Thursday, December 28, 2023
Finally, I was able to sleep last night. The key was to get River up on the top bunk with Alicia -- her favorite sibling -- and Anahi slept out on the couch.
I have no idea how much Coke we’ve had since we got here, but they drink it like water. Thankfully, I was able to sleep despite this.
I woke up early and got to work blogging. It’s really tough to keep up on these things.
For breakfast, Martha made these amazing tostadas raspadas from Guadalajara. The highlight of these was the habanero onions that we put on them. Alicia thought they were just onions, and she had a huge surprise. The food here has been the spiciest Mexican food I’ve ever had. I’m sure my face is totally red while I’m eating, and my forehead just drips sweat, but it’s so good!
Dani and Brianda and their family came over, and we spent most of the afternoon to play card games (Nerts and Scum), and then Valentín taught us a Mexican version of Scattergories called ¡Basta!
For dinner we went out to a food truck called “Dogos del Miami,” and we had hot dogs. If you’ve never had a Mexican hot dog -- specifically a “dogo” from Sonora -- you don’t know what a hot dog can really be. American hot dogs are all living beneath their potential. They are like caterpillars with no idea what it could be like to be a beautiful butterfly.
A “basic” hot dog at Los Miamis is two giant hot dogs, wrapped in bacon, nestled in a warm, homemade bun, and topped with mayonnaise, ketchup, onions, and nacho cheese. That’s what Betty and Alicia ordered. Kimball ordered a “dogo adobado,” which is a bacon-wrapped dog topped with taco meat (carne adobada), and then dressed with jalapeños. Anahi ordered a “Dogo Italiano,” which had two bacon-wrapped dogs, pepperoni, ham, tomato, onions, and mayonnaise. Ian and I had “Chile Dogos,” which are hot dogs wrapped in a chile, wrapped in bacon, and then topped with mayo, tomato, onion, crushed potato chips, guacamole, and nacho cheese.
I think Alicia said it best: “The Mexicans beat us at our own game.”
The problem with the hot dogs came after dinner, when I started to calculate how much food had come into my system since last week, and how little food was coming out. I have no idea where it is all going. Generally, when gringos like us visit Mexico, we have the opposite problem, but not me. Not this time.
I’m a little concerned.