This is a common scene in the mountains of Mexico where, despite the cold mornings, rays of sunlight come through the slats to help cheer the kitchen. The indigenous Nahuatl woman pauses to look at me after putting a clay pot with water and coffee on the fire. "First, I make coffee before my husband goes to the fields." Families use the kitchen as a gathering place to eat rice, beans, tacos, broths. It is actually the warmest, most welcome place to be- sitting around the cook fire.