Today someone tweeted a quotation from Lyle Lovett where he said he has a rule never to eat Mexican food while east of the Mississippi. Normally I agree with him, but every once in a while the Universe catches me up on my pronunciamientos.
It did so one day about 1991, when L, T, and I had all gone to visit L’s family in Maryland. We combined this trip with meeting up with a friend of ours from the Fidonet cooking and crafting echoes, and a trip to G Street Fabrics in Rockville, because crafters and sewers and G Street Fabrics. Helen and L were all over the place for several hours, looking and comparing and exchanging ideas, and I tagged behind, occasionally offering my opinion of a fabric when asked, or even when not asked. (No, I did not play the stereotypical “cranky husband dragged along to the fabric store.” I can do better than that, and usually I can offer an opinion on something, with actual reasons for my reaction.)
But after several hours my feet were killing me, even with a cane (my fasciitis was near its worst at the time), and I struck on any more fabric shopping on account it was well past lunch time. L gave in on the ground I’d been patient and indulgent, and asked Helen about nearby places to eat. Helen said the closest place was probably an El Torito, which she pronounced “pretty good.” L gave me a “don’t you DARE play Tex-Mex snob right now, she means well” look, and I shut up and agreed to it. L didn’t, however, say anything about me not playing provincial Texan with the restaurant staff, and I took advantage. We sat down, I got a (machine-made, using a mix, which I expected) margarita, and began to read the menu.
At that time, one of my favorite Tex-Mex places in Austin was Manuel’s, which served a thing called enchiladas banderas: chicken enchiladas striped with red, sour cream, and green sauces, to look like the Mexican flag. This El Torito had both sour cream and green enchiladas on the menu, and I figured that meant I could have fun yanking chains even if I didn’t get what I ordered and had to do something else. The waitress came to take our orders, and I cranked up my best Bad Tejano and told her “quiero enchiladas banderas.” She thought I’d misused a word, and asked if I meant enchiladas rancheras, which were on the menu. I replied, “no, enchiladas banderas—enchiladas de pollo con salsa ranchera, y salsa crema, y salsa verde, como así la bandera mexicana,” waving my hands to indicate how the sauces were striped on the plate. The waitress never blinked, just nodded, wrote something on her pad, and went away.
A little later our food came out, and to my astonishment I was served exactly what I said I wanted—enchiladas banderas, looking pretty much the same as they did at Manuel’s! I took a bite, and they weren’t half bad for enchiladas more than a thousand miles from Congress Avenue. L and Helen rolled about at me being one-upped by the waitress, and I shut up and ate my enchiladas—all of them.
When the check came, I picked it up to see what this minor marvel had cost me (no more than any other enchiladas on the menu would have cost), and read what she’d written: “sour cream enchiladas SEE ME”. All I could do at that point was to admit I’d been out-played. I paid the bill, and left a quite generous tip for the waitress for having outdone me at being provincial. I asked the hostess as we left, and found out our waitress was costarricense, which explained exactly how she knew what I was up to and what to do about me.
Ever since I’ve played it straight, refusing to tempt the Universe by repeating my stunt (although these days, there are lots of good Central American places in Washington and the suburbs—a few years ago I had a really good order of lengua estofada at a Salvadoran joint in Alexandria). But you never know, and I won’t promise not to do it again, and parTICularly if I find myself somewhere like one place L got stuck at years ago in Baltimore because of a wedding shower, a restaurant that advertised on the radio about their “fresh-made tore-TILL-as” and “chile re-LEE-nos.”
