A Very Good Taco Moment

With Corrie and Mary enjoying the snow and cold back in Indianapolis these last weeks, I've been able to participate in one of my favorite pastimes here in Vallarta: sampling the taco stands. This post won't be a study on what differentiates them or which ones serve the best carne asada or which has the homemade salsas that will bring you to your knees. Saving that for a later post, this will recount just one ordinary lunch when this caballero was a bit hungover and in need of some tasty tacos to relieve the slight pounding in his brain.

In downtown Vallarta, there are certain cobble-stoned streets that are just rife with taco stands, little stalls not much bigger than your traditional hot dog cart, some with stools surrounding them, others with a counter where folks just lean and enjoy a snack. On Saturday afternoon, I decided to sample a few different ones, as I still really haven't settled on what will be my favorite. The first one, on Calle Honduras, I had been to before. It's next to the Oxxo--like a 7-11 or VP, but more garish and plentiful. No stools or counter, but they did have those cheap plastic chairs lined up along the sidewalk. I ordered two tacos adobada, which I believe is a kind of preparation for pork. Little cubes of pork on two tiny corn tortillas, drenched in pork fat. Topped with the usual here ("con todos"): whole Peru beans, a red sauce, onion, cilantro, and cabbage. Contrary to every Mexican restaurant I've been to in the States, all the taco stands here in Vallarta are finished off with shredded cabbage. The tacos were delicious in a very average way, and I moved on.

The next stop was a few blocks away, a little stall nestled next to the south side of a Centro grocery store called Ley. It's a busy street with a large construction site next to it, which I'm sure is a boon to this family business. I could hear the stall before I turned the corner, as they had a little jambox playing music for its patrons. Not great for the hangover, but the volume was relatively low and they did have chairs that sidled up to a bar area, all shaded by some trees from the wide sidewalk. There was a good crowd around this one, which generally bodes well. I sat down.

The menu was short, with tacos and quesadillas available, the former costing 8 pesos each, which is about 60 cents or so. I wanted to try their birria, but the Senora said they were out, so I'd be having their asada instead. "Dos, por favor." Only two, since I was planning on hitting up at least one more stand.

In my short time here, one of the things that separates a good taco stand from an average one is their tortillas. In the States, I think most taco-eating consists of the hard shell variety or the medium sized soft flour tortilla. Here, it is all about the small, soft corn tortilla. Many stalls make their own tortillas right in front of you and this taco stand did as well.

This stand had three women in its tight quarters: a grandma, a mom, and a daughter. All were similarly plump and they moved about their business in a simple, rhythmic way, one that appeared to require no thought. An orchestra of movement. The grandma would grab lime-sized balls of dough and put them in a wooden device. She put the dough between two blocks of wood and then brought a large hand lever down, squeezing the corn dough between the blocks of wood. Apply a little of her grandma-weight, and presto, she pulled out a thin pancake of future tortilla which was placed on a hot griddle. Mom would flip the tortilla two or three times while also moving the bits of asada around on the hot surface, all with her hands. Daughter was busy slicing all the acoutrements: cabbage, cilantro, and some side items which frequently come with your tacos at any stall worth its salt, namely radishes. With the tortillas done, mom loaded up the fresh, still quite warm tortillas with crispy bit of beef.

What I especially liked about this place was unique to the moment I experienced it. Elbow to elbow with a construction worker, a department store worker on a crutch, and an old Mexican man, I slowly eased my hangover on this unusually cloudy day in Vallarta. The women chatted and moved about the business of running their stand and their patrons made short work of their simple food. As I was enjoying all this, "Loba" a Shakira song that's been popular this year but is on its last legs, came on the radio. Everyone sitting there, young and old, knew this song. Everyone could probably sing at least part of the chorus, which includes an addictive howl of the titular wolf. The mom in her apron, flipping tortillas, reached up and turned it up as everyone began bobbing their head. "Ah-wooooooo!"

Couldn't leave the smells, tastes, and sounds of this taco stand, so I ordered another taco and asked the old man to pass me the guacamole sauce.

