Never did this before

Mexico City Noir by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Some of these I would not call stories, as they're more like attempts at condensed novels, or episodes from a novel. They don't have to be "stories", obviously, for this anthology series, but those that certainly did read as such were far more interesting and successful reads. The story by the volume's editor (Taibo) stands out in particular. Also, a number of the selections here I would not call "noir" subgenre in the traditional sense; they're closer to the Hardboiled tradition. Overall, this ain't a bad read, it's just, yeah, okay.



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This is my family's vineyard, where my grandfather tilled petite syrah. The vines are over a hundred years old.

¡Pepita wey!

I have a whole shitload of dried pumpkin seeds leftover from Halloween last year. I've used a good bunch, made a pumpkin seed salsa and a couple moles, but I'm gonna use up the rest before Halloween rolls around again and I get a fresh batch of pepitas.

To make a pepita salsa I take a cup of pumpkin seeds. Here's the bitch of using these things (hence the reason I still have a ton of them): peeling the shells sucks. I'm sure you can buy shelled pumpkin seeds, but I suppose I'm a purist and I figure if I'm getting them at Halloween anyway I might as well use them up through the year. That obviously does not work out as planned, but anyway. You take a seed at a time and, using your fingernails, peel back each side of one shell from the seed inside. It takes about 20 seconds to peel one seed. So, yeah, 3 seeds/minute = 90 seeds/hour. So to get a cup of seeds should take about 4 hours. You could try to shell all your seeds at one time, but then the seeds themselves will go stale. And of course it takes fucking forever. Like I said, you can probably buy these pre-shelled and I could look that up and link it for you, but I'm basically writing this for the heck of it (it is a blog, isn't it) so you can look that shit up on your own.

Once you've got your shelled seeds you're going to roast them in a frying pan. I use a cast iron skillet, but any frying pan will do. Don't add anything except the heat (medium) and toss in your pepitas, stirring them constantly until they toast, getting browned on each side. They'll pop a little bit so you'll know they're done. Remove them from the heat.

You'll want to have already chopped up half a white onion, some cilantro, a jalapeño, two large garlic cloves, and have roasted three or four tomatillos. Dump this stuff, along with your roasted pepitas, into a blender or food processor. The roasted tomatillos should provide enough moisture to turn the mess into a salsa, but if you need a little more juice, use chicken stock. The consistency should be, well, salsa-like. Add salt to taste. The salsa should be earthy, nutty, a little spicy, and gray-green in color, and some badass shit. And putting it on tacos, or enchiladas, or sopes, or or tortas, or whatever mexican dish you want should make all the life you wasted peeling the goddamn seeds worth it.