We start our day with breakfast at Itanoni Restaurant, a Michelin bib gourmand restaurant.
It doesn't look like much from the outside, ...
...but is a lovely garden patio inside.
Standard breakfast fare includes "cafe de olla" (coffee in a pot) made with cinnamon and sugar.
A tortilla with black beans and cheese. We also had cochinita pibil tacos, but failed to get a picture.
Then we move on to the Seasons of My Heart cooking school.
The eating tables are in the foreground, and a full kitchen behind.
First we have a cheese-making demonstration by a local woman that has been doing it for decades.
She slowly stirs the milk mixture...
...and the strings begin to form.
She pulls out the mixture and stretches it, ...
...then wraps it into a ball, tucking in the loose end.
The main chef is Kaelin Ulrich Trilling, son of the founder, and incredibly overqualified for this
position, having worked at Nobu, for Chef Marcus Samuelson, and for Chef Thomas Keller.
Outside, Kimberly starts roasting the tomatoes on the comal.
Back inside, she peels the tomatoes and prepares them for the soup.
Meanwhile Chef Kaelin demonstrates the next steps in the green mole.
Wade is on the team making appetizers, including stirring and reducing this puree of beans and chiles.
Kimberly adding the tomato mixture into the sweating onions and garlic.
All done!
The appetizer from Wade's team, a triangular-folded tortilla with the bean and chile sauce,
with some crema on top.
Kimberly squeezing some lime into the tortilla soup that her team made. Absolutely
incredible depth of flavor.
Another team worked on the salad course, with a delicious citrus and spice dressing.
The plated salad course.
One team was working on the green mole sauce, served over chicken with rice.
The closest we got to a selfie with Chef Kaelin.
The final course, the best bread pudding that we have ever had.
That evening, we have another slide show on traditional Oaxacan cuisine,
including regional and holiday specialties.
The only picture from dinner on our own, with some lovely salsas.
