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2023, March 2023

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

A few years ago I sat in a tapas bar in Madrid with a glass of wine ready to devour a copy of a well-respected food magazine that I had picked up at the airport. The cover promised stories about Mexican chefs. Sadly, as I read through, almost all the chefs mentioned were men and they all seemed to croon the same old story I had heard from almost every Mexican chef I know about how they started in their mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen. The tone of these tales always suggests some sort of bravery on their part for having taken a chance in the kitchen.

This issue of The Eye brings up a lot of topics that I have long debated. I once got into a discussion with a man who couldn’t understand why I don’t refer to myself as a chef.

“You run a kitchen, don’t you?” he pushed, knowing full well that I do. I explained that none of the women I work with refer to themselves as chefs and therefore it would seem the height of arrogance to go around calling myself a chef. “I just like feeding people. I don’t really need or want the title,” I said and I could tell he couldn’t understand this.

Why do I cook? Cooking for me started as an act of love- first in my childhood with family, then in college with friends, then in my first home for my husband, then for my daughter… I can scarcely think of a time in my life when I haven’t run a kitchen.

I am always a little taken aback when I am invited to attend a food event such as a culinary festival as a presenter or judge, to find other people who run kitchens dressed up in their chef whites- I don’t even own a pair of chef whites! I do have many elegant dresses that look great with an apron though!

My culinary creativity hasn’t been spontaneous, it has been cultivated over time from my travels, sharing kitchens with others, being introduced to new ingredients and necessity- cooking qu’est-ce qui, a French term I learned today for “what there is.”

Chefs also have a terrible reputation for getting upset- having fiery tempers and throwing things. I have rarely raised my voice in the kitchen and have never thrown anything. The kitchen is the heart of a home and even in a restaurant I think the vibe should reflect that- good food is made with care not ambition.

“What people expect from your kitchen isn’t what people expect from mine,” a fellow chef/restaurateur once told me with a tone that suggested his was superior. So while not calling myself a chef or strutting around in chef whites may lead to me being taken a little less seriously, I’m ok with that. I am far more honored to be a part of a legacy of women who cook to connect, to grow and to nourish.

See you next month,

Jane

2020, November 2022

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish

I love books. I can easily conjure up the memory of the feel of the carpet at the Children’s Library where I sat for hours as a girl. A few years ago I started keeping track of my reading and I average about forty-five books a year.

“How do you read so many books?” I have been asked. The secret is that I am rarely without a book at hand. Sitting in the car while gas is being pumped, lines at the bank, waiting for a friend in a restaurant – these are all slivers of opportunity to slip into another world.

If you have been to my restaurant on Christmas Eve you know how much I love books. For many years we have gifted each guest a random book. Inspired by the Icelandic tradition Jolabokaflod (Christman book flood), I like to tell people that they will get the book that is meant for them.

While I have lived in Mexico for more than half my life, I am a little disappointed to tell you that I haven’t read that many Mexican writers, but this issue is so full of fascinating writers that I can’t wait to read. I have read some Mexican writers and here are a few of my favorite books that aren’t mentioned in this issue.

Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli (2019)
The story of a woman, her husband and two children traveling from New York to Arizona. Touching upon the horrors of children being separated from their parents while searching for a different life. This novel examines identity and questions our humanity. Also check out her first novel The Story of My Teeth (2015)- it is a humourous and surreal tale that is primarily set at the Jumex Museum in CDMX.

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel (1990)
I was first introduced to Mexico by watching this film in a Montreal movie theater on a cold winter evening. It was easy to fall in love with this revolutionary love story that centers around food. The novel is a fun read and includes recipes.

Into the Beautiful North, by Luis Alberto Urrea (2009)
Nineteen-year-old Nayeli notices that her small town is devoid of men because they have all gone north. She heads north to find her father and to find men to return to save the town.

What all these novels have in common is the ability to weave the surreal into the every day giving the reader a different perspective on life- much as Mexico itself does.

