We come to my favorite time of year.  Sure, there’s not a pronounced difference in the seasons of Sur de Tejas, but at least the heat doesn’t beat you over the head.  I enjoy the Fall festivals, Halloween, and the general celebration of things harvest-related.  Up north, they’re enjoying the wonderful colors of the changing leaves – from green to shades of yellow, and red, and orange.  We notice a change in the season’s color here too, but our shades of orange and yellow show up in the decorations of the various retail establishments.  Still, we’ll see a welcome drop in the humidity.

I took note of Moon in her fullness this month.  A good time to do it because it was a special moon.   The full moon nearest the equinox, the Harvest Moon, fell on the equinox this year (making it the Harvest-est Moon) – an event that hasn’t happened in twenty-five  years and won’t happen again for a two decades.  That’s about as often as I’ve hit the gym.  Not something to be crowing about.  So with the appearance of the Super Harvest Moon, I went to the gym.  It was sobering. . .I had a fitness assessment so that I could start a wellness plan.  They assessed me, but there was no fitness to be found.  Now don’t get me wrong.  It wasn’t all bad.  But there’s certainly ample room for improvement.  I don’t want to compete in the Iron Man, or the Mr. Universe competition, but I would like to have the speed and endurance to go birding all day  and the strength to wrestle a flat tire without busting a gut.  Modest goals…attainable goals.  Already I’ve cut my taco consumption to Breakfast Taco Friday’s, tacos in foreign cities, and the occasional taco for verification or ground-truthing.

And so in celebration of Breakfast Taco Friday, Taco Show Host and I met at Las Milpas on Navigation near the Interstate.  I had a chorizo con papas en maiz, and the daily special:  a breakfast sausage with scrambled eggs on flour.  We had a bit of discussion as to why I’ve been on the chorizo and potatoes kick lately and I think the reason is chorizo.  Usually, and today was no exception, the chorizo is sauteed with already cooked potatoes so it doesn’t permeate the potato, but covers it generously.  I get to taste both separately, and together and this morning it was very good.  The corn tarp was a bit dry and had a not-all-too-unpleasant crunchiness to the edges.  The taco was large and adequately filled with goods.  The special was good.  Nothing special if you know what I mean.  It was a generous portion of sausage and egg scramble in need of salt.  The tortilla was an off-round saddle blanket with quite a bit of hand-made non-uniformity.  A hunger-buster for sure.  The thing I found funny was that there was no salsa.  Our waitress delivered a Ranchero sauce, but nothing more traditional.  Later she asked if we wanted some hot sauce and when she delivered, she mentioned that it was habanero.  And it was.  It came in a squirt bottle as well it should because you’d have to be pretty dedicated to dip a chip in it.  Taco Show Host and I thought that the day’s version might just have been the hottest we’ve seen in a taqueria.  The coffee was good and happily delivered by a doting waitress.  The building was clean on the inside, if a bit run-down out.  Pretty good and worth a try.

Salud

Our Taco Award Winner for this week is:

Sigourney Weaver

Sigourney Weaver is a true talent of our times and her list of acting accomplishments is long.  Born in New York, 1959 she began her career in the mid 70’s.  Exploding onto the scene as the no-bullshit-bad-ass Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott’s Alien. Ms. Weaver always looks good whether killing an alien (No one makes crawling half-naked into a space suit look as good.) or playing one, a nine-foot tall one  in Avatar.  You can also see her in the movie, You Again with the larger-than-life Jamie Lee Curtis.  How can you go wrong?

Offer includes 2 tacos, an audience with the ‘tacoteurs,’ and a free tacotopia t-shirt. Please redeem this offer at Whetstone Graphics on a Friday morning of your choice. Offer subject to cancellation by order of the wives of the tacoteurs.  Enter to win by emailing your name and an extra large pair of Galaxy Quest Special Edition DVD sets to tacos@tacotopia.net.

I have been out of sorts lately. The work I’ve been doing is frustrating, and I’ve had many obstacles come up to impede it’s progress. Machines breaking down, employee drama, scheduling problems, and on and on. That’s why it’s called work.  I have moved back and forth between working long hours and taking brief trips into the heaven of my wife’s great cooking, and perhaps a little irish whiskey now and then. I have, in fact, been so busy that I’ve been unable to put together a post for a while. The Hat has been picking up the slack. It’s not for lack of trying, though. I’ve been to one taqueria in particular three times trying to put together a post, but it hasn’t materialized yet.

