Moveable Feast comes to the party

remained a very small town, functioning mainly as the settlement for servants working in the haciendas. At the beginning of the 18th century, it had a population of 126 people, jumping to just 145 in 1900.

There was no primary or secondary road through Cholul, which limited the presence of outsiders.

In 1937, Mexico’s President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated much of the land and institutionalized the ejido — a system of commmunal property. This meant that the servants of Cholul, like those in other parts of the state, obtained collective land titles and formed assemblies, making them ejidatarios, people given the right to use communal land.

Working conditions improved and work diversified. Ejidatarios could earn extra income by going to the farms of former hacienda owners. However, even after this change in social composition, there were no significant population movements. Until the late 1990s, the town remained mostly apart from Mérida. Then things changed.

As of 2020, Cholul has a population of over 17,000. With the real estate boom in recent years, developments and housing areas have been increased in the region, but mainly in Cholul’s outskirts, which has allowed the Plaza Principal to maintain its original look and feel.

Building lots remain plentiful, but are getting snapped up by foreigners, nationals from outside Yucatán, and locals seeking more space and peace. Houses on the market range from modest to opulent, sometimes verging on the grandiose. Closer to the Periférico, the highway loop

A mural was created by local children with the help from CUAM, Habla, Edúcate, and Sherwin Williams.

At yucatanmagazine.com read about an apiary in Cholul where sacred bees are cared for.

that surrounds most of Mérida, high rises alter the skyline.

The current 1940s-era Municipal Palace was restored after its collapse by Hurricane Gilberto in 1988. It houses the municipal police station, the civil registry, an elections station, and school.

Annexed to the Municipal Palace is the market, library and Cultural Center Jacinto Canek, where classes in handicrafts, painting, embroidery, guitar, and counseling are offered.

The church dates from the mid-17th century and is dedicated to San Pedro Apóstol. Its Guadalupan guilds date back to 1948. Outside, vaquerías are celebrated in April and August and feature traditional dances. Cholul has its own Carnival, Hanal Pixan, and Christmas posadas.

When visiting the square there’s an undeniably welcoming feel. Even today, Cholul has not lost its slow-living vibe. 

A house north of Cholul’s historic Plaza Principal was designed by FMT Estudio for a tech-industry client intending to move here from Mexico City. The resident will telecommute from his new home. Across from Cholul’s main square, the Palacio Municipal and an adjacent complex that houses a library, market and cultural center, is the heart of the municipality.

»Kahlo by Andrea Kettenmann

The arresting paintings and drawings depicting Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954) are, in many ways, expressions of trauma. Through a near-fatal road accident at the age of 18, failing health, a turbulent marriage, miscarriage and childlessness, she transformed the afflictions into revolutionary art. In literal or metaphorical self-portraiture, Kahlo looks out at the viewer with an audacious glare, rejecting her destiny as a passive victim; instead, intertwining expressions of her experience into a hybrid real-surreal language of living: hair, roots, veins, vines, tendrils, and fallopian tubes. Many of her works also explore the Communist political ideals which Kahlo shared with her husband Diego Rivera. The artist described her paintings as “the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself.” This book introduces the rich body of Kahlo’s work to explore her unremitting determination as an artist, and her significance as a painter, feminist icon, and a pioneer of Latin American culture. Hardcover, 96 pages, 427 pesos

»Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran

In this astonishing novel, Shanthi Sekaran gives voice to the devotion and anguish of motherhood through two women bound together by their love for one boy. Soli, a young undocumented Mexican woman in Berkeley, California, finds that motherhood offers her an identity in a world where she’s otherwise invisible. When she is placed in immigrant detention, her son comes under the care of Kavya, an Indian-American woman overwhelmed by her own impossible desire to have a child. As Soli fights for her son, Kavya builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else’s child. From rural Oaxaca to Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto to the dreamscapes of Silicon Valley, Lucky Boy offers a moving and revelatory look at the evolving landscape of the American dream and the ever-changing borders of love. Paperback, 496 pages, 393 pesos 

Juanita Stein owns the bookstore Between the Lines on the corner of Calle 62 and 53 in the Centro. Visit facebook.com/BetweenTheLinesMerida

First person Personal chef

Mérida has embraced cook-turned entrepreneur Carlos Jimenez

My name is Carlos Jimenez Zenteno. I was born in Nacajuca, Tabasco in 1987. I am the fifth of seven siblings. I studied in Villahermosa until high school, being the winner of several awards in public speaking and as a team coordinator. I then moved to Mérida by myself to continue my studies.

My first job in Mérida was taking care of elderly people, for which I was offered a place to live and a salary. A few years later, I found a job in a hotel where I started as a porter performing various activities.

While working in the hotel kitchen preparing breakfast for 24 people daily, I discovered that I could do more than chilaquiles and other Mexican snacks, so I would search for new recipes among the cookbooks in the hotel library to prepare different American-style breakfasts. When the owner of the hotel realized what I was doing,

he offered to teach me how to cook different styles of food.

After a while, the owner told me that I should pursue a career in gastronomy - that it would be easy for me since I had the interest and the talent. The only thing I lacked was the money to pay for school, so the owner of the hotel recruited a group of foreign residents who, month after month, would give me monthly payments for my apartment and studies.

During my last year of college, I began serving as a home chef to people in the foreign community in Mérida. After being selected to organize the housewarming party for the newly renovated Casa de Las Torres in 2012, I became the exclusive caterer for the owners' private events.

These experiences inspired me to form Moveable Feast Yucatán catering, which has achieved great popularity among the expat community.

Currently, I work as the manager of Casa de Las Torres, where we now host a variety of events that require the services of chef, florist, coordinator, and decorator. My goal is to ensure that clients have a unique and memorable experience.

Today I consider myself to be very good at organizing and coordinating unique and special events including decorating with flowers, and I work in a very personal way with a high level of quality in my products.

My recommendation for people who like to entertain at home is to always include something new and unexpected in both their menu and their table decor, to make their events fun and memorable.

Guests will appreciate the thought and detail that goes into an event that was designed specially for them. 

“While working in the hotel kitchen preparing breakfast for 24 people daily,

I discovered that I could do more than chilaquiles ... ”

CARLOS JIMENEZ

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