San Miguel de Allende has long been home to a deeply compassionate animal rescue community. Yet critical gaps remain in how dogs and cats—and the people who care for them—are supported.
Enter Animal Angels SMA, a new U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) organization founded by three longtime animalistas in San Miguel de Allende. Its mission focuses on three areas aimed at addressing some of the root causes of animal neglect and hardship: Nourish, Transport, Educate.
Nourish
No family should have to choose between feeding their household and feeding a beloved animal. Animal Angels SMA is developing a local animal food bank with three areas of focus. The first supports independent rescuers caring for dogs and cats taken off the streets.
The second works with established organizations in San Miguel to identify families experiencing hardship in the campo. The goal is to offer short-term assistance through regular despensas of dog and cat food, helping families keep their animals fed during difficult periods.
The third initiative will test a feeding station in San Miguel, providing food and water for street dogs at a designated location. Working with the surrounding community, Animal Angels SMA hopes to ensure the station is maintained and that animals have regular access to food and water.
Transport
Finding local homes for every rescued animal is an uphill battle. Animal Angels SMA helps transport rescued dogs north of the border, where they can be placed in permanent homes in the United States and Canada. Each successful placement also frees up valuable space and resources for rescuers here in San Miguel.
The Animal Angels SMA team has already been helping dogs make these journeys, either by flying them to major cities in the United States and Canada or through the Rescue Express, a bus capable of transporting as many as 70 dogs to new homes in the U.S.
Thousands of Mexican rescue dogs have been safely transported north through these efforts over the years. In July and August alone, dogs were sent to Toronto, New York, Portland and Iowa. Animal Angels SMA may be new in town, but the people behind it have been doing this work for a long time.
Educate
True, lasting change begins with prevention. Animal Angels SMA is developing community outreach and school programs designed to teach children about responsible pet care and the humane treatment of companion animals.
The education program is still in its early stages, and the team recognizes that reaching young people throughout the community will be a significant undertaking. But teaching empathy and responsible animal care to the next generation is an important part of creating long-term change.
It Takes a Village
When it comes to animal welfare, the old saying really does apply: it takes a village. No single rescue group or organization can solve the problem alone.
Animal Angels SMA was created around the belief that collaboration increases everyone’s impact. Whether you’re an independent foster, a local business owner, a frequent flyer or simply someone who would like to see fewer hungry animals on San Miguel’s streets, there is a way to help.
A bag of dog food costs MXN $305 and a bag of cat food MXN $430, and food donations help support the Nourish program.
Travelers can also become flight angels, escorting a rescued dog to its new home in the United States or Canada. Those flying Aeroméxico, Volaris or Viva may be able to accompany a dog at no cost to themselves.
Animal Angels SMA is also looking for volunteers to help package food and deliver it to communities in the campo, as well as people willing to host small “Yappy Hour” gatherings where friends and neighbors can learn about the organization’s work.
Together, we can help make compassion for San Miguel’s four-legged residents part of everyday life.
Want to become an Animal Angel? Follow @animalangelssma on Facebook and Instagram for upcoming fundraising events, volunteer opportunities and updates on the organization’s programs. animalangelssma@gmail.com
Donations can be made via PayPal or Zelle to: Friends of Mexican Animal Welfare
You pile up associations the way you pile up bricks. Memory itself is a form of architecture.
-Louise Bourgeois
Who would you be without your memories? Without the ideas you have collected about yourself, about others and the world around you? I have thought a lot about this in the last couple of years as I cared for my mother who was shedding her memories the way a tree loses its leaves when winter is coming. At first there was a panic as to what would happen, what would be left and how would we cope if we got to the point where I was a stranger.
Of course there was a resistance, a desire to hold on to every moment and remembrance, but that resistance itself was a form of disease built by fear and the unknown. Eventually the path we chose was acceptance and the world around us loosened, tension slackened and we made space for new things. My mother never forgot who I was but sometimes she didn’t know that I was her daughter, I was maybe a sister or a friend or even her mother. I, in turn, had to release my resistance to the idea of her as my mother. Whoever she thought I was, I wanted her to associate me with love and safety and I let that dictate my reaction to each situation we faced.
She saw the environment around us with new eyes each day and she took me along for the ride. Without the clutter of the past we would marvel at the new green shoots of leaves on a plant or the rising of the moon. How miraculous to see the rising of the moon as though for the first time!
