Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photos: Francisco Collazo and Julie Schwietert Collazo
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We’ve visited many cemeteries while traveling: the Petit Family Cemetery on the land where I grew up in South Carolina, where the graves of slaves are indicated with simple rocks.

Cementerio Colon in Havana, Cuba, where the sister of Francisco’s son is buried.

The local cemetery in Mompox, Colombia, at night, during a ceremony honoring the dead, candles flickering on tombstones and families holding hands, some crying, some talking quietly, some entirely silent and meditative.

The municipal cemetery in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where ostentatious monuments marking the final resting place of former governors and famous families draw attention from the old crypts, cracked open by decay, displaying bones on the back retaining wall of the cemetery.

New Orleans’ St. Louis Cemetery

a cemetery in southern Chile

It’s not that we have a fetish for the dead. But there’s something illustrative about a place, a culture, and its people that can be narrated without words when you visit a cemetery.
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Perhaps you’ve visited cemeteries on your travels, too, or stopped at the graves of the famous dead to honor them or simply say you’d been there.

But like us, you probably haven’t spent much time at the cemetery in your hometown.

Woodlawn Cemetery, one of New York City’s cemeteries, is located in the north Bronx in an area that was considered rural back in 1863, when the cemetery was founded. More than 300,000 people have been buried at Woodlawn since then, and many of them constitute a Who’s Who list of American public life.

We visited recently:

The tomb of Miles Davis

The mausoleum of Augustus Juilliard, founder of The Juilliard School

The tomb of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an abolitionist and advocate of women’s rights, famous for writing The Declaration of Sentiments

The tomb of Joseph Pulitzer, the so-called father of journalism. Founded Columbia University’s School of Journalism and the Pulitzer Prize.

The modest tomb of Ralph Bunche, who, among many other accomplishments, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, the first African American to receive the honor.

What cemeteries have you visited on your travels and what have they taught you?

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photos: Francisco Collazo
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It’s hard to believe if you’re not a New Yorker, but after you’ve lived here a while, this city starts to seem small.

There’s always something to do, but the city is compact enough to feel like you know every one of its corners.

And then you stumble upon something like the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt.

Teddy, the 26th President of the United States, was born in Manhattan and lived in this home on E. 20th Street between Park Avenue South and Broadway until he was 14, when he moved uptown to the 50s.

Though we all think we know the Roosevelt presidents well (at least compared to a more obscure president, like Grover Cleveland), Francisco and I learned a heap about Teddy and his family during a visit to his birthplace last year.

His father was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History uptown, and Teddy took a turn in office as governor of New York before running as vice-president and eventually assuming the presidency after the assassination of McKinley.

Roosevelt didn’t let his size slow him down; he was an avid naturalist and sportsman who enjoyed keeping detailed narratives of his travels. Many of these were published, including Big Game Hunting in the Rockies and on the Great Plains and African Game Trails.

He also enjoyed bringing home trophies from his travels, some of which are on prominent display at the birthplace.

Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace is a National Historic Site run by the National Parks Service. If you’d like to visit, the home is open Tuesday-Saturday from 9 AM to 5 PM, with 30-minute tours offered every hour on the hour between 10 and 4. Admission is free.

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photos: As indicated
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After spending the morning finishing up a 1,500 word essay on living in Mexico City, I was hungry and only one dish would satisfy me: chilaquiles.

The Masa AssAssin

Among the joys of Mexican food–and there are so many: the full color spectrum on your plate; the unexpected depth of flavor resulting from the combination of chocolate and cinnamon and smoky hot peppers; a repertoire of recipes so vast that one could even a different meal every day for a year and not even begin to get beyond the first volume of la cocina Mexicana–is this one: you can cook exceptionally elaborate recipes or exceedingly simple ones. And chilaquiles are both simultaneously.

Horrified that the Epicurious version called for packaged tortilla chips (DO NOT USE THEM!), I did a Spanish language search for a more “authentic” recipe. Still dissatisfied, I devised my own receta, built largely around the ingredients we happened to have on hand.

And this is still another joy of Mexican cooking: like dancing, once you’ve learned the basic steps, you take what you know and improvise.

This recipe makes enough chilaquiles verdes for two hungry people or three less ravenous folks.

INGREDIENTS:
-3 flour tortillas
-3 tomatillos (the hard little green “tomatoes” encased in a delicate papery skin)
-2-3 cloves of garlic
-1/2-1 jalapeno, seeds removed
-a generous fistful of cilantro
-1 cup of water
-1/2 cup-1 cup of corn oil
-sour cream
-thinly sliced ribbons of onion, raw

EQUIPMENT:
-Food processor or blender
-Wok
-Tongs
-Paper towels

DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut the tomatillos into quarters, peel the garlic, and remove the seeds from the jalapeno. Rinse the cilantro. Put all these ingredients in the food processor or blender and pulse until they are the consistency of a smooth (as opposed to chunky) salsa.

2. Cut the tortillas into triangular shaped wedges. Line a plate with two paper towels and set aside.

3. Pour enough oil in the bottom of the wok to cover the tortillas. Heat the oil on medium high. When hot, place the cut tortillas in the oil. They should be in a single layer. Cook until golden– they will cook quickly, so stay alert. Flip them so they turn golden on the other side; then remove to the plate with the paper towels.

