rancho_gordo Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 I'd been to Monte Alban before but this was my first time for Mitla. I had a day to kill so I took the public bus and walked to the ruins. It was pretty fun and the ruins are fascinating and completely different than Monte Alban. And you can see where the influence on the rugs and fabrics comes from. This is a church in the back and the ruins up front: The palace at Mitla: The most beautiful church in Mexico? The world? I think so. Santo Domingo. Back home (f#*k!)curing my beloved new pieces: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rancho_gordo Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 Wow! What a fabulous trip! Who did you go with? Folks that know their way around, obviously. You are very naughty but so pleasant and charming that I will forgive you. i am working on a project to import these obscure and sometimes endangered chiles to the US, hoping to create a biger market and encouraging more farming of these chiles in Mexico. What's happening is Mexicans are "making do" with chiles that are from China and the USDA is finding unacceptable levels of heavy metals in these CHinese chiles. Plus they suck. This is just the beginning and will take a while to get off the ground. I'm working with a pretty big name and this PBN was having a documentary done on them, one of the producers being a famous telenovela star. Part of the doc was having PBN and me meet with the chile farmers. So it was a wild trip in many, many ways. I don't mean to be coy but I need to make sure we present this seriously and I want to check with all parties that the way I'm presenting this is appropriate. It's not just me showing my home movies to my internet buddies this time. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rail Paul Posted February 15, 2011 Author Share Posted February 15, 2011 Great pictures, Steve. ETA: Do you have any of these rare or endangered chiles for sale at this point? I'm sure that having video on your website of the people who farm them, the neighborhood, and the chain of custody will reaffirm the RG quality assurance warranty. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rancho_gordo Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 Lovely pics. I’m curious, at any point did you feel unsafe or told not to go certain places? It's so funny, the more I go to Mexico the safer I feel there. I would be hesitant at a border town and I'd watch myself in Michoacan but I wonder if you did a comparison about the crime and violence per capita in the US and Mexico how it would look. We have nutjobs who seems to explode a lot (with guns, at malls and schools) and I know many, many neighborhoods in San Francisco where I wouldn't feel right skipping the streets at night and a few that I'd avoid even during the day. There are shitty people everywhere. I just don't believe it's that much worse in Mexico. And if it is, it's because of drugs and guess who takes them? Us! Perhaps if we dealt with our own drug problem, Mexico would be safer for us and for Mexicans. I'm not meaning to be preachy but we are such a part of the problem in Mexico and we tend to say Tsk tsk and never leave the resorts when it's such a great, fabulous place. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Orik Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 What RG said. I guess mainly I feel like if anything did happen in Mexico I'd have no recourse, but the odds of anything happening aren't that high. (of course in RG's case the drug cartels must have him on their lists of rich peeps to kidnap by now) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rancho_gordo Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 Great pictures, Steve. ETA: Do you have any of these rare or endangered chiles for sale at this point? I'm sure that having video on your website of the people who farm them, the neighborhood, and the chain of custody will reaffirm the RG quality assurance warranty. Not yet. We have very nice Arbol chiles. I've been working seperatley with a group in the Huasteca of Hidlago and they apparently have the most incredible chipotles that they sun dry naturally. We should have those soon but there is no road and all the product has to be hand carried by the collective for miles for delivery! I think having the PBN and the documentary will really help us in the long run. You are right about that! I don't know if I'll have access to the video but we'll see. The biggest issue right now is the Oaxacans have had horrible chile growing weather and there just isn't enough yield. The other problem is chiles have bugs and it will mean freezing and a royal pain in the ass. but worth it! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SeaGal Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 Beautiful photos and very interesting project. So sad and surprising to know that Mexico is importing their chiles from China. Thanks so much for sharing! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rancho_gordo Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 Beautiful photos and very interesting project. So sad and surprising to know that Mexico is importing their chiles from China. Thanks so much for sharing! and even worse they are coming into the US via NAFTA. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
g.johnson Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 She made the black mole (above) and sells the paste, which is somewhere between a liquid and an actual paste. It's incredible and yet she makes next to no money because times are hard and people don't have money and her labor is basically worthless. If there were just a way to export this stuff! Frozen? Making mole is such a pain and, in my experience, so prone to failure (dessicated chiles?), I'm sure there would he a market for it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bigbear Posted February 15, 2011 Share Posted February 15, 2011 Great stuff. Thanks, Steve. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tsquare Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Steve (and Cristina), The chilies we bought in Patzcuaro and Morelia markets - those were local, please tell me so? They were dried - do we need to be concerned about little creatures? We felt no concern for our safety while traveling last November. We slid in and out of Morelia between two events that closed the town and surrounding roads - had we been there, it would have been inconvenient. Had we been in a confiscated vehicle used as a barricade, even more so - the odds - they have to be lower than the violence in the US. Or even road rage. I think of it like the days of prohibition in the US - there was a lot of money to be made by a few groups of people. If you didn't mess with them or weren't in the wrong place, the likelihood of trouble was pretty darn low. You don't want to hurt your customers after all. I wish everyone could have as nice a couple of weeks in Mexico as we did. It was like a big hug. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rancho_gordo Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Steve (and Cristina), The chilies we bought in Patzcuaro and Morelia markets - those were local, please tell me so? They were dried - do we need to be concerned about little creatures? It depends. they might have been. But they may have been from Queretero or Guanajuato. If you got them in the markets, I doubt they're Chinese. The critter thing can happen wherever they are grown. I'd enjoy them sooner than later, or freeze them for five days to kill any eggs that may be in them. I get bugs in mine all the time here in hot summer-Napa. Never a problem in San Francisco. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
memesuze Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I'm just waiting for your importing chilhuacles for my mole - whatever happened to those seeds I gave you? lost in some pocket? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Suzanne F Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Just want to say thank you for the great pictures, and for your efforts. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bloviatrix Posted February 17, 2011 Share Posted February 17, 2011 Your new project sounds interesting - looking forward to hearing more. The photos are great. What is the sauce in the last photo? Any chance there's a recipe in Oaxaca al Gusto? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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