Foraging & Hunting Experiences

Here is a link to a web page project we did for school where we talk about our Foraging and Hunting experiences related to the Forest chapter of the omnivore's dilemma. There are also nice pictures of our adventures.

Omnivore's Dilema Project

Pistolera's Food - So proud of it!

I wrote this for Pistolera's website. It describes my inspiration and background and how they got translated into the food at Pistolera's menu.

Pistolera's Food

Pistolera was put together with the idea of bringing real authentic Mexican Food to Shanghai. There are a lot of other "Mexican" restaurants in Shanghai that offer modified and simplified versions of Mexican food. We wanted to bring the real thing with the real Mexican flavors based on authentic Mexican ingredients.

Pistolera's Head Chef, Leonardo "Tabasco" Guerrero, is a native of the state of Sonora in Northwest Mexico. He grew up in a city called Hermosillo in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. This area of Mexico together with the southwest part of the USA was the heart of what we know as the Old West. This was were cowboys fought against the native Apaches for survival. The name Pistolera was chosen to represent this cowboy culture from the Mexican side of the border with a sexy twist.

We bring the best of Mexican food from different parts of Mexico, but we put a special emphasis on food from Tabasco's native land. Many people think that Flour Tortillas, Burritos, and Chimichangas aren't real Mexican food, but this is incorrect.

All of these originated in northern Mexico and there's a reason behind it. While in southern Mexico corn grew naturally, in northern Mexico it was hard to grow because of the dry land and weather. They found out that wheat was easier to grow in the north and with the Tortilla tradition they ventured to make wheat flour tortillas instead of corn tortillas. However, wheat flour is a lot more elastic, which helped to create those big tortillas that we now use to roll up Burritos and Chimichangas.

The cowboy culture also means great grilled meat. That's why some of the staple dishes are the grilled meat tacos and burritos. In these desert like territories there are some base ingredients of Mexican cuisine that grow wildly. Some of these are the oregano, a variety of hot peppers, and Mesquite wood that gives a very good smoky scent to those bbq dishes.

Sonora also has very good seafood because it has 1208km of coastline along the Gulf of California which is also known as the Sea of Cortez. The Sea of Cortez is so rich on marine life that when the legendary French diver, Jacques Cousteau, visited it, he called it "The Aquarium of the World". Mexicans put a special touch on the preparation of seafood by mixing it with a variety of spices and peppers to come up with delicious dishes like our Ceviche Tosatadas and Tequila Sautéed Shrimp Quesadillas.

In a few words, Pistolera was born when you put all of the above together with some of the traditional and ancient cooking techniques and ingredients from southern and northern Mexico. Techniques dating from the time of the Mayans and Aztecs that have been transferred from generation to generation and served with the same homey feeling as you would get them in any mom and pop restaurant in Mexico.