Sunday driving

I love going for a Sunday drive. Sunday is a big social day here in Mexico, in part because for most people it's their only day off, since most people work 6 days a week in these parts. So after church, for those called to attend, everyone hangs out in the plazas, or drives off into the countryside on the hunt for pulque, the potently intoxicating indigenous drink made from maguey and sold in roadside stands to those who can tolerate its strange vinegary taste. It's a day when people wander around the streets just for the sake of wandering and gossiping, to go buy an icecream cone or a popsicle at the corner store, or to go to the center of their village to see if any old lady is there making quesadillas.

Our local quesadilla lady is known around town as "La Matona," which means the Killer. I found out her real name is Luz (Light), but somehow she picked up Killer along the way because it's said that several of her husbands have died, and so people suspect her of killing them. Poor lady - she's from Oaxaca, and came up here when she married, and indeed at least one of her husbands died, although the story I heard is that he beat her to within an inch of her life, and she then turned him in to the cops when he committed some other violent crime. I think he died in jail. Anyway, she's the shortest little thing, very serious and laughs in a dejected kind of way if you say something funny to get her to lighten up. My husband always asks her what she has, and she'll say "de todo" - everything. He'll then say, ok give me one with mushrooms and one with squash blossom, and she'll say, oh I don't have those today. And he'll say, "didn't you just tell me you had everything?" And she'll bow her grayhaired head and chuckle toothlessly, sadly. Whenever I order a quesadilla, she looks faintly disappointed, as if she's loath to use the masa, or give away the cheese or the chicken. She only charges 8 pesos a quesadilla, which is 80 cents, and way cheap for as loaded and tasty as they are. By the way, for those not in the know, if you want cheese in your quesadilla, you have to ask for it extra - I used to think quesadilla automatically implied cheese - as in queso - right? But no, and nobody has been able to explain to me how you can have quesadillas with no cheese, but rather just piccadillo or mushrooms, or gizzards, which are my husband's fave.

Anyway, today, in the spirit of Sunday and the great quest for food, we got in our car and took off into the green hills, just to drive around and see the scenery and pass through mini little pueblos we've never been to and comment on the random crappy architecture of the cinderblock houses with the occasionly inspired design in an often overly gigantic structure. Just gazing and gawking at what people build. And just checking out the sheep straggling on the side of the highway with some old guy with a beat up sombrero prodding them along with a stick. We passed about 20 roadside shacks selling barbacoa, greasy tacos of dead sheep, offering free pulque with your purchase.

We came to the town of Papalotla, a name I love because it basically means Butterfly in nahuatl. How cool would it be to live in a town called Butterfly?! And it was a picturesque little town, with cobblestone streets, and ancient stone walls, and columns and arches all around the central square. Their market place had a bunch of quesadilla stands, so we decided to check it out since we'd passed up La Matona in the morning and had built up a substantial Sunday drive hunger. The Mexicans love to eat. The vendors were calling the customers to come to their tables, in the traditional way - calling everyone "Jefe" or "Compadre", so that you feel like you're already best buddies with your quesadilla maker, so that you trust in their food and feel at home. We picked a booth that looked clean and popular, and while Nikis dug into one of those stinky barbacoa tacos, I made my way through a couple of huitlacoche (a special yummy black fungus that grows on the corn stalks) quesadillas and one with potatoes and sausage. We washed it down with sangria flavored soda and a stroll around the square. We got the baby a ballon with dried rice or beans in it to make it rattle - we had to get it for him because he about wiggled out of my arms trying to wave down the balloon vendor with his giant bouquet of "globos." It's when it hit me that I really have a kid - now I have to buy things to which I never would have given a second glance before - kid things. Balloons. Cotton candy and ponyrides will be next, I'm sure. And whoa if you tried to take his balloon away - he threw a hissy fit when he dropped it and a little breeze blew it a few feet away - you'd have thought I chopped off his right arm or something.

We kept on driving and passed a tamale stand that smelled so good we almost stopped and got out for tamales, because like I said, the Mexicans like to eat! But we restrained ourselves and kept on, till we came to another little pueblo that was celebrating a patron saint festival. We stopped there and wandered around looking at plants and talavera ceramic pots and a glory of cazuelas in stand after stand, all hand painted with scrolls and curlicues and sweet phrases like "Don't ever forget me." I bought some homemade jam made out of a fruit I'd never heard of and whose name I've already forgotten, but that tastes like some kind of a wild pear. We watched the Santiagos dance for a while - kids who volunteered to honor the saint by dancing an ancient 5 hour dance that reenacts the Crusades, with the Christians against the Muslims, and during the 5 hours, the Christians one by one "kill off" the "evil heathen" Muslims, or Moors, as they call them. It's loopy, but steeped in tradition, and such an obvious leftover from the conquistadores teaching the Indios the history of Spain that it is fascinating to me.

On our way back home, through Texcoco, past all the girly bars and rent-by-the-hour motels and cement wholesalers that dot the highway, we spotted an extravagent pasteleria named Montparnasse, where we just had to stop and continue our Sunday food fest. I walked into cake heaven - well, gelato and truffle heaven as well - with row after row of ornately decorated creations, fine and petite in the European tradion, and so we sat down for fancy cake and cappuchino as if we were in Paris and not on some ghetto road in Mexico. It was a perfect ending to a Sunday drive. The sun even came out afterwards, like a cherry on top of our day.