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talking about everything from comedy had to make corn tortillas from little guacamole, salsas, and panuchos, a kind
to politics.” balls of masa flour. of Yucatacan tostada. Though a close
second was the drink lesson. We now
Which is pretty much all we did during The key to good tortillas, Colleen told us, know how to make an “El Haciendado”
our stay. Though we did manage to at- is speed. If you’re too slow, “the heat of from lime, chili-infused syrup, gin and
tend a couple of classes with the epi- your hand makes the masa stick.” For watermelon juice.
cures in Petac’s new cooking center. us, each tortilla was a five-minute job.
For our instructor, rolling a ball of masa, Otherwise our stay at Hacienda Petac
Under the guidance of Colleen and Petac patting it into tortilla shape and slap- was a series of convivial meals punctu-
cook Socorro Najara, we learned the art ping it onto the griddle took 25 seconds. ated by mid-day swims and afternoons
of “frijol con puerco,” a bean-and-pork lolling in various verandas.
dish that’s a traditional Monday eve- The best part of the cooking lessons was
ning meal in the Yucatan. But first we getting to eat the results: pico de gallo, By our second night we had turned off
the air conditioning and opened our
bedroom windows. We awakened to the
sound of doves and other early birds.
The grounds crew would soon follow,
skimming leaves out of the ponds, trim-
ming brush and picking flowers. One
morning a worker walked by our veran-
dah carrying a machete in one hand and
a cell phone in the other.
The daily communal breakfast was at a
long outdoor table near the pool and
featured eggy things and a lot of nos-
talgia -- like us, the epicures were of a
certain age. (“Alice Cooper said what to
you?” “When?”)

Dinners were served under the arches
of the main hacienda building, former-
ly the administrative center for the
ranch-then-sisal-plantation. Each meal
came with a little eggcup of habanera
salsa. “Yucatacan food is not so spicy,”
Colleen said, “but you have the option
of spicing it up.”
The dinner aromas were accentuated by
the smell of nearby night blooming jas-
mine. While we ate, bats flitted in and
out of the Moorish arches looking for
bugs. Over a discrete sound system, bal-
ladeers sang to soft guitars. When the
last after-dinner-drink glasses were tak-
en away we walked back to Casa Ramon
on a pathway lit with votive candles.

A few days after our initial conversation,
Dev Stern sent us a picture of the crum-
bled Hacienda Petac when they had just
bought it. “We were young and adven-
turous and people thought we had lost
our minds,” she said. “Now the naysay-
ers have been won over.”

We were won over in the first
five minutes.

Left: The Hacienda Petac garden and main building.

Wine Dine & Travel Summer/Fall 2015 87