A U.S. student on spring break fell more than six meters to his death last week just hours after arriving at his hotel in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur.
Aiden Nevarez, 18, a freshman student majoring in financial planning at Arizona State University (ASU), was staying with classmates at the five-star Hotel Riu Santa Fe, just outside Cabo San Lucas.
Nevarez’s friends said he scaled a low wall inside the hotel complex and fell more than six meters. They said foliage from palm trees below the wall resembled short bushes, disguising the height of the drop.
His body was found in the hotel’s storm drain canal and the forensic report concluded that he died by obstruction to his airways, which is commonly caused by alcohol related congestion, the news site Tribuna de la Paz reported.
Nevarez’s mother Sayra said the tragedy had been impossible to come to terms with. “You can’t breathe, you can’t process anything, you don’t feel like anything is real … Everything stops. your life stops right there,” she said.
Both of Nevarez’s parents agreed the hotel should improve safety, whether through better signage or by building a higher wall. “This can’t happen to anyone else. It’s completely senseless,” Sayra added.
Nevarez’s roommate Jack Fitzgerald said his friend was well liked and that the accident was unexpected. “Never in a million years did anyone who knew us or knew Aiden expect us to be sitting here right now … He was the most genuine kid that I knew. The biggest smile. He was so loved. Everybody loved Aiden,” he said.
“The day before we went to Cabo, he pulled me aside and … he said, ‘Jack we have the best lives ever. I cannot imagine my life a different way,'” Fitzgerald added.
“It just really shows to be appreciative. Nothing is promised,” another friend, Jake Reithinger, said.
Hotel Riu Santa Fe declined to comment when contacted, the news site 12 News reported.
Friends of the Nevarez family have set up a GoFundMe page to assist them with the unanticipated costs. The page had raised over US $100,000 as of Monday afternoon.
Former Mexican ambassador to the European Union, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo.
The federal government’s response to the European Parliament (EP) after it passed a resolution that condemned the harassment and killing of journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico has been described by a veteran politician and former ambassador to the European Union (EU) as a “comedy of errors.”
In a statement penned by President López Obrador and other officials, the federal government accused European lawmakers of “corruption, lies and hypocrisy” and described them as misinformed sheep.
Longtime leftist politician Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, an 88-year-old former deputy, senator, federal cabinet minister and Mexico’s ambassador to the EU between 2001 and 2004, said the language used by the president is beyond belief.
“His irate, insulting, confused and disproportionate response is not in accordance with the powers of a head of state,” he told the newspaper El Universal.
Muñoz, who was an outspoken deputy with the ruling Morena party until last year, said the statement – issued by the president’s office last Thursday – could perhaps be attributed to López Obrador’s “fatigue due to hard work” and “anxiety to win” the so-called “revocation of mandate” referendum, at which citizens will have the opportunity on April 10 to decide whether the president should complete his six-year term or leave office early.
President López Obrador responded to a European resolution condemning violence in Mexico with a critical reply.
He also said that López Obrador sees foreign policy issues as domestic issues and an opportunity to win votes. Indeed, the president frequently quips that “the best foreign policy is domestic policy.”
According to Muñoz, López Obrador thinks that the Europeans are “neo-colonials,” even though that belief is “absolutely false.”
“These are deliberate acts of domestic policy. This shows that he wants to play internal politics. If the head of the executive makes a statement [on foreign affairs] he must do it through the Foreign Affairs Ministry. … If the head of the Mexican state wants to make a complaint [about Europe], … his interlocutor is the president of the European Commission. This six-month term it’s the president of France,” he said.
Muñoz questioned López Obrador’s intention in calling European lawmakers sheep.
“Whose sheep are they? Claudio X. González’s? Carlos Loret’s?” he asked.
The former is a businessman and outspoken critic of the president who founded Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, an anti-graft group that has exposed alleged government corruption. Carlos Loret de Mola is a journalist who has also reported on alleged government corruption.
Muñoz said that López Obrador addressed the members of the EP as if they were his “internal interlocutors” – members of his own government, in other words. “He calls them meddlesome; that’s a grave mistake,” he said.
The former ambassador to the EU also said that the free trade agreement between Mexico and the EU allows for dialogue between the two parties on a range of issues. But members of the EP and Mexican lawmakers haven’t held a meeting for two years, Muñoz said.
Burning vehicles blocked Colima highways in at least four places Sunday night and Monday morning.
