Why Didn't I Think Of That!

Cuppers pondering their future.

Regular readers of this blog know that despite the fact that I travel around the world training baristas, judges and judging barista competitions (in addition to having been a competitor myself), I find watching coffee competitions to be insanely droll and boring to watch.

At the SCAA Houston a couple of months ago, the coffee powers that be created a new competition called the Brewer's Cup (or something silly like that). I had the opportunity to watch one competitor (a friend of mine) in the first round and was gobsmacked that someone somewhere had (incredibly) found a way to design a coffee competition more mind numbing than the barista competition. Imagine watching someone brew coffee with all the narration and enthusiasm of grass growing and you've got a baseline idea of the misery purported upon those foolish enough to watch.

Of all the coffee competitions, one of the more interesting (from an audience perspective) is the World Cup Tasting Championship. Essentially, you have three competitors going head-to-head with eight sets of three coffee samples in front of them. The idea is that the competitor is supposed to taste the samples and determine the odd coffee amongst the three in each set. Do this with the most accuracy and quickest time and move on to the next round and perhaps become the champion.

Depending on the coffee and depending on how it's brewed (as well as other factors), different coffees can actually look different. But it's a cupping competition and everyone is focused on tasting the coffees and using their palate to discern the differences.

Somewhere far away from America, the little nation of Greece is in jeopardy of defaulting on its debt and causing the destabilization of the Euro and perhaps the worldwide economy. Maybe it's inspiration by his nation but the Greek competitor in the cupping championship has just destabilized the legitimacy and credibility of the World Cup Tasting Championship.

Instead of actually tasting the coffees, the Greek competitor simply looked at the three samples and quickly discerned the sample that looked different without tasting. Evidently, he identified all of them correctly. He did this in the First Round, which landed him in the Semi-Finals where he did it again which propelled him to the Finals and, finally, as World Champion.

All without ever tasting any of the coffees.

I think that would have been the most entertaining coffee competition ever.

Handmade Totalmente

Two bottles of Gahara Vanilla Syrup starting their journey.

So far, 2011 has been a busy year. I've been back and forth to Central and South America, as well as southern North America several times. My times at home have been short and it wasn't until last month when I actually had time to slow down and return to my roots, so to speak.

In May, I was home for 22 days. Time to slow down. Time to focus. Time to work. Time to re-connect with my baristas and get back to what we do best. People think I'm lucky because I am given the opportunity to travel. I think I'm lucky because I return to a great team focused on making fantastic products for our guests.

For the past couple of days, after recovering from the haze that was the World Barista Championship in Bogota, Colombia, I've been working in the bowels of Spro working with ingredients, tasting coffees and whipping up new batches of handmade this and that. I've been back on the farmers market circuit seeing what's new and available, and planning new menu items for the heat of summer.

It brings me back to the aspect of barista that I like the most: preparing everything handmade. I'm happy to say that nothing at Spro is commercially processed. We prepare everything in-house or work with purveyors who share our same passion for doing things "the hard way." From making the coffees individually to order to the handmade syrups to the traditionally made agua fresca to the quirky take on classic sorbets whipped up in the PacoJet. Everything is sourced thoughtfully and carefully. Everything is tasted and vetted before we present it to our guests.

I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to travel the world, work with baristas and judge barista competitions. I meet wonderful people and make incredible friends. But at the end of the day, I find myself inspired most by the very people I work day in and day out - the team at Spro.

Ultimate Geekdom

Geocache Number Two.

While sitting at the local FroYo joint gingerly consuming an original with macapuno, lychee and mochi balls (my fave combination), I noticed an app on The Hawaiian Stig's iPhone4 called Geocaching. Just what is this app called Geocaching???

He patiently explained to my "soon to be unable to program the VCR" self that geocaching is essentially an electronic treasure hunt where people (geeks) leave some sort of artifact, log it into the Internet and leave it for other people (other geeks) to find. Did I want to give it a try?

It was one of those typical Maryland summer evenings. Hot and humid. Good for air conditioning, bad for playing outside. I thought to myself: "That's gay" (yes, you can eat it, you PC Types) but I thought "why should I be the spoil sport" and decided to give it a try. Besides, there was a geocache less than .23 miles away in the parking lot of the Target nearby.

So, you pull of the app, engage it and it spews out geocaches nearby and you hunt them down. The first one we hunted we couldn't find. Being my first outing and ignorant of the ways of geocaching, I was sure that this geocache was some busted scooter on the side of the road. THS (The Hawaiian Stig) assured me of my muggle folly, but after searching for twenty minutes in the dirt, in the brush and through assorted street jetsam, we gave up on it.

