Aeroméxico is struggling to survive the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Fighting for survival amid the coronavirus crisis that has crippled the global airline industry, Mexico’s flag carrier Aeroméxico has put up virtually all its assets as collateral for a US $1-billion loan.
A judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has granted preliminary approval of a financing agreement between Aeroméxico, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. at the end of June, and Apollo Global Management, an investment management firm.
Apollo has released $100 million to the airline as a result of the preliminary authorization with the bulk of the remaining $900 million to follow final approval that is expected to be granted on September 22.
To secure access to the funds, Aeroméxico agreed to forfeit a long list of its assets in the event that it is unable to meet loan repayments.
They include two Boeing 737-700s; two Boeing 737-800s; its interest in a Mexico City skyscraper; the commercial value of the 51 routes it operates; and its slots – scheduled arrival and departure times – at international airports in Mexico City, New York and London.
Also put up as collateral by Aeroméxico are all its brands registered with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property; its information about clients; cash it holds in bank accounts; its interest in a company that manages its loyalty program; its interest in an aircraft maintenance facility in Querétaro; and its options to purchase eight planes it currently rents.
As a precondition to releasing further funds, Apollo has demanded that Aeroméxico cut its operating costs.
Aeroméxico has already negotiated provisional agreements with employees to reduce salaries amid the coronavirus crisis but Apollo wants that cost-cutting measure, and others, to continue for at least four years.
A condition of the transfer of a second $800-million tranche of the $1-billion loan is that Apollo will have the option to become a non-majority shareholder in the airline.
To cuts its costs and thus comply with Apollo’s demands, Aeroméxico is planning to reduce the number of pilots and cabin crew it employs by one-third and cut employee salaries until 2025, according to a presentation to investors. The airline also plans to reduce its fleet size by 46 planes – just over a third of its total – by the end of the year.
The measures are expected to generate savings in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
To access additional loan funds from Apollo – the second tranche of the loan is to be transferred by March 2021 – Aeroméxico must reach a deal to cut salaries with employees’ unions by December 31.
Adrian, left, and Julian LeBaron have taken issue with the president over his declaration that the investigation is almost complete.
Although President López Obrador announced that the investigation into last fall’s ambush and murder of members of the LeBaron family in Sonora is almost complete, Julian LeBaron begs to differ.
“We have practically completed all the investigation and most of those responsible for the massacre of the LeBaron family, women, girls, boys, have been detained,” the president said at his morning press conference Monday.
Julian LeBaron, who met with the president in January, rebukes the his claim. “I categorically deny that those responsible for killing my cousins and their children have been arrested. There is only one [prosecuted] detainee out of 100. If your conscience makes you a coward you’d better not say anything because you only insult those of us who are already very hurt,” he posted to his Twitter account.
LeBaron said only 12 suspects are in custody yet more are responsible. Only one of the detainees has been ordered to stand trial but no one knows what charge he faces. “They have not told us anything,” he said, describing the president’s statements as “irresponsible and false.”
The last official word on the investigation came in January when federal prosecutors met with the family and announced they had identified 40 suspects. At least seven arrests have been made, including the Janos, Chihuahua, chief of police.
ButLeBaron protests that some of those taken into police custody were charged for other crimes and that although arrest warrants have been issued, they have not been executed.
He also calls for a transparent investigation and noted that the case is far from being resolved.
“We would like to have known the information from the authorities and not through the transmission of a press conference,” he lamented. “It would be encouraging news if there were already more detainees. We ask for justice for our family, but [also] because the streets would be safer today.”
His frustration is echoed by other family members.
Adrian LeBaron said he has received information that people inside the federal Attorney General’s Office are obstructing the investigation and requested vigilance on the part of authorities. “If our case, which has been in the public eye, is allegedly infiltrated, what can other victims expect?”
After waiting months for justice in Mexico, on July 23 LeBaron family members filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. federal court accusing the Juárez Cartel of the massacre. The lawsuit claims that approximately 100 hitmen participated in the murders.
LeBaron family members hold dual nationality with Mexico and the United States and are descendants of a traditionalist religious group that split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints over issues of faith, including the practice of plural marriage, which the mainstream church disavowed in 1890.
