INCOHERENT STORY ABOUT VACATIONS, COOKING FOR ONE AND MR. TACO'S TACOS

Not every vacationer is in vacation mode, that heightened sense of awareness normally associated with the explorer, the private investigator or a guy getting serious about looking for his car keys.

In the late 80's, Nena, Diego and I left our home on Scenic Hill in North Little Rock for a one week vacation with no planned destination.  We agreed to stop and investigate anything that caught our eye.  After driving two blocks, one of us noticed a spring flowing out of the side of the hill.  We stopped to check it out, spent about an hour walking from the source, seeing where it went.  We'd lived on that hill twenty years at that point, never noticing that spring because we weren't in vacation mode.

Vacation mode was in play for my ill-advised two hour drive through Matamoros two weeks ago, criss-crossing the city from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM, stemmed from thinking about my coming Philippines trip and being in an exploring mindset.  

"You were either drunk or suicidal," my son chastised.

I don't believe I was either, just old and dumb, guilty of being in vacation mode.

Meanwhile, after several years of intense cooking, pretending to be Bobby Flay, getting up each day to decide Nena's main meal, I gave up, allowed my refrigerator inventory to deplete to almost nothing.  Cooking for one sucks!

These days, for my one main meal, I've focused on the taco, primarily tacos de bistek con frijoles charros y una limonada, something every taco place in town produces.

Back in the day, Nena and I always ordered tacos de pollo, especially con mole', that delicious sauce invented by nuns in Puebla, Puebla a couple centuries ago.

Jim Barton, Alex Guerrero

Our favorite taco place, La Linterna Verde, I think on Calle Abasolo in Matamoros, complete with bird cages on the ceiling, is remembered by only a few now.  Alex Guerrero remembers as does Martin Sarkis.

These days, chicken tacos are seldom on the menu, replaced by taquitos de bistek, etc.

    

Brownsville's Mr Taco, on McDavitt Blvd. has been my late night eatery in recent weeks.  Busy during the day, but crazy hell busy after midnight, with a security guard in reflective vest parking cars, you feel lucky just to get a table in the wee hours.

Free wifi keeps you occupied before the limonada comes out, then, the frijoles charros, a bowl of limes, and, lastly, the tacos.  

Toddlers run ahead of their mothers to the rest room, receiving a pat on the head from a passing waiter.  Dads hold their babies up, kissing and patting them like dads do.