To say that I wasn't intrigued would be a deception. To say that I wasn't having fun geekily searching out hidden treasure would be a lie. It was like going out to play in the neighborhood again. Suddenly, we weren't just sexy, pre-middle aged workaday luddites, we were swashbuckling explorers engaging in a grand adventure in Suburban Timonium. I was Diego to THS's Dora.

After abandoning the first geocache, we charged off to the second. Looking at the GPS map, I knew exactly where the geocache was directing us. Part of the thrill was successfully navigating the streets and terrain to arrive at the precise point to liberate the booty.

With the second geocache, we hit paydirt. Under a shrubbery was a canister covered in digital camouflage tape (oh, those geeks - digital camo tape). Success! THS clambered into the brush to retrieve the prize. Inside was a little notebook, pens, pencils and some stickers. Evidently, people sometimes leave little trinkets in the container for others to find but everyone signs their name into the book. Last entry? May 11, 2011.

The important part of geocaching is not finding the geocache but returning the geocache so that others may one day make your same discovery. I suspect that nefarious types from the Ministry of Geocache absconded with that geocache.

The third (and what was to be the final) geocache brought us to the wilds of Cockeysville. Dirt roads, mossy trees and danger lurked around us. One wrong move and WHAM! We'd be pancaked by a barreling refuse tractor trailer or front end loader. Cuidate, Diego!

Geocachers leave clues on their app page and while the map directed us to a particular point, after reading the clue carefully, I realized that we were in the right general area but at the wrong elevation. The geocache was somewhere 70 feet above us.

After summiting the elevation, we began our search for the prize. Hidden under a bezel was a small box with some paper and a tube of bacon flavored lip balm. I thought about applying it.

There we stood. At the top of world, with all of Cockeysville at our feet. Kings. Romans. Emperors.

Then the phone rang.

It was Hawaiian Stig's wife and she wanted to know when he was coming home.

Our day as Indiana Jones and Marcus Brody was over.

Camping Out

According to Harold Camping, Christian radio rock star, evangelist and foreseer of the Apocalypse, The End Of The World starts tomorrow at sunrise just off the coast of Australia.

From what I've gathered, a series of earthquakes will begin on Kirimati Island and spread across the planet as the sun advances and the planet is shaken. For us East Coasters, expect our earthquake to begin around 6pm.

Approximately 3% (or 200 million) of the world's population will ascend into heaven for The Rapture.

A five month period of pain and suffering will be followed by the actual End Of The World on October 21, 2011.

In other words, it's going to be Bad - with a capital "B".

To help the nation prepare for the Second Coming, Judgement Day and all the terrible things that accompany this event, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have prepared this website. While it may be a bit too late to run out to buy some of the items, at least you can fill your bathtub with water right now.

As for myself, I've got a freezer full of meats, a wood pellet smoker, lots of charcoal and my handy dandy Nerf weapons cache to ensure safety - and I even have a fresh tank of gas in the Land Rover, just in case I need to break for the hills. Which does mean that I fully expect not to be part of that 200 million being sent to Heaven - much to the delight of the former SCAA President and his cronies.

As the earthquakes spread across the planet tomorrow and people start ascending into Heaven, make no mistake about it, Mass Hysteria will feature prominently in the news. Expect crying, stamping of feet, cars burning, rioting and general pandemonium. Of course, it should go without saying, Spro Coffee will be open for business as usual.

To Note: the library of Spro Towson may be open, depending on the county government, but if it is, the library also serves as a disaster shelter. Spro Hampden simply doesn't close, operating every day in 2010 except for Thanksgiving (yes, we were open Christmas - yet another reason why I will be excluded from The Rapture).

Another reason why I will be excluded from The Rapture is that I'm secretly hoping that The Rapture isn't just about the poor and downtrodden (who will inherit the Earth). I'm hoping that that rich family with the big house, extensive French wine collection and four car garage were devout Christians because I want to move in. Afterall, if I'm damned and going to be obliterated in five months, I want to live in style. And it would be a sin to leave that Ferrari 599 in their garage forlorn and lonely.

Sadly, 200 million people (from a planet of 4 billion) really isn't a lot of people. But maybe with the hysteria going on, people will stay home and I'll have the roads to myself. Of course, the government will probably impose martial law and I'll be forced to stay home anyway. Remember late September 2001? It will probably be worse. Good thing I have some ribs stashed away in the freezer.