Lila's Juevos Ahogados

I did, though, have a little time this morning to get my taco on so the Hat, his better half, and myself all converged near the Saxet Hall on Leopard this morning. Saxet is Texas spelled backwards for those who don’t know. It’s a tough little shopping center that has seen better days but is still kicking. The hall bears witness to the Hurricane Alley Roller Derby about every month. It also hosts countless quinceañeras, to which I have dropped off my stepson many times. Some of these quinces have bikers working security so there’s little to worry about in this neighborhood. Not your weekend bikers either, but bikers who couldn’t hide their colors if they wanted to, and they don’t want to.

The first thing we tasted was the coffee – which was a good deal stronger than most. The lady bringing out the coffee was Lila herself, the namesake of the restaurant. She was polite and dignified with perfect english. Hold on – before you get bent about that last bit – let me explain. I don’t assume she speaks Spanish, I know because she was cracking the whips with the other waitress and the kitchen crew in Spanish. I would guess this was her first language, and when people live in a country where they have to speak in a foreign tongue much of the time  they usually end up in one of three groups. The first is people who have a thick accent whose speech never grows closer to that of the host country (think of the governator). The second are people who assimilate perfectly into the host country so that by listening they could only be identified as non-native by a finely tuned ear. The third group are people who are able to speak as well if not better than the locals, but choose to retain a flavor of their first language out of respect for their own culture. Lila falls into the third group.

I ordered a chorizo & egg, and a carne guisada. Lila brought them out and they looked pretty typical of the taquerias in the area. The tortillas were the star of the meal, both flour and corn on a level with the best in town. The salsa, too, was distinctive: very hot, and pretty fresh. The carne guisada was subtle but good. The chorizo & egg was sharp and delicious, bringing me back to the first time I tried C&E as a child. It tastes exactly how it’s supposed to. I’ve had better, but not very often.

I asked Lila how long they’d been there, and she said 12 years – but that’s after 5 years as another location. Cesar, the co-owner was there too, dressed in a uniform shirt for another job. Do yourself a favor, like the numerous police who were eating there this morning, and drop in for a taco. You won’t be sorry. Watch the parking lot though, it’s hungry too, for cars.

Our Taco Award Winner for this week is:

Aria Giovanni

Aria Giovanni is one of the three most beautiful women in the world. Period. The other two are Salma Hayek, and my wife. I’m not going to reveal what order they’re in but you should note they all have black hair and brown skin, and they all have curves. If you look up cleavage in wikipedia, they have a picture of Ms. Giovanni. A compelling argument for blended marriage, she is Italian Yugoslavian French German Irish and Native American. Aria is a model, meaning she’s pretty much hot for a living.  She was briefly married to Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5. This makes him barely the winner of the ‘I divorced the hottest pinup girl in the world’ contest he had with Marilyn Manson himself who divorced Dita von Teese. A frequent guest at comic book conventions, she has served as a surrogate imaginary girlfriend for a generation of nerdcore fanboys. Be careful for the NSFW if you google her.

Offer includes 2 tacos, an audience with the ‘tacoteurs,’ and a free tacotopia t-shirt. Please redeem this offer at Whetstone Graphics on a Friday morning of your choice. Offer subject to cancellation by order of the wives of the tacoteurs.  Enter to win by emailing your name on the back of the September 2000 issue of Penthouse to tacos@tacotopia.net.

The Labor day weekend is upon us.  With it brings the end of summer (somewhere), the beginning of school, and of the NFL season.  You have to look hard, but if you try, you can feel subtle changes.  The shortening length of the day is finally noticeable and while still miserably hot in the Sparkling City, the heat doesn’t dominate the day like it has once did.  Soon the wind will change and we’ll be blessed with cool weather.  I look forward to that morning when I’ll have to linger on my daily shuffle to pick up the paper and relish in that delicious, distinctly autumn feeling in the air.