At least four narco-blockades were reported on Sunday night and Monday morning in highways surrounding Colima city and Cuauhtémoc municipality hours after the arrest of the suspected regional leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Motorists reported that trucks and trailers were set on fire around 10:30 p.m. on Sunday blocking roads in El Trapiche, about five kilometers northeast of Colima city, near the Colima-Guadalajara highway, and by a nearby gas station on the highway. Another burning vehicle obstructed motorists on the same road further inside Colima city.
The highways division of the National Guard maintained that the road closures were due to accidents. They confirmed that the roads reopened and were operating normally by 3 a.m on Monday.
Aldrin Miguel Jarquín Jarquín, 45, known by the moniker “El Chaparrito” (Shorty), was arrested on Sunday in Zapopan, Jalisco, by federal forces.
Mexican and U.S. authorities suspect Jarquín of running the CJNG’s operations — trafficking drugs and importing weapons — in Manzanillo, Colima, home to Mexico’s largest port. They believe Jarquín to be outranked only by the leader of the CJNG, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, and El Mencho’s son-in-law Julio Alberto Castillo Rodríguez.
Alleged CJNG leader Aldrin Jarquín was arrested in Jalisco on Sunday.
In October 2021 Jarquín was put on a black list by the U.S. Treasury Department along with his brother, José de Jesús Jarquín Jarquín, César Enrique Díaz De León Sauceda and Fernando Zagal Antón. In June, 2020 Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) blocked the four men’s bank accounts due to their links to the CJNG.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the four suspected criminals are among the highest-ranking members of the cartel.
“They help coordinate the CJNG’s drug trafficking operations through the port of Manzanillo and maintain contact with cocaine supply sources in Colombia,” reads an indictment by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Colima is the smallest state in the country by population, home to just over 730,000 citizens. However, its modest size and remote location haven’t spared it from becoming one of the most violent places in Mexico: 84 people were killed from February 7 to March 7, almost three per day.
More than 10 bags with human remains were found in that month-long period; 25 narcomantas (banners used by criminals to issue threats) were seen in the state and 30 people were injured in crossfire while in their homes and vehicles, the newspaper Milenio reported. The state Attorney General’s Office also reported an increase in extortion and theft in the state which was once best known for its active volcano.
The period that began February 7 has been one of the most violent in Colima’s history with 10.4 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. It’s the most killing the state has seen since December 2017, when authorities reported a monthly homicide rate of 12.8 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Colima was Mexico’s most violent state on a per capita basis for five consecutive years between 2016 and 2020, before losing that unenviable title to Zacatecas last year.
President López Obrador visited Colima city on February 25 in a show of support for Morena party Governor Indira Vizcaíno Silva, who interrupted 72 years of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) power in the state by winning the June 2021 elections.
In mid-February, the government announced a deployment of 2,000 federal security forces to Colima, who now number 6,000 across 10 municipalities.
The Foro de las Estrellas stage offers daily free concerts during the San Marcos Fair in April and May. Facebook / Feria Nacional de San Marcos
With 31 of 32 states currently low risk green on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map, Mexico’s economic, social and cultural life is bouncing back as the omicron-fueled fourth wave continues to recede.
And the vibrancy of the nation’s cities and towns – much diminished during the past two years as Mexico endured one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks – is only set to increase, with a range of events scheduled to take place in the weeks and months ahead.
Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the start of the pandemic, is preparing to stage a spring festival, Yucatán’s Chichén Itzá archaeological site is gearing up to host a spring equinox event, Aguascalientes is organizing its renowned annual fair and Oaxaca is getting ready to welcome visitors to a large ethnic heritage festival slated to run later this year.
The Festival de Primavera (Spring Festival) will take place in Mexico City’s historic center this coming long weekend, with more than 50 free activities on offer in 20 locations, including the zócalo, Plaza de Santo Domingo and Plaza Garibaldi, the capital’s home of mariachi music.
Among the scheduled activities is a massive dance event in honor of legendary composer and singer Armando Manzanero, who died in late 2020.
Before the pandemic, thousands visited Chichén Itzá every equinox to witness the “descent of the serpent.”
The ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itzá will welcome up to 15,000 visitors per day for the “descent of the serpent,” an equinox phenomenon in which light hits the Kukulcán pyramid in such a way that the form of a Mayan snake deity appears. Equinox events will be held Saturday, Sunday and Monday, while the Teotihuacán and El Cerrito archaeological sites in México state and Querétaro, respectively, and the magical town of Bernal in the latter state, will also host equinox events this Sunday.
