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One of my first posts ever on this blog was about Chipotle, so I figured it was only right to return to it again after a whole semester of learning about authentic Mexican food. In that post, I spoke about how passionate I am regarding my love for Chipotle, I recognized that it isn’t truly authentic and “Mexican-adjacent at best,” and I admitted that I would still be ordering it my regular once a week while trying new mom-and-pop Mexican restaurants for this class.

Three months later, here’s what I’ll say: I still am, it definitely is not, and I sure did.

Now that I have been introduced to and subsequently have fallen in love with authentic Mexican food — trying birria de res and tamales changed my life most of all — I feel like a cheat and a fraud for still loving Chipotle as much as I do. I know it’s not real Mexican… but it is just so freaking good.

Here’s what has changed: when I want Mexican food, Chipotle no longer crosses my mind as an option. Chipotle is Chipotle, it’s in a league of its own in my opinion (because I refuse to even recognize its mediocre counterparts like Qdoba). When I want Mexican food, I’ll order take out from Fidela’s or, when the world is open again, venture to Jackson Heights for Taqueria Coatzingo (oh, I miss you, baby).

But I still crave my Chipotle once a week. I’ve taken full advantage of free delivery and guac mode during this quarantine, and I’m not about to stop any time soon.

As a taco scholar (HAHAHA yeah right, not even close!), I still feel like a poser. But a happy, satisfied poser — with a belly full of Chipotle one night a week and a belly full of tamales de rajas con queso and a chorizo torta the next.

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Okay so here’s what we know about me thus far: I’m a guac girl, I’m a chorizo girl, I’m a Chipotle girl, I’m a frozen strawberry margarita girl, I’m a sandwich girl… but I’m not a breakfast girl. When I’m at brunch or at a diner, I always opt for lunchy foods over breakfast options. I don’t know why — breakfast food just doesn’t do it for me, never has.

Since starting to make my own breakfast tacos and burritos, as I’ve spoken about in previous posts, I have been attempting to expand my palate to more breakfast dishes. Every Mexican breakfast meal I’ve had, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, so when my sister and I were ordering brunch for her twenty-fifth birthday in quarantine, I decided to give huevos rancheros a shot.

Unlike breakfast tacos, I have seen huevos rancheros on a million menus. At every diner I have ever been to — and I’m from Jersey, I’ve been to a lot of diners — at (almost) every brunch place I have tried — and I’m a college girl, I’ve been to a lot of brunches — huevos rancheros is offered on the menu.

Like most new Mexican foods I have tried throughout the course of this semester, I always overlooked it. Why get eggs and all these other breakfast accoutrements on a tortilla when I could just get a sandwich? And, also like most new Mexican foods I have tried throughout the course of this semester, I’m now kicking myself for ignoring it for so long.

Something about huevos rancheros makes foods that I would usually pass up on by themselves — eggs, breakfast potatoes, sauteed peppers and onions — absolutely amazing. I ordered my huevos rancheros with eggs over medium and sans-chorizo (I know, that goes against everything I stand for, but it was Good Friday and I’m a no-meat-on-Fridays-during-Lent girl) and, in addition to three eggs, breakfast potatoes, and sauteed peppers and onions, it included a whole wheat tortilla — bikini bod season is approaching fast! — avocado, black beans, salsa, and sour cream.

I don’t think I’ve ever been able to eat three eggs in one sitting before, but I crushed this whole thing. I talk a lot about how great every new Mexican food I try is, but these huevos rancheros truly changed my perception on a mealtime that I have always widely ignored. When the world opens up again and I’m finally able to return to bottomless brunches, I already know what I’ll be ordering instead of my usual cheeseburger.

Now I understand why Rent dedicated a line in “La Vie Boheme” to huevos rancheros.

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I watch a lot of videos on YouTube about Mexican cooking. “Tell me something I don’t know,” right? This is old news. Thus far, I have stuck mainly to Rick’s videos on Bon Appetit and channels like Claudia Regalado and Views on the Road — Mexican people making Mexican food — when watching these recipe videos, whether for real inspiration and guidance or simply out of boredom and hunger in the middle of the night.

We have talked a lot about appropriation in class and I, a white girl, did not want to venture into inauthentic and possibly appropriated recipe videos just to keep myself entertained. However, Ralat’s book American Tacos which regards all Mexican cooking as authentic and the First We Feast video we watched in class about the legitimacy of the African-American taco convinced me to expand my boundaries a little bit.

Joshua Weissman is a very popular YouTuber who exclusively makes cooking videos. He’s hilarious and his food always looks great — so I get it. He starts the video above saying, “One of the secrets to true happiness and childlike joy is a warm, fresh, soft, handmade flour tortilla.”

