Rick Bayless is chef of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago, creator of Frontera gourmet foods, cookbook author and host of Mexico - One Plate at a Time.
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Candleholders
When I’m in Mexico, I go into the market and buy the little votives (the small candles that are poured into facetted glass cups—the ones most commonly taken as prayer candles into the churches). They’re inexpensive (as little as three for a dollar), and, when the candles burn down, they can be replaced by tea lights or little holder-free votives. The little glass votive holders, by the way, serve another purpose: they make pretty cool shot glasses for tequila or mezcal. At Hacienda Hardware 707-963-8850; Haciendahardware.com in California’s Napa Valley (Rutherford), as well as in other places, you can buy wonderful old wooden sugar molds (used for making piloncillo, Mexico’s raw sugar). They’re long blocks of wood with conical indentations (for molding the sugar) bored into the top. Stand small pillar candles in the indentations and you have an impressive warm display. Hacienda Hardware sells an aluminum reproduction on their web site. Sundance catalog sundancecatalog.com sells a modified wooden reproduction of the piloncillo mold that’s perfect for little tea lights—practical, if not as rustic or beautiful. But they also sell a wonderful 9-compartment basalt (lava-rock) holder for tea lights that creates an unforgettable mid-winter glow in the middle of your dining table. Though it’s not from Mexico City (they’re made in Southeast Asia), the materials and craftsmanship are in perfect harmony with my otherwise Mexican-inspired table. RB
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About Rick Bayless |
Light, especially the warming golden glow of candlelight, is, I find, one of the most sustaining elements in the rather gray skies of Chicago, where I live. I’ve brought home dozens of candle holders from Mexico (most of them made by marketplace artisans who, understandably, have not concept of standard American candle-sizes), and through the years I’ve weeded out all but a few of the most beautiful and most practical. Those are the ones I’m drawn to mostly for special occasions’ for everyday candlelight I turn to simpler, easier and less-expensive alternatives.