Our memories can be tools. They can transport us to a moment in time in the past and we can feel the texture of an object we haven’t held for years or conjure up the smell of our childhood bedroom. Our memories can also be weapons. Some people hold on to grudges like they are precious riches. Our memories can also be unreliable. Women who experience childbirth often say in the moment they will never do it again only to do it again once the pain has passed and they are holding a newborn in their arms.
And perhaps memory reaches beyond what we consciously remember. Like the complex networks beneath forests, where trees exchange resources and information through their roots and fungal partners, we too are connected to what came before us. Scientists are exploring whether some effects of our ancestors’ experiences may be carried through epigenetic mechanisms – chemical changes that affect how genes are expressed without changing the DNA sequence itself. In animals, there is compelling evidence that some of these effects can cross generations; in humans, the science is still unfolding. What we inherit may be more complicated than the stories we have been told.
None of us is an island.
This month our writers explore memory in many different forms. Thank you for reading.
Chef Juan Carlos Hernandez recently turned Moxi, the restaurant inside Hotel Matilda, into a stage for one of Mexico’s oldest and most personal foods, the taco. Moxi Omakase: The Taco Edition, a curated dining event from ExperienceSMA, sold out within days. It was a chef’s-table tasting in which each course arrived one at a time. Every plate carried the kind of intention usually reserved for fine dining, built entirely around masa, salsa, and fire. It was a small, intimate evening—and a good excuse to explore why San Miguel de Allende takes its corn so seriously.
Why Hotel Matilda Is the Perfect Stage
Hotel Matilda has always stood a little apart from the rest of San Miguel. Most of the city leans into its 500-year-old colonial bones, but Matilda opened in 2010 with sleek white Cubist lines and a gallery’s worth of contemporary Mexican art tucked into every courtyard. The hotel takes its name from a 1940s Diego Rivera portrait of Matilda Stream, the owner’s mother, which still hangs in the collection today. Sculptures by Javier Marín greet guests near the entrance, and pieces by artists like Bosco Sodi and Aldo Chaparro fill the interiors, a place built on the idea that Mexican tradition and Mexican innovation belong in the same room, a fitting home for a menu that does exactly that with corn.
Moxi, the hotel’s restaurant, has built its own reputation around globally minded Mexican cuisine that respects tradition without being trapped by it. An omakase-style taco tasting was a natural next step. Omakase, borrowed from Japanese dining, means leaving the choices to the chef and trusting them to walk you through a story course by course. Chef Hernandez used that format to tell a very old story indeed.
Nine Thousand Years in a Tortilla
The story behind the taco begins roughly 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River Valley, where early farmers began domesticating a wild grass called teosinte. Over countless generations of careful selection, that tough, barely edible grass became maize, the crop that would go on to define an entire culinary civilization. Over time, Mesoamerican cultures combined corn with beans, creating a nutritionally complementary pairing that remains central to Mexican cooking.
By the time the Aztecs were building their empire, tortillas already had a name, tlaxcalli. They filled them with beans, chile stews, moles, and proteins ranging from turkey to deer, creating an early form of what we now recognize as the taco. A crucial technique called nixtamalization unlocked nutrients the grain had been hiding all along. Dried corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, and the process gives masa its distinctive flavor and pliability, still exactly how tortillas are made today, by hand in small kitchens and by machine in tortillerías alike.
The taco kept evolving after the Spanish arrived, absorbing new ingredients like pork, beef, and dairy. Centuries later, Lebanese immigrants brought the vertical rotisserie to Mexico, and that collision of cultures produced tacos al pastor, now one of the country’s most beloved styles. The taco has never stopped adapting, from Aztec markets to food trucks worldwide, exactly the spirit Chef Hernandez channeled at Moxi.
The Many Faces of Mexican Corn
What makes Mexican corn so extraordinary is not just its age, but its diversity. More than 60 recognized criollo, or native, varieties of maize grow across the country, each shaped by centuries of local farming and suited to a different dish. A few of them explain why a taco in Oaxaca can taste worlds apart from a taco in Mexico City, even when both start with nothing more than corn, water, and fire.
Cacahuazintle is a large, hard-kerneled white corn grown around Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Mexico City, prized above all for pozole, where its chewy texture is the whole point. Chapalote, believed to be one of the oldest cultivated corns in the Americas, produces small conical ears and connects modern kitchens to Mexico’s earliest farmers. Olotillo, a delicate white corn from Oaxaca, shows up in tlayudas and tostadas, while Chalqueño, a robust yellow variety from the State of Mexico region, leans into soups and stews. Oaxaca’s iconic blue corn gives tlayudas and many tortillas their striking color and earthier flavor, and chefs across Mexico have been rediscovering it as part of a broader movement back toward heirloom grains.