Do I really believe that this will all happen tomorrow? That's silly. Though there is part of me that thinks I should have blown my fortune on hookers and booze, just in case.

Of course, if I walk out of the house tomorrow to see millions of people rising into the Heavens, I'm going to feel pretty darn stupid...

And Sometimes I Fail

I'm big on customer service and working to provide the guest with a great experience every time they visit one of our locations.

And sometimes I fail.

Yesterday, I failed in a major - looking like a complete asshole kind of way.

I've been running my own little company for twelve years now and I've made just about every customer service mistake one person could make. I've yelled at customers, argued with customers and kicked customers out - sometimes in a very fiery and spectacular fashion.

Maybe some of those times I was in the "right" on the matter and the customer/guest/visitor transgression was met with a commensurate response that could be completely justified - meaning that I was "right."

However, there has never been an incident where, after cooling down, thinking about it and analyzing the situation, I have ever felt that it truly was the right way to handle the matter and that I couldn't have responded better, and won out with aces.

The situation was this: I'm standing in a walkway chatting with a long-time guest whom I haven't seen in months when an elderly gentleman walks between us (there's about three feet between the guest and I). Instead of the usual convention of saying "excuse me", the elderly man gruffly tells me to get out of the way and makes a disparaging remark on my tummy. At first, I didn't catch his meaning but the snideness of his manner just tweaked me enough to press it a little farther.

Now, it's later in the day (about 4pm) and I had just come to the location to drop off some supplies after spending the morning at the roasteria repairing the roaster and the afternoon in the garden planting tomatoes. So, by this point, I'm looking pretty disheveled: my hair is messy, I'm wearing work boots and probably look slightly grimy from planting the garden. In other words, I look like a laborer.

I press the guy a little on his meaning and he still comes at me with the disparaging remarks. Usually, I don't let these kinds of people bother me but today, I'm in that mix of being tired and dirty from working and slightly irritated about a variety of things, meaning that when this guy comes at me, I lose perspective and become confrontational.

You know, why the guy didn't just do the polite thing and say "excuse me" or "excuse me, but you're in the way", I don't know. Maybe he was having a bad day or maybe he just thought that I was some (to his mind) piece of shit Hispanic laborer that didn't deserve the general respect and courtesy that he would give to other white people (I note this because the guest I had been talking to is white and the guy didn't address him and singled me out).

Whatever the case may be, it started out poorly and went all downhill from there.

Come to think of it, the guest and I were talking about the piss poor ways that the SCAA and WBC treats their volunteers and judges - a subject that always irritates me - and probably was the catalyst (on my end) for the degradation in handling the matter.

I don't remember the specifics but it wasn't pretty. I did not handle myself in the manner that I desired. I was the offended party who thought he deserved justice. Regardless of who was "right", I still ended up looking like an asshole. Not only to the elderly man without manners but, more importantly, to the other guests that were in the house at the time.

I'd like to think that I was justified. That I was "right." I stood up and didn't take prejudiced crap from some jerkoff. But in the end, like every time before, I don't feel that it was the "right" thing to do. I handled it poorly and engaged that elderly man in the manner that he engaged me. I didn't elevate the interaction. I didn't improve upon it. I helped degrade it. And that, to me, is a Failure.

I often talk about hospitality and leadership. That an environment of hospitality and quality can only be maintained if it is strongly demonstrated by the leadership. I'm embarrassed and ashamed that I failed so poorly and brilliantly as a leader during this incident. In front of staff, guests and passers-by. That kind of interaction can only give people a poor impression of who we are and what we are about.

Hospitality is easy when things are running smoothly and everyone is happy. The real test is when you're met with someone as grumpy and rude as that old man. Granted, I wasn't working the bar but anytime that I step into the scene, I should always be "on" and not running in cruise mode. What I should have done was dropped off the delivery and gotten the heck outta there. I had just come from working in the garden so I looked terrible (and probably smelled funky). I wasn't prepared for the "show" that we like to give to our guests.

I just hope that the next time I'm faced with a challenging guest, I'll have more clarity to handle the situation better.

Classic Hits America

107.5 The Eagle in the Buick Regal rolling across Texas.

Out on the road today,
I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac,
A voice inside my head said don't look back,
You can never look back.

Despite the fact that I spent many years listening to alternative music such as Depeche Mode, Tackhead, SWANS, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and more, I'm still a product of the late 1970s and 1980s - which means I have an inescapable penchant for rock.