The LeBarons are farmers in northwestern Chihuahua and Sonora and have been the subject of disputes over land and water rights in the past.
But their land is also located in an area where drug cartels battle for turf. Julian LeBaron clashed with cartel leaders in 2009 when he refused to pay a million-dollar ransom for the return of his brother.
The truck in which three presumed kidnapping victims died.
The army is under investigation in connection with at least one extrajudicial killing in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, last month.
President López Obrador on Monday instructed army chief Luis Cresencio Sandoval to investigate a shootout between the army and a criminal gang in the northern border city that left 12 people dead on July 3.
His call for an investigation came after the newspaper El Universal published a video showing soldiers firing at a pickup truck on a dark street near the airport. Army vehicles previously came under fire by armed men in three pickup trucks, two of which fled.
Soldiers fired at least 243 shots at the third vehicle, the newspaper said. The footage it published came from a camera mounted on a soldier’s helmet. No military personnel were wounded or killed in the gun battle.
After the shooting stops, soldiers approach the pickup and see that at least one person in its bed isn’t dead. “He’s alive,” soldiers shout to which someone responds, “Fucking kill him.”
The person in the truck is believed to be one of three young men who had been kidnapped and were in the bed of the pickup with their hands and feet tied.
Two of the kidnapping victims died after receiving single gunshot wounds to their chests while the third man was killed by a single shot to the head. El Universal said that the shot was fired from a distance of just one to three meters.
The nine presumed gang members who were killed all had multiple gunshot wounds whereas the kidnapped men were only shot once each. That raises the possibility that not just one man but three were executed extrajudicially.
One of the three was 18-year-old Damián Jenovés Tercero, who had been living in Nuevo Laredo for six just months when he and his brother were abducted while walking home on June 24.
His father, Raúl Tercero, filed a complaint against the army on July 11 for the murder of his son. His other son was not in the truck where Damían Tercero died and his whereabouts are unknown, El Universal said.
Family members of the other slain kidnapping victims also filed homicide complaints against the army with the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
Speaking at his regular news conference on Monday, López Obrador said that an investigation was needed because his government doesn’t permit “finishing off” wounded suspects.
“El Universal reported a possible crime committed by a member of the army by finishing off a wounded man. There was a confrontation and it appears that there was an injured person, that’s what the newspaper said, and they [soldiers] were ordered to finish him off,” he said.
At the time of the incident, the army said in a report that 12 suspected gang members had been killed and there were no survivors that required medical assistance.
The president said that when he took office in late 2018, the military was already operating under clear instructions to ensure that human rights are respected and asserted that his administration has “strengthened” the directive to soldiers, marines and other military personnel.
“We have the support of the armed forces; both the navy minister and the national defense minister are vigilant so that there are no violations of human rights. That’s not the way to achieve peace,” López Obrador said.
Army spokesman Francisco Antonio Enríquez Rojas told El Universal that the army agreed with the president that an investigation needs to be carried out. However, the FGR – not the army itself – must conduct the investigation, he said.
“Article 57 of the military justice code says that whenever there is a civilian involved, it is up to the public prosecutor [the FGR] to carry out the investigation,” Enríquez said, adding that the army will cooperate completely with the probe.
El Universal reported that since the family members of the kidnapping victims filed their complaints against the army more than a month ago, they haven’t received any response from the FGR.
The newspaper said the FGR has not prepared reports about the events that occurred July 3 and has not summoned the military personnel involved, as the family members asked it to do.
Martín Alvarado, a lawyer for the families of the men who were kidnapped and killed, said the failure of authorities to provide a response can be interpreted as protection of the soldiers who allegedly ordered and committed the murder or murders.
“We’ve always known it; they [the authorities] have always protected each other. The Attorney General’s Office will never do anything against the soldiers. … They delay and obstruct the delivery of justice,” he said.
However, it appears that the Attorney General’s Office is now acting more quickly as a result of López Obrador’s call for an investigation as federal sources told El Universal that the FGR investigators have now begun looking at the case.