Broadly speaking, Mexican corn falls into two big families. Dent corn is usually yellow or white and high in starch, the workhorse behind hominy and masa harina, the foundation of tortillas and tamales. Sweet corn, by contrast, is what shows up grilled on a stick as elote, sold by street vendors slathered in crema, cheese, and chile. Every taco is a decision about which corn to use, and chefs like Hernandez are increasingly making that decision purposefully rather than by default.
A Story Told Course by Course
Chef Hernandez leaned into that history rather than around it. An omakase format built entirely on tacos gave him room to move through different corn varieties, salsas, and techniques course by course, the way a sushi chef might move through cuts of fish. Guests were not just eating a meal. They were tasting nine millennia of agricultural history, reinterpreted inside one of San Miguel’s most design-forward spaces.
What stayed with me after the last plate was cleared was not any single dish, but the sense of eating a timeline. A tortilla is never just a tortilla. It is a choice, made by a farmer, a chef, or a grandmother, about which corn tells the story best. If you have ever wanted to understand why Mexicans take their corn so seriously, an evening like Moxi Omakase: The Taco Edition explains it, one exquisite bite at a time.
Kat Sparks is the founder and curator of University of Expats and ExperienceSMA.
Thirty years ago I came to San Miguel on my honeymoon. I fell in love with the city and remember thinking, “One day I’m coming back to live here.”
Life had other plans. I stayed in San Diego, raised three sons, built a career, got divorced, and forgot I had the freedom to live anywhere.
Then last year, at 55, an uncomfortable romantic relationship reminded me that life’s too short, so I bought a one-way ticket to return to San Miguel.
I definitely didn’t move here to start a singles organization. I was simply looking for my next chapter. What I found first was loneliness.
I worked remotely, usually from home or a café, and almost every night I made myself go out. Through TEDx and the Jewish community I met wonderful people right away. Daily there were concerts, lectures, art openings, dinner parties and hikes.
Still, I’d come home to an empty house and feel… empty. I wanted a romantic partner, but I also wanted my people. It felt like freshman year of college. You’re friendly with everyone but connected to very few.
When it came to dating, everyone had advice.
One woman proudly told me, “My Mexican boyfriend is 20 years younger. He adores me. I pay for everything and I don’t mind. You need to find yourself a hot young Mexican.” Good on her.
Then I kept hearing immigrant women say the same thing. “There are no good men in San Miguel.” They’re wrong. Maybe not as many as women, but they’re here. And I kept meeting them.
Once I decided I was ready to date, within two months I met four men I liked. The best one became my friend first. A handsome Mexican man, we met at ecstatic dance and spent almost every day together walking, talking, laughing and exploring San Miguel with no pressure. Even if nothing romantic had happened, I would’ve been grateful to have a companion. Then one evening his usual kiss on the cheek landed on my lips. Today, six months later, we’re happily together.
“The more people I meet, the more I realize finding love isn’t a dating problem. It’s a connection problem.”
I’ve met people who just buried a spouse after 50 years of marriage. People recovering from divorce. People who have never married. People who don’t want a relationship right now. They want someone to have dinner with, hear music with, travel with or call on a bad day. They want to find their people.
Then a photo memory from my old singles dinner parties in San Diego popped up on my phone. On June 3, I posted a simple question in a San Miguel Facebook group.
“Looking for love?”
Six hundred likes, hundreds of comments, and more than 500 private messages later, I knew I’d hit a nerve.
Two months later, more than 350 people have joined Love in San Miguel | Amor en San Miguel. Fifty-five percent are native Spanish speakers. Our community ranges in age from 25 to 85. From day one, I wanted our group to be bilingual and bi-cultural because loneliness is universal.
I’ve been a matchmaker for over 30 years, but before our first event on July 7, I was terrified. Would anyone come? Would people talk to each other? Would they leave thinking, “Well… that was awkward?”
Instead, 60 people showed up with another 200 on the waitlist.
Before anyone sat down, we handed every guest a “connection card” and asked them to find a stranger. “What have you always wanted to learn?” “What are you passionate about?” “What are you looking forward to?” Within minutes the room buzzed. English and Spanish mixed together. Mexicans and immigrants. People in their 30s talking with people in their 70s. It was exactly what I’d hoped for.
