The Thousands

I thought I’d never see nopales until I went back to Mexico. Nopales are cactus leaves. Mexicans eat them in salads and in corn tortillas and they come in slimy brine, and have the taste and texture in between eggplant and zucchini. I also thought I’d have to wait to eat corn tortillas with that real corn smell, until I remembered that there was a place somewhere in the ‘burbs of Adelaide that sold real Mexican ‘stuff’.

I’d seen it once – was it just a dream? It had a wall of chili salsas with names like “Death Becomes Her” and “Ring Blaster”* (*could’ve just made these up). It had moved around, but now it’s perched on Magill Road. Chile Mojo sells Mexican paraphernalia, like Oaxacan throws, sombreros, and a few lucha libre and Day of the Dead mementos, but more importantly, they stock some of the essentials for Mexican cooking that the Tex-Mex brands in supermarkets side-step for bland, such as chipotle, spicy mole (bean paste), the aforementioned tortillas (both maize and wheat), and hot chocolate tablets that have layers of cinnamon and vanilla. Until I get back to the real thing, I’m stocking up here if I can’t make the trek up Magill Road.