Juan of Words

Ask Juan: What is it with all of that hot sauce?

Bien Picante: Chile Quipin - My all time favorite!

Anywhere I eat, no matter where it is, whenever I sit down, after serving myself a healthy-man-sized portion of food – always healthy-sized – people siempre seem to be amazed at what happens next.  If we are at a restaurant I’ll gently ask the waiter or waitress, “excuse me, do you have Vaentina salsa, Tapatio or Tabasco?”  If we are at home, I’ll reach for my jumbo sized bottle of Valentina and pour it all over my food in a very generous amount.  Y sin fallas the next thing I know I’m answering this question:

What is it with all of that hot sauce?  

This statement (not really ever a question) is usually preceded by a “Damn!” “What the hell?” “Nombre, ¿qué es eso?,” which I take it is supposed to imply that my eating habits are a little unusual.  In truth, to me they aren’t.  Growing up, a meal was never complete without something spicy.  Whether it was homemade salsa de molcajete, Louisiana sauce in a bottle (they didn’t have as many Mexican brands at the Valley Mart in the 80’s), or fresh chile right off of the plant, we would use whatever we could get our hands on to give our food that extra kick.  It was the Mexican way of eating.  Or as my cuñado said the other day “pa que te salga pelo en el pecho guey”.   No, there isn’t any scientific proof that eating spicy food will result in more hair popping up on your chest… but it is kind of hilarious to imagine!

If anything, I’m living proof that this statement is not true.  I’ve eaten so much damn chile over the last 33 years y todavía ¡na’naís!   Only the same three pinche pelos on my chest greet me every day when I look in the mirror.  So while there aren’t any real medical or cosmetic benefits to eating tan picante all of the time – my wife on the contrary always tells me I’m burning through the lining in my stomach with ALL of that hot sauce – my choice to continue these eating habits is because of one reason and one reason alone: it makes my food taste better to me.

Yes, maybe it is true that after a while all of my foods start tasting the same, or even that doing all of this spicy snacking could be harmful to my health, I’ll even man up and own up to the fact that the older I get the more upset my stomach gets when I eat this way (I’ve even considered giving up the Atomic wings at my local buffalo wings place – what a tragedia that would be), but for now, while my stomach can still take it, I’m going to continue pouring on the salsa!

Why?  For no other reason than because I like it.

¡Provecho!

¡Macho Sucker!

Hombre fuerte, sexo fuerte… hay que equivocado estas. ¿Por qué? Or maybe I should be asking why not? Why can’t we be the macho men and still have a sensitive side?

El Macho Logo by Damian Jones

If you know me personally you know that by all accounts I’m much more teddy bear than anything else.  Gente are forever telling me how cool and collected I always am under almost any situation.  And for the most part that’s true… but every once in a while lo malvado se me sale también.  So why is this of any importance?  Why write an entire post on my mood swings and temper tantrums?  In fact this post is about anything but mis arrancos.  I will tell you though, de herencia, my nerves are pretty bad and often get the better of me.

That’s entirely beside the point here, however.

Tonight, as Edgar and I were driving home from my parents’ house – about an hour away from our own home – as is our usual custom anytime we’re in the car, we were singing our hearts out to the songs on the radio in my beat up old pick up truck.  As soon as we heard Adele’s Someone Like You, we turned up the volume and began belting out every single word of this beautiful song.  Nos hubieran visto.  We really thought we were jamming!  And as we hit one of the highest notes in the song, and coincidentally, also one of the bumpiest parts of the freeway, it struck me that here we were, riding my Dodge Ram 1500, he with his new Mexican Energy Monster tee-shirt, me with my botas vaqueras and my tool box in the back seat, maneuvering our voices to match that of a British mega-songstress on the radio.  I started to chuckle and then decided to hit the record button on my phone instead.

In front of Anjelica, and a very few select others, we sing like this all of the time, but for the most part neither one of us would dare hit such high or low notes in front of many more people.  Well, maybe Edgar would.  I don’t sing in front of other adult men, besides my younger brother and that’s only because we used to do the same thing when we were in high school.  I don’t sing like that in front of my mother or father, my mother in law or any other of my in laws, my coworkers, distant relatives, or people I don’t know.  It’s just not something I do.  It’s embarrassing y para un macho no se ve bien.  Or so I’ve always been told.  That got me thinking about all of the other things that I do because I AM A MAN!

• I wash the dishes, but I don’t like anyone to see me doing it, or for Anjelica to talk about it to anyone.
• I can turn on my tough don’t-mess-with-me-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you look in a second.
• I can clean house, but again, I don’t want nobody talking about it.
• I can use special creams and scrubs for my face, but would never admit to it in front of the guys.
• I won’t readily admit that I don’t know, but I won’t stop Anjelica from telling me what she knows, especially when it comes to driving directions.
• I’ve shed way more tears than I’d care to own up to.
• And as you all know a lot of my evenings are spent in front of the television set watching my novelas.

