Juan of Words

Pastelitos De Mermelada

Our cakes were homemade.  Made of flour, baking soda, eggs, margarine and decorated with egg-beaten frosting, dyed with food coloring, sandwiching a thick coat of marmalade in between two rounded layers of bread.

The process was long, but it was always well worth the wait.  We didn’t even realize we could purchase already-made birthday cakes at the grocery store – at least I didn’t – until my mother stopped baking homemade cakes for us on our birthdays, or even just because she felt like it.

We took them for granted.  We never appreciated how much time and dedication it took her to make one of those pastelitos.

Instead we’d just grab a seat, wait for the candles to come on, blow them out, and gorge every last bite of those delicious concoctions as soon as they were ready.  In truth, I think she preferred it that way.  That in some way her pasteles hechos a mano were more gift than any silly toys or parties.

We didn’t need them – there wouldn’t have been enough cake to go around anyway!

Una Vez Al Año No Hace Daño

Once A Year Does No Harm

Camino a San Luis

Bags packed, to the brim, no real luggage, just cardboard boxes and duffle bags, stuffed with clothes, shoes, even a few toys; stacked inside, underneath our feet, on the roof, tied down with little more than twisted rope.  In the white and blue zebra suburban with no air conditioning, a crevice of space was always left in between our luggage, just big enough for the seven of us kids to take turns resting on the 12-hour-plus summer trips from Houston to San Luis Potosi.  We really couldn’t sleep back there, but it was always a little slice of heaven to be able to stretch our legs.

Up front, mom and dad, talking all the way, laughing, carrying on, entertaining us with their stories, yelling at us when we got too loud, hurrying us every restroom stop, keeping tabs on who was next to get some rest.  When he’d get tired she’d pour cold water over his head.  Her job was to keep him awake.  In the middle seat, my two eldest sisters, both too young to drive, but old enough to keep my mother company when she was trying to keep herself and my dad awake.  In the last seat, the one nearest towers of luggage, used to prop ourselves onto comforter and pillow, the rest of us taking turns laying down and sitting in between our sisters, playing, fighting, awing at the majesty of the Sierra Madre and all her splendor.  When we’d get to the rancho this seat would come out to make room for the many cousins, aunts and neighbors who’d squeeze in shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee on our trips into the tiny town of Cerritos, about an hour’s drive away down a nothing-but-rock-and-dirt main road.

Sedans and basically anything smaller than a truck could not make it through the mountains from Cerritos to El Sauz so our zebra was a symbol of success, proof of our American Dream come true, never mind the fact that it was purchased cash, used, beaten up, without air conditioning and on its last wing.  To them it meant we were americanos from El Norte, you know the ones with the green dolares.

We were like celebrities when we’d show up.  Tell me something in English!  Teach me!  Wow those shoes are nice!  What does that mean?  What does this mean?  How is it living in El Norte?

Much too young to understand, fibbing became our pastime: in America our life was grand; we could afford anything we wanted, our tiny apartment was huge, and why not?  At least there we didn’t have to carry water in tin pails over our shoulders like a herd of bulls just to take a shower; we had running light and water almost every single day of the year, we didn’t have to chop down shrubs and weeds with pitchforks and the like, we had color television, a Nintendo system and our cooler full of food.  Still the people made it fun.  Sitting in pitch dark, cold air at our face, tales of la llorona, witches and ghosts, fireside laughter, chocolate-sweetened coffee, sweetbread, sweeter smiles, so many cousins, so many friends, really a magical time, for all of us.

The happiest moments, always our arrivals – cousins jumping in excitement, us bursting at the seams, screaming out of joy, so excited to jump out of the zebra and start running all over the place, and grandma always waiting, full of kisses and caresses.  The saddest: our departures.  Tears running down our faces, waves goodbye through the zebra’s windows, promises made to each other, sadness riding from San Luis Potosi to Houston, comforted only by the idea that next summer we’d be back.

Chongalicious Bai-Bee!

Chonga/Chola inspired beauty products.

Once upon a time, and quite honestly probably still for many of us, a derogatory term used to describe individuals of mixed Hispanic descent.  Equivalent to “mutt” or “dog,” later used as a symbol of revolution and rebellion against THE MAN, most recently adopted as a symbol of our heritage, almost a sentiment of pride for who we are, even if not all of us subscribe to the Chola/Cholo/Chonga lifestyle.

Seriously, how many YouTube Chonga makeup tutorials are out there now?

Lo Prometido Es Deuda

What’s Promised Is Debt

IOU

It is!  No matter how we paint it.  There is something about making a promise that makes our word official.  A challenge almost to the authenticity of our intentions:  whether we are genuinely committing or merely amusing ourselves with false words.  And truth be told, there is nothing worse than feeling we’ve been lied to, taken advantage of, ridiculed and made to feel like a fool.  To the extreme that very rarely will someone who engages in making false promises be taken seriously, by anyone.

On the flip side there’s is also nothing worse than not being able to keep our word. 

No eres hombre de palabra / You are not a man of your word! How many of us have not felt the sting of that statement?  Yet the reality is, be it by circumstances within or beyond our control, on certain occasions we just aren’t able to follow through with the things we’ve committed to, no matter how much we may or may not want to.