For the first time since 2019, Aguascalientes will stage the San Marcos Fair – the largest national fair in Latin America and one of the 10 largest in the world – between April 16 and May 8. The event, which attracts millions of visitors, contributes to 5% of Aguascalientes’ GDP, the newspaper Milenio reported.
Oaxaca’s most famous festival, the Guelaguetza, will return to the state capital on July 25 and August 1, Governor Alejandro Murat announced.
The festival, which brings the indigenous peoples of Oaxaca together to showcase their heritage and traditions in the form of intricate traditional garments, dances, music and food, was canceled as an in-person event in both 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
Another state where cultural life will be reinvigorated in 2022 is Guanajuato, which will host events including the Leather and Footwear Fair and the International Cervantino Festival, one of Latin America’s biggest cultural events.
Some Easter religious events, including the Procession of Silence in San Luis Potosí, are slated to go ahead for the first time since 2019, but the Passion Play event in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, will not be open to the public for a third consecutive year.
The Guelaguetza, Oaxaca’s indigenous cultural festival, will be held in July and August.
Play of another kind will be the order of the day in Quintana Roo, where up to 20,000 international spring breakers are expected to holiday this year.
Nayarit is also expecting a large influx of visitors to its coast during Semana Santa, or Holy Week, which begins on April 10. In the state capital Tepic, the Nayarit National Fair is already underway, with a range of events scheduled before its conclusion on March 27. The fair, which began last Thursday, is expected to generate an economic spillover of 120 million pesos (US $5.7 million).
As the coronavirus threat diminishes, there has been an “avalanche” of reservations for parties and other events in México state, according to business events association AEEEM.
“The majority of clients are planning events for at least 100 people. … A lot already have reservations for May, June, July and December,” it said. “It looks set to be a good year, we’ll be able to completely recover.”
Many states have eased their coronavirus restrictions after switching to green on the stoplight map, increasing maximum capacity levels at establishments such as bars and restaurants.
Authorities in Coahuila and Nuevo León announced late last week that citizens were no longer required to wear face masks in open-air public places, while the Mexico City government said it was shutting down its COVID-19 testing kiosks, with free-of-charge testing to be limited to permanent public health facilities.
The reactivation of cultural life and further easing of restrictions come as the country faces a much-improved coronavirus situation after case numbers hit a new monthly high of almost 1 million in January.
The seven-day average for daily case numbers is currently 5,977, a figure just 14% of the peak recorded on January 23, according to the Reuters COVID-19 tracker. Reuters also said that the average number of deaths reported per day has fallen by more than 230 over the past three weeks. The seven-day average for daily fatalities is currently 178.
Mexico’s accumulated confirmed case tally is currently 5.6 million, the 20th highest total in the world despite the country’s low testing rate, while COVID-19 fatalities number 321,103, the world’s fifth highest death toll.
Two men on a motorcycle shot Cleave as he drove through Playa del Carmen with his teenage daughter Saturday morning.
An English businessman was shot dead in front of his 14-year-old daughter in Playa del Carmen on Saturday morning while driving in an area surrounded by luxury hotels.
Chris Cleave, 54, from Cornwall, southwest England, was found on Xcalacoco Avenue around 10 a.m. in a red Audi sports car after he was shot multiple times by two men on a motorcycle. His daughter Chloe, who sustained non-life threatening injuries, was taken to hospital suffering from shock.
Cleave had been a resident in Mexico since 2013 and sold and rented real estate mainly in Playacar, a gated residential complex south of the city center, and appeared in public advertisements for the properties. He had been celebrating his daughter’s 14th birthday in the Quintana Roo tourist destination on Wednesday.
The attack comes after a local gang threatened Cleave by leaving a narcomanta, or narco-banner, in Playacar. The banner, which appeared in March of last year, said that Cleave would end up in a body bag if he didn’t “shut his mouth.”
The Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office confirmed the arrests of Lenin “N,” 18, and José “N,” 30, and the seizure of a firearm only three hours after Cleave’s body was found.
Cleave was one of the targets of a narcomanta in March of 2021.
“There are already two subjects detained who probably participated in the events recorded this morning in which a foreign resident lost his life,” it said in a statement.
Friends and family paid tribute to Cleave on social media.
“I’m devastated by the news and crying since yesterday. He was an amazing gentleman and father. When there was something needed, he was the one I called first. Always very reliable, honest and with a heart of gold,” wrote Barbara Choux.
“You were the most generous and helpful person I know, always making time for everyone. You made my life happier, easier and more joyful every day I knew you … I will miss our cups of tea, glasses of wine, British jokes, and endless fun conversations. Playa is mourning the loss of a truly great man today, who didn’t deserve to be taken so soon,” wrote Sara Jones.
