Puebla Mexico Bedding Down

4. in my grandfather's Talavera-lined kitchen. I still have the secret family recipe, but it never tastes as good as it does in Puebla, where it remains a sacred favorite. Hankering to taste again the city's most famous culinary dish, mole poblano, and its festive, seasonal summertime splurge, chiles en nogada, I take a seat at El Mural de los Poblanos, one of Puebla's most renowned dining spots. At a small table beneath the restaurant's namesake mural, a massive stretch of Diego Rivera-like wall art, I gaze up to see the history of Puebla unfold. Historical scenes and figures, such as Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza, look down at me as I sip a beer - a drink the staff encourages all diners to help themselves to from a large, ice-filled bathtub by the door. It makes wa_tting for a table at this buzzy spot a breeze . .Mole, legendarily invented when nuns wanted to surprise a visiting cardinal with a feast, doesn't have an exact recipe, with chefs closely guarding the way they make it Nevertheless, this mix of various, unexpected ingredients, which range from chocolate and raisins to chilies, nuts, and stale bread, always emerges tasting sweet, smoky, and piquant simultaneously. Traditionally, Poblanos serve it atop chicken or turkey, crowned with scattered sesame seeds. Mine arrives at my table with turkey. After a moment with the mole, I turn my attention to my other plate - chiles en nogada, a fal poblano pepper stuffed with spicy ground beef and blanketed with a creamy walnut sauce. The taste? It's like poetry. SIGHTS AND BITES: Clockwise from near right. peruse San Francisco Church, the International Museum of the Baroque. and Santa Maria Tonantzintla Below. try the chiles en nogada at El Mural de los Poblanos, the history comes together for me. Amid all the expected adornments, this little chapel reveals the secret resistance of indigenous workers, who crafted the interiors with cherubs in their own image and incorporated local symbols into the embellishment - including a Virgin Mary who bears a crafty resemblance to a local goddess. The passion of it, and the palpable soulfulness of the region, brings me unexpectedly to tears. Some say that the Puebla suburb of Angel6polis is just the opposite of ancient Cholula. Modern, trendy, luxurious, dotted with skyscrapers, universities, malls, and upscale developments, it contrasts sharply with Puebla's historic center. Fitting right in to that urbanscape, the 2-year-old International Museum of the Baroque is housed in a startlingly contemporary building. I reserve an entire afternoon to peruse it - and that's not enough. A feast for the senses, the museum draws me in at the door with baroque background music, tunes that have a Pied Piper effect a� they lead me from chamber to chamber. A blurb on the wall says that baroque (the path from room to rooi that presents baroque as a global movement, always bringing the s� back to Puebla. A repli of the historic district i one room, for example displays all the town's many baroque structm I leave the museum thinking it a masterpie destination in itself. My last afternoon, I visit Capilla del Rosaric stunning, gold-abunda: Talavera-bedecked bar, hideaway within the Church of Santo Domil in the historic district. Once called the "Eightl Wonder of the World," 1 tiny gilded room achie, baroque's ultimate goal exuberance and profm Awed, like many befor, me, I sit surrounded b� glimmer, long enough a priest to enter. When he does, I nervously realize that I'm wearin a miniskirt in this holy glittering place - a mis I shouldn't have made twice in Puebla. I expec him to throw me out w he turns to speak to me Instead, he says, "They architecture is music rr from stones. Can you h Puebla sing?" I do. I certainly do. abundantly extravagant, even edgy, style that defines Puebla's historical architecture) was meant to inspire awe. I've felt and seen that around the city. But in this canny, hands-on museum, I discover baroque was so much more. A clever labyrinth of themed rooms reveals how baroque infiltrated more than architecture - it showed up in music, design, science, art, literature, fashion, and beyond. Baroque was Rubens, Shakespeare, Vivaldi, gilt buildings, hoop skirts, and medicine's strides via anatomy, too. Within a somewhat whimsical structure conceived to make one reflect (it has pools of water for metaphor and walls that look like folded origami paper), I follow a PART OF PUEBLA'S allure comes'from the pre-Spanish heritage that encircles 'O(Ql'�'Q)UI it. Various villages, designated by the Mexican federal tourism board as pueblos mdgicos (magic towns), manifest the culture of Mesoamerican people. As a child, I visited Cholula, a short drive from downtown Puebla, to see its Great Pyramid, an adventure that _?.wakened a lifelong love for history, mystery, and archaeology. In my memories, I was the only person at the pyramid. On this visit, I'm in the company of many visitors. In turn, we enter the 3,500-year-old structure's bowels, wandering with guides through undulating tunnels once used by ancient people. Eventually, I pop out on a wide lawn, near an amphitheater, part of the 25-acre empire, where ingenious acoustics and mind-boggling artifacts - such as a stone slab for sacrifice - bring the past to life. The pyramid is just as moving as I remember it. Later in the day, I visit Santa Maria Tonantzintla, one of Cholula's most ornamented churches, just a stone's throw from the magnificent pyramid. Here, I �:s ,--<.,: Iz Uo a:� I v a: §i �3 �� ili � �� 2 uJ -z f'.:2 � ::, uJ <fl s2 0 "'Z uJ �2 28 vi � uJ 2 u.,: cl: __J ::, - __J @ til � u ,< 2.2 u. .;, 0 z ::£ t;] be i2 :J >­ z z <fl « 36 PRIVATECLUBSMAG COM FALL 201B