Spanish Conversation Class in San Miguel
I am going to paste an introduction from Miss Emily Lupita Plum, one of our Post-Graduates who will be joining us this summer in San Miguel. Emily has agreed to teach a Spanish Conversation class for us. This is an informal class usually held over the lunch break and at other odd times during the month there. Its a good way to brush up on some Spanish skills, and as it takes place over the lunch break, class may even be held at local restaraunts and other places. So drop by te class and bursh up on your ordering skills! Also, Emily makes a phrasebook recommendation, and I wholeheartedly second her recommendation - the Lonely Planet phrasebook and guides are exceptional!
Thanks!
Many Greetings!
I’ll be teaching a Spanish conversation class during the noon hour in San Miguel and would like to invite you to join. The class will be focused on beginners, but all levels are welcome. We’re going to concentrate on everyday interactions such as ordering food, shopping, talking about the weather, and asking for directions. It will be fun and relaxed, with lots of speaking practice and no exams. ?
We’ll be using the Lonely Planet Mexican Spanish phrasebook, so please be sure to pick one up before you leave home.
I recommend this book to everyone because it fits in your pocket and has just about everything you need to get around. Click here to find it on Amazon.com.
More details about where & when the class will meet will be given during orientation in San Miguel.
I’m also available for private Spanish tutoring in small groups.
For more information & to contact me, please visit my website: http://www.emilyplum.com
I’m really looking forward to meeting you all this summer in San Miguel de Allende!
~ Emily Lupita Plum
This is a wonderful spot for breakfast! The specialty here is hand made - the old fashioned way! - churros con chocolate. Churros are long thin falky fried
pastries dusted with sugar. They are dipped in thick molten chocolate, and you can decide between three different kinds. The difference is the amount of sweetness in the chocolate. I went for the Chocolate Espanola, which was the least sweet, and more of a dark chocolate. As we were there bright and early, we got to watch the churros preparations, and it was really cool to see the guys behind the counter stirring the dough with huge wooden sticks. We also had fruit and yogurt here, and coffee and tea juice, and the entire bill for 2, here, was $208 pesos, or less than twenty dollars. This is a nice treat, and a great pick me up after a late night….
So in many of my culinary searches about San Miguel this particular restaurant comes up. They re known for their chiles en nogada frios: marinated poblano chilies filled with chopped beef, pecans, almonds, and dried fruits and topped with cream sauce and a spray of pomegranate seeds. I didn’t have these, actually, as we had snacked a little too heavily on chips and guacamole at La Pamplonada, the palce where we will have the readings. However, I did have Quesadillas de Flor de Calabzas - quesadillas with zucchini flowers, which were about 70 pesos (between 5 and 6 dollars). I thought they were awfully heavy on the cheese (but what did I expect?) and actually a little bland. With a little salsa picante, though, they were filling and good. Also, the sopa azteca, known to us gringos as tortilla soup, was quite good, although again, definitely a bit on the cheesy side. By far the culinary winner was the cerdo in chile negra - pork in a dark sauce, similar to mole, and apples. It tasted surprisingly light, and the combination of the apples and the mole were delicious. I would highly recommend this dish…. You can get it for 110 pesos, which s about 9 dollars US. Bugambilia is a bit on the pricey side, for San Miguel, but the ambiance makes it worthwhile. There was live music playing quietly throughout our meal, which was served in a lovely courtyard, centered around a large and colorful bougainvillea plant…. I would definitely go there again, and I can’t wait to try the chiles en nogada….
Henry Griffin, screenwriting professor for San Miguel this summer, sent me 
pavilions, sculptures, and spiral stairways - built adjacent to a series of waterfalls.” All of which I found highly intriguing. Might be fun to go visit this place, built by Edward James, an English surrealist and eccentric, who “bankrolled the publications of poems by John Betjeman, and supported Dylan Thomas for awhile” as well as working with artists like Salvador Dali. Apparently, Las Pozas was supposed to be his recreation of the Garden of Eden, and was, at one time, filled with orchids and exotic flowers in addition to the sculpture. James died in 1984, and the palce has been left to wither away for much of that time, although now, it seems, efforts to preserve and revive it are underway. Las Pozas is easily reached from 
Hola San Miguelers! So, as I was browsing around looking for some places to go for myself before and after the program, I found this page on about.com I thought you all might be interested in looking at, called 
Bomb
and his fiancee. Of the two articles, I like this one better. This one also made me hungry talking about some of the food - I am going down to San Miguel (I think) later this month, and I will be sure to do my best to rate as many more restaurants as I can!
So if I seem a little food obsessed today, its because I’m food obsessed every day. get used to it. There’s something about food, though, that I think can provide the most intimate connection with culture. In my own life, PECAN PIE will always equal my Ma-Maw. And yes, I mean Ma-Maw, not grandma or any other permutation of the word. Only Ma-Maw can cover her handing be the bowl of pecans to crack into size, and helping me to learn the right layers of butter, syrups, and eggs to sover them with. Only Ma-Maw can mean someone not caring if you cover your entire body in flour while rolling out the dough, and only Ma-Maw wouldn’t care if you only ate the gooey sweetness of the pie that came out of the oven and none of the expensive pecans. Pecan pie, then, means something significant about the way I was raised, and something sacred about family. Its more than just sustenance (especially if its made right 
The SOUTH may be a region known for a closer relationship with food than is healthy or strictly necessary, but every region of the world has its own flavors, and I think exploring them is way to tie yourself to a place in a visceral way. A few years ago, when I was at Brunnenburg, Sitzo led us through a wine tasting of different specialties of the region. He introduced us to words like vintage and vernace. He also made the point that the particular climate of the region produced a particular kind of wine, that probably wouldn’t taste the same in a different climate. Being souvenir searching Americans, we disbelieved him and brought Tirolean wine home with us. I, for one, found him to be right….
Mexican cuisine is currently enjoying a new en vogue status as it makes its way onto plates in both fusion and revival forms in finer restaurants all over the world. And I for one don’t plan on missing any of this particular culinary invasion!
