The Address
She found it in a book she didn't mean to buy.
A market stall, a city she was leaving in two days, a table of paperbacks someone had clearly loved and then abandoned. She was killing time. She picked up something she'd already read, put it down, picked up something she'd never heard of, and a folded piece of paper fell out onto the cobblestones.
She almost didn't pick it up.
An address. Handwritten. No name, no context, no explanation. The paper was worn at the folds, like whoever wrote it had kept it for a while.
Her plans for the evening were nothing. A glass of wine at the hotel bar, maybe. A bath. The kind of night that disappears without leaving anything behind.
She went.
The street wasn't on her maps app. She checked twice. It was as if it existed slightly to the left of where she was looking. She found it eventually.
No sign. A door, slightly open, warm light coming through the gap - not quite an invitation, but enough of one. She went in.
The room was small. Six tables, maybe seven. Candles that had been burning since before she arrived and would keep burning after she left. A smell like garlic and butter and something green and wild underneath it - something she couldn't name but that made her feel like she'd been there before even though she absolutely had not.
A woman seated her without asking if she had a reservation. She didn't look at the menu for very long.
What came out of the kitchen was not what she ordered because she hadn't really ordered anything. She'd pointed at something and nodded and apparently that was enough.
A plate of quesadillas. But not like anything she'd had before.
The masa was fresh. You could tell immediately, the way you can always tell when something was made by hand that morning by someone who has been making it the same way for a very long time. The outside was fried just past golden, lightly crisp. The cheese inside had melted into the mushroom filling completely - quesillo, she found out later, pulled into strings and folded into something dark and herby that she couldn't identify.
That was the epazote. She didn't know that yet.
Someone poured her a drink, and she didn't ask questions, which felt like the right approach for the whole evening.
She ate slowly. She was in no hurry to be anywhere else and for once this didn't feel like a problem she needed to solve.
At some point she realized she was the last person in the room.
She didn't rush.
When she asked - casually, she thought she asked it casually - about the address, about the book, about how this place ended up on a folded piece of paper in a market stall three streets away, the waiter looked at her the way people look at someone who has said something in the wrong language.
We don't give out our address, he said.
She looked at him. He looked at her. Neither of them said anything else about it.
She paid. She stepped back out into the street.
When she got home she tried to make the quesadillas three times.
The first time she used the wrong cheese. The second time she found quesillo but couldn't find fresh epazote and used dried instead and they were good - really good - but something was missing in a way she couldn't fully explain to anyone who hadn't eaten the ones in Oaxaca.
The third time was the closest. She stood in her kitchen at midnight, the smell of garlic and butter and epazote coming up from the pan, and for a moment - just a moment - something about being in that room came back.
Not quite. But close.
She still has the note. She keeps it in the book she didn't mean to buy, which she has now read twice and will probably read again.
She has tried to find the restaurant on every map she knows. She has typed the address into four different apps, walked the street twice more since that night, stopped at every door that looked like it could be the one.
The street is there.
The door is there.
The light through the gap is not.
She went back to Oaxaca two years later. She told people it was for the markets, for the mezcal, for the architecture.
She walked that street first thing on the first morning.
The restaurant was not there. Or it was there and she couldn't find it, which she has decided is not the same thing.
She bought a book at the market on the way back. She hasn't opened it yet.
✦✹✦
Mushroom and Quesillo Quesadillas
- 2 cups masa harina (Maseca)
- 1¼ cups warm water
- ½ tsp salt
- 12 oz mixed mushrooms (oyster, cremini, whatever looks good)
- 1 white onion, finely diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 dried chile de árbol, crumbled
- 8 fresh epazote leaves
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp salt
- 8 oz quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese), pulled into strings
- 1 cup neutral oil for frying
- Lime wedges
- Salsa negra or hot sauce
1. Heat the olive oil and butter in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and cook for 3–4 minutes, until softened.
2. Add the chile de árbol and cook briefly, just until fragrant, then stir in the garlic.
3. Add the mushrooms and remaining salt. Let them get some color before stirring, then continue cooking until there is no more liquid, they are browned, and the pan is nearly dry.
4. Tear in the epazote and cook for another minute. You want the filling juicy enough to stay tender, but dry enough that it won't make the masa soggy. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly before filling.
1. Combine masa harina, water, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Knead for a couple of minutes until the dough is smooth and soft. It should be pliable without sticking to your hands or cracking around the edges.
3. If the edges crack when pressed, work in a little more warm water, one tablespoon at a time.
4. Cover with a damp cloth while you work.
1. Cut two circles from a plastic bag — I usually use a large ziploc bag.
2. Roll a piece of dough into a ball about 1 inch in diameter.
3. Place one plastic circle on the bottom of a tortilla press, set the ball on top, cover with the second circle.
4. Press down firmly. You want a disk about ¼ inch thick.
5. Remove the top plastic. Place 2 tablespoons quesillo and 1½ tablespoons mushroom filling in the center.
6. Use the bottom plastic to fold the dough over the filling like a turnover. Pinch the edges firmly together.
7. Gently lift off the plastic and set aside. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
1. Heat neutral oil — about 1 inch deep — in a large skillet over medium heat until hot but not smoking.
2. Fry in batches without crowding, 2–4 minutes per side until golden and lightly crisp.
3. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate. Keep warm while you fry the rest.
1. Squeeze lime generously over the top.
2. Serve with salsa negra on the side.
3. Eat them hot. They do not improve with waiting and neither does most of the good stuff in life.
quesillo is non-negotiable. It pulls apart into strings and melts differently and that texture inside the fried masa is the whole point. Mozzarella is not the same thing. If you can't find quesillo, find a Mexican grocery store. It's worth the trip.
