Celebrating the Dead with Barbara Sibley

Born and bred in Mexico City, Barbara Sibley first landed in New York City to attend Barnard College. It was while there that she began her long career in restaurants, first as the coat-check girl at the classic La Tulipe Restaurant, where she crossed paths with legends such as Gourmet editor Sally Darr, James Beard, Jacques Pepin, and Sarah Moulton. Over the years, and after earning a degree in anthropology, she worked her way up into restaurant management, and in the kitchen, before opening her own restaurant, La Palapa in New York City’s East Village neighborhood, an homage to the home-cooked cuisine that she grew up with.

At La Palapa, Sibley especially looks forward to celebrating Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday that honors, and embraces, the deceased. “It’s the holiday that really distinguishes, for me, my childhood because it’s the one holiday that’s completely different in Mexico,” Sibley says. “I remember getting sugar skulls when I was a little girl, and it and it would be one of those things that you definitely ate too much of, because it’s pure sugar and egg whites. I think that’s among my first memories, eating those sugary sweet skulls.”

Another flavor that resonates with Sibley is that of the pan de muerto, the sweet bread sold in every bakery and street corner during the holiday. “Sometimes they’re just round with frosted white bones on them,” Sibley explains. “And then, sometimes, they have very rude sayings on them, which is part of the Mexican fondness for playing around with life and death. So, it’s also celebrated because you just make fun of it, you can’t take it so seriously.” Sibley also recalls her family buying giant bouquets of the flowers associated with the holiday, such as cempasúchitl (marigolds) and cockscombs; visiting the huge offering—or ofrenda–at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City; and driving to Milpa Alta, to enjoy alegria, popped amaranth. “There would be giant kettles that they would pop the amaranth in,” she recalls. “And then they’d mix it with honey and form them into skull shapes.”

Those childhood memories are part of the reason Sibley has continued the tradition of celebrating the Day of the Dead at La Palapa since its opening 14 years ago. Of the many ofrendas that can be found at the eatery, Sibley says there is always one for the families of the staff. “Everyone brings in things–there’ll be a little Jack Daniels for the father of one of the managers, for example.” Sibley also has ofrendas for local heroes such as musician Joey Ramone and Abe Lebewohl, who owned the Second Avenue Deli nearby. “We also have our resident spirits,” she adds. “Leon Trotsky, because he had his printing press here, and poet W.H. Auden, who lived in the building.”

Other “spirits” in the house, besides mezcal and tequila, include Mexican actress Maria Felix, “Because we just feel very close to who she was, as a really strong Mexican woman.” Diego and Frida are in the house, too, and Sibley keeps sugar skulls for heroes of 9/11, including the New York City Fire Department and Father Mychal Judge, the NYFD’s chaplain. This year, Sibley will add a co-worker who passed away last year, and beloved cookbook writer Marcella Hazan, to the altar.

Next, a look at the Dia de los Muertos celebration at La Palapa…

At La Palapa this year, the celebration begins on October 25th, with a limpia, a cleansing in which Sibley burns copal incense. On the 31st, the angelitos, the spirits of children are celebrated. “For the angelitos, we always have some food on the menu that’s miniature,” she explains. “Like little tiny tamales with a little tiny cup of hot chocolate.” The big party is November 1-2, when in Mexico, people traditionally stay all night in the graveyard.

The celebration, as in most things in Sibley’s life, is driven by food. “I didn’t go to culinary school,” she shares, though it seemed natural for her to make a career out of food. “I was a very, very, very shy kid. And so, inevitably, I would end up in the kitchen, especially with Doña Nico, who was the cook for my godmother. She would make the really strange and mixed pre-Columbian dishes for me, like flor de izote, which is the yucca flower, and eggplant stuffed with yucca flower. And so, I loved, loved, loved being with her. She was also very spiritual, like kind of a witch, and I would always just end up being at her skirts most of the day. I would say she was my first mentor.”

Though today Sibley is currently ensconced in the New York Restaurant scene, with a long career in the business, and as the current president of the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance, she still keeps one foot in Mexico, visiting four times a year. She’s just back from Acapulco and the Foro Mundial de la Gastronomia Mexicana, which she describes as, “an incredible four days of every aspect of Mexican cuisine with such respect to both tradition and innovation. Only in Mexico would you have the most traditional cocinera, grinding on her grandmother’s grinding stone, being introduced by Enrique Olvera, one of the top modern chefs in the world.” Sibley participated in a panel on Mexican food in the United States with Iliana de la Vega, Fany Gerson, and Danny Mena. “We all talked so much about how it’s so important to always be breaking the stereotype and bringing people to realize how rich the true deep Mexican cuisine and culture is, instead of this superficial joke.”

Sibley is also a cookbook author; her Antojitos: Festive and Flavorful Mexican Small Plates (Ten Speed Press) was published in 2009. She is poised to head in another direction, however, with a new restaurant and bar that nods to her years in New York City. Just next door to La Palapa, Sibley plans to open a reinvention of a beloved dive, the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, which occupied 75 St. Marks Place from 1965 until January 2012.

“It will open in another couple of months,” she promises, adding that the excavation and renovation has been a lesson in “Zen and archaeology,” as they have been unearthing and restoring the beautiful old, horseshoe bar; a mural of dancing girls from the spot’s time as a burlesque club in the 1940s; and even a tunnel that once connected the spot to a speakeasy across the street. “The menu will reflect the history of the bar. The drinks will be classic. We’re playing around with whether it would be almost like a cocktail party where people will have tastes of the menu and some communal tables, just because we want people to really feel it is like a home away from home.”

Though it is a departure from the Mexican cuisine and festivity of La Palapa, Sibley says, “I am excited about doing something different. It’s fun. It’s really creative. It’s very playful. But on the other hand, I feel like I know it very well. It’s definitely fun to play with a new palate and new presentations. And of course, I can’t wait to get in there and be cooking.”