Happy Reading,

Jane

August 2022

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“In our society growing food ourselves has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can ― and will ― overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world ― we change ourselves.” ― Jules Dervaes

I own a restaurant, which means if you look in my fridge at home you will find a lot of good intentions. I spend all day around food and it is often easier to just have a piece of toast at the end of the day or to bring something from work. Recently some potatoes I had forgotten about started sprouting in the fridge, so I planted them. I was so inspired by the quick results that I dug out seeds I have accumulated over the years and bought some pretty planters. There is an amazing satisfaction to eating something you have grown.

The cost of food around the world is soaring! Forget when a few years back when people were complaining about the 8$ cauliflower – that is nothing compared to what is currently happening. The New Yorker recently published a piece about “The True Costs of Inflation in Small-Town Texas,” detailing the impact of inflation on BBQ. This is mainstream media reporting on rising food costs that are causing businesses to close!

In Huatulco it’s not just meat, fish (which is locally caught but there is less of it) – it’s tomatoes, avocados and everything else.

What we are experiencing right now is not the famines of the past which affected people in far off lands that we could forget about when we turned off the TV and sat down to our meat and potatoes dinner. There is no turning off the TV any more – globalization has ensured that we are all connected and we are all going to feel the effects.

The causes for some of this inflation have been higher freight costs, supply chains disrupted by the pandemic and war, increase in the cost of fertilizers and gas. Average monthly natural gas price, as indicated by the World Bank’s Natural Gas Index, went up by nearly 600% between June 2020 and December 2021.

Much of the world is experiencing record-breaking heat waves and water shortages along with soaring food prices, which will impact food production as well.

The stories about people living off the grid, near a water source and growing their own food? They don’t seem eccentric or crazy or counter-culture any more… they seem smart.

See you in October,

Jane

July 2022

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.”
William Blake.

I fell in love with a bird once. I had loved dogs and cats but never a bird. One morning, far too early, my mother-in-law came stomping up the path to our house calling out for my husband.
“That bird!” she shrieked pointing to her big toe which was oozing blood.

My in-laws owned an inn in Puerto Angel and they had three yellow-eared parrots that lived in the dining area to the delight of the guests. One of the parrots had a tendency to be quite aggressive and attacking my mother-in-law’s foot was the last chance for that bird. That is how Millie came to live with us. Her cage hung by the front door and we left it open during the day and she would climb out and wander around the house, keeping clear of our dogs. She often appeared at my office window and stepped down onto my desk. She also discovered how to climb on to the bed by pulling herself up and would rub her head against mine. She was a wonderful listener and I shared with her my greatest secrets and fears. After a couple of months my husband told me that Millie’s wings were getting too long and would need to the trimmed to ensure she wouldn’t fly away.

“Let’s leave them. Let them grow,” I suggested. He didn’t agree, but he let me have my way.

Millie needed to learn to fly. I reasoned that a short life free was better than a long life grounded. I held a stick out for her to climb onto and we stood about ten meters from her cage and I would let the stick drop. She’d flap her wings nervously but she eventually learned to fly to her cage. She would squawk with delight and lean into me sweetly.

A few times she did fly off across the canyon that abutted our house and get lost in the trees. She would call out loudly and cry until we found her.

When my daughter was born Millie was very jealous and my daughter still has a scar on her cheek from where Millie pecked her.

When my husband and I separated in 2004, taking Millie with me was not an option so she went to live with his aunt and uncle who had a busy household where she would get lots of attention. They wrote to me when she died on June 5, 2019 and I cried.

Love is an unexpected and invisible thing.

See you next month,

Jane

May June 2022

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

Migration is as natural as breathing, as eating, as sleeping. It is part of life, part of nature. So we have to find a way of establishing a proper kind of scenario for modern migration to exist. And when I say ‘we,’ I mean the world. We need to find ways of making that migration not forced.

