eating on the fringes

That photograph makes my kitchen look a lot like Christmas.

And, I guess, it is. In a way.

After a month of traveling and eating food prepared by other minds, I am back in the favorite room of my house dreaming up a new dish each day.

A young Mexican friend came over while I was cooking today's lunch. It was a conservative choice -- a fusion between two traditional Mexican dishes with a few Asian and Middle Eastern touches. Think of  carne en su jugo combined with carne con chile rojo tarted up with tomatoes, garbanzos, black beans, shallots, and a citrus-based salsa verde, with a foundation of cilantro, fennel, and cumin seeds, and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg.

When Alan asked what I was making, I gave him the full litany. He rolled his eyes. I responded: "Lunch."

Whenever my Mexican friends discuss food with me, they almost always start with the question of why I do not just cook straight Mexican fare. You know the answer. Because I find that type of cooking boring. I want something I have never tasted before for each of my meals.

Mexicans are rather conservative in their food tastes. Most people around the world tend to stick to foods they knew growing up. But the Mexicans I know are very happy eating the standard fare of Jalisco.

I asked Alan if he wanted to try my experiment. He declined. It did not look right to him. And then he really surprised me: "I do not like Canadian food." I thought I had mistranslated what he said.

I asked him to repeat it. He did.

Like the vast majority of my Mexican acquaintances, the assumption is that people from the north are all Canadians. That is a safe bet here in our little village on the Pacific shore since most northerners are from Canada.

I reminded him I was from Oregon, not Canada. But I was more interested in why he thought my Mexican-inspired dishes were not Mexican.

That was an easy answer. "If it is not the way my grandmother cooks, it is not Mexican." Alan is a perfect example of the conservative eater.

So, we started talking about the type of Mexican foods he does like. Most of the usual suspects were there. Tacos. Carnitas. Enchiladas. Almost anything wrapped in a tortilla.

Then, he shocked me. He included pizza and spaghetti on his list.

When I asked him why, he said because Mexicans eat them. He was willing to accept the fact that both foods found their genesis in Italy (only because Wikipedia backed me up), but that did not deter him from declaring both staples of the universal children's table as Mexican dishes.

Spaghetti with red sauce, that is. He declared all pasta with white sauces as Canadian imports to local restaurants.

Alan left without trying my lunch creation. That is too bad. It turned out well, and I am certain Omar is going to like it when he returns home from his Saturday gadabout.

My blogger chum Jennifer said my essay about returning home (mean streets of barra) sounded as if I had donned Judy Garland Kansas pigtails. She has a point.

There is no place like home. Well, until another trip calls (and I am planning several already).