Going The Distance

Well. The day starts with a phonecall saying that Reuters Mexico would like to interview us for Reuters TV. Woo hoo! I rush to don some slap (in vain), and we head out to meet the team of 4. Thus the Evel Knievel suits and the bike are caught driving around Mexico City, taking in the sites, and each of us is interviewed individually (Reuters’ policy, apparently – not for turning, even when the documentary is about couples), all with the Angel Del Independencia in the background.

I talk slowly and inarticulately. Not, I suspect, the surest of first steps on our thousand mile path to world domination. (Having said that though, Mike rocked)

In the evening, our wonderful host Roberto takes us to meet a gay couple he knows. Sadly, they are not delighted by the thought of me scrawling their intimacies up here (they are, however, happy to appear in the documentary, so another excuse to tune in whenever we make the thing). They have been together for 26 years and we had one of our most wonderful interviews so far, in that they were both so good at talking about the situation in Mexico in general, then setting themselves in that context. My ropey Spanish even let me understand about 80% of the interview, and anything I didn’t understand the amazing Roberto happily and flawlessly translated (NB A Puerto Rican with the best bilingual abilities I have ever seen. Normally with kids who grow up bilingual, it’s very difficult to translate because they’ve never been taught, for example, that una pareja = a couple, for example. It’s just a couple. But Roberto is a master. Also an environmental consultant. Have made him promise that when he does a TED talk, he’ll comp me a ticket). Alongside the wonderful interview, they prepared a breath-taking meal of traditional Oaxacan, pre-Spanish delicacies. In the picture, (clockwise from guacamole at the top): guacamole (where would we be without it? Not Mexico, that’s for sure); the coup de grace chapulines which are tiny fried baby grasshoppers. Hundreds of them, like sprinkles you’d put on a cake. But slightly not. You can see all their bits: legs, thorax, head. They are harvested in nets, then dry fried, and the taste is unlikely anything I’ve ever encountered before, kind of salty, kind of bitter, kind of important you don’t think about what you’re eating. The way that you eat them is by taking one of the tostadas (in photo, bottom right), layering it with refried beans (in photo below said grasshoppers). You then add some of the cactus leaves (with tomato and avocado) as pictured bottom left, then sprinkle the chapulines on top liberally. It’s totally delicious. But just don’t dwell on what exactly you’re crunching on.

(PS Shoot me now for being one of those people who takes photographs of the food they eat then posts them. But this particular time, I had a couple of requests to see the grasshoppers. Apologies to the rest of you)

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