My tongue keeps touching the screw in my mouth.

It’s waiting for a crown.

I was supposed to get the crown today but the lab made it too short.

So I have to go back tomorrow.

My dentist here in Mexico City doesn’t do “good enough.”

This is one reason I keep coming back.

The dental work here is better, and much cheaper than in the U.S.: at least 50% less, even with airfare and a hotel. Plus, everything happens in one clinic: panoramic X-rays, root canals, implants. If I sit down for a crown and decide I also want a cleaning and a night guard, I don’t have to book another appointment three months out. It also helps that my dentist speaks Hebrew. He’s Israeli, married to a Mexican woman.

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And Mexico City is safe! I walked the lush streets of La Condesa, Roma Norte, Juárez and Polanco on my own and felt safe, even at night. The streets and boulevards are full of people, many of them walking their dogs, so you’re rarely alone.

I’m not a good tourist. You’ll never see me on a double-decker bus or in a hot-air balloon over the pyramids. I’d rather walk and take in the extraordinary architecture: colorful, dusty modern buildings with large steel-framed windows, next to Spanish colonial mansions, next to round Bauhaus buildings, all wrapped in tropical plants that grow over everything. I rest in the parks (my favorites are Parque México and Parque España) and watch the locals and their dogs. I stop at a panadería for coffee and a vanilla concha, and at the market for papaya, guava and mini bananas.

And I see a museum or two. This time, I went to the Museo de Arte Moderno. There’s nothing I enjoy more than mocking contemporary art. (“Just be honest and admit you’re lazy. I’m lazy too, when it comes to painting a face.”) Except, maybe, admiring Remedios Varo’s quirky paintings. She was the opposite of lazy. The whole second floor was dedicated to her. She was a Spanish-born surrealist painter who did her most important work in Mexico City. There were no English translations, and with my little Spanish, I often couldn’t tell what the titles meant. But I could read the materials: técnica mixta, óleo sobre papel. Mixed media. Oil on paper.

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Last time, I came to Mexico City with my husband. This time, I came with his aunt, Elana, who is very funny and fun to be with. We shared a room at the Cibel Condesa hotel. Elana made her bed every morning, even on the days the maid came to clean our room. She told me the only day she doesn’t make it is Sunday. I asked, why not Saturday? “Because on Saturday we go to synagogue,” she explained. “What if something happens to us, and someone stops by the house and sees the bed isn’t made?”

I’m picky about food. I don’t stop anywhere that wasn’t recommended or doesn’t look right to me. But the food here rarely lets me down, and not just the Mexican food. Italian and Asian too.

The first night, we had tapas at Bulla, a Spanish restaurant I’d been to once with my husband and loved. The second night, after our dental treatment, we needed something soft, so we went to Kura for miso soup and sushi. The third night, we had an early dinner at María la Pescadora. I love their fish tacos. On the fourth evening it was raining, so we walked to a Thai restaurant near the hotel for red curry and tom kha soup. Comforting and satisfying.

On our last day, we walked back from the dentist to the hotel, an hour and twenty minutes on foot. Halfway there, we stopped in Polanco for a break and ended up at an Italian restaurant, more out of convenience than choice. We had puttanesca and a salmon dish. The puttanesca was weak, the salmon not bad at all.

Everything we ate was pretty good, but the best and most memorable dish was the poached eggs on farro-Parmesan porridge at Panadería Rosetta Puebla (They have a few locations). I always eat my porridge savory, but I’d never thought of topping it with eggs. What a revelation.

Elana loves food too, but she likes it salty. Very salty. She salts it before she even tastes it. Her husband, a former Marine, once told her that when Admiral Rickover interviewed candidates for the Navy’s nuclear program, he would sometimes take one to lunch at a cafeteria. If the candidate salted his food before tasting it, Rickover disqualified him on the spot. So now, every time Elana salts her food before tasting it, she looks her husband right in the eye and says, “F*&k Rickover.”

Tomorrow, hopefully, the new crown will fit like a glove, and my tongue will finally leave that screw alone. Then I’ll have time to go to Mercado Michoacán for dried chiles and cinnamon sticks.

And later, I’ll go back to Panadería Rosetta for a guava pastry and finish writing the introduction to my second cookbook.

P.S. If you haven’t picked up my first cookbook, Salad Ballads, you should. These are salads you’ll never get bored of. I promise! Click the link to buy it.

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