Blue Monday

Monday morning last week, on October 19, a dead body was found hanging from a bridge in Iztapalapa, the most populous and the most dangerous of the Federal District's 16 delegaciones (boroughs). His body wrapped in bandages and a black mask on his face, the dead man had been tortured and shot through the head twice. The next day another corpse was found in the same district -- blindfolded, hands tied, upside down in a barrel and burnt to death. A third cadaver was found in Iztapalapa the following day, with a threatening message directed at Miguel Angel Mancera, the mayor of Mexico City.

On the afternoon of that same Monday the 19th, in the Colonia Roma, at a restaurant called Belmondo (one of many that have signaled that neighborhood's ascendance as the D.F.'s Hipster Central), five armed robbers disposed some 25 diners of their cell phones and wallets, while they were eating, or waiting to be served, the fancy soups and sandwiches that are the hallmarks of Belmondo's menu. According to Israel Colón, manager at Belmondo, the previous week a motorcycle had been stolen from one of the restaurant's neighbors. Here's a link to a report from El País by David Marcial Pérez about the crimes of October 19, and the increasing crime rate in Mexico City, particularly in Iztapalapa and in the Cuauhtémoc delegation, where Colonia Roma is located.

Throughout his administration, Mancera has bent over backwards to assure the world that there is no organized crime in Mexico City; perversely, he continues to insist that the Iztapalapa murders are isolated incidents with no links to greater Mafias. Nonetheless, other reports suggest that various drug cartels, including La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and La Union are in a struggle for power in here in the capital. In his book The Interior Circuit, published last year, my friend Francisco Goldman insisted that the cartels had invaded the city.

The most difficult chapter to research in my book First Stop in the New World was the one about danger and crime in Mexico City. With so much information and misinformation out there, it was complicated to distinguish the reality from the perception about how perilous it is here. I came to the conclusion -- and still believe -- that the collective imagination is worse than the truth. Mexico City didn't even make the list of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world this year (although ten other places in Mexico did), and there are many cities in the U.S. -- among them St. Louis, Baltimore and New Orleans -- where you are far more likely to be murdered than here.

Still, it's irresponsible of Mancera and other politicians (and some bloggers) to pretend that we're one big happy family and there's no danger to living here. There is plenty of armed robbery, car theft, homicide and -- perhaps most alarmingly -- increasingly more extortion in Mexico City. We don't live in a bubble. Watch your back.

Believe it or not

There are so many good things to eat in Mexico City that it seems churlish to complain about what's missing. But for the longest time one of the things I've longed for here is a decent piece of cheddar cheese. When I saw this at La Naval, at the corner of Michoacán and Insurgentes -- straight from los altos de Jalisco -- I was skeptical. What do they know about cheddar over there? But I thought, for 50 pesos, even if it's awful, I won't have lost much. And you know what? It's pretty good. It may not be some sublime English farmhouse concoction -- and it may not be precisely what you're thinking of when you think of cheddar -- but given that it comes from some mountain up in cowboy country, it will do okay.

It's that time of year again

Photo by motivationalmemo.org

For the stubborn who insist on continuing to read, smack downtown, from today through the 18th of October, it's time for the International Book Fair in the Zócalo. This year, the guests of honor are books from the United Kingdom and the state of Morelos (the latter known more for lawlessness than literacy in recent years). On Friday, October 16, at 4 pm, at the "Foro Multidisciplinario Gerardo Deniz" (in Spanish it sort of sounds like a place where people might go to get punished), I will be reading a passage from my book Las llaves de la ciudad and talking with Nadia Islas Navarro about being literate in Mexico City. 

A year later

Photos by Adam Peacock

Despite dismal rains that went on all afternoon, a year after the disappearance of the 43 teaching students in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, about 25,000 marchers (that figure according to a Mexican newspaper) converged on the zócalo here in Mexico City last Saturday afternoon, September 26. Some observers pointed to a sense of frustration that marching against the government has become the norm here, rather than concrete political action. According to most recent polls, President Enrique Peña Nieto's approval ratings hover around 35 per cent, no doubt in part due to lack of a credible government response to the disappearances. 

¡Viva México!

Photo: James Oles

In my book First Stop in the New World, I described the chile en nogada as "a green poblano pepper, blistered and skinned over a direct flame and lion-tamed by the removal of its seeds and veins. It is stuffed with a mincemeat mixture that includes (among many ingredients) pork, onions, cumin, cinnamon and acitrón, a dried and candied cactus. The stuffed green pepper, most frequently served at room temperature, is topped with a creamy white walnut sauce and red pomegranate seeds. Thus dished up, it encompasses the colors of the Mexican flag."

Pomegranate season -- late summer, early fall -- is when you can most reliably get chiles en nogada in Mexico, although some restaurants, like the Hostería de Santo Domingo (at calle Belisario Domínguez #70 in the centro histórico), serve them all year long. The one pictured above was recently devoured at a luncheonette called Fonda Mi Lupita (Calle Buen Tono 22, near the corner of Delicias), also in the centro histórico. Fonda Mi Lupita only serves chiles en nogada on three days of the year, during the last week of August. Such is the reputation of the eatery's chiles that some people have those dates permanently marked in their calendars, if not tattooed on their bodies.

Some of my Mexican friends might consider what I am about to say sacrilegious, but I have never been very fond of mixing the sweet and the savory, so chiles en nogada are not high on my list of meals to look forward to. However, during the rest of the year, at Fonda Mi Lupita you can get an outstanding mole -- either served on top of chicken enchiladas, or liberally ladled over a quarter of a chicken. If you like mole you don't want to miss it. 

In any case, the eve of Mexico's Independence Day, September 15, seemed like a good day to post about all this. As they cry out in every public square in the country at 11 o'clock on that date, "!Viva México!"