Some 12 million tourists visit Quintana Roo every year, but violence threatens the reputation of the state long seen as a safe destination. In late January, two Canadians with criminal histories were shot dead in Xcaret Hotel near Playa del Carmen. The U.S. government then issued a security alert for Quintana Roo, shortly before a beach club manager was shot dead in Playa del Carmen.
Business people in the area have denounced threats of extortion for months, the newspaper El País reported. The state Attorney General’s Office has acknowledged that the wave of violence in the region is related to drug trafficking.
The U.S. government launched an FBI investigation into criminal activity in Quintana Roo in February.
Since the start of 2021, Quintana Roo has been the 10th worst state in the country for homicides. In 2021 there were 36.96 homicides per 100,000 people. The state’s murder rate is only below that of Baja California, Colima, Chihuahua, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Michoacán, Morelos, Sonora and Zacatecas.
It's naive to think that significant security isn't needed at an event where it's encouraged to make enemies of another group.
What is that spell under which a group of people can so easily fall together? Why are we emboldened to do things in groups that we wouldn’t think of doing on our own?
Are there specific aspects of our personalities, biology or hormone levels that determine how we’ll act in specific types of social situations, or can anyone lose control and behave horribly given the right circumstances?
Those were some of the questions moving up to the front of my mind this past week as I read about the soccer match gone awry at the Corregidora stadium in Querétaro.
If you’ve taken any social science 101 classes, then you probably have at least a passing knowledge of the more famous experiments done on group behavior and conformity. The most famous of these is the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, in which a psychology professor created a mock prison in the basement of a university building and assigned students to play either prisoners or guards. Both groups fell so easily into such extreme versions of their roles that the study was called off after only six days.
Another you’ve likely heard of is the Milgram Experiment, in which ordinary people were asked to “punish” learners on another side of a wall for any wrong answers what they were told were electrical shocks of increasing voltage. In response, actors on the other side of the wall (who were in on the experiment) reacted to the supposed shocks with convincing sounds of pain and eventually requests or pleas to end the experiment and finally, complete silence.
Milgram was surprised at the results: 65% of those doling out the “shocks” went on with the experiment to the final “maximum level” — a supposed massive 450 volts of electricity. Even those who eventually refused to carry on were still willing to dole out up to 300 volts before they stopped.
There was also the Asch Conformity Experiment, where a group of people (again, in on the experiment) each gave indisputably wrong answers to questions posed to the group. In many cases, the one true subject in the room repeated the same wrong answers just to avoid the discomfort of distinguishing themselves from even an informal group of people they didn’t know or care about.
Many of these types of experiments took place in the decades after the Holocaust as social scientists sought to understand how “ordinary people” were capable of doing awful things to others.
The incident at the stadium isn’t, of course, a perfect parallel to any of these studies. And all of them have been variously questioned or criticized. And yet, they can all tell us something about behavior within a group. They all show us how, when given a role, we play them as expected. Costumes and props get us even further into the roles, rendering us so much more predictable than we’d like to believe.
This is why the enthusiasm surrounding sporting competitions has always made me nervous.
I don’t want to “play” that I have enemies; that’s scary and not fun, and I’ve got enough people that will genuinely hate on me (just look at my articles’ comment sections!) — no need to pretend! I’m covered, thanks. Wide-scale excitement – positive or negative – has always put me on edge.
Once a bunch of individuals becomes a crowd, the sense in me that says it’s game over for anyone to feel individual responsibility for their actions makes me want to run and hide until the group has dispersed. At worst, I feel raw fear. At best (say, at a nice, chill concert or a peaceful protest), I feel overwhelmed by the mass of people with a common purpose and try to hide my uncontrollable crying.
There’s a lesser-known experiment – the Bobo Doll – that gives us some additional things to think about as we go through our customary soul-searching in the wake of a tragic group event.
In it, 72 children were divided into three groups. One group watched adults behaving aggressively toward a doll, another watched adults playing calmly with it and the third group didn’t observe anything. All the children were allowed to play (individually) with the doll soon afterward.
The children who’d watched aggressive behavior toward the doll were more likely to play with it aggressively, especially if the model was male. The male children in that group displayed more copycat aggression toward the doll than the female children.
As the women who spent today marching will tell you (I’m writing this on March 8), there are enough men out there who seem to downright relish violent behavior and aggression (yeah, yeah, yeah, hashtag obviously #not_all_men for the immediate detractors who would possibly like to fight me on this, which is its own fountain of irony). But if you, like me, have stared in horror at the videos from the game, you’ve surely noticed that the women in them are running, not fighting.
