When the World Melted Away
On trying foods you cannot pronounce.
September 30, 2022
Happy Friday, travelers!
This week, Nashville is at her best. Crisp mornings call for my cozy barely-blue sweater from college that makes my skin look warm. Sky-high maples with leaves of apricot and melted gold fringe azure skies. Getting out of the house, out of the solitude of writing and solo founder life, is no longer optional. Who can be surrounded by this and miss it, miss even a second?
Held in seemingly equal measure to her beauty, though, the South has reminded me of her bloody past in the unfortunate KKK gathering just four hours east of where I’m sitting right now. Margaret Renkl was right—this place is always reminding you that it can’t be written off as all bad, but the moment you glimpse the good and want to savor it, the bad will remind you it is still here with no intentions of leaving.
Right now, we’re painting the master bedroom from a Roaring 20s light grey to an oat cream. When the sun shines into that room, the new color lights up every square foot. It’s as if the space were smiling.
Last Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of bed, lazily padding my way to the coffee station in the corner of our tiny 1949 galley kitchen. I went to a concert the night before with no clue who the performers were. A friend invited me. I said yes. We had a blast. The end. Now, I aim to do things like this more often. The Tattoo was the first—I went in with no idea what I would see. Both times were winners, so this is my new strategy.
Halfway through my morning mug, I started scraping on baseboard caulk that had been in this exact position since the Nixon administration. One day, I will write a beautiful, romantic, brutally candid personal essay on what it was like to grow up in a fixer upper. Maybe then, people will stop buying them to be on HGTV. Old houses are beings that do what they want when they like it. Twenty-somethings without massive money to spend have no business thinking they will tame a boomer house. It will tame you instead.
As I scraped, pulled out caulk in clumps, tried to differentiate between wood chips and the caulk itself, I thought about scraping out all the settled in pieces of my life that really need to come out, but are so entrenched that it would be easier to leave them if I could bear it. Along with changing my approach to writing personal passion projects, I also quit writing blog posts for companies. It is scary and freeing and the deepest breath I’ve ever taken all at once. Since then, I’ve heard from potential clients for different types of writing that I actually look forward to doing.
Money comes back. Time does not.
For some weeks now, I’ve wanted to share a snapshot of our time in Oaxaca. Now that these changes have been made, I can do that. If you followed along on Instagram stories this May, you may remember this place. Regardless, we’re all in for a treat.
The path of a traveler is often a well-worn one. We have memoirs everywhere, telling us what delights. This newsletter is an example—none of us are immune.
For foodie travelers, this often means trying the same restaurant list as the others. This one has amazing street tacos, that one serves a decadent chocolate cake. Even the most strict purist succumbs eventually, grumbling about Instagram and the grave loss of authenticity.
We tried the top 5 on Oaxaca’s vegan scene, all of which were fully deserving of the hype. Our days were full of walking miles of sights on cobblestone streets, charming architecture as far as the eye could see. On the horizon, mountains siphon off the valley from the rest of the world. Oaxaca is the nucleus.
Two days in a row, we made the mistake of being outside when the sun was at its zenith. As we sweated out every ounce of water we drank, we were those stereotypical cranky Americans, bickering on the street in a way only old friends can do. Lesson learned, we headed for the haven of our hotel room and did not come out until the sun retreated. We’d had enough of her for a day.
When it was time to eat, we hesitated to walk far. Even if we’d wanted to, our feet made the decisions for us. Fortunately, I chose a hotel just a block away from the hidden oasis that the rest of Mexico was, and will forever be, compared to in my memory.
Instead of hanging a right towards the city center, we hung a left to the peace and quiet of residential living. Not even a block away, we saw it: La Bíznaga.
When we entered, it looked like no one was inside, the home-style dining room void of clinking glasses and forks scraping on plates. A couple minutes later, a sign of life appeared in the friendly face of a man in an apron. As it turned out, he was one of the owners. He led us through the winding pathway of the entire restaurant to an intimate back patio, shrouded in secrecy by high rock walls. Menus placed in front of each of us, my go-to question of “Vegano?”, and the world melted away.
When asked, the owner told me one of his vegan options was the Lo’xicha, a Zapotec word native to Oaxaca. As I struggled to pronounce it in my academic Spanish, the owner smiled and pronounced it again. Slowly this time. Lo-sthee-chah. I’d never heard of it, so it was going on my plate. Even based on the menu description, I didn’t know what to expect. This is rarely the wrong choice.
What arrived was a simple white bowl with a thin tomato broth coating sautéed mushrooms. In the middle was a square of a mysterious ingredient folded in a leaf picked from the ground somewhere nearby. Pickled red onion adorned the top.
The first bite revealed the slight firmness of a savory plantain unlike any I’d ever eaten. The leaf itself lent an earthy flavor with no ready comparison, sturdier than expected and a deep, vibrant green. Then came the slight crunch and kick of onion, a welcome contrast to the warmth of the rest of the dish.
One taste, eyes closed, taking in the aromas wafting out of the kitchen window not five feet away, the Lo’xicha was radiant. Simply radiant.
If this is what “off the beaten path” will get you, maybe it’s not all cliché.
What’s On My Tray Table
A few days ago, I finished Lee Cole’s debut novel, Groundskeeping. The protagonist is Owen, a young man who goes back to his home state of Kentucky, figurative tail between his legs after losing his job in Colorado.
Down on his luck, he takes a position as a groundskeeper at a small, affluent liberal arts college (very similar to my alma mater) in exchange for minimum wage and a free writing class. He hopes to be an author, to get out of there, to be different.
While at Ashby, the college in question, he meets Alma, an Ivy League grad with a book already published at 26. Although she’s privileged in many ways, her family fled Bosnia due to war.
As love blooms between the two, a fascinating, candid portrayal of class, the inaccurate stereotypes of Southerners, the desire to leave a place while loving people who never will, the awkwardness of competition amongst lovers—all of it makes for a thought-provoking read.
I also loved the way Cole ended the story. You’ll have to read for yourself to see what I mean.
I give it 4.5 stars. Here are links for Amazon and Bookshop.
I hope your weekend is full of love, whatever that means to you.
Be brave and stay that way,
Sarah