4. Drain the oil, then place the tomatillo mixture in the wok over medium heat. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes. I added some pulled chicken Francisco had left over from making croquettes. You could add ground beef, chicken, or turkey, too. Add the cup of water and let the mixture come to a low boil; let simmer for about 5-10 minutes until the mix has reduced but has not become entirely dry.

5. Add the tortillas to the mix in the wok, stirring them around with the tongs. Do not let them get soggy–three to five minutes should do it.

6. Plate the chilaquiles. Add a dollop of sour cream and garnish with the onion.

Serve, if you’d like, with a scrambled or sunny side up egg on the side. Refried beans are also a popular side, and avocado slices are a lovely complement.

*A couple of notes:

Chilaquiles come in at least two iterations: verdes (green) and rojos (red). Verdes, as explained here, are made with the tomatillo salsa. Rojos are made with red tomatoes, as pictured in the photo at the top.

Also, the consistency of chilaquiles varies considerably. Some people like theirs soupy; others prefer them dry.

Finally, Mexicans making chilaquiles tend to use clay pots to make chilaquiles. A wok is a decent substitute, especially for quick chilaquiles like these.

Text: Julie Schwietert Collazo
Photos: Francisco Collazo
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“I was in the fifth grade the first time I visited a prison,” I told a friend recently.

“Are you kidding? Why?”
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In addition to a prison (including an “opportunity” to sit in the state’s electric chair), I’d visited any number of plantations by the time I was 10. For the outside observer, the list of elementary school field trips commonly experienced by kids in the American South is nothing short of puzzling and bizarre, if not downright disturbing.

In retrospect, and having more world experience, I’d be inclined to agree. But like most aspects of childood, our frame of reference is set by the catalog of our own experiences, and at the time I didn’t find anything about this macabre.
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While visiting family in South Carolina this past December, Francisco mentioned that he’d like to visit a plantation. He wanted to get a better sense of Southern history, and felt that a plantation would be a good place to start, and so it was that we drove down to Union County, so far off-grid, in fact, that our cell phones didn’t work.

The Rose Hill Mansion, the architectural centerpiece of the plantation by the same name, sits off the two-lane road that gave Francisco some serious heebie-jeebies. I’ve lived off these kinds of roads for more than half of my life, but he’s a city guy. Too much “empty” space makes him anxious. We approach the back door, as that’s where the path from the small parking lot seems to lead.

Charles Barreras, the house’s interpreter, pokes his head out the door. “Now you’re not from here,” he says, shaking his head. I’m a bit indignant; I like to claim my Southernness when it seems to give me cred or when my turned-on accent might get me off the hook. “Oh yes I am,” I reply with an immaturity not becoming of a woman of my age. “You’re not,” he says flatly, making it clear that this part of our conversation is final, “because if you were, you would know not to come to the back door. You’re not a friend yet.” Never one to back down, I push some more. “But back door friends are best.”

Barreras shuts the door curtly, leaving us to meet him on the front porch, where we will be “received.”

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Rose Hill.

I’d never heard of it; just found it Googling because the other plantation I knew, the one where I planned to take Francisco, was closed for the holidays.

Apparently, there aren’t a whole lot of other folks who know about it either. “I’m so excited,” Barreras says when he opens the front door.” “You are the first people I have seen in 11 straight days. And there have been eight of you today!” He’s truly in disbelief. And delighted. The man is in his element, ready to dust off his interpreter’s hat (yes, there really is one) and talk plantation shop.

It’s not exactly the kind of shop Francisco wants to talk, though. He’s interested in knowing about the human back story of Rose Hill, specifically, the stories of the slaves who worked and lived here.

Barreras, though, is an architectural historian who uses technical words like “bleb” to talk about the condition of the house. (A bleb, by the way, refers to blistering, peeling paint). And he’s passionate about what he knows. He produces a pocket-sized magnifying glass, urging all four of us on the tour to take a closer look at the layers of paint that have been exposed by researchers working in the house. “Isn’t it exciting? Isn’t it just amazing?” he asks, eager for someone to be as turned on by these details as he is. It is pretty fascinating, particularly because he knows every corner of the house and can (and does) explain the story of every detail. These rich colors, for instance, tell their own story- a story of wealth in the family of the so-called Secession Governor, the original owner of this house. Not just anyone could afford these colors.

Nor could the common man afford having a traveling artist paint a slightly out of proportion portrait of an eligible daughter, posing her against a gaudy, Italianate background. Had we walked through the house on our own, we never would have known that the portrait hanging near the piano held the significance it did. Nor would we have understood what, exactly, was so “off” about it.

Though our visit to Rose Hill Plantation didn’t satisfy Francisco’s curiosity regarding the South’s slave days, the tour did expose us to history that neither of us learned in school. Sensing he was slightly dissatisfied, the other adult on the tour pulled us aside as we were headed back to the parking lot, Francisco eager to return to “civilization”.

“You know, sometime you should go up to Walnut Grove,” he said, referring to another plantation. “Make sure you go to one of them reenactment weekends when they get dressed up in costumes and grill squirrels and stuff. It’s quite an experience.”

To see more photos from Rose Hill, view Francisco’s photostream on Flickr.