After these kinds of things happen, someone inevitably comes out to give some sort of “This is not who we are!” message. I’m sad to say, my friends, that this is exactly who we are.
We’re animals. Not only that, we’re social animals, able to rile each other up pretty easily. In certain circumstances, this might be helpful. In most of our modern circumstances, it’s definitely not.
We’re not far-removed evolutionarily from primates who would happily bite our fingers off if locked in a room with us. The more clarity with which we recognize that, the better. But, instead we keep fooling ourselves back into thinking that we can be trusted.
And this, in a nutshell, is why the rule of law is so important. While the lack of a significant security presence at that game is not ultimately to blame, it was extremely naïve to think that it wasn’t needed.
Let’s not make that mistake again. Chimpanzees — all of us.
View of Lake Chapala, just one of the parts of Mexico about which geographer and author Tony Burton has dedicated much of his life to learning and writing. Fernando Celaya
There is a stereotype that foreigners from the United States, Canada and Europe come to Mexico to take advantage of sun, tequila and a great exchange rate and have no interest in the country beyond that.
Now, I will admit that there are such people here, but my experience writing for Mexico News Daily and others has shown me that there are definitely those of us who come with — or develop — a real desire to understand this country. There are audiences for the kind of writing that delves into Mexico’s history, environment and culture, which creates opportunities for people with a passion for researching and writing about such things.
One of these people with such a passion is U.K.-born, Cambridge University-trained geographer Tony Burton. He has been exploring, researching and writing about Mexico for over 40 years. His books include Lake Chapala Through the Ages: An Anthology of Travelers’ Tales (2008); Geo-Mexico, the Geography and Dynamics of Modern Mexico (2010); Western Mexico, A Traveler’s Treasury (4th edition, 2013); Mexican Kaleidoscope: Myths, Mysteries and Mystique (2016); and his most recent book, If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s Historic Buildings and Their Former Occupants (2020). Later this month, a new book, Foreign Footprints in Ajijic: Decades of Change in a Mexican Village, officially hits the shelves.
Burton’s Mexican journey actually started in St. Kitts, where he worked in research and teaching. One of the courses he taught there was heavily focused on Mexico, which gave him background information and a desire to see the country for himself.
He arrived in Mérida in the summer of 1977, and as he backpacked around southern and central Mexico, he found it even more exciting than he’d imagined.
Portrait of Tony Burton. Courtesy of the author
He returned to the United Kingdom, intending to do a doctorate, but in 1979 he found himself in Mexico City instead, working for a private school. From then until 1986, he spent as much time as he could traveling, managing to visit just about every state.
He then moved to Guadalajara and continued teaching, forming a nonprofit called Odisea México, which organized mostly earth science fieldwork courses for high school and college students in the states of Jalisco, Michoacán and Querétaro, eventually adding eco-tours for adults to destinations such as the Paricutín volcano, the monarch butterfly sanctuaries and the Copper Canyon.
Many teachers and researchers seem to wind up writing in one way or another, and Burton is no exception. Over the years, he has written hundreds of articles as well as various books. As an academic, he tends to avoid the glitzy, superficial travel magazine articles in favor of those that seek authors who can write with some depth. But it is Burton’s books where his knowledge of Mexico really shines.
Even if you stretch the concept of a travel book, only Western Mexico, A Traveler’s Treasury comes anywhere close to that genre. Its purpose, however, is not to give tips about hotels, bars and restaurants but rather to give the serious traveler reasons to explore the small towns and natural areas around Guadalajara.
Burton states that his book is “… aimed at the intellectually curious traveler who wants to know about the lesser-known treasures of western Mexico; it ignores the cities and shares the background (history, ecology, myths, whatever) needed to enjoy each place.”
Lake Chapala Through the Ages is more of a history book, a sort of traveler’s documentation of the area from 1530 to 1910. Burton looked for first-person accounts and other documents, which he presents with commentary and explanations.
Cover of Burton’s latest book, aimed at dispelling myths about the history of the Lake Chapala area. Sombrero Books
The push behind the book was his frustration with many “facts” and hearsay stories that endlessly get repeated in this region popular with many expats.
Mexican Kaleidoscope summarizes events, individuals, myths and mysteries that present Mexico as “an extraordinarily diverse and fascinating place,” in his words. It is a kind of a follow-up to a book of the same title by Norman Pelham Wright published in 1947. Geo-Mexico, the Geography and Dynamics of Modern Mexico, written with Dr. Richard Rhoda, was the first English-language university textbook on Mexican geography.