Mexico’s armed forces have been accused of a range of human rights violations including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture since they were deployed by former president Felipe Calderón to combat organized crime in late 2006.
López Obrador came to power promising a gradual withdrawal of the military from the nation’s streets but in May published a decree ordering the armed forces to continue carrying out public security tasks for another four years.
'It's an insult:' the president records a video aboard the Boeing Dreamliner.
President López Obrador stepped aboard the presidential plane for the first time to record a video in a bid to boost slow lottery ticket sales.
As of August 11, just 2.02 million tickets of the six million available had been sold.
The tickets, which went on sale March 1, cost 500 pesos (US $23). On September 15 a draw will take place for 100 winners who will be awarded 20 million pesos (US $910,000) each.
The amount of the prize money is loosely based on the value of the plane, which is still for sale and will not be raffled off itself, as the president had previously contemplated.
In the video which was uploaded to López Obrador’s social media channels Monday, the president stands in a hangar at the foot of the stairs leading to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. “I look small, but I am not self-conscious. I am a republican, power is humility,” he tells the camera as he climbs the stairs and enters the plane he has refused to fly in as he considers it an unnecessary luxury.
AMLO graba video desde el avión presidencial
Inside, the camera pans the cockpit, the office, the presidential bedroom suite and its opulent bathroom.
“Buy your ticket, let’s make history,” he tells the camera from the main cabin, offering the thumbs-up sign while standing alongside the seat reserved for the president. “With so much poverty, this is an insult.”
The lottery was expected to raise 3 billion pesos of which 2 billion would be paid out in prize money and the remaining 1 billion pesos would help fund healthcare. The prizes are guaranteed regardless of how many tickets are sold because funds will be drawn from the proceeds of the sale and auction of assets seized from convicted criminals.
The custom outfitted plane, named “José María Morelos y Pavón,” has been assessed at around US $130 million by the United Nations. It was ordered by former president Felipe Calderón in 2012 and cost US $218 million. The plane was delivered four years later to his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, who last used the jet to fly to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires in November 2018.
López Obrador has made a point of refusing to fly on it, traveling instead on commercial airlines.
The drug-running vessel nabbed Monday by Colombian police.
Colombian anti-drug police have seized a semi-submersible narco-submarine they say belongs to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and was headed to Mexico.
On board was more than a tonne of cocaine valued at US $18.6 million, officials in Bogotá said on Monday.
Colombia’s anti-narcotics police and the navy intercepted the vessel 46 nautical miles off the coast of Tumaco, Nariño. Three men were arrested.
Officials said “this semi-submersible, which would have an approximate cost of $1.2 million, has a cargo capacity of up to three tonnes and has a satellite navigation system that, according to the investigations, would allow it to reach its destination in Costa Careyes in the Mexican state of Jalisco by the first week of September.”
Narco-submarines are rarely fully submersible but designed to run so low in the water that they are difficult to detect.
Policía de Colombia intercepta submarino del CJNG con una tonelada de cocaína
Intelligence and investigations by Colombia’s National Police during what was deemed “Operation Triton” revealed that the shipment was the property of the Colombian criminal syndicate E-30, which is suspected of mass murders and forced displacements in the area, and was destined for the CJNG.
The Mexican cartel has long been tied to Colombia, the world’s leading producer and exporter of cocaine to America, Europe, Asia and Africa. They are particularly associated with the National Liberation Army (ELN), a communist guerrilla movement engaged in cocaine production, international drug smuggling and money laundering which has in the past offered protection to cocaine shipments traveling north.
Colombian police and military authorities told the newspaper El Universal that there is an incessant deployment of Mexican drug traffickers in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Central America to direct the production, transportation, distribution and commercialization of cocaine in small and large shipments.
While fast boats were once the preferred vehicle for moving drugs into the United States, methods of detection by law enforcement have improved, and cartels have been forced to get creative.
The first drug-laden submarine was discovered off the coast of Costa Rica in 2006, and over the years they have grown more sophisticated and some even have the capacity to be truly submersible and cross the Atlantic Ocean.
The largest shipment ever seized from a narco-submarine occurred in 2015. It was carrying 7.7 tonnes of cocaine.