When I envisioned myself doing the grand cruise of America, the soundtrack of my mind never featured Tones On Tail or Strawberry Switchblade, it featured music from The Cars, Van Halen, Journey and Kiss. However, the dearth of classic rock on my iPod produced an interesting conundrum.

How lucky it was to find 107.5 The Eagle as I pointed the Buick Regal west across Texas from Houston. True Classic Rock - two, four, seven. Suddenly, I was accompanied not only by Pat Benatar but the Dire Straits, Foreigner, Loverboy, Fleetwood Mac and Steve Miller.

It was the realization of My American Fantasy.

Now, as I sit in the roastery roasting yet another weeks coffee, I'm able to stream The Eagle over the Internet, listening to classic rock remembering the freedom of the open road across America.

The Modernist Conundrum

Oh, my! 46.3 pounds...

A couple of weeks ago, I come home to find a large and heavy box downstairs at Spro Hampden. It's big and nearly fifty pounds. Goodness. Then I noticed the label. It's the book I've been waiting for since 2009.

The Modernist Cuisine

During the 2009 StarChefs Conference, I attended a presentation by Nathan Myrhvold and Chris Young that was out of this world. These were some crazy guys talking about some crazy things. They were working on what must be the seminal tome on cooking in the 21st Century. As Escoffier was to the 19th Century, Myrhvold is to the 21st. And it's massive.


Getting into the packaging.

For two weeks, the box has been sitting on a chair downstairs at Spro. It didn't move. Too darn heavy. I wanted to figure out where to put it. How to transport it. Really, I didn't want to carry it up the stairs. Then it started to rain. Lazy. I'm not going to carry that in the rain. Why? Because I knew that I had to get the thing out of its box.

The box is something else. First of all, there are five tomes placed in a clear acrylic slide cover that is wrapped in heavy paper. The wrapped tomes and case are held in a corrugated padded box with a separately cardboard covered sixth volume, the bound and waterproof recipe book. These are all corrugated padded and then that box is placed in a larger box that is suspended within. Just like the books themselves, the packaging is off the hook.


At home with the PolyScience circulator for scale.

Finally today I brought the tomes home. Took them out of their box like the Ark of the Covenant, huffed them up the stairs and into the kitchen at home. Then, more conundrums: where to put the darn thing.

Nothing short of massive can accurately describe these tomes. Until now, the largest culinary book I own is the first edition of Heston Blumenthal's The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, along with Gordon Ramsay's ***Chef and Gisslen's Professional Cooking, Second Edition. Now, those pale in comparison.


Alongside Blumenthal, Ramsay and Gisslen.

Since I've only just gotten the tomes home, I haven't had the opportunity to really get into them. But the first flip throughs are exciting. Illustrations galore. And lots of information without being too technical or too geeky. My first thought: accessible.

From my understanding, the first run is sold out. Hopefully, there will be additional runs because I hear from some friends that they are unable to obtain copies. The font size is pretty large so I'm guessing that it's scaled to shrink into a smaller format size. I ordered my copy from Amazon back in December and I waited four months so your mileage may vary.

But, if you can score yourself a copy, it's going to be worth every penny.

Coffee Obsessive

I'm currently stuck in Mexico City after a mechanical problem with the airplane forced a two-hour delay, missing my window to connect on a flight back home to Baltimore. Granted, if I'm going to be "stuck" anywhere, Mexico City is about as ideal as it gets.

To my own surprise, this blog was mentioned in the article about me and my little company, Spro Coffee, in Baltimore. For those of you visiting us from the Washington Post: welcome.

I first was introduced to Martha Thomas about nine months ago in June 2010 where I received a phone call during my trip to London for the World Barista Championship. That's where the article you read in the Post all started. Over the next nine months, Martha and I would chat on a regular basis regarding the article and she came in several times to see just how we do what we do in our little shop in Hampden.

Martha joined us for a cupping with Joan & Ralph Gaston of Rusty's Hawaiian Ka'u Coffee where we sampled a range of coffees, including samples grown by Lorie Obra (Joan's Mom) - who is an amazing scientist turned coffee farmer on the Big Island. Martha later joined us in a demonstration on how we select a brewing method that "pairs" with a particular coffee. It seems that in the translation of the article, a little bit of both events were mixed together.

As with any article written over a long period of time, some details may have been a little jumbled with the passage of time. I wanted to take a moment to clarify some of the details:

- A visit to Anthony Rue's Volta Coffee & Tea in July 2009 was instrumental to the direction we decided to take Spro Hampden. Had it not been for Anthony, our approach of multiple brew methods throughout the day might not have happened. If anything, we might have ended up "cheating" like many shops in the country by batch brewing coffee during the morning "rush" instead of taking the time to prepare each cup by hand.