Love from Vallarta,

Mike

Wookin' Pa Nub...in Reverse

Howdy all,

One workday for this teacher:

3:23pm A group of us teachers meet weekly to work on classroom management issues. Nerd alert!

2:50pm Yep, school's over. Mark, our tech guy and good friend, "helps" me with "my" camera.
11:39am Lunchtime. Sometimes it's off campus we go, but today, it's at our outdoor cafeteria. Pretty great lunch for 3 or 4 bucks.

9:06am My 9th graders. Another English teacher and I swapped 9th grades at the semester break, so these guys are pretty new to me.

Little before 8am: The kids are here and scrambling to get to class. Lockers are outside and never locked. Ever. Never heard of one theft.

7:35am: Josiah--friend, teacher, school counselor-- hobnobs with Maricela, queen of the charming senoritas in our cafe.

7:07am: Head into school. Still dark.

6:58am: Meet my friends and coworkers Meredith and Kylie outside for a ride to school.

6:40 am: Breakfast

Hope everyone is healthy and happy,

Mike, Corrie, and the Bear

Christmas in Guadalajara

This is a Torta Ahogada, a specialty in Guadalaja. Sourdough type bread, filled with porky, side of onions and lime, then drenched in a tomato chicken broth. It is supposed to be THE hangover cure. You need this sort of thing living in Mexico.

The Heneghans took off for Guadalajara with our friend Brett for a couple days between Christmas and New Years. Guadalajara is the big city in these parts, with close to 5 million people. We are in mountain country in Vallarta, and Guadalajara is all the way up at the top, so it's quite a bit cooler. Drier too.

3 days with a little chill, basically eating and walking among a lot of great art and history. Dig it.

The main Cathedral and square in Guadalajara. I'm sure there's a reason, but every square I've seen in Mexico has a gazebo in the middle of it.


Above is part of a set of really fantastic, modern murals done by a Mexican artist named Jose Clemente Orozco. The building they are housed in is the Hospice Cabanas, which is a sprawling structure. What I thought was interesting, in addition to these murals from the 1940s, was that this place was built to be an orphanage. Guess they knew how to build em back then. It housed over 300 kids at one time. That's a lot of poo-poo.If you look closely in the pic above, you can see huge patterns of blueish-green below us. That is mezcal growing, the plant used to make tequila. Tequila, not unlike champagne (and this is the ONLY way they're alike. Well, that and the fall down go boom), can only be made in Jalisco, the state where we live.
Kickass central market in Guadalajara. Sprawled for blocks and blocks. Sold everything under the sun (most of it is indoors, though).
Part of Plaza Tapatia, where we strolled for much of our time. The Cathedral sits on one end, the Hospice Cabanas at the other. Mare Bear and balloons in between.
Horsey ride with Mary, Brett, and the nice man who didn't overcharge us too much.

Peace in the New Year,

Mike, Corrie, and the Bear

Greetings. From Mexico.

I think it was after we’d been here for three or four weeks. Corrie, Mary, and I were strolling through the mall, admiring all the charms of the Mexican mall—smoking!—when we ran into one of my new co-workers from school. I introduced Corrie and Mary, as they had never met her. I’m not sure how it all went down, but a brief awkwardness ensued during introductions. My new friend from school was then kind enough to explain to us that in Mexico people greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek. Or rather, as I was to find out through practice, a kind of air-kiss where your cheeks touch and that’s about it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve lived abroad, and I know that different cultures do things differently: I’ve seen “Gung ho”, “Dances with Wolves”, and “European Vacation”. But I was pretty young in Saudi Arabia, and frankly, we were pretty much sequestered away from the whole Saudi culture while we were there. I do know that men and women didn’t have a lot of contact with one another. They sure as hell weren’t kissing in public.

