{"id":1446,"date":"2013-07-11T21:04:56","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T11:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2017-11-05T08:03:43","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T08:03:43","slug":"mexican-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/countries\/americas\/mexico\/1446","title":{"rendered":"Mexican birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"size-medium wp-image-1587\"><a href=\"http:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/?attachment_id=1595\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1595\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1595\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/9025602340_1ba1b03d36_c-225x300.jpg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/9025602340_1ba1b03d36_c-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/9025602340_1ba1b03d36_c.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>Our Mexico trip was a way for Fiona to avoid her 40th birthday. By being in a time zone 15 hours ahead of our own, she could pretend that local well-wishers were too early, and when she got messages from Sydney they were too late. She never really had a birthday at all.<\/p>\n<p>I think that logic was spoiled by the fact that she had such a great day. While we were eating breakfast, the hotel staff put on some Mexican music and brought out a heart-shaped muffin with a candle. Then they sang <a title=\"full lyrics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.1happybirthday.com\/mananitas.php\" target=\"_blank\">La Mananitas<\/a>, which is traditionally sung to wake up a loved one on their birthday. This is the first time I&#8217;ve heard a birthday song that wasn&#8217;t just a translation of the English &#8216;Happy Birthday&#8217;, and I love that they maintain this expression of their own culture.<\/p>\n<p>We spent the morning learning to cook a number of Mexican dishes, including a corn chowder, a sweet potato salad, papadzules &#8216;food of the gods&#8217; and a dessert made from squash. Our teacher, <a title=\"bio on Casa del Pan\" href=\"http:\/\/www.casadelpan.com\/founders.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Kippy Nigh<\/a>, was an American who has lived in Mexico for 40 years, has her own <a title=\"Casa del Pan\" href=\"http:\/\/www.casadelpan.com\/English.htm\" target=\"_blank\">vegetarian restaurant<\/a> in San Cristobal and writes <a title=\"her first book on Amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kippy-Nigh\/e\/B001K8J8KE\" target=\"_blank\">Mexican cookbooks<\/a>. She was the perfect person to introduce us to the art of cooking real Mexican food.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/murraygunn\/9025633588\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1588\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1588 alignright\" title=\"Food of the gods\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/P1050508-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/P1050508-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/P1050508-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>When we were so full that we thought we&#8217;d struggle to get back into the car, Kippy brought out a Polish apple cheesecake and she, her local assistant Rosy and Patrick sang the same Mexican birthday song while Fiona sat beaming.<\/p>\n<p>Before we left Australia, we booked a special restaurant for Fiona&#8217;s now unnecessary birthday dinner, which turned out to be a short walk from where we were staying. It was in another luxury hotel on the outskirts of town with open grassy areas amongst traditional-style buildings. We had the place to ourselves. Although we had to leave most of it, the food was delicious and it was followed by a birthday pecan pie, of which we managed a few mouthfuls.<\/p>\n<p>No one sang to Fiona after dinner, and by now she&#8217;d become accustomed to being 40, so she made me sing Happy Birthday as we walked home&#8230; Until I obliged. Then she begged me to stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our Mexico trip was a way for Fiona to avoid her 40th birthday. By being in a time zone 15 hours ahead of our own, she could pretend that local well-wishers were too early, and when she got messages from Sydney they were too late. She never really had a birthday at all. I think&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/countries\/americas\/mexico\/1446\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mexican birthday<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142],"tags":[155,153,143],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1601,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}