Freddy's Birthday Party

I have eaten green mole exactly once in my life.  It was at Freddy's Birthday Party, which as I recall, was a big deal for the grandmother of Freddy (as he was her favorite) and the family threw a huge bash with lots of great food, dancing, and buckets and buckets of cold Budweiser in cans.  Freddy and his brothers and cousins made up the entire dishwashing staff at Paragarys in Sacramento, where I was a newbie pizza/pantry cook, and where I met my lovely wife, and where I fell in love with cooking and restaurants, and where I met Patrick who was the sous chef, and became a short time roomate, and eventually my best man at the wedding, and who now is the king of the Sacramento catering and dining scene, running both Culinary Specialists and Mulvaney Building and Loan restaurant. (hows that for a recap?)

The party was a blast, it was deep in the heart of scary ghetto Sacramento, not too far from where we eventually bought our first house to fix up.  Patrick, Becca, and I were the only whiteys at the party, and we were treated like honored guests... and implored to eat and eat and eat.  The food was made with as much love as a Mexican Grandmother can muster.  And green mole was one of the dishes, which Patrick explained was made with pumpkin seeds, and it was awesome.

Green Mole finished and ready for chicken.

Braised pork ready to crisp in the oven and then gets our chili sauce.

Con Agra called again and we cooked for their all employee luncheon.  We were supposed to make green chili chicken (its this tex-mexy homestyle casserole style dish I ripped off from my mom) and braised pork with red chili sauce, which at its core is really carnitas (and is the base recipe for the pork we serve on our sandwich shop torta).  All was well, but when I started to make the chicken sauce, I remembered Freddy's Grandmother and had to try my hand at green mole rather than the green chili sauce.  With a bit of assistance from Diane Kennedy's "My Mexico" cookbook the mole was superb.  And when the guests at Con Agra asked "who made the mole?" they never expected to hear "me".  And when the guests asked "is your grandma Mexican?" they never expected to hear "no".  And when the guest said "only my grandmother makes green mole, and that was really good" he paid us the highest compliment possible.

Green mole got me thinking about Patrick, and Paragary's, and the old days when I was a pizza cook and Becca thought I was super cute with my flour dusted forearms.  So we made pizza for Frances' (our Frankie, kind of close to Freddy, huh) Birthday party.  Here is the spanish chorizo, red torpedo pepper, and jalepeno pie, for the adults, the kids got cheese.  And in honor of Freddy's Grandma, a shot of our pulled pork torta with a crisp and cold Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Cheers