Let’s be honest: he’s so right.

Anyway! That’s not what this post is about!

As Joshua begins the recipe, the first thing he says is, “So I know what you’re thinking: why is this white boy trying to teach us how to make tortillas?”

I think this statement in and of itself embodies exactly how I felt when I first started cooking Mexican food for myself. I feared coming off as disrespectful or crossing the line into appropriation so much that, for a while, I just didn’t do it. But Mexican food should be celebrated! By everyone! Respectfully, though.

I will still stick to Claudia and Rick when I really want to learn how to make Mexican food — after all, I would hope someone would turn to me rather than my non-Italian friends if they wanted to know how to make a proper macaroni and gravy meal — but I find myself a little more comfortable watching non-Mexican YouTubers prepare Mexican food than I did prior to reading American Tacos.

I’m still not sure if those videos are appropriation or not. They are respectful, recognize the dishes as Mexican cuisine and not their own cultural expertise… but it becomes sticky and tricky for a white girl who simply loves all Mexican food. Just as Joshua says in his video, I know whatever I make myself isn’t really Mexican food and doesn’t even compare to something made at the hands of Mexican people who grew up surrounded by that food.

Is that the key to refraining from cultural appropriation? Again, I have no idea…

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My previous post about breakfast tacos got me thinking about Tex Mex. In fairness, I think about Tex Mex a lot. Like I mentioned in my last post, the food that we had during our trip to Houston was absolutely mind-blowing and, sometimes, my friends and I sit around and just talk about Torchy’s or that Mexican breakfast place’s iced coffee (oddly specific and seemingly random, I know, but I don’t think I have ever had a better iced coffee in my life). However, I have a confession to make: for most of my life, being a white girl from a predominantly-Italian area of New Jersey, I thought Tex Mex and Mexican food were one in the same.

The reason: fajitas.

Fajitas were served at both restaurants that labeled themselves “Mexican” and “Tex Mex,” so I just assumed they were different names for the same cuisine. And, yes, Tex Mex and authentic Mexican foods are very similar — but fajitas in particular are more Tex Mex than Mexican.

My Texan friend Izzy was disgusted when I displayed my ignorance regarding Tex Mex versus Mexican food (as all Texans would), but hey at least now I know! And it makes sense. There is a very popular Tex Mex restaurant near my hometown in Jersey and they are renowned for their fajitas — when you go there, you get a fajita and a margarita, no ifs ands or buts… you also wait for your table for two hours, but I digress.

Fajitas as we know them are extremely Americanized. The word “fajita” in Spanish refers only to skirt steak — yet restaurants always offer chicken, shrimp, I’ve even seen seitan fajitas. These technically are not “fajitas,” not how they are understood in Mexican cuisine. The fajita we know, the fajita I grew up eating and ordering at Chili’s just to hear that sizzle as it was brought from the kitchen to my table, is undeniably Tex Mex.

The more you know.

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I made a post a few weeks ago about how I have been taking my extra free time during quarantine to cook more and learn new recipes that I likely would not have tried to conquer otherwise. Learning about tacos and constantly watching Mexican cooking videos on YouTube has caused Mexican food to sit at the forefront of my attempts — more specifically, breakfast tacos and burritos.

I’ve had a fair amount of breakfast burritos in my life, but only once before I started whipping up my own had I actually eaten breakfast tacos — or had even seen them on a menu. During Spring Break last year, my friends and I visited our friend Izzy’s hometown of Houston, which essentially became a Tex Mex food tour (and bar crawl) like no other. One morning when we were feeling a little worse for wear, Izzy took us to this amazing Mexican breakfast restaurant and that was the first and only time I had seen or had breakfast tacos.

Crazy, right? Evidently breakfast tacos are an absolute phenomenon and I had lived twenty-one years in complete ignorance. When I saw the video above, in which Bon Appetit’s Alex Delany goes on a crazy huge breakfast taco tour in Austin, TX, I thought: hmm, I guess this is actually a thing? And then in American Tacos, Ralat dedicates a whole chapter to breakfast tacos and, when I saw that, I thought: okay, this definitely is a thing, so why the hell hasn’t New Jersey gotten on board?

So then I started making myself some breakfast tacos! Don’t get me wrong, my quarantine efforts have nothing on that delicious meal from that restaurant in Houston. But there’s just something about putting everyday breakfast foods inside a tortilla that makes them so much better.

The only negative of my exposure to and subsequent slight obsession with breakfast tacos is that, now, I don’t even want to eat eggs if they’re not in taco form — seems like a waste of time!

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Throughout my whole life, whenever I was at a Mexican restaurant and saw “tortas” on a menu, I always found myself confused. A Mexican sandwich? That didn’t seem right to me. Wasn’t a taco basically a Mexican sandwich?