- Much of what we do is inspired by others. Almost nothing is truly original. From Ichiro Sekuguchi of Tokyo's Cafe de L'ambre to John Sanders of Origins Organic Coffee, Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen, Aki & Alex from Ideas In Food, and fellow baristas like John Lewis - all and more have had an impact on me and the way we approach and present our coffees.

- In the article I'm quoted as saying: "We have no loyalty to any one roaster." Honestly, I don't think I ever said that - especially since loyalty is something central to what we do and own approach to doing things. As a company, we're very loyal to our vendors. We maintain long-term relationships with all our vendors. A great example of this is Origins Organic Coffee. We've been buying their coffee since 2004.

What I did say is that we do not maintain roaster exclusivity with any one roaster. In the coffee business, the typical model is for a retail shop (like Spro) to purchase all their coffees from one coffee roaster. It's a limited way of doing business that is slowly eroding in these modern times (although one of our original six roasters, Counter Culture Coffee of Durham, NC recently told us that they would no longer sell to Spro for three reasons, one of which was that they were returning to the roaster exclusivity model).

Roaster exclusivity is simply ludicrous. It's akin to walking into your local pub and only finding one brand of beer or alcohol. We are unable to do business with companies that insist on roaster exclusivity and we're very appreciative of the companies who started with us and believed in supporting our approach - and those companies are:

Origins Organic Coffee - Vancouver, BC
Barefoot Coffee - San Jose, CA
Ecco Caffe - Santa Rosa, CA
Stumptown Coffee - Portland, OR & New York City
Intelligentsia Coffee - Chicago, IL

- In the article, Ryan Jensen (owner of Peregrine Espresso in Washington DC) cautions about claims of singularity. While our model of multiple roasters, multiple coffees paired to multiple brewing methods, made by hand, day-in and day-out, is still the only one in the industry, I certainly hope that this anomaly is short-lived.

Seriously, Spro Hampden can only make so many coffees per day and we can only impact a small segment of the coffee drinking public. For our notion of quality coffee prepared without compromise to be tasted by the larger public, more shops have to take our approach. We cannot and do not want to be the only kid on the block serving our kind of coffee.

However, to do what we do takes a certain level of commitment and skill. Ryan Jensen has both of those and with his opening of a second Peregrine in the coming months, I'm hoping we'll see a more in-depth approach to their coffee program - because I think he's the best coffee operator in The District.

- The article mentions my judging experience. While I have judged barista competitions across North America, Central & South America, as well as Africa, I have not judged a competition in England. My visit to London last summer ended up with me as a spokesperson for Reg Barber Enterprises during the World Barista Championship.

From 2004-2007, I served as a volunteer director on the Executive Council of the Barista Guild of America. I have also served as a volunteer for the United States Barista Championship regional competitions and as a volunteer trainer for the Specialty Coffee Association of America. And in three weeks, I will serve again as a volunteer panelist speaking on multiple brewing methods in a cafe environment at the SCAA's annual trade show in Houston. I will be one on a panel with Anthony Rue (Volta), John Piquet (Caffe D'Bolla), Kyle Glanville (Intelligentsia) and Tracy Allen (moderator).

So, despite my criticism of the SCAA, I'm still willing to support and help out when I feel that I can lend something of value.

Well, that's about all I have. It's humbling to be written about in the Washington Post and I'm truly honored, but much of the credit goes to the people around me. My staff of baristas are some of the best baristas I've ever known and worked with, they ply our craft with humility and honesty in an unassuming manner absent of pretense and condescension. My non-coffee friends and family keep me grounded. My mentor, John Sanders, who has been instrumental in my learning of coffee and sense of duty to get involved in our industry. And many thanks to my friends in and around the business, without whom I never would have done what we do.

And of course, thanks to Martha Thomas for noticing and taking interest in what we do to take it to the Post. She's been fun and easy to work with and I wish her the best in her writing career. Same goes to the editors, staff and Marvin the photographer from the Post. Always professional and always easy to work with.

Thanks to all of them and thanks also to you for reading the Washington Post article and then this lengthy blog post (btw, I write about more than just coffee here). I hope you'll find your way to visit our little shop in Baltimore (or at least your local specialty coffee purveyor) where we look forward to making you a cup of coffee in a manner we hope you will enjoy.