Gael Garcia Bernal

I am always taken aback when I hear someone come down on immigration; after all, go back far enough and most of us are a long way from where our ancestors started. Things are always changing and people are always on the move. Whether it is a temporary hiatus for rest and relaxation or seasonal higher wages or a permanent move seeking a different kind of life – perhaps one with more safety or one where our money will get us more. How are we different?

Many would argue that long-term vacationing or owning a second home in a foreign country helps the economy and therefore isn’t the same as when outsiders come into their country looking for asylum and ‘taking’ their jobs. However, I would argue that they aren’t really that different.

While the kind of migration that has its roots firmly planted in ‘expat’ experiences can temporarily help an economy, in the long run it causes prices to rise, initiates gentrification and adds to a class system. I actually cringe when I hear the word ‘expat’ for its colonial connotations and I encourage you to read further on this if you find yourself using it.

On the other hand, the kind of migration that has its roots firmly planted in ‘refugee’ experiences can temporarily put a strain on an economy, in the long run, it is an important part of the economic growth of any country.

We are first and foremost people and it is hubristic to believe that any one of us is more deserving and entitled to movement or humane quality of life. Find your place in the world, make it your own, and let everyone else do the same.

This month our writers explore the waves of migration that have made Mexico the wonderful and diverse country that it is.

Thank you to everyone who submitted essays to our My Mexico Moment contest. I look forward to reading about your favorite places in Mexico for our July issue.

See you in July,

Jane

2022, April 2022

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this.” — Henry David Thoreau’s journals

I fell in love with the landscape of this place almost instantly. It were as though the earth reached up and took hold of me and said ‘you are mine.’

Love is an invisible thing, a gravitational pull that can’t be explained and defies practicality and reason. My heart soars everyday as I arrive home. The breeze off the river wakes me each morning with sweet caresses and a rippling sound that reminds me that everything is constantly changing. At night the moon hangs over me with her pensive calming demeanor and a reassurance that all is right in the world. In the afternoon the parrots squawk past my house telling me to find the lightness in things. The expanse of night sky, unblemished by light pollution, is to feel the grandness of the universe greater than in any cathedral. Even the earthquakes and storms feel like a conversation between the elements and an intrinsic part of life.

What is the purpose of our lives if not to find balance and harmony with the natural world around us? More than ever we need to evaluate our effect on the world around us. There has never been a time when human beings’ need for stuff has damaged so much of the planet. Our consumerism is destroying ecosystems.

But instead of focusing on changing our habits: recycling more, driving less, eating more sustainably, maybe we should focus on getting out in nature more. Hug more trees, take more walks, look up at the sky and breathe deeply, listen to the birds, love all animals the way we love our pets. Fall in love with the natural world around you and you won’t be able to help but change the way you live.

This month our writers focus on the environment. The beauty of what it has to offer and the wins of the past year, because it isn’t all dire.

Also we are approaching the deadline for our essay contest about your Mexico Moments. Thank you to everyone who has already written in with their uplifting and interesting tales of what it is to love this place. I look forward to reading the essays that are still brewing.

Thank you for reading and being a part of The Eye.

Jane

2021, December 2021

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” ~Pericles

A year ago we were counting down to say goodbye to 2020, which most people felt was one of our worst years. A year later I am not sure we are doing much better. I have been struggling for a week or so contemplating what I would say in my editorial and even as I latched onto something positive it would quickly spiral in my mind and the reality of our collective malaise would come into view.

I am writing this on the eve of American Thanksgiving and coming up with things I am grateful for on a personal level is an easy task. I love most aspects of my life. I have a job that I am excited to go to, I work with dedicated and kind people who exceed my expectations. My daughter is a smart and loving person who is doing well in school and we say ‘I love you’ with the same ease we did when she was four years old. My house is an oasis and a delicious meal is never too far off in the future. This week I have seen the faces of customers who over the years have become friends and I am thrilled that people are traveling again. The sun continues to shine in Huatulco, the ocean is refreshing, the economy is slowly recovering from pandemic shutdowns and I have an amazing support network of friends.