Yes, that was my closed-minded white girl view of that weird menu item — that torta, that taco on a roll — and I subsequently ignored it for twenty-two whole years of my life.

I’ve talked extensively about how I have used this class as a reason to try new things and be adventurous with Mexican food in a way that I never would have on my own. So, at a very high position on my list of things to try, tortas were finally on my radar after a whole life of ignoring that section of menus.

I said this on my Instagram post about my first torta, but I’ll say it again here: I’m a sandwich gal. I have always loved sandwiches — all kinds — so I was destined to love tortas too. And, of course, I did!

There’s a lot going on on a torta. There’s at least five different toppings plus the meat of your choosing (I went with chorizo con huevo because, I’ve said it once I’ll say it a million times, I love chorizo) so I’d argue that it might not be for everyone… but it’s sure for me.

Did you know that a torta is something that exists in a wide array of cuisines and it doesn’t always mean a sandwich? Spanish, Italian, Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, and many other cuisines also have a dish called a torta, but it can refer to a flatbread or cake or omelette in addition to a sandwich. We love a queen of many talents!

My point is: tortas are delicious and they are very often overlooked by those who aren’t that familiar with Mexican food — those people like me before this class who might only know tacos and Chipotle.

So go eat a torta.

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Tamales have gotten quite a bit of love on this page as of late — I know. But is there such a thing as overkill when it comes to tamal content? I don’t think so.

It’s funny though because, before a few months ago, I had never even tried tamales. I’m not sure why I never thought to order them from the copious Mexican restaurants I have been to in my lifetime, but it was not until my most recent visit to Taqueria Coatzingo (I miss you the most during quarantine, boo) that I finally pulled trig and ordered a tamal.

I wrote about that tamal in a previous post about trying new things. It was a tamal con mole y pollo and it was so good that I instantly regretted all twenty-two years of my life in which I had not yet tried tamales. Last night, I ordered Mexican takeout and got myself a tamal de rajas con queso — I think I liked her even more than the mole tamal, it was just so spicy and cheesy and had some salsa roja that was mind-blowing and oh my God now I want tamales. Anyway! I digress! This post wasn’t supposed to be about my experiences with tamales.

As I explained in my birria video post, like with all things I love, I now find myself watching a ton of videos about tamales. The one above was done by a few of my favorite ex-BuzzFeed guys — I suggest giving it a watch, they are very funny — and compares restaurant-prepared tamales with homemade tamales. Which do you think they preferred?

The restaurant featured in this video is evidently a very popular and posh LA Mexican restaurant that puts a spin I have never heard of before on their tamales: they remove them from the husks and lightly grill them on either side before serving. Not going to lie, that sounds absolutely amazing — the only thing that could possibly improve a tamal would be a little textural contrast, a little crispy crunchy masa to keep things exciting.

So, yes, the restaurant’s tamales looked delicious and the hosts reported that they truly were. And I believe it, but I think my favorite thing about tamales videos on YouTube is watching a whole family come together to make them. This video is no exception, it shows how uniting and fun making tamales can be. It’s an occasion for everyone to come together, grab a husk, and spread some masa the way Grandma says to. After forty minutes or so, the whole family gets to share a delicious meal that everyone had a part in meticulously preparing.

And you just don’t get those same warm fuzzies from a restaurant…

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I’m not going to sit here and say that any Mexican dish I have ever cooked is authentic or proper or even truly “Mexican” — more so Mexican-inspired, that seems safer — but what I will say is this: I’m having quite a good time learning!

Following my previous post about my new-found obsession with Claudia Regalado’s YouTube channel and her mouth-watering Mexican recipes, the inspiration that I have taken from watching her cook has actually translated to real attempts to make my own Mexican food. And not from an Old El Paso packet! My dad always says “anything worth doing isn’t worth doing half-assed” (pardon my French, they’re my dad’s words not mine I swear!) and that is exactly the position I’m taking when it comes to cooking Mexican food.

Here’s my mindset: it’s the end of the world out there, right? I’m trapped inside, my free time has increased exponentially, and I’ve got a decent amount of groceries… Why not improve my cooking skills by making new things a few nights a week? Even if they are total fails, sure it would be a bummer to waste that food, but I’ve got nowhere to be and all the time in the world to try again.

Thus, feast your eyes on some of my first attempts above! (Feast — HA — no pun intended! Oh, I crack myself up. Who doesn’t love a good dad joke?)

All I ask is that you don’t judge my sad cheese quesadilla, okay? I was very hungry and in the midst of working from home, struggling through a terrible manuscript that I rejected after fifty pages, and I was way too lazy to make a lunch that took longer than a few minutes to prepare. She wasn’t a life-changing quesadilla but she did her job.