Labor day is also a time for end of summer celebrations.  Every year in Brady, TX, they hold the World Championship Barbecue Goat Cook Off – and I plan to be there this year.  Once upon a time we fielded a team in the yearly event, but not in a while.  Seventh place was our only appearance in the top 10.  I didn’t spend the time to get the numbers, but I’d have to guess that during the festival the population of roughly 5,000 quadruples.  It’s a reason for Brady Ex-Pats to return to the roost, and touch base with those they haven’t seen in a while.  Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, they are all great for getting in touch and staying in touch.  But they’re not human touch like a handshake or a hug from a friend.  Food’s good too.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had barbecued goat, wrapped in a tortilla with onions, peppers.  A creation damn close to the proto-taco.  I’m looking forward to both the friends and the feast.

But Brady is 5 hours from the Bay City and that means a drive.  I have my traditional stopping spots on the route, usually somewhere in San Antonio to fill a growler with a fresh barley beverage to enjoy with friends.  Sometimes a bite to eat in Fredericksburg, or at a favorite Truck Stop just outside of SA that has a really good burger.  And it’s Truck Stops that have me thinking this morning.

Taco Show Host and I met up at the Corpus Christi Truck Stop and Restaurant for Taco Friday this time.  I don’t know if it happens to anyone else, but I quite often find myself talking with random people about tacos and to that end I give a shout out to the unknown recommender of this hash house.  I’d never been there so I didn’t know what to expect.  The place evoked nostalgia with three public phones in the dining room.  There was a smoking section complete with ashtrays, though no one was smoking.  And if needed, a shower could be had for $7.  A peek into the kitchen saw a well-used flat top with a guy using it well in the preparation of our breakfast.  They had a pretty good selection of tacos and I settled on a picadillo and a fajita.  Both on flour.  The food took a bit longer than usual, but it was well worth the wait.  My tacos were huge and stuffed.  I’m a fan of the picadillo taco – a humble taco of ground beef, usually in a gravy with potatoes and spices.  The Truck Stop’s offering was the best I’ve ever had.  Cooked on the flat top when I ordered it.  It was creative with fresh tomatoes and peppers and potatoes.  More hash than stew.  Instead of a thin hamburger gravy, there was a rich coating of delicious caramelized meat and vegetables.  Outstanding!  I definitely recommend it.  The fajita taco was exceptional too.  Griddled beef, onions and green peppers glistening with the magic cooked into that flat top.  The beef was tender, but not overcooked and seasoned with a good amount of black pepper.  Neither taco needed anything.  However, for professional reasons I had to try the salsa. It was delicious.  As close to home made as I’ve had in a restaurant, ever.  Tomatoes, onions, and plenty of chili.  I couldn’t get enough.  And it turns out it was made fresh earlier in the morning by our waitress.  She was attentive and friendly, as was everyone I talked to in the place.  Our coffee cups never runneth out and the coffee was pretty good.  If you had to pin me down and make me point out a deficiency, it would be the tortillas.  We debated some as to their origin:  off-the-shelf, or not.  I say not because there was too much evidence of hand in the tarp.  Maybe even an inexperienced hand.  Taco Show Host didn’t seem convinced by my evidence.

We sat, stuffed, and had a couple of cups of coffee before TSH pointed out the fly-strip, complete with flies dangling from the ceiling above my head, and still I’ll be back.  A word of advice though, let them do what they do best and order something that’s sure to be cooked on the griddle.

Salud

Our Taco Award Winner for this week is:

Jennifer Beals

Former teen model, Jennifer Beals is best known for her portrayal of “Alex” in the 1983 movie Flashdance.  She has appeared in over 50 films and more recently in the titillating Showtime series The L Word.  She is scheduled to play Chicago’s first female police chief on Fox’s Ride-Along.  This self-described “Spiritual Person” is currently married with children.

Offer includes 2 tacos, an audience with the ‘tacoteurs,’ and a free tacotopia t-shirt. Please redeem this offer at Whetstone Graphics on a Friday morning of your choice. Offer subject to cancellation by order of the wives of the tacoteurs.  Enter to win by emailing your name on a original copy of Tinikling ou ‘La madonne et le dragon to tacos@tacotopia.net.