But looking beyond my bubble I am less optimistic. Groups of displaced people continue to push against borders in an effort to improve their lives or even just to survive. Today marks the 100th day since the Taliban took over Afghanistan and much of the population is struggling just to get enough food to survive. Women’s rights in the US are being challenged as violence breaks out on the streets in Wisconsin. Delhi is on lockdown because of poor air quality, while British Colombia is battling mud slides and heavy rains. This year saw record-breaking natural disasters from erupting volcanos, droughts, floods and hurricanes. Nearly two dozen species of birds, fish and wildlife were declared extinct this year.

So what can we do beyond recycling, eating less meat and all the other little acts that we do to make us feel like part of the solution instead of the problem? What can we learn from this coronavirus experience? We are interconnected. There is so way to move through the world bouncing only on the walls of our personal bubbles.

Our resolutions for 2022 should be to spread empathy and compassion all across the globe. To learn to have civilized conversations with people who don’t have the same political views as our own. Our goal should be to ensure everyone is safe from persecution, has food and shelter. We need to get kids out of immigration detention centers where they are held like prisoners without a place in the world. It’s no longer enough to resolve to exercise more and eat better in 2022- these are drastic times that call for BIG peaceful and loving action.

Let us embrace our interconnectedness and see the suffering of one as the suffering of all as we strive to make our world more inhabitable.

See you in 2022,

Jane

May June 2021

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“Sugary drinks are blamed for increasing the rates of chronic disease and obesity in America. Yet efforts to reduce their consumption through taxes or other measures have gone nowhere. The beverage industry has spent millions defeating them.” Robert Reich

The ritual of beverages: morning coffee, glass of wine with dinner, champagne for celebrations, hot chocolate for first snowfalls and a lime margarita once your toes hit the sand as you embark on a holiday. Most of us are quite committed to the ritual of our drinking habits, whether it is a ‘grande non-fat chai latte’ from Starbucks at the airport or your favorite brand of beer when watching your favorite sports team.

In this issue our writers explore beverages. Mexican classics such as coffee, chocolate, beer and pulque. I was driving through my village while contemplating what to write about for my editorial when I spotted a six-year old boy I know coming out of the tienda. Barefoot and with a little puppy nipping at his heels, he struggled to hold the 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola he’d just purchased. Ugh how could I have overlooked the most important beverage crisis that Mexico faces.

After the implementation of Nafta on January 1, 1994, Mexico saw a dramatic rise in consumption of sugary beverages and processed foods.

“In addition to dramatically lowering cross-border tariffs, Nafta let billions of dollars in direct foreign investment into Mexico, fueled the growth of American fast food restaurants and convenience stores, and opened the floodgates to cheap corn, meat, high-fructose corn syrup and processed foods” (New York Times, Dec. 11, 2017).

The rise in diabetes and obesity in Mexico was a huge factor before the pandemic, but has never been more paramount than now, given that these conditions make people at much greater risk.

One of the ways that junk food has infiltrated small communities that have traditionally been very self-sufficent – growing corn, fishing, relying on the vegetation found around the village – has been to offer inexpensive non-perishable products and incentives such as free refrigerators and even low-interest loans for expansion.

A new development is stickers on processed foods warning people about high sugar and fat contents. Whether this will lead to a reduction in consumption of such foods has yet to be determined. The state of Oaxaca did implement a law making it illegal to sell junk food to minors. Enforcement is another beast entirely.

“In the rural Oaxacan town of Villa Hidalgo Yalálag, citizens have physically blocked chips and soda delivery trucks from entering since April, saying they don’t want outsiders to bring in the coronavirus or junk food” (NPR ,September 14, 2020).

I don’t know if that is the answer, but I do know we need to start asking the question.

Cheers,

Jane

2021, April 2021

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“Migration is an expression of the human aspiration for dignity, safety and a better future. It is part of the social fabric, part of our very make-up as a human family.”
Ban Ki-moon

Race, gender, sexual orientation and religion are things we use to identify and separate us. We can now add vaccinated and non-vaccinated into the mix.