My steak tacos were an easy, quick yet delicious midweek meal that I’m quite proud of and eager to make again. Don’t sleep on the perfect simplicity of steak, avocado, and hot sauce in a warm flour tortilla! She’s what dreams are made of.

Now, last but not least, the shining star of my attempts thus far is indisputably the breakfast burrito. I personally don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent and I found myself bored of plain eggs and toast — so I got myself a tortilla, melted some cheese, scrambled some eggs, chopped up some tomato and onion, drizzled a bit of Sriracha and oh baby. One was not enough. I could have had thirty. I didn’t, don’t worry… but I could have…

If there’s anything good at all that comes out of this quarantine, it’s been my motivation to test my abilities and make different meals than my usual menu, different than any of the Italian food I grew up with. I may not be a wifey yet but I’m getting there!

Keep cooking and keep eating, people.

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I’m a YouTube gal. This isn’t news on this blog. We already know I love Bon Appetit, we know I lose sleep spending hours watching birria videos, we know I’m dedicated to multiple Eater series. So when Claudia Regalado’s tamales video came up on my Recommended one day, I clicked in a split second.

I have talked extensively about how important cooking and family recipes are to me — growing up in an Italian family, we eat a home cooked dinner together every night and my mom’s cooking is something that has genuinely had an impact on who I am. Claudia’s videos give me the same vibe that seeing my own mom cook at home does.

In the tamales video above, Claudia invites her daughter on camera to help fill the cornhusks and her mother can be heard off camera also assisting. She says to her audience, “this is great to do with your little girls.” And before someone suggests that it’s damaging or anti-feminist to push cooking on girls from a young age, I would argue that keeping traditions like those alive amongst women is actually incredibly important. No, women don’t need to be the cooks, they don’t belong in the kitchen — but why not have a glass of wine gossiping with the ladies while making something like tamales?

Or, in my case, manicotti.

The way Claudia’s daughter helps with the tamales — incorrectly, which is adorable — reminds me so much of helping my mom make manicottis for Christmas every year growing up with my sister. We would always be on macaroni duty while my mom filled, and I can’t count how many times we would make the pasta way too thick or uneven or misshapen. Just like the way Claudia gets slightly frustrated with her daughter’s mistakes and takes over for her, my mom would dismiss us after we wasted a little too much messing up.

In addition to the sentimentality and nostalgia that her videos give me, I’m also able to learn a lot about what actually goes into Mexican food. Tamales aren’t that different from manicotti, mole and consome and pozole aren’t that different from gravy. So, I figure, if I can make their Italian counterparts, I can probably make these Mexican dishes too!

Shoutout to Claudia Regalado and her bomb YouTube channel for being the true inspiration behind my quarantine cooking.

I suggest binging all of her videos immediately — start with tamales, conchas, or mole enchiladas… but make sure you’ve got a snack nearby because you’re bound to get hungry.

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As I’m sure you can tell, I do my best to keep all my content on this page as well as on my Instagram light-hearted and laced with humor. In times as crazy as what we are experiencing now with COVID-19 and worldwide self-quarantine, I personally think that everyone needs as much optimism and silly reasons to laugh as possible. It’s important to remember not to take ourselves too seriously especially as the world is facing the most serious pandemic we — as well as our children and grandchildren, most likely — will ever experience.

However, sometimes, it’s important to get a little serious.

Stereotyping, grouping, and systematic racism are sad realities that continue in today’s world despite the significant progress that has been made over the years. In what I have witnessed in my lifetime, this type of oppression is mainly communicated through microaggressions. And what’s the most common type of microaggression that we experience — either first-hand or as a bystander — almost every day? Grouping different cultures who share languages or features or cultural similarities together.

Especially now, with the widespread anxiety due to coronavirus truly bringing people’s deep-seated racism to light, Asian people from many different cultural backgrounds are being grouped as “Chinese.” Latinx cultures also very commonly fall victim to this.

How many times have you heard Mexican food, people, culture — anything — be referred to as “Spanish” simply because Mexico’s national language is Spanish? It goes without saying that subjecting people to this type of ignorance and racism is much more damaging than wrongly labeling Mexican food as “Spanish,” but it happens a lot.

Know the difference! Mexican food and Spanish food are not the same, just as Chinese and Japanese food are not the same. The only thing these cuisines really have in common is how utterly bomb they are (and they share some ingredients and dishes, but I’m making a point here!) and they all deserve their individual respect.

I recommend that you eat both Mexican food and Spanish food because they’re both absolutely incredible… but do your best to know which is which! Ignorance is never bliss in this case.