The Centennial of the Mexican Revolution 1910- 2010

2010 was a year of celebrations, changes, challenges and satisfactions.

After Independence Day, all the big challenges seemed little now. 

The celebrations of the Centennial of the Mexican Revolution weren't as huge as Independence Day ones, however we were expecting a never-seen-before multimedia show, everyday for 2 weeks. That meant, we would be totally booked everyday for 2 weeks, and of course the boss decided to adequate ALL the levels in the building, therefore we'd expect more than 200pax per night, distributed in 5 floors plus another available floor for private reservations.

7th floor - terrace for up to 40pax. Serving premium buffet

6th floor - terrace for up to 60pax. Serving premium buffet

5th floor - room for up to 30 pax.  Serving standard buffet

4th floor - room for up to 45 pax.  Serving standard buffet

3rd floor - room for up to 50 pax.  Drinks only

2nd floor- room for up to 30 pax. Available for group reservations.

  The Cathedral and National Palace during the projection testing before the show

As part of my strategy, I left my Sous Chef in charge of the daily events and I became responsible for taking reservations, designing a layout for each floor, assignation of tables, and during the event, I  acted as the main host; greeting the guests, checking their reservation, and then giving them access to the elevators.
Damn, having around 3 hours to let 220 people in, was a real challenge.
Why does people has to be so impatient?
They get mad, they tell you your job sucks, that you dont know how to do your job, that this or that is mistaken, that is my fault for not having their reservations...
The problem with most of us chefs, is that we're used to a kind of discipline, and to give orders and expect others to obey. To be our word the last word for everything, and well, everything is different when interacting with people, but I have to confess there were moments where I said:

"enough, from now on, you stand outside and I will call you to let you in, if you don't have a reservation then dont waste your time, we are fully booked since last week, and do not insist"


Of course there were many other understanding, educated and well-mannered people, they waited, they thanked for the attention, and left with a smile after the show was over.


At 9:00 pm the show starts, it's like a story, from the ancient civilizations, the conquer, the independence, the war, the invasions, the revolution, the earthquake of 1985,  the reconstruction of the nation, until the mexico of today.

The show lasted for an hour and a half, but everyone stayed until the last firework had explosed in the air. As you can see, the final was impressive, i will leave you a video as well, so you can see how great it was. Enjoy

The video was shot at the restaurant by my cousin, great video!

MEXICO 1810 -2010

Of all the celebrations in Mexico....

The Independence Day is the biggest

Of all the places to celebrate it..

The Zocalo of Mexico City is the the best and most important

Of all the years, past or upcoming to celebrate it....

The most special was 2010: the bicentennial of the Independence

Of all the restaurants to see the celebration or actually LIVE the celebration....

Puro Corazon Restaurant has the best view overlooking the Zocalo

And of all the Chefs capable of making over 6,000 snacks and mexican antojitos...

I am the one who did it, along with my brigade.

Easter, or Semana Santa was one of the most stressful and busiest periods at the restaurant, but nothing compared to the Bicentennial of the Independence.

We started planning everything since May, and instead of making a fancy 4-course meal for over 500 pax, we decided I'd rather make an assortment of traditional mexican antojitos or snacks; shredded chicken tacos with chipotle and tamarind sauce, duck in wildberry sauce, all kinds of tamales, empanadas, pambazos, hojaldras, coconut panned shirmps with mango sauce...

We made from 200 to 400 servings of each one; you do the math.

Duck with wildberry sauce:

Wheat tacos with shredded chicken, with tamarind and chipotle sauce:

Here we can see: the dark chocolate & tequila tart, sweet empanadas (top left), cochinita, mole and pipian hojaldras, (middle right) and tamales, both sweet and salty:

This was our preliminar menu tryout, we improved some dishes afterwards

Fortunately, my brigade was complete months after the big day, and also got my old sous chef to be in charge of the desserts.

Prepping and mise en place started 3 weeks before 15th september.

First of all, we needed the list of items to prepare, the ingredients, the cost, reliable suppliers, equipment, training, and of course, knowing the final number of guests attending.

Executive Chef - Me (middle)

Sous Chef - Marlene (left)

Chef Patîssier - Alfonso (right)

Once everyone, and i mean everyone from the Maître D' to the Stewards, knew how would it be organised, the standard recipes were prepared, authorised and scheduled, we started the mise en place.

First challenge: prepare in advance what can be prepared in advance (puff pastry empanadas, coconut panned shrimps, chicken tacos) and find a place in the kitchen to freeze them until the service.

Where can you store 600 empanadas? Easy. Make them, deep freeze them on trays, once frozen, vacuum them, and voila, back in the freezer. The morning before service, thaw them and bake @100 C for 10 mins, add eggwash and then finish them @185 until they are done.

Once we prepared more than 20k of puff pastry for the empanadas, and they were nice and packed in the freezer, we moved on with the next challenge. How would we serve everything?

I rushed to the store, and bought 60 white square dishes, now...how do you serve 20 different items with only 60 dishes? considering we had 50 tables with 3 to 8 people each? and considering the food service would start at 19:30 hrs and finish around 3:00 hrs?

