Roasted pasilla chiles stuffed with a ground pork and green chile mixture, topped with a pecan and queso fresco cream sauce, garnished with pomegranate seeds and served with sauteed plaintains.

Grilled prickly pear cactus leaves, jicama and tomatoes are julienned then tossed in a lime and olive oil dressing.

With color on my mind, this past weekend I cooked up a dinner party and menu with a color theme – the red, white and green of the Mexican flag.

Inspired by the cookbook, Frida’s Fiesta’s – Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo by Marie-Pierre Colle and Guadalupe Rivera, I’ve been experimenting with the recipes and themes in the book. A very beautiful cookbook, the photos and stories are inspiring. The recipes. . . well, they remind me of my abuelita’s (grandmother’s) recipes. Something very important is missing from most of them. The missing item is usually an ingredient, amount or technique that ranges between  crucial to the success of the recipe to a minor taste problem. Maybe the recipe editor had more to do with this than Frida did, but nonetheless, reading her cookbook reminds me of my abuelita’s passionate artistic temperament (she was a concert pianist and gifted chef). The recipes that my abuelita  gave me were always more of a suggestion than a solution.

With that in mind, I’ve been playing with the recipes, using them as a melody line I can embellish or rearrange as I play. I’m putting together Mexican / Chicano inspired recipes for a new cookbook I’ll publish this summer. Till then, here are a few of the dishes. Last weekend I presented each dish in the Mexican flag color scheme of red, green and white as a homage to Mexico and because it was a  fun design element to work with.

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Dear Cristina, (via my website

I am having a difficult time finding the right color for our great room. It is fairly large, 20′ x 30′, with a cathedral ceiling 22′ high. On one wall there is a floor to ceiling stone fireplace, taking up the entire wall. The ceiling is a honey tongue and groove wood and the floor is a natural oak hardwood. The furniture is a southwest design. Is it okay to paint just one wall a dark color and the rest a lighter shade? Is a brown too much with all the wood?

Thanks,
Marti
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Dear Marti,
Sounds like you have a beautiful room. I can’t tell you which color to paint, but I can give you a few ideas to think about that may help you with your decision.

• Painting one wall a strongly different color than the others creates an accent wall. Only do this if there is something on that wall or the architecture in that part of the room that you wish to emphasize. Click here to read more about accent walls.

• How much brown is too much? When you have a lot of brown wood and still want more brown, I suggest that you choose an accent color that has brown (or a warm base color) in it, but is different from the wood. Examples are: Deep eggplant, Terracotta Reds, Deep brownish Greens, or even a Deep teal or Navy that is brownish in tone. (The paint store professionals can help you identify these colors.)

• If you insist on a brown accent wall, then choose something strikingly different in value from your existing woods, such as a deep chocolate brown wall.

Send a before and after when you get the room painted. I’d love to post the results.
www.CristinaAcosta.com
If you’d like to read about my color consulting services, contact me and put the words, Color consulting, in the text box. I’ll send you a link to my FREE E-booklet explaining my service.

www.CristinaAcosta.com Call me to schedule a color consulting appointment in Bend, Oregon or a phone appointment if you don’t live in Oregon.

PHOTO: Subtle golds, browns and brownish gray complemented the natural stone materials in the master bath suite area for this client in the “Johns” photo. ©2006-2009 Cristina Acosta