El Molcajete posted on August 12, 2010 14:15
Tell me you don't love guacamole and I'll call your bluff. The Mexican dip is creamy, convivial, easy. And it's everywhere—prepared tableside, of course—thanks to chef and restaurateur, Josefina Howard.
Her guacamole, not to mention her Rosa Mexicano restaurant empire, inspired my classification system of the New York Latin culinary scene— B.G., "Before Guacamole," and A.G., "After Guacamole." Clever? Silly? You decide.
I mean it as a homage, of course. The lady—the force—behind the wildly successful string of taquerias asked us to taste authentic Mexican food and then to consider it an elevated cuisine. But like every great 1980s rock song (incidentally, Chef Howard opened the first Rosa Mexicano in 1984), the food needed an irresistible hook to appeal stateside.
Enter guacamole made tableside, sometimes studded with exotic ingredients like pomegranate seeds, always prepared in a molcajete.
Molca… what?