Tengo Hambre: Getting My Sweet Tooth On

In early March, I kept having the same dream.

I was in a salsa-filled pool, resting on top of a giant piece of corn tortilla, sipping my weight in horchata. You guessed it: I was ready to head to Mexico.

The trip came as quite a surprise, and was planned something like this. Me: "I have a job! I'm taking a pre-job vacation!" My parents: "Come to Mexico with us!" My sister: "I'm coming along!" There it was: a family vacation. For a week, we traveled through Puebla, Taxco, with a last stop in Mexico City.

It won't be difficult for you to guess what we did: we ate. Quite a bit. And we cooked!

Take two sisters who like any dessert made with anything resembling sweetened condensed milk, add a street in Puebla that actually specializes in sweets (6 Oriente at 5 de Mayo), and you've already got a good start. 

The sweets of Puebla are quite diverse, however. There seem to be two main specialties: the torta Santa Clara, a sablé-type cookie with a sweet glaze, and camotes or sweet potato candy. Consider them as a base to your Pueblan sweets pyramid; a myriad of little treats then stack up to create colorful shop windows. Looking for a custard-type bar? Rich and comforting, don't miss them and head to La Central. 

Coconut and sweetened condensed milk also appear throughout shops, making a great snack if you've still got space for one (does anybody ever not? Or am I alone in thinking a meal is never actually over until you've had a couple snacks afterward?). Sinking your teeth into the smooth ball of sweetness and feeling the crunchy texture of the coconut is reason enough to head back over there and get a second one.

In our first hotel, breakfast came to an end with a small snack--now, you see, that was my kind of hotel.

Is this a joke? They brought us rocks? I know I'm said to eat many things, but as of yet I haven't felt the need to eat rocks. Maybe one day, but not now. Oh, ha ha ha! Clearly these weren't rocks. They're chocolate: chocopiedras (chocorocks, if you will). Have one and it's like you've bitten into a Cadbury Mini Egg (I have a running addiction to them, so I like to mention them absolutely all the time). They're irresistible, you can't stop at one. The chocolate is sweet with a sort of harldy-perceptible gritty quality to it. And somehow, there's something really fun in eating rocks. I'm twenty-four and not twelve, in case you were wondering.

I've been known to smuggle things in my pockets--like onion peels, but I was only ten so we can pretend like it never happened--but unfortunately none of these sweets actually made it to my pocket, and went directly into my mouth. Fortunately for my taste buds, then. 

And lest you think I had no stomach space left for anything but candy, think again. Or just come back in a couple of days.