Then came dinner, and with it, the stories. One woman had just ended a 34-year marriage. Another drove 90 minutes because he didn’t know where else to meet thoughtful people.
Again and again I heard the same thing. “I just want a safe place to meet good people.”
I’m building Love in San Miguel in real time with my amazing bicultural partner, Araceli Kopiloff. Originally from Uruguay, Araceli has called Mexico home for many years. We learn from every event and our community helps us shape what comes next.
There will be curated matchmaking dinners, outdoor adventures, volunteer projects, workshops, speakers, and many experiences for people to find their people.
We don’t have it all figured out yet, but we’re enjoying the crazy creation phase. It means we’re listening instead of assuming what everyone wants.
Here’s what I didn’t expect. Married couples keep asking to join. They aren’t looking for romance, but they’re lonely too. They want couple friends, dinner friends, people to travel with.
For now, we’re staying focused on singles, but it reminded me that loneliness doesn’t disappear just because you found a spouse. I can’t promise anyone they’ll find the love of their life. Nobody can.
But I can design carefully crafted experiences where strangers become friends, and maybe some of those friendships become love. San Miguel is too magical to love alone.
Audrey Jacobs is the founder and chief matchmaker of Love in San Miguel | Amor en San Miguel. She is a TEDx speaker whose talk has been viewed nearly 200,000 times. Audrey lives in San Miguel de Allende and believes the city is too magical to love alone.
Spices don’t just shape the flavors on San Miguel’s plates—they’re also finding their way into some of the city’s most creative cocktails. To learn more, I stopped by Bekeb at Live Aqua. Bekeb has been ranked among North America’s 50 Best Bars. There I spoke with Marco, one of their lead mixologists, about how traditional ingredients and modern techniques come together behind the bar.
“The beverages we serve here are rooted in tradition and driven by creativity,” says Marco. “We honor Mexico’s ancestral ingredients while embracing modern techniques and presentations.”
Bekeb, which means “seed” in the Tzotzil language, opened its doors in 2019 and has since become one of Mexico’s most respected cocktail destinations. The bar’s menu is built around Mexican spirits, regional ingredients, and carefully crafted flavor combinations. Herbal, citrus, tropical, and savory cocktails are presented with meticulous attention to detail, from the ice and garnish to the glassware itself.
“All the distillates and liqueurs we use are of exceptional quality,” Marco explains. “We make our own juices, and some ingredients are even harvested directly from a ranch, including lavender.”
Two cocktails perfectly illustrate Bekeb’s approach.
The Tepache Cocktail (Water Honey) combines pox, cocoa liqueur, fine sherry, pulque, coconut extract, and cocoa foam. One of its key ingredients is aguamiel, the naturally sweet sap extracted from pulquero agave and fermented for several days before use.
Another standout is the Cocktail Copal (Tomato), a savory blend of Ocho Blanco tequila, Dolin Blanc vermouth, celery bitters, and pickled tomatillo.
“It’s our version of a Mexican martini,” says Marco. “Very dry, herbal, and clean.”
Of course, Bekeb isn’t the only place in San Miguel exploring the relationship between spices and beverages. Traditional drinks throughout Mexico have long incorporated aromatic ingredients and spices in creative ways.
Atole is a comforting hot beverage made from masa and often flavored with cinnamon or chocolate.
Horchata, a refreshing drink made from rice, cinnamon, and sugar, provides a cooling counterpoint to many of Mexico’s spicier dishes.
Pulque, a fermented agave beverage consumed for centuries, is still enjoyed throughout central Mexico, with some variations incorporating herbs, spices, and local fruits.
And for those seeking a little extra heat, many local bars have put their own spin on the classic margarita by adding jalapeño or serrano peppers, creating a cocktail that is both refreshing and fiery.
Whether served in a clay mug, a traditional glass, or a carefully crafted cocktail coupe, San Miguel’s beverages tell the same story as its cuisine: one of tradition, innovation, and a deep appreciation for flavor.
Michael Solof leads SMA Adventure Hound, a group that takes locals and newcomers to weekly brunches and dinners at different restaurants. He also offers classes in smartphone photography. You can contact him at WhatsApp +1-443-310-9214 for more info and to reserve.