I am back in my village and it is a full year since kids here have had in-person classes. As in many places, group gatherings have been suspended until further notice- the future is in limbo. Unlike other places most households have ten or more people living there and there isn’t any internet or cell service so zoom classes aren’t a thing. Nobody wears masks or social distances in my village. When this whole thing first came down the village put up a barrier at the main entrance to restrict entry. However, few outsiders stop here and arguments about whose turn it was to monitor the gate soon caused the villagers to remove the barrier. School is still on hold.

The little boys who live next to me call out while I am making coffee. They can see through the fence separating our houses that I am there. They point to pieces of Mega blocks that have ended up on my side of the fence. I pick them up and pass them through. One of my dogs follows me and when they see him they call out his name with jubilation.

These kids have missed a year of school. As I move through the village and I see kids hanging around the tienda, chasing chickens for sport and sword-fighting with sticks, I feel defeated. While this quaint throwback scene to simpler times is touching, it will leave a mark on them if things do not get back on track. Home schooling via zoom with parents at home is a luxury. Access to getting a vaccine is a sign of privilege. While we lament how our world has changed in past year- the frustrations and restrictions regarding travel and home offices- most of us will bounce back. Much of the world will not.

This issue our writers explore the theme of Migration and Transition. Migration is a part of nature: the monarchs, the geese and now, driven by climate change, animals moving south from the Arctic. We are all trying to survive and for most people migration is about survival.

I heard on the news this morning about how there are many unaccompanied children are arriving at the US border with the idea that a better life awaits them on the other side. Why do we have children walking to find new homes? Why are there 26 million refugees currently living in host communities? Because we allow the things that identify us to also be the things that separate us. We get comfortable on our side of the fence with a feeling of entitlement that in some way we are more deserving to be in these positions. However, isn’t it all random luck or the situation you happened to be born into?

Until next month,

Jane

2021, March 2021

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. … It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg

How relevant is the feminist movement today and how pervasive is gender inequality?

I have found myself trying to answer this question often in the past few years. While I was growing up there was a certain amount of what became termed victimization attached to the feminist voice as statistics of domestic abuse and sexual harassment were recounted. I recall the ‘walksafe’ program at my university that it was expected women would call if they needed to walk after dark. And if you didn’t call and something happened, well, then you were to blame. However, the world is also a dangerous place for men and if we relied on data we would see that many men also face harassment and violence. More men than women go to war or join law enforcement or go to prison.

Women hold more political and economic power than in the past – not all over the globe, but in many developed countries. It has been suggested to me in social situations that gender inequality is hardly a main global concern. And yet I still believe it is. I believe it because of the women I know in rural Mexico who struggle to go to school. I believe it when I browse the internet and see women’s bodies sexualized in advertising and popular cultural.

Is all fear and danger equal? I recently read a wonderful short story called “The Wind” by Lauren Groff about a woman running away from her abusive police officer husband. The narrator is the daughter of one of the children and the final paragraph was so moving and poignant that I cried because I recognized this fear that I had been unable to put into words.

“The three children survived. Eventually they would save themselves, struggling into lives and loves far from this place and this moment, each finding a kind of safe harbor, jobs and people and houses empty of violence. But always inside my mother there would blow a silent wind, a wind that died and gusted again, raging throughout her life, touching every moment she lived after this one. She tried her best, but she couldn’t help filling me with this same wind. It seeped into me through her blood, through every bite of food she made for me, through every night she waited, shaking with fear, for me to come home by curfew, through every scolding, everything she forbade me to say or think or do or be, through all the ways she taught me how to move as a woman in the world. She was far from being the first to find it blowing through her, and of course I will not be the last. I look around and can see it in so many other women, passed down from a time beyond history, this wind that is dark and ceaseless and raging within.”

So let us not compare our heartaches and tragedies, gender inequality isn’t a men vs. women debate. It is about making the world a place where all of us can feel free. Until the wind that Groff writes about is a thing of distant memory, the feminist movement will be relevant.

See you next month,

Jane