In December 2019, a submarine bound for Mexico carrying over a tonne of cocaine was intercepted off the coast of Peru. In May of this year, U.S. authorities seized three semi-submersible submarines over the course of just four days.
The easing of restrictions in Mexico City has resulted in the reopening of several museums.
New coronavirus case numbers in Mexico could be higher than 130,000 per day, according to a University of Oxford researcher, a figure more than 20 times the current average.
Max Roser, founder and editor of the Oxford University website Our World in Data, said on Twitter that a very low testing rate in Mexico – only about one in 100 people have been tested so far – could be vastly concealing the true extent of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Mexico confirms currently 5,500 cases per day … but testing is very inadequate, the positive rate of Mexico is 57%. So how many cases does Mexico actually have every day? Different models suggest more than 130,000,” he wrote.
A new report published on the Our World in Data site looks at four epidemiological models which aim to estimate the true number of coronavirus infections in different countries around the world.
A model developed by the Imperial College London currently shows a mean estimate of just under 150,000 new cases per day in Mexico while one developed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows just over 171,500 per day.
Estimates from four models of the number of daily infections. Estimates differ because the models differ in data used and assumptions made. Cases confirmed with a test are indicated at the bottom of the chart. mexico news daily
A model developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained data scientist Youyang Gu currently shows a mean estimate of just under 135,000 cases per day in Mexico while one developed by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine shows a median estimate of just over 104,400 new cases per day.
All four models estimate that daily case numbers are well above those reported by the Federal Health Ministry, which registers data provided by state health authorities.
The highest number of cases reported on a single day since the start of the pandemic was 9,556 on August 1 but health officials have highlighted that new case numbers have declined in recent weeks.
New case numbers remained comparatively low on Monday with 3,541 reported by the Health Ministry. Mexico’s accumulated case tally now stands at 563,705, the seventh highest total in the world.
There are 26,755 active cases while the results of 77,198 Covid-19 tests are not yet known.
Coronavirus cases and deaths reported by day. milenio
The Health Ministry also reported 320 additional Covid-19 fatalities on Monday, lifting the official death toll to 60,800. Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that Covid-19 deaths decreased 56% between August 9 and 15 compared to the previous week.
Several independent studies claim that Mexico is vastly underestimating its Covid-19 death toll but President López Obrador said Monday that hiding fatalities from the infectious disease is impossible.
“There are things that cannot be hidden. Unfortunately, the deceased cannot be hidden. … The hardest and most regrettable fact is the number of deaths. How can that be hidden?” he said.
The president’s assertion, however, appears to ignore evidence that some suspected Covid-19 deaths have occurred without the patient being tested and have consequently been officially attributed to atypical pneumonia or similar. As a result, they have not been included in the official Covid-19 death toll.
López Obrador also said Monday that his administration has implemented a “very good strategy” to combat the pandemic even though it has been widely criticized for not testing more widely for the coronavirus and not enforcing a nationwide lockdown.
He chided the media for reporting that Mexico’s death toll had passed the “catastrophic” worst-case scenario of 60,000 cited by López-Gatell in early June.
“On the weekend, our adversaries, the conservative media, dedicated themselves [to reporting] two things: the ‘catastrophic scenario,’ a very strong and painful thing – they were like a choir [singing from the same hymn sheet]. The other thing they repeated was the [lack of] tests,” López Obrador said.
The president charged that it was in poor taste to make comparisons between the Covid-19 death tolls of different countries but nevertheless pointed out (correctly) that Mexico’s mortality rate – the number of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants – is lower than the rates of the United States, Brazil, Chile, England and Italy.
“The [government’s] strategy has worked well but this is a terrible pandemic that has affected us a lot because of [the high prevalence] of chronic diseases,” López Obrador added, echoing assertions by health officials that Mexico’s high rates of hypertension, diabetes and obesity have made Covid-19 more lethal here than in other countries around the world.
The Xochimilco boats known as trajineras are now operating again with restrictions.
Mexico has surpassed its “catastrophic” worst-case scenario of 60,000 Covid-19 deaths and is shaping up as one of the worst health and economic casualties of the global pandemic.
