Frida Kahlo at the table

In the Mexican style, the big meal is the midday *comida*: you start with a *sopa*, then a long-simmered *plato fuerte* (often a mole), with warm tortillas as you like, and an *agua fresca* or *café de olla* to finish. Around it revolve the *antojitos* (little market bites eaten standing) and, once a year, the *ofrenda* of Día de Muertos, where food becomes an offering to the dead. At Frida's Casa Azul in Coyoacán, this colorful table was both an art of living and a cuisine.

All of Frida's cooking revolves around dried Mexican chiles (chilhuacle, ancho, pasilla, mulato) that are toasted then ground, and the *metate*, the three-legged grinding stone inherited from the Aztecs, on which chiles, spices, seeds, and even cacao are reduced into fragrant pastes. This is the backbone of mole.