In the house in Cuernavaca, the kitchen was the center of something I didn’t yet know how to name.
It seemed made for my grandmother: a tall, beautiful, strong woman whose personality filled the space even before the aromas began. Right in the middle stood a fixed brick table covered in Puebla tiles, like a luminous altar on which she worked her magic—her alchemy of fruits, vegetables, spices, and colors.
She cooked generously, as if abundance were a form of affection; she wasn’t afraid of pepper. To me, that table was enormous: I had to climb onto a stool to reach the world unfolding above it. From that borrowed height, I watched her work, her nails perfectly painted red, her pearl necklace in place, her purposeful hands mixing ingredients like someone who knew an ancient secret.
She let me cut little cubes of squash, banana, and pineapple, scatter the peas into the casserole dish, and I felt she was allowing me into her precious inventions, making me her accomplice, her apprentice witch in that intimate kingdom where cooking was not merely preparing food, but transforming the everyday into abundance, abundance into beauty, and the entire kitchen into a territory of mystery.
Today, after many years in which life took my childhood from me, along with the unblemished hope of happiness, the flavors of “covered chicken” return me, if only briefly, to some of that lost world. They bring me the light of Cuernavaca, my grandmother’s hands, the familiar sounds of a living house. And although time has taken so much, although many things are gone forever, something remains in every bite: an old joy, a form of love, a warm memory that still knows how to find me.
Mini Caire / CDMX
