Mexican Wedding Cookies (Polvorones de Nuez), Savory Corn Bread (Torta de Elote)

Prompted by my upcoming trip to Guadalajara where I’ll be revisiting old haunts and seeing my university mates, I started thinking how I got to Guadalajara from El Paso, Texas, in the first place.

Having graduated in the top 10% of my high school class at Loretto Academy, I fully expected to go on to college in the United States, preferably in Arizona so I could go home on weekends to Agua Prieta, Sonora, my birthplace, where I had been having lots of fun on weekends away from boarding school in El Paso, Texas. My parents had other plans for me and I was incredulous.

Instead of pursuing the serious education I thought they had been preparing me for all my life, they decided to send me to finishing school in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. I never asked my mother how she found the Instituto Familiar y Social but there I was dipping large paper roses in wax and painting them with oils, knitting a complete layette set, making cameos out of minuscule flowers made out of breadcrumb paste, de-staining, learning flower arranging, making dress patterns and…cooking.

It was Mexican food but nothing like I’d grown up with — this was fancy food, the kind rich people ate at the time and it was good. Mind you, you weren’t expected to make it yourself, you had to learn enough to teach your cook how to make it. But I recently found the handwritten cookbook of my time there and I am astounded at how many of those recipes I still make today.

It’s amusing that though I ridiculed my experiences there, they were a key factor in getting my Mexican-inspired products into WalMart.

Take our famous corn flour bread that originally started as a zucchini bread, to go with the Camarones Tia Cuquita we have on the menu today, and these Mexican Wedding Cookies we make for special occasions. The influence has lasted for 40 years and the recipes are timeless.