The Flavors of Mexican Convents

The fourth in a series of five on What's New in SMA... Chef Victor Rivadeneyra is now teaching a new series called The Flavors of Mexican Convents at the kitchen of Chef Lolita Ramon and her husband Ramon, in La Cocina. I hadn’t been to La Cocina for 11 years, when a local food tour guide, Vail Kristina Smerlinder Suarez, who was also in the class today, took me there to taste the chef’s mole. I remembered the mole and the chef, who also remembered me, so it was a sweet reunion as she prepared to cook for a sold out class. The menu: Café de Olla, Atole and Orange Juice, Tlacoyo with Zucchini and corn, Divorced Chilaquiles, Steak in Pasilla Chili with Black Beans and Pork Butt, Cheese Tamale with Rajas and Black Mole and Mexican sweets. How did I end up here? A product of 12 years of Catholic schools growing up, my sister Mary and I cleaned the altar every Saturday, which happened to be the only day of the week I didn’t have to go to mass. Chef Victor Rivadeneyra, who does food tours at The Taste of SMA, surprised many of us. His mother was a novice at a convent in Mexico City so he acquired a lot of inside knowledge from her about life in the convents in Mexico. He’s been studying the subject for years. Victor is the type of teacher you’ll love with a finely- tuned sense of humor and loads of eye-opening revelations. You don’t want to miss this series so watch for a post announcing his next class which will also sell out quickly. Apparently the cloistered nuns are really good at keeping the best secret in SMA. Another surprising fact came from a member of our class, Sheila Oberst. Did you know that you’ve been eating second day baked goods all these years from Las Monjas? Don’t buy perishables in the book store. Go into the church and ring the bell on the cord over the wooden door on the right. There you can order everything fresh