After marrying and becoming a parent, Burton and his wife decided to move to Canada in 1997 for the sake of their two children’s education, but his relationship with Mexico did not end: he was an early adopter of what the digital age has to offer writers and entrepreneurs and has continued to write, edit and translate as well as organize specialized tours, allowing him to keep spending significant time here in the south.
In 2020, that work included efforts to save the veteran expat website MexConnect.com, started in the late 1990s by David McLaughlin. Burton was involved with it in various ways, but in the 2010s, the site had problems keeping up with technology. This and McLaughlin’s untimely death in 2019 almost meant the site’s demise.
Burton and McLaughlin’s daughter worked to keep the site and its valuable archive of articles accessible — with a new article added now and then. Burton believes that saving this site is important precisely because there is a reading public beyond the “stereotypical gringo.”
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Kale adds a nice pop of color and flavor to this warming potato-chorizo stew.
Kale is challenging to find here in Mazatlán, and I’m always thrilled when I do.
One grower at our farmers’ market sometimes includes some baby kale leaves in their salad mix (which I’ll admit to picking out and cooking sometimes). We also have sort of a CSA, and that grower offers dinosaur or Tuscan kale — big, long, puckered dark green leaves — very different than the curly kale I prefer.
Sometimes, if I’m really lucky, a local grocery chain called Ley will have actual bunches of curly kale. Another variety you can sometimes find is Russian red kale, whose leaves are flat and fringed instead of curled. That happened the other day, and it took 15 minutes at the checkout before the manager figured out what it was called and could ring it up. At the farmers’ market, they just say “kah-lay;” but on the grocery store’s list it was called berza. (Remember that word!)
Some people find kale, whether cooked or raw, to be bitter; that’s due to its being part of the cabbage family. The younger and fresher the leaves, the less bitterness there is. Tuscan kale is also less peppery by nature.
Kale became a trendy “miracle food” a few years back because of its antioxidant qualities and its high natural fiber. It’s also low in calories and carbs and has lots of nutrients that are hard to find in vegetables: calcium, iron, potassium and vitamins B6, A, C and K.
From left to right: curly kale, Tuscan (aka dinosaur kale) and Russian red kale.
It’s also very versatile; you can use it anywhere you would other leafy greens like spinach or chard. Add kale to quesadillas, salads, soup, pastas (it makes a great pesto!), mixed with rice or quinoa … the sky’s the limit!
Kale Chips
Cooking spray
1 small bunch kale, washed and dried well
1 Tbsp. olive oil
¼ tsp. garlic powder
¼ tsp. salt
Preheat oven to 300 F (150 C).
Use cooking spray on two baking trays. Remove the center rib and stems from each kale leaf and discard. Tear or cut leaves into bite-sized pieces, 2–3 inches wide.
In a large bowl, drizzle kale with oil, sprinkle with garlic powder and salt; massage oil and seasonings into leaves with your hands to distribute evenly.
Place kale in single layer on baking sheets. Bake at 350 F (177 C) until crisp and edges are slightly browned, 12–15 minutes.
Perfect Kale Salad
1 bunch curly kale
1 garlic clove, finely minced
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1/8 tsp. chili flakes
Salt and pepper
¼ cup breadcrumbs, toasted
Cut out thick ribs of kale and discard. Cut leaves into chiffonade (stack several leaves, roll into a cylinder, then slice crosswise into very thin, 1/16-inch ribbons). Rinse and dry kale. Put into a bowl.
In another small bowl, whisk garlic, cheese, salt and pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, chili flakes and breadcrumbs.
Pour mixture over kale; toss. Let sit 5–10 minutes and serve.
Got shrimp you need to use up? A sweet potato shimp skillet with kale is quick, delicious and nutrient-rich!
Sautéed Kale
¼ cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 large bunch kale, stemmed with leaves coarsely chopped
½ cup vegetable stock, white wine or water
Salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes to taste
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic, cook 2 minutes. Add kale, turn heat to high; add stock/white wine/water and stir. Cover and cook 5–7 minutes, until soft and wilted but still green.
Remove cover; continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid evaporates plus a few minutes more.
Season to taste with salt and the peppers; add vinegar, toss to combine.
