A well known Frida Kahlo look-a-like

Beatriz Vasquez Gomez never knew of Frida until many of her patrons told her she looked like Frida Kahlo.

Her mother had a food stall in the Ocotlan de Morales market for 60 years.  Beatriz, one of 11 siblings, preferred to work in the fields with her father until her mother passed away and she then took over the food stall.  

That is when she named it La Cocina de Frida.

Before leaving home, Beatriz spends the morning transforming into Frida by applying a bright lipstick, downing the traditional Tehuana dress, putting flowers in her hair and penciling in the Kahlo brow.

Frida Kahlo was fond of wearing Tehuana outfits, the typical dress of the women in Oaxaca, and wearing her hair in braids wrapped into a crown like style adorned with flowers or colorful ribbons.  She identified with the dress for her mother Matilde was from Oaxaca and had been photographed as a child wearing the Tehuana dress.  The traditional dress of the Tehuanas was known nationwide to be the symbol of the most independent and proud indigenous women in all of Mexico.

Locals and tourist sit side by side at the communal tables at La Cocina de Frida enjoying the typical fare of Oaxaca such as chiles rellenos, her famous mole coloradito (reddish mole), estofado (stew), enfrijoladas (tortillas filled with creamy black beans) and a steaming bowl of hot chocolate with a Pan de Yema (egg yolk bread).

When I take my groups to Oaxaca, going to Friday market in Ocotlan de Morales is a highlight, especially when we make a stop at La Cocina de Frida and to have a bowl of the delicious hot chocolate and share some Pan de Yema.

“This is what I’ve cooked all my life,” Beatriz says. “I love preparing mole – toasting chilies, cocoa, sesame, spices. I like developing aromas and flavors.”