I stole a huge whiteboard from the meetings room and hung it on the kitchen wall.

this was the deal:

Each table would get 9 different dishes per round until 3 am. Ca veut dire:

#1 Salt empanadas

#2 Pambazos and Hojaldras

#3 Chicken tacos and Shrimps

#4 Small tostadas with cheese & corn truffle and with cochinita (pibil-style pulled pork)

#5 Salt tamales

#6 Duck breast with wildberry sauce

#7 Sweet empanadas

#8 Sweet tamales

#9 Small tostadas with figue confiture and cream cheese and chocolate&tequila and citron tart

and back to #1, #2, etc.. with a lapse between each dish of 15 minutes.

Sept 15, 2010.

8:00 a.m - I arrive to the Restaurant before they close the streets.

9:00 a.m - The brigade arrives, everyone starts working on the tasks assigned.

10:00 a.m. - I dont know where is our supplier...he should have gotten here at 7:00 am

11:00 a.m. - All the furniture, decoration, tables etc are on place. Service staff starts cleaning every station.

12:00 - Everyone in the kitchen is working non-stop, mise en place is done, and all the fresh items like sauces are prepared and stored.

1:00 p.m - The supplier finally arrives, the team rushes to finish what was missing.

2:00 p.m. - The whole brigade chills out for a bit, time for a snack, a coffee and back to work.

3:00 p.m. - All access to the downtown is almost restricted; staff and suppliers that made it to the restaurant, good. The ones who didn't, they wont make it.

3:30 p.m.- Pre heating the oven, final cleaning of the kitchen before the service.

4:00 p.m. - Guests are arriving, however they are asked to wait on the lobby, we are not opening until 6:00 p.m

5:00 p.m. The outsorced Service Staff...aka waiters aren't here yet, they're going to be late....

5:30 p.m. This is how the Zocalo looks like. We give access to the guests now


.

5:40 p.m. - Rock n' Roll, pastries are being baked, we start prepping everything else.

6:00 p.m - One hour for the service, I had a brefing with the brigade, tested CCTV to check on the different floors and also the communication (all of us had 2-way-radios)

6:30 p.m - Kitchen is ready to go, however, we dont have enough waiters. We all decide to start as planned.

7:00 p.m. - Service starts and first #1 dishes are sent to the guests.

7:15 p.m. - We stop sending #1 dishes and start sending #2.

7:30 p.m. - Stop sending #2 dishes and start sending #3

7:45 p.m. - The rest of the waiters arrive, and I quickly give them instructions. As expected, they didnt understand a damn thing and screwed up the service for #4 dishes

8:00 p.m. - After my Gordon Ramsay lapsus, and yelling and telling the waiters to fuck off, the service is normalised again and continue firing dishes until 10 pm.

MEXICO 1810 - 2010 Pt. II

No need to mention that while everyone was celebrating out there, we were rushing in the kitchen to get things done. and people looked really happy and enjoying good food, good music and good drinks.

At around 22.00 hrs, everything stopped, food, music, dancing.....well everything except drinking, of course.

It was time for El Grito de Independencia, that epic moment when Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla declared the beginning of the Independence movement, back in 1810. Just this time, it was the President who would ring the bells, and proclame the "Viva Mexico!" and we would yell back "viva!"

But theres no reason to describe it to you: watch it

To be honest, it was my second time in the Zocalo during this celebration; in 2009 was a huge thing, but nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the bicentennial.

Everyone at the Restaurant was happy, celebrating 200 years of the beginning of this change, in the way we act, the way we think, the way we live. We are not done with this transformation yet, but the most important thing is that the most of us, try to make a better country each day.

Back in the kitchen, everything was more relaxed now, the bartenders were the ones getting pwned, so we decreased the number of plates fired from the kitchen, and started to clean up the mess.

Mean while, the crowd was having fun!


So the night continued until 4 am, the Mariachis started playing and singing!! people sang too.

Everyone was celebrating all the aspects of the mexicanity: even a luchador mask!

The fireworks were one of the most impressive shows I've ever seen. Espectacular.

VIVA MEXICO!!

Mexican cuisine: UNESCO's new Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

"Cualquier tipo de reconocimiento, lleva implicito un reto; 

en la gastronomia mexicana nuestro reto es transformar la comida del pasado, 

en la comida del presente: es evolucionar como la sociedad ha estado evolucionando"

"Any kind of acknowledgement has implicit challenges,

 in the mexican cuisine, our challenge is to transform yesterday's food into today's food: 

to evolve as the society has been evolving"

-Guillermo Santamaria- that's me!

I'm sure you remember from my previous posts (And if not, please read this entry) about how I was disappointed by all that pseudo-mexican food that I tried in France and Norway. 

But then I realized it was not totally the owner's fault, or totally the consumer's fault. Yes they are guilty for making burritos stuffed with chili con carne, or green tortilla wraps with lamb and couscous and dare to say its mexican. For not doing a research. Yes.