One of Hollywood’s biggest stars gave it all up to become a Franciscan friar—and spent his final years in San Miguel de Allende. José Mojica lived two extraordinary lives. First, he became one of Mexico’s most celebrated singers and one of Hollywood’s earliest Latin stars. Then, at the height of his international fame, he walked away from it all to become a Franciscan friar.
Born in San Gabriel, Jalisco, on September 14, 1895, Mojica rose from humble beginnings to captivate audiences throughout the Americas and Europe. His exceptional tenor voice attracted the attention of the legendary Enrico Caruso, who recognized his talent and encouraged the young singer’s career.
With the advent of talking pictures, Mojica’s handsome screen presence and powerful voice made him one of Hollywood’s first successful Latin actors. Alongside Dolores del Río, Ramón Novarro, and Lupe Vélez, he helped introduce Mexican talent to international audiences.
His recordings—including María Grever’s Júrame—became classics and secured his place among the most admired performers of his generation.
Chicago and International Fame
Before Hollywood embraced him, Mojica was a principal performer with the Chicago Opera, where he appeared before large audiences and earned international recognition. His recordings circulated widely, expanding his popularity throughout North and Latin America.
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A Home in San Miguel
In the 1930s, Mojica discovered the quiet colonial town of San Miguel de Allende. Captivated by its beauty, he purchased and restored the estate now known as Antigua Villa Santa Mónica, intending to create a peaceful home for his beloved mother.
Over time, the villa became a gathering place for artists, musicians, writers, diplomats, and filmmakers. Mojica helped introduce many artists and cultural figures to San Miguel, adding to the town’s growing reputation as a center for the arts.
Solamente Una Vez
Among Mojica’s close friends was composer Agustín Lara. When Lara learned that Mojica intended to leave the stage and enter religious life, he composed Solamente Una Vez, a song that would become one of the enduring classics of Latin American music.
A Different Calling
The death of Mojica’s mother marked a turning point in his life. Soon afterward, he left behind his successful career in opera, film, and recording to enter the Franciscan Order in Peru, where he became Fray José de Guadalupe Mojica.
For the rest of his life, he devoted himself to religious service, charitable work, and music. He later reflected on his remarkable journey in his bestselling autobiography, Yo pecador (I, a Sinner), offering readers a deeply personal account of his transformation from international celebrity to Franciscan friar.
The Children of Mexiquito
One chapter of Mojica’s life is especially meaningful here in San Miguel. He helped establish the orphanage in Mexiquito, just outside the city, where he worked with children and shared his love of music.
For my wife, Rosana, this history is deeply personal. As a young girl, she sang there under Fray José Mojica’s direction. That memory reminds us that history often survives not only in books and buildings, but in the lives of those who experienced it firsthand.
A Lasting Legacy
José Mojica achieved a level of fame few people ever experience. Yet he is remembered not only for his accomplishments on the opera stage and in Hollywood, but also for the life he chose afterward.
His legacy lives on in San Miguel de Allende through Villa Santa Mónica, the orphanage at Mexiquito, his recordings, and the memories of those whose lives he touched.
His remarkable journey reminds us that success can be measured in many ways. For José Mojica, the greatest legacy was found not in applause, but in a life devoted to service.
Continuing Fray José Mojica’s Legacy
More than 60 years after Fray José Mojica helped establish the children’s home in Mexiquito, the Santuario Hogar Guadalupano (Casa Hogar Mexiquito) continues its mission of providing a safe home, education, and support for vulnerable boys and young people in San Miguel de Allende. The organization describes its guiding principle as: “To love, protect, and offer a home to our beloved children.”
Community members and visitors can support the orphanage in several ways:
Make a financial donation, either online through PayPal, by bank transfer, or in person.
Donate needed supplies, including food, clothing, personal hygiene products, cleaning supplies, and school materials.
Volunteer by helping with homework, leading art or recreational activities, assisting with maintenance projects, or sharing professional skills. The home also welcomes university students completing community service.
Roger D. Jones is a longtime resident of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and co-founder of Casa Angelitos Boutique Hotel and EcoParque La Joyita. A writer, designer, and advocate for regenerative living, he is passionate about creating places and experiences that celebrate beauty, nature, music, community, and the enduring spirit of Mexico. He also supports the regenerative agriculture and educational mission of Vía Orgánica. Learn more at http://www.casaangelitos.com http://www.ecoparquelajoyita.com and http://www.viaorganica.org
In August, the rains transform the forests surrounding San Miguel de Allende into one of nature’s greatest spectacles. Seemingly overnight, mushrooms emerge from the forest floor, tree trunks, fallen logs, and even old pinecones. The season is so closely associated with the month that many affectionately call it Hongosto—a blend of hongo (mushroom) and agosto. For just a few weeks, wild fungi become one of the stars of the season, appearing in markets, restaurant menus, and forest trails before disappearing almost as quickly as they arrived.
