anxious person. She must have really wanted to get out of Vallarta.

I’m not sure how my parents communicated with each other while travelling separately (again, 1979) but certainly not very effectively, because Mom planned that we would meet Dad in the Mexico City airport when he was changing planes on his way to Vallarta, while Dad had no idea. I clearly remember seeing him on the other side of the wall separating arrivals and departures, the five of us rapping on the glass to catch his attention before he got on the plane we had just stepped off. We succeeded and the family reunited, but barely.

I’m thinking about all of this because I’m back in Mexico City for the first time since that big adventure, decades ago. What’s astonishing is that it feels familiar — the smell of the air, the fresh tacos on street corners, the ethereal pastries. With an afternoon to myself, I went back to the Museo Nacional de Antropología and sought out the Piedra del Sol, the Aztec sun stone I remembered. It was exactly as I’d left it.

And what I felt, curiously, was relief. Touring the pre-Columbian galleries of the museum, learning about the rich cultures of the Aztecs and the Mayans, remembering being here a kid — it all made me feel small, in the best possible way. Not small like I don’t matter, but small like sometimes it’s okay to put down the weight of the world and just be a person who is five foot two, doing her best.

My friends and I are talking a lot about joy lately. How to cultivate it. How to use it to fight darkness. How to give ourselves permission to revel in it. If you’ve read my book, How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty, or almost any of my other posts, you’ll see that food and cooking are a huge part of what brings me joy. But also, sometimes, simply a walk, when a sign in Spanish thoughtfully reminds me to just breathe.

If You Go

I am by no means an expert on Mexico City. I came here with lists from Susie and Ana, Leo, Sam, Jess and Ivy. Once I got here and settled in Roma Norte, I received more advice from Florentina, and even found a few things on my own. (The Inhala, Exhala sign, for example, is on the pedestrian boulevard of the Avenida Ámsterdam in La Condesa.) I didn’t do everything on everyone’s list, not even close. But here are a few things that brought me joy in CDMX:

Coffee: Lardo, Borel

Breakfast pastry: Odette (first image — the ‘frambuesa’ made me swoon), or Panadería Rosetta — very busy and cool

Brunch/lunch: Lardo, Cafe Truca

Early dinner: Contramar for a happening seafood scene

Special dinner: Rosetta (and it was very special — see avocado gelato with fermented plums, below)

Culture: The Olivia Foundation, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Museo Frida Kahlo and so much more