This is my brother Jacobo. He ran the Miami Half Marathon on January 30th. This is particularly impressive because my family (myself included) is genetically engineered to prevent any kind of prolonged physical activity – with the exception of TV watching.
Congratulations! Slow-motion replay of him crossing the line embedded below:
I have uploaded a handful of photos to The MKX® Photo Central. I hope you like them, but if you don’t, I don’t really care. Click here for the full album.
Just as my 2010 stock was depleted, I received the 2011 shipment (thank you, parents). As far as I know, my house is the only household in Austin with a uninterrupted supply of Noche Buena beer since 2002. Feel free to stop by for a cold one!
This thick and dark paste you see in the image below is one of the most delicious things invented by man: mole. A Mexican sauce that contains chilis, nuts, tomatoes, chocolate, among many other ingredients. It’s not unseen for mole to contain a hundred different ingredients. There are many kinds of it.
On a recent trip to Monterrey we bumped across a small shop where they sold mole made by the grandmother of the owner in the state of Oaxaca. It’s sold as a very thick paste and all one has to do is “prepare it”. This usually means adding chicken broth and a few secret ingredients which are up to personal taste and I won’t divulge here. I bought two kinds: black and red.
I prepared it with Karina’s help last Saturday. We made a lot of it. So I looked for some serious eaters to help consume the mole over chicken, beans and rice. I found the best:
Delicious. I need to make mole more often.
My parents were in town recently. Faithful to the tradition, my dad brought me a fancy beer. This time it was the new special edition Bohemia Frida Kahlo. That’s right: it’s Bohemia Beer, but the image of the famous Mexican painter is all over it. The beer itself comes in two different flavors and there is a booklet with some history. Check it out:
One of the many perks of dating an Israeli goddess is that she can make you delicious, nutritious, spicy shakshuka if you pester her enough!
Here’s another shakshuka related post. And here’s a photo of my one-hand egg breaking:
Are those Chewbacca, Luke, Obi Wan, and Han in the cockpit of my red Honda Civic?
No my friends, your eyes do not deceive you. It is my new Millennium Falcon Auto Sun Shade that deceives you.
Thanks to everyone who showed up for the surprise lunch on Sunday and especially to Shlomit who not only flew to Austin for the weekend, but stealthily organized it without me having even the sightliest clue. I am not worthy.
Also, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. I got A LOT of phone calls, emails, and Facebook wall posts. And as everyone knows, number of Facebook wall posts is the ultimate and most precise measure of how much one is loved… looks like I’m doing OK.
Here’s a fun little piece of family history that was recently unearthed by my great-uncle Jacobo:
This is an undated driver’s license that belonged to my great-grandfather Marcos Sandler. He must have received it not too long after moving to Mexico. It is for driving a bogué. According to my mom, that’s the word they used for wagons back in the day. I had never heard it and my search in the all-knowing Royal Academy of the Spanish Language was fruitless. I did find the similar words bogie and boje, which are synonyms whose definition I translate:
A set of two pairs of wheels mounted on adjacent, solid parallel axis, used in both sides of the vehicles of great length destined to circulate over lanes.
Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense in Spanish either. Perhaps an enlightened reader can help? (Eva, ask your dad).
This photo was taken a few years ago but never got posted in the blog. Hope you like it*.