But the fault is ours, mexicans, chefs, epicureans, connoisseurs, foodies, travelers; anyone who knows about mexican cuisine, and just expect the world to know about our food without us even talking about it, knowing it, or sharing it. 

My motto is simple;  Cook, learn, share.  How do I do it? Simple: 

1. I cook; at home, at my grandma's, at my best friend's, at school, at my girlfriend's, at work, at the restaurant, at the hotel..heck, even on a cruise liner! In Mexico, in France, in Norway, in Austria, in Germany, in Italy, anywhere!
2. I learn, from my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my friend's parents, the guy at the taco place, the woman at the quesadillas, the guy selling tamales, foreign people, local people, farmers, indigenous people, indians, canadians, norwegians, french, british, icelandic; books, recipe books, my mentors, my teachers, internet, colleagues, other chefs.
3. I share; with my family, my relatives, friends, co-workers, my boss, and anyone interested in learning about the little-or much knowledge I've got. 

When we were asked to prepare a Mexican Gala as our final exam at the University in Paris, I said rock on, and we did really good! Read about it HERE, and when Craig Whitson from Uthuset, in Stavanger, Norway, invited me for mexican cuisine classes for norwegians, I absolutely loved it. 

 I prepared a guajillo sauce from scratch, red rice and luckily we found frozen corn tortillas. 

 Also I prepared "Arroz con leche" served in a different way, as you can see.  It was great to have so many people interested in REAL mexican food. 

However, when I was told the Secretariat of Governance (Secretaria de Gobernacion) in Mexico City wanted me to host a short cooking demo and interview, due to the imminent UNESCO's recognition on the mexican food, I was excited; yet shocked.
Me? on national TV...damn!

The Bicentennial of the Mexican Independence was close too, so this documentary would have a particular importance during the celebrations, and was aired on the 15th and 16th September nationwide. 

"Oh but you wanted to share your thoughts, didn't you?" I said to myself. So, let's go.

Nobody told me if we would have a script, or if I was going to explain a topic in particular. Nothing. They just told me they'd come  next week to film everything. What did I do? first, bought a new jacket, and secondly, made another research about the actual news about mexican cuisine. I hate to speak about things I dont know about (Also its stupid) So as dedicated as I am, made my own research, and had everything planned. 

The big day arrived, lamps and filters were set-up, microphones, and then the producer told me: "So, what are you going to cook today?" I knew It was an interview about mexican cuisine; but nobody told me about it. However went to the walk-in fridge and after 5 minutes I had my dish visualized. And then we started.

 Setting up the audio. There were too much interference and alambric microphones had to be used. 

 The Sous Chef, Marlene was taking over from time to time; we always made a great team.

-Take one: rolling. (Producer)
-Laughs- Cut, cut, Im laughing so bad (me)
-Don't worry Chef, we'll edit the laughs (P)
-Cut, cut, cameraman, now you are laughing too? (P)
Sometime later..
-Take seven: rolling. (P)

So we started rolling; all the cameramen were giving a close look to every move I made

After the cooking, it came the interview. Again lights and soundcheck, because the bells of the Cathedral and the aztec dancers with drums made us mess up with the volume.

It was a great experience for me, my sous chef, and the whole team. 

Don't miss the video! 

I'm back

Here we go again; Im sorry i forgot this blog for a while, but i ve been busy with other matters. However, im preparing new stuff for you, and this blog will be updated soon! Keep an eye on it!
Greetings
Guillermo

The Mexican Way vs the French Way

Well, I think most of you already know Im back home -sigh- in this beautiful country, delicious food, warm people and good weather. You also may know I'm back in the business, having the chance to run a kitchen like the big ones ( remember the Hilton Arc de Triomphe in Paris?).
Oh yeah, probably the second most important chef's dream (the first one got to be run and own a restaurant), I got to be the executive chef at a mid-sized mexican restaurant.

Its not an easy job, actually chefs will never, ever have an 8-hour shift. But oh well, its a good experience anyways.

Heres a small summary of what I've been doing.

Day 1: Arriving to the Restaurant:

I could say I know this restaurant well, at least from the outside; because I've been there many times with my friend as a guest, but I never expected or imagined I would become part of the business running the kitchen.

After a rushed welcome, I'm presented to the kitchen staff. I clearly see they are not happy about having me as their new boss.
My first impression? dirty, dirty, dirty, I cant start cooking a damn thing until things are cleaned up! And whats that noise I hear in the background? it isnt reggaeton, is it? and why are the cooks singing their lungs out? What the hell is that mess in the freezers? Why is meat rotting in the fridge? Why are the staff's lockers right in the entrance of the kitchen, wasn't this area meant to recieve supplies?

Ok. Clearly something's gone wrong! Let's see, who could be the second in charge? I dont know them and I clearly see no one is really competitive.... I approach to the prep cooks, three aged women who seem to know what going on.
But then, surprise..there are no recipes! The other "chef" took everything away, deleted all files in the computer and spoiled things..like adding salt deliberatly to the flour, turning off the freezers, etc..
What a rough start!