1. Mushrooms aren’t plants.
They’re not animals either. Mushrooms belong to their own biological kingdom: Fungi, more closely related to animals than to plants.
2. Most of the mushroom is hidden.
The part we eat is simply the fruiting body. The real organism is an underground network of microscopic threads called mycelium, which can stretch for kilometres beneath the forest.
3. Every mushroom has a different job.
Some recycle dead trees, turning fallen wood back into soil. Others live in partnership with tree roots, helping forests absorb water and nutrients. A few even grow on insects or other fungi.
4. They can appear overnight.
After the right combination of rain, humidity, and temperature, mushrooms can grow from invisible to fully formed in just 24–48 hours.
5. They’re nutritional powerhouses.
Many edible mushrooms are rich in B vitamins, selenium, potassium, antioxidants, and fibre, while being naturally low in calories. Some varieties are also being studied for their potential immune-supporting and anti-inflammatory properties.
6. Mexico is one of the world’s great mushroom countries.
Scientists have documented thousands of fungal species in Mexico, with hundreds considered edible. New species are still being discovered.
7. Forests couldn’t survive without fungi.
Without mushrooms and other fungi breaking down dead plants and recycling nutrients, forests would eventually become buried under layers of undecomposed leaves and wood.
When we arrived in San Miguel de Allende in June 2022, there was one thing I truly missed: good, locally made, European-style artisan cheese.
I resigned myself to buying imported cheeses at La Comer and City Market, supplemented by the occasional treasures I carried home from the United States, France, or Italy. At the time, I knew very little about Mexican cheese. I knew only that I did not particularly enjoy the commercial varieties I had encountered in grocery stores.
Cheese, however, had already been part of my life for decades. After leaving my software company in 2008, I began a journey to learn as much about it as I could. It was the natural continuation of a long love affair with cheese that had begun in France, a country where my family and I have spent a month or more nearly every year for decades.
I studied the science and technology of cheesemaking at the University of Guelph. Later, I travelled through Tuscany, learning to make cheese with shepherdesses across the region. I consumed countless books on the subject and eventually decided that our next great venture should be to buy a dairy in Ontario, Canada, and make cheese ourselves.
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Then I visited the dairies that were for sale and spoke with the cheesemakers who operated them. It did not take long to realize that the supposedly Zen-like life of stirring curds and whey seven days a week was not for me. Still, I loved the subject. I continued studying cheese without knowing where that knowledge might lead—and, honestly, without caring very much. I simply loved learning everything I could about it.
An Unlikely Cheese Pilgrimage
The following May, I saw a flyer advertising a National Wine and Cheese Festival in Tequisquiapan. The information was remarkably vague. There were no clear dates, no reliable schedule, and little indication of precisely where or when the festival would take place. The admission price was not listed. Online, the information was even less helpful and appeared to have been left over from the previous year.
On a warm Saturday morning, my husband and I decided to take our chances. We drove approximately two hours, past the Querétaro airport, expecting to find a small local festival featuring the same Mexican cheeses I had already decided I was never going to appreciate.
I was wrong.
We arrived around eleven in the morning, parked, and began walking. Our route took us past a long indoor Mexican market packed with people and overflowing with baskets, dolls, brooms, hardware, fresh produce, and almost anything else one could imagine.
A few blocks later, we emerged into the picturesque central square, surrounded by an imposing parish church and lovely boutiques selling jewelry, pottery, clothing, and local crafts. Then we began noticing the cheese shops. They appeared one after another along the side streets, their windows and counters filled with cheeses in an extraordinary variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and textures. Most were completely unfamiliar to me, but they were clearly not the standard commercial cheeses I had seen at La Comer.
My curiosity took over. I fell for the beautiful displays, photographed everything, and tried desperately to understand what the shopkeepers were telling me. My Spanish was limited, my knowledge of Mexican cheese was even more limited, and our phones could not find an internet connection.