Scrambled Eggs and Kale
1 Tbsp. olive oil
¼ cup chopped onion
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 heaping cup fresh kale, de-stemmed, chopped
4 eggs, beaten
½ cup grated mozzarella, Oaxaca or other melting cheese
½ tsp. Italian seasoning (dried rosemary, oregano, thyme, basil)
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat oil in skillet on medium-high heat. Add onion and red pepper flakes; cook 1 minute.
Add kale. Cook, stirring, until kale is just wilted. Lower heat to medium; add beaten eggs. Gently stir and fold until eggs begin to set.
Stir in cheese and Italian seasoning. Remove from heat, add salt and pepper to taste.
Potato-Kale Soup with Chorizo
1 lb. chorizo, cut into ¼-inch slices
3 medium potatoes, chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 bunch kale, trimmed and chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
¼ tsp. pepper
¼ tsp. salt
2 bay leaves
1 can (14½ oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained
Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-low heat; add chorizo, potatoes, garlic and onions and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until sausage is heated through.
Add kale; cover and cook for 2–3 minutes or until kale is wilted. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat.
Cover and simmer 9–12 minutes more or until potatoes are tender. Discard bay leaves and serve.
Shrimp, Kale and Sweet Potato Skillet
2 Tbsp. olive or coconut oil
½ cup onions, diced
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups diced sweet potatoes, steamed or parboiled
2 cups shrimp, cleaned
3 cups trimmed, chopped kale
Salt and pepper
In a cast-iron or nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and red pepper flakes; cook until onions soften.
Add garlic and sweet potatoes; sauté and stir 3–4 minutes. Add kale, cooking and stirring a few minutes till wilted.
Add shrimp; cook for 2–4 minutes depending on size.
Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.
Do you have a favorite kale recipe? Have you been wary of trying it? Let us know in the comments!
The president was busy on a tour in the south this week but still wrote letters to encourage Argentina's president and chastise the European Parliament. Presidencia
On a whistlestop tour of the Maya Train project, President López Obrador touched base on the weekend through his home state Tabasco, as well as Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo. The 1,500-kilometer rail project promises to link up the southeast and draw tourists inland but is under threat due to legal wrangling.
Monday
Grassroots politics were addressed on Monday: government fertilizers were destined for 700,000 agricultural producers in five more states than in the previous year. Farmers in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Durango, Nayarit and Zacatecas will now also benefit from a program that provides free fertilizers to small scale farmers, Agriculture Minister Víctor Villalobos Arámbula told reporters. Previous recipients had been farmers in Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos.
Violence was next on the agenda, but it didn’t concern the usual suspects, since 26 people had been injured in a massive fight at a football match in Querétaro city on the weekend. “We must continue to moralize the country and address the origins of violence,” the president said.
He also warned of a threat posed by another group: feminists preparing for International Women’s Day marches in Mexico City on Tuesday.
International Women’s Day marches in Mexico City were peaceful, but the president focused on the violence that did occur. Twitter
“We have information that they are preparing with sledgehammers, blowtorches and Molotov cocktails,” AMLO said. “They would like to vandalize the [National] Palace and the [Metropolitan] Cathedral, to present an image of Mexico in flames, because they do not agree with the transformation we are carrying out.”
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell promoted gender equality and announced six consecutive weeks of reduction in the fourth wave of the pandemic.
On International Women’s Day, the president had a long list of women to thank: Leona Vicario, who aided insurgents during the independence struggle; the wife of Benito Juárez, Margarita Maza de Juárez; the Adelitas, women who fought in the Revolution; and one other revolutionary, Carmen Serdán.
Feminism in Mexico, he added, was alive and well: the government has the highest-ever number of women ministers, the legislature is 50% female and four of 11 Supreme Court judges are women. He said economic equality was a priority, with “millions of women in poverty,” and argued for a culture that “does not maintain authoritarian, sexist attitudes … There should be no hate crimes and no femicides,” he said.
However, later in the conference, the president had some stiff words for protesting feminists he said were aligned with the conservative movement: “Where do these feminists come from? … When has conservatism defended the rights of women? When?”
Meanwhile, a businessman had criticized the president for being an agitator. “I’m an agitator of consciences,” AMLO conceded.
Wednesday
Feminist marches on Tuesday had been generally peaceful, AMLO said, but “there were some, let’s say, incidents.”
The administration’s “lies in the media” czarina Elizabeth García Vilchis revealed the good, the bad and the ugly in the fake news of the week. She confirmed that train heists hadn’t increased and rubbished the claim that the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) had had its largest deficit in 31 years.
According to fake news guru Elizabeth García Vilchis, the newspaper Reforma manipulated statistics to falsely show that train robberies were up.