Latin America’s second-biggest economy, which has the world’s third highest overall coronavirus death toll, hit the grim milestone on Saturday, when the health ministry reported 60,254 fatalities and 556,216 confirmed cases.
But officials have long acknowledged that the government’s data is an underrepresentation and the health ministry and private studies say the real death tally could be some three times higher.
Hugo López-Gatell, the deputy health minister who is in charge of Mexico’s Covid-19 strategy, predicted in June that 30,000 to 35,000 people could die and “in a very catastrophic scenario [the death toll] could reach 60,000.”
Meanwhile, the government refuses to countenance more than a shoestring stimulus policy for fear of derailing President López Obrador’s austerity pledges. With spending focused on pet infrastructure projects rather than helping the economy weather an expected 10% crash in 2020, economists fear GDP per capita will be set back a dozen years.
Eduardo González-Pier, a former deputy health minister, told a webinar organized by the think tank the Wilson Center the government’s response had been “improvised.”
Mexican authorities deliver upbeat assessments, saying cases and deaths are rising at a steadily lower clip and hospitals are far from being overrun.
But Sandra López-León, a Mexican epidemiologist in New York, said that if the current death toll were three times higher than reported, as feared, it would amount to a per capita rate of more than 1,394 cases per million inhabitants. That would put Mexico far ahead of the current worst-hit country on a per capita basis, Belgium, which has nearly 870 deaths per million inhabitants and does not appear to be underestimating deaths to such an extent.
Statistics are slippery given that “every country in the world is under-reporting Covid deaths and excess mortality,” according to Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IMHE) at the University of Washington.
Mexico’s reopening of the economy — the capital city is allowing theaters to resume performances with limited audiences from this week on — could fuel a rise in Covid deaths. The IHME’s current projection is for 130,387 deaths by December 1, soaring to over 175,500 if restrictions are scrapped.
“In Mexico, my concern is that they will run out of ICU beds and ventilators — we predict by mid-November they will have run out if things keep going at the current rate,” Mokdad said. “Without a two-week lockdown I don’t see a way to control the pandemic in Mexico right now.”
Jaime Sepúlveda, an epidemiologist and executive director at the University of California San Francisco Institute for Global Health Sciences, called it “a dangerous bet” to start reopening while transmission is still rife.
Mexico has deliberately chosen not to attempt to count all cases and to limit testing — just 1.26 million tests have been officially recorded to date.
But the prevalence of the virus is borne out by the fact that 62% of tests are coming back positive, according to Our World in Data, a website that tracks the pandemic, well above other hard-hit nations.
The government has pushed ahead with economic reopening as millions in the vast informal sector have no choice but to keep working. At the same time stimulus measures have been largely limited to tiny loans for small businesses.
However, public spending is already up nearly 5% this year, even without a fiscal stimulus — well above the government’s expectation of a 0.7% rise, the Bank of America wrote in a note to clients, and has outstripped wage and other cuts.
López Obrador has refused countercyclical policies, saying Mexico cannot afford to take on debt. But with the cratering economy, the proportion of debt to GDP is rising anyway.
“We expect the current fiscal policy to drive the primary balance to minus 3.6% of GDP from 1.1% a year ago and debt to 60% of GDP from 45% in 2019,” the Bank of America said, adding that could prompt a sovereign downgrade to junk next year.
Valeria Moy, head of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank, said an official GDP proxy showed production at the same level as in September 2009 and investment was at 1995 levels.
“This is mind-blowing given the increases in population and economic activity,” she told the Wilson Center webinar, adding it would probably take until 2032 for GDP per capita to recover to 2019 levels, she added.
Mexico has at least stopped shedding jobs during the coronavirus crisis. But as Gabriela Siller, director of economic and financial research at Banco Base said: “The fact that we’ve touched bottom doesn’t mean that the crisis is over.”
With the Covid-19 pandemic still afflicting large parts of Mexico, most schools and universities are starting the new academic year with online learning in lieu of face-to-face classes.
While the transition to virtual learning is not a problem for some, for students without their own computer and without the means to acquire one the online shift has left them in a difficult situation.