So many times the intention is there.  Just not the ability or capabilities to make something happen.  When I grow up I’m going to build you a huge house somewhere, One day we are going to be rich, I promise never to fall in love again, Life is never going to change me, a few of my own many unkept promises throughout the years.  The latter the most ridiculous of course because time and age are ruthless and relentless in provoking transformation.

Years, if nothing else, inculcate shame; experience, pain; obliging in us the sense to know that false words are little more than weapons.  Weapons that in the end, no matter how we choose to use them, hurt us more than anyone else.

Frijoles Fried with Juan of Words

Refried Beans

So for Fourth of July what better way to commemorate our diversity in people and cultures than to highlight one of my own cultura’s most exportable recipes.  In the Great State of Texas refried beans, or frijoles refritos, are the perfect companion to any number of Tex-Mex dishes, as well as the main dish itself.  Wether with rice on the side, cheese on top, chile verde or rojo, eggs, or anything else your little pancita desires, this treat is all of one word, all the time: delicious.

Now for you professional cooks, both domestic or otherwise, you’ll have to forgive my methods in this how-to video.  I am cooking from the perspective of a pseudo-machista Latino male who very rarely cooks…mas bien, who doesn’t know how to cook much at all.  I know.  I am working on that.  But anyhow, the beans used are Goya Pinto Beans and the video is meant to show that if a guy like me can do it so can anyone else.

Please enjoy, share your recipes for this and other dishes, and let me know what other foods you think a guy like me should attempt.

Dame Pan Y Llámame Tonto

Give Me Bread And Call Me Dumb  

BaldoComics.com

We were just stupid in those days.  Like ‘laugh out loud’ stupid or ‘rolling on the floor laughing’ stupid, or even about to ‘pee in my pants’ stupid.  Everything was possible to us in those days.  And no, we weren’t actually dumb enough to believe we could do anything we wanted to, but we knew for one reason or another, a las buenas o las malas, we could almost always make things happen or get a hold of the things we wanted, just because.  We weren’t gangsters or wannabes like the other kids walking around trying to look all hard with their pants down low and their shoulders all tilted down to one side, but just by default because of where we came from, how we talked and the way we dressed, people were scared of us – probably not even scared of us, just more cautious about their surroundings when we were around.  They’d clutch their purses closer, stare at us every few seconds, or just make it clear we were not welcome in their environment, which always made us want to stick around even longer.

Harmless really is what we were.  Too cool to ride the yellow bus all the way to middle school so we’d take the metro transit buses instead.  Yet not cool enough to know what to do other than ride the metros back and forth to Paul Revere Middle School.

In all honesty, I was the most pathetic of the bunch.  My pants didn’t sag any lower than my waist.  I could barely squeeze into them.  My shoes were winos like everyone else’s, but my flat feet made them look more like tamalotes as my parents would say, their excess skin always slouching over the soles of my shoes.

My cousin Ruben was the looker of the bunch.  The one all the girls always wanted me to inform them about.  Tell your cousin I said hi.  Give him this letter.  Does he have a girlfriend? His eyes were green, almost hazel, light skin, tall as me, but slender, and always dressed in nicer clothes.  His polo shirts added definition; mine defined embarrassing rolls of fat along my upper body.  Frank, better known as Football Head, literally had a huge head that was shaped like a football. His shoulders were broad like a linebacker, more muscle than fat, dark brown skin, dirty-looking black hair covering his eyes.  He was the crazy one of the bunch, always up for whatever, louder than all of us put together, and he lived just down the street from Ruben’s house, with a whole other half dozen of loud and dark, broad-shouldered brothers and sisters.  Our neighbor was Francisco, my brother’s best friend, who for some reason we called The Rat.  We all lived several blocks away at the Bali Hai where it seemed everyone from our rancho ended up.  That’s how we knew Francisco.  His parents were from the same place as ours, and that made him like family.  Dark and slender, with beady eyes, he looked like Master Splinter in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I guess is why we’d call him The Rat.  Francisco was calm and collected, always smiling no matter what, and wherever he was my brother was always close by.

My brother, he was the badass.  An inch shorter than me and about 50 pounds lighter, he was always the one plotting, thinking of new ways we could all get away with something.  Even before anyone else knew what he was thinking I could always tell when he was up to something.  Usually on our walk over to the bus stop, he’d start getting that smirk on his face, those giddy eyes full of mischievousness, telling me in their silence to keep up.  The sad part was I could never keep up.  Not with his long and fast steps, or their inside jokes and friendly insults, most of the time I’d just pretend I knew what they were talking about by laughing, which always seemed to work.  In our barrio of Eses we were just like everyone else.

Because of my size, stocky and tall – compared to them anyway – I commanded a certain level of respect in our circle.  Man I bet Juan can do that.  Don’t mess with him.  He’s all calm and shit, but wait till he gets mad… They were my friends and for them I would have done anything.  We were transforming from boys into men together, counting every hair on our chins, fibbing about the hairs growing out of the other parts of our body, literally bubbling with pimples, some of us more than others, my brother especially, and yet we were just stupid kids trying to figure out who the hell we were.  None of us knew.  We couldn’t have.  But it didn’t matter.  The only thing that really mattered in those days was that we were inseparable and having a blast.

We would have all the rest of our lives to think.