Mis nietos, si nacen fuera de México, no podrán ser mexicanos aunque su padre lo sea mientras cualquier persona sin lazos de parentesco con el país puede acceder a la nacionalidad mexicana mientras haya nacido allá, aún cuando el resto de su vida la pase en cualquier otro lugar.
Este rollo de las nacionalidades no está hecho pensando en el mundo globalizado en el que vivimos, pero para cambiar la ley no es tan sencillo ya que estamos hablando de la Constitución. ¿Algún político se apunta?
One of the challenges I’ve had in explaining the security situation in certain parts of Mexico to some of my friends and colleagues has simply been the fact that people don’t necessarily understand the size of the country.
Now, courtesy of ifitweremyhome.com, I found this excellent map superimposing Mexico on top of Europe to prove my point. Just as people going to the beaches of Greece and Turkey didn’t need to worry about the Glasgow airport bombers, it makes little sense to worry about the security situation in the northern border if you’re going to the beaches of central and southern Mexico. I certainly won’t, and I go there every year (If you need tips, I wrote a small guide some time ago).
That’s what drives me crazy sometimes about the international news coverage of the country. I’m not telling you that there aren’t places that are screwed up, but using that brush for the whole place is misleading.
My friends at Café de Nopal have been offering birria tacos (goat Jalisco style) with broth for some time now, so I decided to try to prepare reindeer the same way. The result was excellent, probably one of the best attempts at Finnish-Mexican fusion I’ve gone for.
Ingredients (serves 4)
Warm the oil and fry the garlic, onion and chillies until they’re soft. Add half a litre of water and the cumin. Let boil a few minutes. Blend this mix and then sift it. Return the sauce to the fire and add4 litres of water. Cut the meat in small cubes and add it together with the tomato. Leave cooking for 3-4 hours, add more water if necessary. Serve the broth separately from the meat. Warm the tortillas. Offer some sliced and diced onion with coriander and lemons on the side for people to put together their own tacos. Serve with Mexican rice and pico de gallo on the side.
The lack of posts lately has a very simple reason: I became a father two weeks ago. Feedings, diapers, sleepless nights, and peaceful moments show I’ve joined what a friend of mine calls “the happy insomniac’s club”. There are plenty of things that have already happened, and an unimaginable amount more in store, but it’s all worth it.
Our music collection has contributed to the mood, with lots of stuff from Cri-Crí, Finnish children’s melodies and classical music, but the little guy seems to also like the heavy rock we used to listen while he was still in the womb.
Even José Alfredo Jiménez seems to have a song for the occasion ;).
The 2000’s were the years that started with the menace of Y2K, gave us 6 years of Bush, the Argentine peso crash, 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorist attacks in Madrid, London & Mumbai, the bomb in Myyrmanni, wars in Chechenya and Georgia, the Asian tsunami, the floods of Tabasco, Katrina, protests in Ukraine & Thailand, two stock market crashes, wars in Liberia, Congo and Somalia, the Jokela & Kauhajoki school shootings, the drug war & ended with the Haiti earthquake.
However, they also gave us the rise of the rest of the globalized countries and the formation of the G-20, the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, the rescue of the Chilean miners, the spread of mobile communication, the fast adoption of broadband, the dramatic reduction of poverty in certain areas and the improving availability of basic sanitation in many others, though you won’t see that in the news ;).
The country where I was born has seen ten years of democracy, but also ten years of disorder and lack of statesmanship. The country where I have lived for most of this decade has experienced more change than some of its people would like, it’s showing itself more to the world but the world has also arrived in numbers to its shores. It’s not a homogeneous as it used to be.
Ten years might be a short time in geological or astronomical terms, but teenagers become adults in that time :).
As you probably know if you read this blog, one of my passions is food, especially of the Mexican kind. Unfortunately, most of the Mexican food you find outside of North America is not really Mexican, so I make a point of testing Mexican restaurants when I’m traveling to make sure they are more Mex-Mex than Tex-Mex so that I can recommend them to friends.
You can find an abridged list after the map below (they’re listed by how far away they’re from Finland, with the first being the farthest out).
When a Mexican moves abroad, one of the first things he or she misses is the food (obvious if you’ve read this blog for a while or know me personally). The Mexican food supply in Finland is very limited, so obviously many of us have had the idea to open a proper restaurant here where we could show our Finnish brothers what and why we long for: real tacos, sopes, tortas and other far-away delicacies.
Nobody had had the guts (and the knowledge) to do so until now. A couple of friends opened Café de Nopal in Lönnrotinkatu 9 a few days ago and my prayers have been answered ;). In a few days I’ve already had avocado soup, lentil soup, gringas de pastor, tacos dorados, chile relleno, flan, pan de elote and Chiapas coffee. The taste was good enough to remind me of Mom. I guess I’ll continue visiting often.
Update 8.10.2012: Café de Nopal has now become Cholo, Street Mexican kitchen. Great authentic Mexican food as well, slightly different concept
It is not every day that a country celebrates its 200th birthday. Boston.com shared a beautiful set of pictures of the parades and main events, but I wanted to give you my impressions from the ground as we were lucky enough to be there.
We spent two weeks in Mexico on holiday. We didn’t have any plans for travelling around the country as the main goals were to participate in certain social occasions: we attended a wedding, birthdays, the Mexican Independence Bicentennial and even the birth of my niece. Even so, we managed to slip away for a couple of nights to Ixtapan de la Sal, a small spa town not far away from Mexico City.