Enter an initiative called “Laptops Con Causa” or “Laptops With A Cause,” which seeks to distribute donated computers to students who don’t have one.
The brainchild of Mexico City university student Montserrat Rodríguez, the scheme has begun delivering computers to school students and undergraduates in the capital and has aspirations to expand to other parts of the country.
Rodríguez told the newspaper Milenio that the aim is to prevent students dropping out of high school or university.
“We’re university students and we know that there is tremendous social inequality in our country [with regard to] education,” she said.
The shift to online learning precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic has only widened the gap, Rodríguez said, adding “for that reason we decided to take action on the matter.”
She said that she and six other students involved in the project were surprised at the response they received after launching on August 13: 4,700 young people have applied for computers and 300 people have donated laptop, desktop and tablet computers.
A Tabasco restaurant specializing in traditional pre-Hispanic cuisine has made it onto the list of the 20 Best Restaurants in the World, compiled by Travel + Leisure and Food and Wine.
Cocina Chontal — a small house with brick floors and wooden tables where dishes are cooked on an outdoor comal anddogs hang out waiting for scraps — might seem an unlikely place to find one of the world’s best foodie haunts.
But the restaurant, located near the ancient Mayan archaeological zone in the jungle of San Isidro de Comalcalco, has won accolades with international tourists and locals alike due to its commitment to preserving knowledge of pre-Hispanic Tabasco cuisine, knowledge on the verge of being lost.
Nevertheless, chef Nelly Córdova Murillo said ending up on the travel magazine’s list was a total surprise.
“Truly it’s incredible,” she said. “I was calmly baking some cinnamon rolls with my daughter, and suddenly it occurred to me to get my telephone. I found all these people congratulating me, and I didn’t know for what.”
Córdova is among restaurants in major world cities like Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Bogotá, and Santiago, Chile. But she hasn’t let it go to her head. The award, she said, goes to all tabasqueños.
“It’s their culture, their traditions, their customs, their men and women, their products, and their artisans,” she said. “Cocina Chontal is that. It’s Tabasco in a small place.”
In her Travel + Leisure article discussing the winning restaurants, culinary criticBesha Rodell praised not only Cocina Chontal’s cuisine, citing in particular the mole poblano with turkey, the scarlet shrimp, and the tortilla Chontal, but also its golden, sunlight-bathed ambience.
“I spent multiple days and flights and car rides getting to this one meal, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat,” she wrote.
Ironically, the restaurant has been closed for the last four months due to Covid-19 restrictions. “… like many, we are practically at a dead stop,” Córdova recently wrote on Cocina Chontal’s Facebook page. However, she is working to reopen with sanitary precautions in place by the first or second week of September and taking advantage in the meantime to renovate her home, in which the restaurant is located.
“We’re working on giving the house a touch-up,” she added in her post. “It’s a restored house, so we have to do some artisan work.”
These baked jalapeños are stuffed with hard and cream cheese.
Small, unassuming and commonplace, jalapeños are actually anything but. They’ve been included as food on the U.S. space shuttle, they’re the “state pepper” of Texas and are the “secret” ingredient in the internationally popular Sriracha sauce.
Even the Sinaloa Cartel found them appealing: turns out “El Chapo” Guzmán once operated a jalapeño cannery as a front for shipping drugs to the U.S.
Trivia aside, the secret to the popularity of jalapeños may lie in their hot but tolerable (and often irresistible) chile pepper kick. That heat is also easy to manipulate in recipes: since almost all of the capsaicin and pungency-causing compounds are in the white “veins” and seeds, all you have to do is remove those and you’re good to go.
The green skin does have a bit of a bite, and as they ripen that develops more, but in general jalapeños are on the low end in terms of Scoville heat units — unless they’ve been stressed while growing.
How would you know this? If a jalapeño has been stressed while growing – by erratic watering, too-high temperatures, incorrect soil nutrition, insects, illness — their pungency increases. You can tell that’s been the case because there’ll be small brown lines
on the skin, called “corking.” Those Jalapeños will be hotter than most. The more scars, the hotter the pepper.
A steak topped with Argentinian chimichurri sauce.
