Hot sauce

One way to turn up the heat on a January day

By Kim Carlson

January 23, 2007

A friend of ours, Tom, a devotee of music and also of the spicy Mexican sauce known as mole, spotted a review of a Lila Downs performance in the New York Times today.

Because Tom, as previously mentioned, is a lover of mole, this quote about Downs (a Mexican-American singer whose work celebrates Latino culture) caught his attention: “A video shown as she sang ‘La Cumbia del Mole’ — celebrating the dish with an electrified cumbia worthy of Los Lobos — deserves heavy rotation on the Food Network.”

Not satisfied merely to read about such a hot video or wait for it to hit the Food Network, Tom tracked it down — where else? — on MySpace, for us all to enjoy. The video features Downs walking through a Mexican farmers’ market, women grinding mole ingredients (nuts, seeds, chiles, and the like), and dancing Virgin Mary dolls.

Thanks, Tom!