On a court ruling to suspend construction of the Maya Train, the president said there would be no halting his flagship project. “It will be decided by the court … in due course. It’s not going to stop us,” he said.
More annoying to AMLO were the whereabouts of the headdress of Moctezuma, the last Aztec emperor. “It was illegally stolen,” the president said, implicating Austria as the culprit.
“They feel they own it. They appropriated something that’s ours … I’m not even angry anymore,” he added.
Thursday
Chapultepec park, Mexico City’s gargantuan green space more than twice the size of New York’s Central Park, topped Thursday’s agenda as it’s getting a healthy makeover.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that the new fourth section of the park would cover 88 acres, and she accused the Enrique Peña Nieto government of trying to turn it into a fancy residential area before mentioning that a new five-kilometer cable car would link up the whole park.
The old presidential residence, Los Pinos, has been opened to the public, but Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto said it has been a tricky job.
“They left it empty. There was nothing, not even a glass to drink water or a pan to heat a tortilla,” she said, referring to the previous presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto. AMLO broke with tradition when he was elected in 2018 by declining to live there, unlike all but one president since 1935.
Frausto added she was told to take advantage of Buen Fin, Mexico’s discount shopping holiday, to buy kitchenware, then announced that culture ministers from 190 countries would convene for an event in Chapultepec park in 2022.
The president promised gas and electricity prices wouldn’t rise, despite huge global hikes due to the conflict in Ukraine. He also mentioned some financial advice for his friend, Argentina President Alberto Fernández, who was meeting with officials from the International Monetary Fund to discuss his country’s mammoth debt. AMLO recommended accepting a postponement in payments rather than declaring bankruptcy.
Reading from a letter, the Tabascan offered Fernández a pep talk: “I’m sure you’ll be immune to the threatening media strategy because you are aided by reason, you work for the people and you’re a good governor.”
He also congratulated the Argentine president and his wife, who are expecting a child.
AMLO managed to give Argentine President Alberto Fernández a pep talk while simultaneously disparaging the media. Presidencia
Friday
The president was in the modern Casablanca on Friday: Tapachula, Chiapas. The border city is the main entry point from Central America where tens of thousands of migrants await their paperwork to advance toward the United States, not knowing if it will ever arrive.
Chiapas Governor Rutilio Escandón assured that the migrant situation was receiving rigorous attention and announced his permanent admiration for the president. “You will always be, with a lot of affection … and with a lot of respect, tattooed in the hearts of the people of Chiapas,” he said.
Later in the conference, the president said that the solution to the migration crisis was to create work in Central America and urged U.S. President Biden to invest in the region. However, he didn’t touch on how to help Haitian migrants, 30,000 of which are currently awaiting resolution in Tapachula.
The tabasqueño added that he would visit El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Cuba in May, a list that omits Nicaragua, where the leftist dictator Daniel Ortega reigns supreme.
“It’s unfortunate that, like sheep, you join the reactionary and coup-like strategy of the corrupt group that opposes [AMLO’s administration] … Mexico is no longer a land of conquest … Mexico is a pacifistic country … we do not send weapons to any country under any circumstances, as you are doing now,” AMLO read from his letter to the parliament, referring to the European Union’s military support of Ukraine.
Mexico City’s Campo Marte sports complex, in the Polanco neighborhood, will open its doors this weekend to thousands of foodies, wine lovers and locals for Sabor es Polanco, one of Mexico City’s major annual gastronomical festivals.
Happening March 12 and 13, Sabor es Polanco’s eighth annual event will bring together restaurants, national winemakers and spirits distillers, as well as hundreds of gourmet products, for visitors to sample at their leisure. Attendees can map their own route through the festival, which will include over 200 stands.
This festival has become a capital tradition for businesses and the public alike. Capital restaurants as varied as Trivuu, La Palma and Il Becco will be in attendance.
Attendees will also be able to watch chefs prepare massive batches of paella over an open fire or roast a whole pig over a bed of coals while sipping top Mexican wines or a hand-crafted cocktail. Mezcals, tequilas, charandas and sotols will be featured for sampling, both from traditional and newcomer brands.
The event not only attracts top Mexican food and beverage providers but also a number of celebrities in the industry, including media figures, influencers, famous chefs, sommeliers and journalists.
Trivvu en Sabor es Polanco 2022
A preview of what Polanco’s Trivuu restaurant will be offering at this year’s Sabor es Polanco.
Tickets for this event, which runs both days from 1-6 p.m., can be purchased through Ticketmaster. Mexico News Daily
