Thursday afternoon, I got an unexpected invite to a Cinco de Mayo potluck. It was my co-worker, Art, the one who makes the killer taquitos. I gladly accepted the invitation knowing that I had tons of excess ingredients from Brock's birthday party left. After all, I did buy the 50 pack of corn tortillas – Sigh. Since mole is made in such large quantities, I also had a pot of Ancho mole sauce leftover. A whole round of Queso Fresco and half a block of Cotija were still waiting for me at home, so cheese enchiladas with mole sauce it would be.

I'll admit I did over-shop a bit for the party, so I also had a dozen fresh Pasilla Chiles. I thought they would add a nice mild heat to the enchiladas, so I roasted those up too. After removing the charred skin of the Pasillas, I sliced them up and mixed them with some sauted onions and some black beans and rice. I softened the corn tortillas by lightly pan frying them in olive oil.  Once they were pliable, I filled them with my Pasilla mixture, mole sauce and crumbled Queso Fresco. I put them seam side down into my casserole dish, which I had already covered with a layer of mole sauce. When I fit in as many as I could, I covered them up with more mole sauce and Cotija cheese and baked them for about half an hour at 350 degrees. I garnished with diced tomatoes and cilantro. 
I was feeling pretty good about my attempt to make Mexican food, until the next morning . Grocery bags in hand, I ran into Art in the hallway. "Morning Art! I brought some mole enchiladas and sliced pineapples for the potluck," I said. He replied, "Oh sounds great. Gilbert made mole too!". My heart sank. I didn't know much about this guy Gilbert, but from what I did know, I was starting to dislike him very quickly. Why was he trying to ruin my life? I liked my mole just fine, but next to an authentic mole made by somebody who actually had a clue about what he was doing. What a predicament? I reconsidered bringing my enchiladas all together. This would be the ultimate test.
 When 11:30 came, I brought my enchiladas down to the lunchroom with much trepidation. They would laugh at my mole. I set my casserole down in the middle of all the homemade taquitos, tortas, sopes, salsas, etc (there was a lot of food for just seven of us). I introduced myself to the Gilbert fellow and took a close inspection of his chicken mole. It looked nothing like mine. His had more of a watery, broth-like consistency. I started interrogating him about his mole methodology. To my surprise, he told me his mole was essentially chocolate, chunky peanut butter and dried chile powder. Chile powder??? I love learning new short cuts. Taking the seeds out of all the dried chiles was not fun. I finally started breathing again. Our moles were so different, not even close to comparable. I sampled some of his mole. It was delicious in its own right, but indeed very different than mine. Whew. They all told me they liked my enchiladas and proved it with an empty casserole dish.