In Poland, as a twentysomething, they shook hands as a greeting just as we do in the U.S. The main difference was the frequency. I used to play weekly basketball with about 15 guys and every week as each of us arrived, you had to go around to each guy and shake his hand, very firmly. We were usually crammed into a small closet-turned-locker room too, with all of us in various states of undress, so this always led to the slightly uncomfortable shaking of the hand while making sure your pants are on. The only out of the ordinary greeter in Poland was my boss, Adam. He would frequently give big bear hugs and real kisses on both cheeks. He would often serve vodka in the middle of the day too, so I think it was just his way. Very jolly, that Adam.

So the kiss on the cheek thing has been an ongoing adjustment for me. Thankfully, I have a few friends who are naturals at it and almost always seem to instigate it. I keep waiting for someone to flinch back and say something like, “But Mike, you’re a married man!”

I also am wary about starting this practice with women who I’ve, to this point, never done it to before. For example, there are some people from work that I’ve started this practice with and it seems all very good and kosher. I’ve even side-kissed one of my superiors and it’s gone swimmingly; however, I cannot imagine the horror I might inflict on some of the other ladies. “What the F are you doing, Mike?” Sometimes, there’s a brief moment of eye contact, and I wonder if they’re thinking, “Wait a sec. He’s leaning in? What is he…oh my God! Does he think he’s going to kiss me?”

In contrast, I was a quick study when it came to greeting other men. It’s not a lot different than back home, but it’s novel enough. Simple and the same for everyone: a hand slap followed by a fist pound. Works for the bus driver, your boss, or your students. It’s like Mexican men got together as a country, decided on it, and there you have it.

Easy, and kinda cool.

Love and such,

Mike, Corrie, and the Bear

Separated at Birth

Merry Christmas everybody,

Mike, Corrie, and the Bear

Sucks to Reformat

Bummer. Huge bummer.

Not sure how great the pics were on our SD memory card, but we'll never know, as they are gone now. Anybody else have that problem?

It is what it is, no living in the past.

With just a few days left until Christmas break, we wanted to send out a message about our November exploits. Sans pictures.

Speaking of formatting, I'm in no mood to organize paragraphs , so you'll just have to embrace the bullets.

• Corrie and I have discovered the best thing for our marriage (besides separate laptops): a babysitter every Friday. Inspired by our friends the Picketts, we head out every Friday, 4-10pm. Sounds early, but we pack in a lot, including sunsets, beverages, din-din, etc.
  
• Not sure what's more annoying: applying Off! every night (Mary included) to fend off the skeeters that strafe the room every night or the molasses-level progress of our Spanish acquisition.
  
• 80 degrees and sunny pretty much every day now. Hauntingly awesome.
• A Heneghan first: we got a fake tree this year, though surprisingly, they actually have real Christmas trees for sale down here. Best part: Corrie and Mary made all the ornaments. Pretty cool to see Mary's hand shapes all over our tree.
  
• One reason I'm able to write this blog tonight: Corrie is out carousing with her friends at Book Club. Apparently, not only can Corrie read--apparently it's like TV?--but she is a scary-fast reader. She's like the W.O.P.R. from "War Games". Corrie heads out with the chicas once a month and "talks about books". We all know what that's code for.
• Semester one is almost done for me. It's been a fun year so far, as most of my co-workers are only a little bit ass-holey (just kidding, people). Actually, biggest challenge has been adjusting to high school students, AP in particular. Apparently, they take finals. Who knew?
• With weekly regularity, I have cuts on my legs from our Mexican softball league. We are in the playoffs right now, so you read between the lines.
  
• Saw a commercial today for the IU vs. Kentucky basketball game tomorrow. Kinda cool.
• Biggest Heneghan news since Corrie started regularly cooking family dinners: MARY PEE-PEE'D IN THE POTTY TONIGHT. Nuff said.

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Anna, Catherine, and Bruce, we look forward to seeing you soon. Bruce, I saw a Marlin the other day, and he said, and I quote, "Bruce Conner is a pussy." I can't make this stuff up.

Love to all,

Mike, Corrie, and the Bearcub

3 months in 20 seconds

Just playing around with a new program I came across.