My Mexico City Kitchen: Recipes and Convictions

Cámara, owner of the Contramar restaurant in Mexico City and Cala in San Francisco, offers recipes from those restaurants as well as her family recipes in this inviting and well-written cookbook. She provides, among many others, the recipe for Contramar’s famed tuna tostada, which can also be made with trout, as is done at her San Francisco restaurant. Another signature dish is a butterflied red snapper with fiery red salsa on half the fish and milder green salsa on the other. There are plenty of homey dishes alongside the restaurant choices, and basics are ably explained, including thorough instructions for making one’s own tortillas (“Make tortillas from masa harina,” and don’t press them too thinly). Flexibility and adaptation are emphasized: “Everything can be a taco,” Cámara insists in an essay that lauds the tacos at a tiny stand in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City. Yet, title notwithstanding, many recipes hail from elsewhere, as she defines Mexico City as a “melting pot.” A chapter on antojitos—appetizers and snacks—includes an octopus salad handed down by the author’s Italian maternal grandmother and sopa de lima from the Yucatan. Personal touches like a paean to great Mexican food writer Diana Kennedy and a meditation on mole are lovingly crafted. Cámara’s delightful cookbook offers a nuanced window into the evolving cuisine of Mexico City and beyond. (Apr.)