There are more, but I think these are plenty to get my point across, and who knows what the repercussions are going to be of sharing these many with you all already, but even as I’m reading these in writing now, it’s not that I’m opposed to any of the machismos I grew up with.  I’m okay with them.  I think they are a part of me as much as the rest of my life experiences to date.  Over the years I’ve defined each one of them myself in my own way… fitted them to me if you will.  I’m not super machista if that’s what you’re thinking, but in a lot of ways I am very traditional.  I’m okay with that too.  Only every once in a while when I catch myself wiping away a tear or rubbing apricot based cream on my face I can’t help think: nombre Juan, you’re such a Macho Sucker!

Learning to Cook a Turkey & How to Celebrate Thanksgiving

From Tamales to Turkey

For the first part of my life we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  At least if we did, no me acuerdo.  Instead we’d go about our business like any other day, save for the fact us kids didn’t have to go to school and most years my father didn’t have to work.  If we did have anything in the way of a holiday meal it more than likely involved mole or tamales.  Even when we did start celebrating this occasion our pavo usually ended up drenched in some thick layer of comino based sauce anyway.  It just tasted better that way.

All I remember is that there was one year when we came home and there was a turkey on the kitchen table.  En México there wasn’t any reason to cook an entire turkey like that, all in one piece, so pobre de mi madre, hard as she tried she couldn’t get the natural juices to remain within the monstrosity of this bird.  She tried basing it with salsa roja, then verde, then a whole concoction of other ingredients, but none of them worked.  The damn thing always came out tasting dry and kind of unappetizing.  It actually tasted better the day after in tacos de maiz or revuelto con huevo.  Then there was the whole question of turkey stuffing!  Mamá didn’t like the idea of placing crouton-looking things alone up the fanny of this wild bird and instead would cut up wieners or chorizo and mix them in with the stuffing.  Believe it or not, these ocurrencias actually did help.

Little by little her turkeys began tasting more and more American.

We knew so because at school they fed us the real deal, succulent turkey breast, topped with gravy, a side of cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and green beans.  It couldn’t get any more traditional than that… or so we thought.

Then there was the whole idea of sitting around the table and saying out loud what you were thankful for.  It really seemed like a silly idea, and the one year we actually attempted it none of us could help giggling at what the others were saying.  It was unnatural.  Kind of like taking grapes and eating them at midnight on New Year’s Eve or waiting until Christmas morning to open all of your presents.  We don’t have the patience for any of that.  Instead, after that, we resorted to the usual.  Taking turns sitting around the table and stuffing our faces with turkey, tamales, buñelos, frijoles, pico de gallo, salsa de molcajete, tortillas, hot chocolate, arroz, and the occasional pie.  Our table was literally a hodgepodge of whatever concoction walked through the door or sounded like a good idea to my mother.

Granted in the years since my sisters have figured out how to properly cook a turkey and maintain its succulence, we’ve fully incorporated the pie into the evening’s menu, beans and rice have been replaced with mashed potatoes and gravy, and tamales now only make an occasional appearance uno que otro año.  It’s not that we’ve lost touch with our roots.  It’s that we’ve assimilated new ones into the mix.

Offering thanks in front of each other?  Well that’s still kind of embarrassing.

Pero aprovechando that no one is looking as I write this post, I’ll go ahead and give my thanks here now.  I’m thankful for all of the wonderful people in my life: my parents, whom God has blessed me with; all four of my sisters and my two brothers, los quiero a todos infinitamente; my own family, Anjelica and Edgar, wow, I love you guys so much; all of my nieces and nephews; my extended family and friends, who always amaze me with their generosity and cariño; for everyone and anyone who has ever crossed my path and touched my life in any way; for health, happiness and faith; to all of you who continue to offer such amazing support in my journey of words; and especially to my Dios for all of the amazing miracles he’s allowed me to experience, not the least of which is life itself.

I hope you all have a beautiful Thanksgiving Day!

No Estamos En México, Pero…

We sure like to make it look like we are.  This weekend as we were driving out of the flea market we couldn’t help but notice how Mexican everything looked. Yeah, we were in the Lone Star State, dentro de los Estados Unidos of course, but for a second, if you just didn’t think about it too hard, you could actually swear you were in Little Mexico… walking the marqueta, haggling for the best prices, sampling pieces of fruit straight from the knife they were cut with, strolling through life for a couple of minutes without the minutest worry about time.

¡Mangos! ¡Naranjas! ¡Platanos!

It had been raining a little bit during the day. That didn’t stop anyone from coming out en familia pa pasar el rato.

Over, around, and even through the charcos of water on the floor, pedestrians strolled by on either side of vehicles passing by, including ours, and every once in a while making a hurriedly little dash in front of our car to make it to the other side of the very narrow dirt and rock road. Some of them chewing on pepita seeds, others gazing around at everything around them, parents yelling at their children ¡apurate!, young parejas holding hands and grinning from ear to ear, old parejas looking just as sweet, not holding hands, and a host of other raza smiling and carrying on about their dómingo de descanso.