Jalapeño plants are easy to grow and one healthy plant can produce 25-35 peppers. picked over the course of a season. If left to ripen, jalapeños turn red and are hotter than their younger green counterparts. Smoked, they’re called chipotles. Not surprisingly, jalapeño juice is used as a remedy for allergies and clearing sinuses.
Fresh or canned, jalapeños can be added to a smorgasbord of dishes: pizza, mac and cheese, tuna salad, scrambled eggs, quiche, frittata,casseroles of every type, shrimp cocktail, chili, and of course they’re a mainstay in Mexican classics like every kind of salsa, guacamole, nachos and even the simple quesadilla sencilla.
As with all hot peppers, keep jalapeños (and hands that have touched them!) away from skin, eyes, lips or other membranes, as the oils are irritating. If you forget and do something like rub your eyes, rinse with hot water. If your skin is irritated, wear rubber gloves next time or wash with hot soapy water and rub vegetable oil on the area.
One more bit of trivia: the unbeaten Guinness World Record for the most jalapeños eaten in a minute was set by Alfredo Hernandes in 2006, who consumed 16. And the most jalapeños eaten? That would be 275 pickled jalapeños, eaten in eight minutes by Patrick Bertoletti in 2011.
Nancy’s Famous Jalapeño Jelly
Folks in Mazatlán have been buying and loving this for 11 years. Nancy says it’s great on crackers with cream cheese.
In a large pan, bring jalapeños, water and vinegar to a boil, simmer for 15 minutes. Strain out pepper pieces; from this liquid, measure out 3 cups, adding more water if needed, and bring to a boil again. Mix in pectin. Add 3 cups of sugar, stir and bring to a boil for 3 minutes. Add a few drops of food coloring if desired. Pour into four ½-pint jars or two pint jars. Cool upside down until lids ping and seal, about 10 minutes; no canning necessary.
Jalapeño-Cilantro Dipping Sauce
Think of this as Green Goddess with a kick. Use as a salad dressing, on fish or chicken entrees or tacos, or over a pork roast.
1 jalapeño, seeds removed, chopped
1 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
½ cup cilantro leaves with tender stems
2 Tbsp. mint leaves
1 Tbsp. (or more) fresh lime juice
¼ tsp. ground cumin
Kosher salt
Purée everything in a blender until very smooth. Taste and season with salt and more lime juice, if desired.
Baked Stuffed Jalapeños
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
½ cup grated sharp cheddar or chihuahua cheese
6 large jalapeños, halved, seeded, veins removed
3 Tbsp. minced fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper
Bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 450 F. In small bowl, mix cream cheese, cilantro and cheese. Season with salt and pepper. With a small spoon, fill each jalapeño half with about 1 Tbsp. of cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Place peppers on a parchment- or foil-lined baking sheet and bake until cheese is browned and bubbling, about 10-12 minutes
Option #2: Add ¼ cup crumbled cooked bacon into cream cheese mixture.
Chimichurri
This classic Argentinian sauce can be used as a marinade and served with all cuts of beef, fish, shrimp, poultry, and as a dip or on a torta.
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 large jalapeño, finely chopped
3–4 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp. salt, plus more
½ cup finely chopped cilantro
¼ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 Tbsp. minced fresh oregano
¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
The classic Argentinian chimichurri sauce.
Combine shallot, jalapeño, garlic, vinegar and 1 tsp. salt in a medium bowl. Let sit 10 minutes. Stir in cilantro, parsley and oregano. Whisk in oil. If using as marinade, reserve ½ cup to a small bowl for sauce. Toss meat (or chicken wings or whatever) with remaining sauce in a glass or ceramic dish, cover and let sit in refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight. When ready to cook, remove meat from marinade, pat dry and grill. Use reserved chimichurri as a sauce. –bonappetit.com
Jalapeño Popper Dip
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
8-10 jalapeños, seeded & minced
5 slices cooked bacon, crumbled (optional)
½ cup sweet corn
¼ cup mayonnaise
Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix all ingredients together in a small casserole dish. Bake 15-20 minutes until warm and bubbly.
Janet Blaser has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to be able to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
