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Bringing Mexico to Leeds: Carne Asada in St. Marks

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Hello everybody!

Today I am here to write about something awesome, fantastic and unforgettable, one of my best days in Leeds… well, maybe I am exaggerating a bit. But you know, as a Mexican, what I most enjoy about my country is the food. Even international food in Mexico has a special flavour; sushi has chipotle sauce and avocado, and pizzas have beans and jalapeños (I apologize in advance to Italy and Japan if we offend their cuisine, we just love our ingredients so much!). But this post is about the day we had a BBQ in the St. Marks residency for postgraduate students. I should say that we call it carne asada (grilled meat) because we do not put BBQ sauce on our meat, but for international purposes, it is called BBQ.

My Mexican friends in Leeds and I organized the day when we knew it would be sunny and took advantage of the day without rain, we invited other friends from many different parts of the world to taste our food and we made the best we could with three small grills. The event was in St. Marks because they have a nice common area with a big garden and they also own the grills as well as clamps and other kitchen stuff we needed to bring Mexico to Leeds.

We had guacamole (and perfect aguacates), tortillas, quesadillas, salsa, peppers, so we could make all kinds of combinations: tacos, quesadillas, tostadas. As it was a special occasion, I got a £5 Rib-Eye steak from Co-op, but some friends had meat from Tesco or Morrisons, and as this was an international carne asada, some people who do not eat beef brought chicken, lamb, or just vegetables to grill. We added a bit of salt, some minutes on the grill and voilà! Plus, we got some cold beers perfect for the sunny day and 22°C, what else can you ask for?

It was a great day and we all enjoyed our carne asada in England. I thought it was going to be harder because of the weather and the kind of ingredients we find here, but it turned out to be a very decent dinner, very similar to what we would have in Mexico.

May more carne asada and sunny days come to us!