Introduction

Everyone who has read this book at all its stages has known that it is extremely unconventional. Believe me, I realize that it would have been safer to write a more traditional cookbook, but the things I wanted to say couldn’t be pigeonholed. The book took on a life of its own. Finally I threw convention to the winds and wrote what people tell me is several books at once. It is a memoir, a guide to Mexican culinary basics, and a personal recipe collection, all interspersed with glimpse-by-glimpse evocations of Mexican life and culture.