I just had a charming meeting with Raul Castro, the owner of Plaza Garibaldi, a Mexican restaurant on Washington Ave at 10th street. Buried between a mechanic and check cashing, the restaurant is open 6 years. It was the second Mexican restaurant to open in the neighborhood. The mole was an instant success-- they made it in house for the first year, and then the demand got too high, and it became too messy.

Now grandma sends a bag of powdered mole directly from San Lucas, Puebla.

As he brought the plastic bag out and emptied some of the shimmery crushed powder onto a plate- I wanted to say, wait, wait, what I really want is to hear all of this when I come back with my camera... jump ahead he's going to call me next week when they prepare a batch for the week of the actual sauce.

He was very nervous and warm. I mentioned I was in Puebla this summer- and we talked about how life is very different, from town to town, different customs, different recipes.

The strange thing about the privilege of travel, is that you often learn more about the region/country than the people living there, who often do not have the resources to travel or visit other parts. (like a good friend I met in Cusco, Peru. His family all lives in Lima, and have not had the money to travel to see Cusco- meanwhile-- a national heritage like Macchu Pichhu remains inundated daily with tourists from around the world.)

Part of what I wanted to do in the project was to show people outside, a bit more about philly-- the streets, the people- the fact that we, too, now have taquerias and mole. This was unbelievable to the people I met in Tata. As if I would have to travel back to Mexico to get a taco-- well maybe a good taco...