Best regards,

Jay
Mexico City
6 Abril 2011

El Vilsito

Don't let the signs fool you. This is THE place for Al Pastor.

It's been about three and a half years since my first and last visit to El Vipsito (now called "El Vilsito" but I don't know why). Quite simply, if you're looking for Tacos El Pastor in the DF, this is the place to go.

Nearly twice as expensive as other places, El Vilsito is rockin' when we arrive around 11pm. By 2am this place will be jammed. Right now, it's pretty busy but nowhere near capacity.


Condiments.

Located outside an automotive repair shop, you wonder just how can this place best all of Mexico. Somehow, it does. And I've dreamed of the Al Pastor here since the first (and last) time I ate here.

The menu is simple and features Volcans (like little sopes with pork and lots of cheese) and Gorditas (something massive and scary) but the Al Pastor is the winner. When I was here last, they only had one Pastor spit running. Three years later and they have three stations with the guys spinning and slicing as fast as possible to satisfy the needs of this hungry city.


Tacos Al Pastor.

While everything here is good. Save yourself the trouble of thinking too much and just order ten Tacos Al Pastor. Position yourself in front of the tubs of guacamole, salsa and limon and just go to town. Wash it down with Coke or whatever Agua Fresca they have available. It will be ice cold and brilliant.

I'm thinking a second visit before I go home is only proper!


El Glorioso!



Tacos Campechanos.



With toppings.



Volcan de Cerdo.



Ana and the Horchata.



If only I had one of these.

Costco: Wholesale

iCostco, therefore, iAm.

Mexico City. Just mentioning the name conjures all sorts of imagery. Old castles, sunken lake beds, ancient Aztec civilizations, tacos, quesadillas, Bella Artes, just to name a few.

The strange reality of my visits to Mexico City: Costco.

Yes, THAT Costco. The one of large warehouses stacked with all your home goods. In bulk. And whenever I'm here, I always seem to be at Costco.


Woah, Kirkland has a Chateauneuf!

Costco in Mexico City is pretty much like Costco at home. The same products. In the same quantities. Need plates? Here's 300. Need a croissant? Here's two dozen.

But what they have here that we don't have in Maryland Costco's (because of our draconian, socialist/democratic government) is alcohol. In mass quantities. Curiously, they even have Kirkland Signature (Costco's house brand) Chateauneuf du Pape. Seems like a sacrilege but I'm willing to commit a sin.


And the price isn't that bad. Not cheap, but not bad.

Overall, there's little to differentiate the Mexican Costco from the American Costco (aside from the whole language thing). If you're used to your home Costco layout, chances are you'll find whatever you desire pretty much where you expect it to be.


One Hundred Dollars.



Riding the down escalator.




These specials wheels prevent runaway disaster.



Even for Haagen Dazs - that's expensive.

La Marquesa

Where to eat.

Somewhere to the west, about 35 minutes outside of Mexico City is a recreation area known as La Marquesa. Different "Valles" offer a range of outdoorsy things to do, like horseback riding, ATV racing, water slides and quite a bit more. There's even this thing they call Gotcha that looks suspiciously like paintball.

Of course, things outdoors would not be complete without the great pastimes of eating and drinking and all of the Valles offer plenty in that arena as well. The weather is bright, sunny and cool, making for the ideal conditions to cover yourself in dust from the trails or track and then sit down for some serious eating.


Bienvenidos a Valle de Potrero.



Oliver saddles up!



Melanie and Oliver ready to hit the dusty trail.



Ana and the Wild Horse.



Momma Mylene prepares to lead her kids.



Whatever happened to riding sidesaddle???



Some kind of candy surprise. I think it's a gusano.




Oliver Spins.



Hector fishes for Truchas (trout).



We call this lunch.



Hector and Adriana.



Sylvia and Adriana - I don't know what is going on.



Cerveza.



Sopa de Hongos.



Sopa Azteca.



Sopa de Hongos and Consome de Pollo.



Sides for my Sopa Azteca.



Tacos Cecina Natural.



Oliver llorar.



Table condiments.



Oliver llorar, parte dos.



Huitlacoche.



Chorizo and cecina.




Chorizo Verde Tacos.



Chicharron Tlacoyos with nopal, avocado and cheese.



Hector and the Blue Corn Tortilla.



Trucha Suiza.



Inside the Chicharron Tlacoyo.



Hector entertains.



The women are not amused.



Trucha Empapelada.



Caffe de Olla.



Fried plantains with evaporated milk and cream.



Melanie and Alvaro.