7 Days in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

A Wine and Food Festival Knocks my Socks Off

For 3 extraordinary days, San Miguel played host to its first-ever "Festival Sabor" (Flavor Festival). This was the best food festival I ever attended.

This 3-day extravaganza of Mexican food and wine was brilliantly planned and beautifully presented.  The galaxy's best-known authorities on Mexican cuisine were star performers.  Mexico's best vintners also had star billing.  It was all very glamorous.

In addition to being lots of fun, this festival also raised lots of money for the local "Feed the Hungry" organization.

Above: The Food Festival program and a wine brochure.   And a very-spiffy ring-binder wine diary, compliments of Mexico's Banamex bank, for recording your thoughts about each wine you taste at the festival.

Above: Two chefs and their shrimp paella, hot off the fire. These guys are with Los Secretos: a catering-wedding-party company in San Miguel.  Their beauteous website is Here.

Fifty-some local restaurants and Mexican wineries served up their best recipes for this event.  You could taste them all. 

Above:  Oscar, a pastry guy with Petit Four pastry shop.

Above: Mexican wine expert Deby Beard.  She is president of Beard & Asociados. She also imports Riedel glassware from Austria.   Deby's blog is Here. 

Deby is interviewing a wine guy from a vineyard named Vinicola Salinas.  (I think he might be Gilberto Salinas.)

Another Terrific Art School. Another Terrific Art-School Cafe.

Above: The courtyard fountain in Instituto Allende.

San Miguel de Allende is filled to the brim with art, culture, and colonial architecture.  And art schools. Each school is better than the next.  Each school has its own courtyard cafe. So you can have an Americano coffee while studying about Frida Kahlo.

Above: Someone relaxing in the couryard cafe at the Instituto Allende.

Above: Clarke pretending he's an art professor at the Instituto Allende, with the Parroquia church in the background.

Actually, Clarke did write a book about Mennonite art.  Not Mexican art.  And there are Mennonites in Mexico.  (They make Menonita cheese in Chihuahua.) Clarke's  book is Here.