This was not San Miguel. We were on our own. Eventually, after wandering around town, we located the festival grounds in a large park several blocks from the center. The entire park was surrounded by a high stone wall, and we could not find an open entrance. After walking almost all the way around it, we finally learned that the festival would not begin until one o’clock.
When the gates eventually opened, we paid the 300-peso admission charge and were each handed a wineglass for the tastings.
We could hear the festival before we entered. Loud music vibrated through the park, which was rapidly filling with stylish young Mexicans enjoying the live performances. Around its perimeter, vendors offered tastings and sold wine, beer, food—and, most importantly, cheese.
We spent the afternoon moving from booth to booth and buying as much cheese as we could carry back to the car. The producers were knowledgeable, professional, and extraordinarily generous. They offered tastings, pairings, and demonstrations, despite our very limited ability to understand their explanations. The greatest surprise was the cheese itself.
Much of it was made in recognizable European traditions: fresh chèvres, creamy Camembert- and Brie-style wheels, smooth aged cheeses reminiscent of Comté, and beautiful cheeses made from goat’s and sheep’s milk.
It was heaven. I bought hundreds of dollars’ worth—not out of restraint or reason, but from curiosity, desire, and the fear that I might never find any of it again in San Miguel. That fear was not entirely misplaced. To this day, I have not found many of those particular cheeses for sale here.
A Gold Mine Hiding in Plain Sight
During the week following the festival, I tried to contact the cheesemakers. I emailed them. I sent messages in Spanish through Facebook and WhatsApp. I explained that I loved their cheeses and wanted to find a way to buy them in San Miguel.
I did not receive a single response. So I began investigating on my own. I searched their websites, learned everything I could about the producers and their cheeses, and began researching the larger history of cheesemaking in Mexico. It felt as though I had discovered a gold mine hiding in plain sight: a remarkable artisan-cheese culture that many people in San Miguel did not seem to know existed.
Meanwhile, I still had a cooler filled with marvelous cheese. What was I going to do with all of it?
I posted on Facebook, inviting people to come taste the cheeses and hear what I had learned about Mexico’s fascinating history of European-style cheesemaking. Within hours, more than one hundred people had responded. And so my “cheese classes” began. I assumed I would teach one or two classes, satisfy everyone’s curiosity, and be finished with it. Instead, three years later, requests for new classes continue to arrive almost daily.
Perhaps that should not surprise me. Cheese combines fat, salt, aroma, texture, fermentation, history, memory, and pleasure in a way few other foods can. It brings people to the table before they have even decided to sit down.
Discovering Mexican Cheese
Since that first festival, I have learned an enormous amount about the cheeses made in Mexico. I have also developed a much deeper appreciation for traditional Mexican cheeses as well as their European-style counterparts.
I had initially dismissed Mexican cheese based on a handful of commercial products. What I discovered was an astonishingly varied world of small dairies, family farms, dedicated cheesemakers, regional traditions, native recipes, European influences, and new experimentation.
I have now found many exceptional cheeses made much closer to home. Some follow French, Italian, or Spanish traditions; others are unmistakably Mexican. The best reflect the milk, animals, climate, landscape, and personality of the people who make them.
Mexican artisan cheese is delicious, distinctive, and still woefully underrepresented in a community with an apparently insatiable appetite for it. The subject is endless, which is precisely what I love about it. There is always another history to uncover, another farm to visit, another cheesemaker to meet, another wheel to taste, and another way to serve it.
My goal has always been to connect cheese lovers with these extraordinary products and introduce them to the tireless farmers, shepherds, and cheesemakers behind them.
I never did buy that dairy in Ontario. Instead, cheese found another use for me.
To book your cheese experience: Empress of Cheese EmpressofCheese.com
Cheeses to try:
La Estrella’s creamy, rich fresh goat cheese, made at the highly acclaimed artisanal urban farm.
On Stirling Dickinson:
La Factoría’s Criollo – A smooth, semi-mature cow’s milk cheese with a consistency made for slicing and melting.
You can find these at Luna se Queso:
Del Rebaño OVNI — A sheep’s-milk cheese with a creamy interior and a white-mold rind. It was created by Gaby, the master cheesemaker and a former gold-medal winner at the International Cheese Awards.
Banon-style cheese — An artisanal goat’s-milk cheese inspired by the classic cheese from Provence. Made in Jalisco, it is wrapped in grapevine leaves and tied with string.
Del Rebaño Padua — A sheep’s-milk cheese with a creamy consistency and qualities similar to French camembert.
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