By this time, almost dark, most vendors were already closing or had already locked up their belongings in either tarp or canvas wraps, rolled around individual booths and locked at one end with key or combination locks. Only the fruit and vegetable vendors remained open, slowly boxing up their unsold produce, hoping that something in their selection would catch the eye or antojo of those bidding the pulga un ‘hasta next weekend’. At that precise moment this sentence was uttered: “no estamos en México, pero we sure like to act like we are!”

We all laughed in agreement and went about our own dómingo.

Hasta En Las Mejores Familias

Graphic by Eiji Boga

There was a television show by that same name that used to air on one of the major Spanish-language networks here in the states not too long ago.  Carmelita Salinas was one of the three hosts and aside from exposing a constant parade of dysfunctional families from one extreme to the other, the show was also well known for utilizing grossly made up characters, from midgets to circus folks, all exaggeratedly stereotyped, and for the most part, all fiction, as the jury of rhyme and reason in this chaotic makeup of a show.  I’ll admit it now, though I wouldn’t have before, that on some days when there was nothing else to do, or when it felt like the kind of day when my mind didn’t want to think anymore, I’d sit back on my sofa and just watch the craziness on screen.

There was always someone crying, someone yelling at the top of their lungs, people throwing punches, and of course, the little people jumping out of their chairs and running across the stage with an oversized pencil in their hands to try to call order on the set.  I never really understood the need for those humongous plastic pens… or the existence of a jury at all for that matter.  If it was strictly for the ratings, well it obviously didn’t work.  The show hasn’t been on the air for a couple of years now.

The thing is, somehow, for some reason, anytime there is any amount of chaos in my life it always comforts me to think back to the premise of that show: Hasta en Las Mejores Familias.  As if because my problems haven’t landed me on a similar television talk show yet they might not be as bad as what they seem.  Perhaps it’s the idea that all of the drama on that show was way worse than anything that’s ever happened to me.  In a lot of ways it was, but then again it was mostly make-believe… for the “magic” of the small screen.  More often than not though, on some days I completely understand the need for that excessively large pencil, the running around in circles on stage, the yelling, the crying, and yes, even the buenas cachetadas.  It’s not that my life is so stressful, or that the things happening in and around it are that chaotic tampoco, just that sometimes the freedom of going a little loco doesn’t seem all of that crazy after all.

They did always say things do happen “even in the best families!”

I’m beginning to think there is a lot more truth to this notion than I once believed.

LATISM, Dolores Huerta, and Your Love – Thank You!

I’m sitting on the plane right now, exhausted, con los pies que me están matando – we definitely don’t have that many stairs in Houston – pensando, en tantas cosas tan hermosas that happened to me the last few days.  I’m afraid that I’ll blink and it will all have been a dream… or that somehow I won’t remember it all.  Me quiero dar el pellizco yo mismo.  Then again, I’m not that brave.

En La Villita de Chicago

This week I attended the Latinos In Social Media (LATISM) National Conference in Chicago – if you don’t know who they are look them up, it’s an amazing network for both Latinos and non Latinos – and while having been invited to attend in it of itself was pretty damn extraordinary, I don’t think I’d fully grasped the significance of what this trip would mean to me.  As soon as I walked in the door at the Intercontinental Hotel, near the gorgeous Navy Pier where everything took place, mind you well after 11 p.m., I was met with abrazos and cariñitos: ¡Juan!  ¡Juanito!  ¡Juan of Words!  The cínico in me wanted to believe that these were just standard formalities, people just being nice, but then something weird happened… it kept happening, everywhere I went.  Even more amazing – uuyy hasta se me enchina la piel – más gente linda approached me to tell me why they enjoyed this blog, and how much they identified with me.  All I could do was offer hugs because there really aren’t any words to express the gratitude in my heart for this kindness.  Para serles sincero I still don’t believe it!

With Elianne Ramos, spokesperson for LATISM

I mean this is me.  The kid with little dreams, with little expectations out of life besides graduating from high school, the one out of seven chiquillos that my parents raised a duras penas, the one who didn’t even believe in his own passion for writing not too long ago, the one who still can’t even believe how much love he’s been blessed with through this medio.  No se si me lo merezca, but I sure as hell am grateful!

To top it all off, on the night before my departure a couple of us decided to drink a glass of wine before calling it a night, and low and behold who did we end up sharing a table with?  Dolores Huerta!  Yes, that Dolores Huerta, the living legend.  It was the perfect ending to a wonderful three day event.  Not only was she truly graceful, but what she had to say to us felt like it was truly delivered to our ears by divine intervention.  The journalist in me wanted to take notes, but we were all so mesmerized that all I could do was listen and try to record everything she said to us in my mind.  All in all, what she wanted us to know was that we are all just as capable of making a difference, of utilizing our voice for a greater good, and of motivating others to do the same.  That is definitely a tall order, but one I wanted to share with all of you as well.  Don’t take it from me.  Take it from her, una mujer verdadera that has made her mission in life to serve others.  What an inspiration!

Dolores Huerta!

So in closing this very random post, I want to thank you all once again for reading this humble little blog and for making me feel extra special in Chicago, and also by encouraging you to believe in yourself and follow your dreams.  You never know what might happen if you just try.

¡Los Quiero!