Susana Trilling and Seasons of My Heart Cooking School

On my recent trip to Oaxaca I focused almost entirely on the art of the region, but the food is the other real highlight is the food.  So for one day I took a break from all the folk art and immersed myself in the food of the region by taking a class at the Seasons of My Heart cooking school, which is run by Susanna Trilling.  She is an American who fell in love with Oaxacan food, had a cooking program on PBS, and then succumbed to her love of the region and moved to Oaxaca permanently.  Her ranch and home and school are situated in the hills outside of Etla, and it is picture perfect.

When you take a Wednesday class, you get picked up in central Oaxaca and taken out to the market in Etla.  I thought that the reason would be to shop for the meal that we would cook later in the day, but I was wrong.  It was so we could learn about the food that is native to the region and sold inthe market.  We learned about the fresh fruits and vegetables on sale--what you can find only in Oaxaca and what you can find beyond.  We then tried prepared foods--tamales of all sorts, moles, chocolate, ice creams, different kinds of breads, different cheeses, and for each and every one we smelled it, tasted it, and learned about it.  It was like having a personal shopper.  I bought some dried chilis, some red mole paste, some black mole paste, and best of all, I bought a bag of the seasoning that is served with shots of mescal that is a mixture of ground gusano (the worm that is found on the agave plant), chili, and salt.  The one thing that I tried that I was pretty sure that I would not before I went was grasshoppers.  They were surprisingly unexceptional.  They tasted of lime and salt and chili and not at all of bug.  A pleasant surprise.

The second half of the day we cooked a meal--each of us collaborating with another student or two on a dish, and then we ate them in a wonderful dinner before riding back in Oaxaca--I loved the cooking lessons, but surprisingly it was really the morning in the market that I learned the most.