juanzqui

Sometime ago I was asked to speak to a class about opinion writing. This is what I told them:

1. Have something to say and don’t force the reader to wait until the last paragraph to find out what it is.
2. Decide who you are speaking for. (Yourself? A group? An institution?)
3. Decide what you want to accomplish. (Educate? Entertain? Motivate? Change minds?)
4. Don’t take a poll to decide what you’re going to say
5. Don’t take a poll to decide how you’re going to say it.
6. Feel strongly about what it is you want to say, but not so strongly that you let your emotions overrule all other instincts.
7. Don’t be afraid to show how strongly you feel about what it is you want to say, but be aware that a person who yells all the time is very likely to be tuned-out by most people.
8. Say what you want to say in a way that touches people’s hearts and souls.  
9. There is no better way to touch the readers’ souls than by baring your own soul.
10. You can persuade by reason, but you can only motivate through emotion.
11. Talk about your personal experiences but only to help you get your points across.
12. Be willing to make a fool of yourself but, for heaven’s sake, don’t make it a habit.
13. Don’t be afraid to antagonize enemies or friends, but do it for a good reason, not just to antagonize.
14. Beware of facts: they are a good opinion writer’s worst enemy and a mediocre opinion writer’s best friend; they should be used sparingly and with caution.
15. Quoting other people is good if it strengthens your argument, but bad if you quote others to keep from expressing your own thoughts.
16. It is not your job to comfort the powerful; it is your job to inflict as much discomfort on them as possible.
17. Your goal should never be to embarrass or cause pain to private citizens, no matter how stupid they may seem.
18. Don’t let yourself believe that politicians, entertainers, sports figures, etc., are your friends.
19. Be passionately in love with the language and don’t be afraid to show it.
20. Keep it simple.
21. Each sentence should logically follow the previous sentence and each paragraph should logically follow the previous paragraph.
22. Reading a column should be like following a trail from the starting point to the end. It should be a smooth and simple path, free of obstacles, detours and roadblocks.
23.  When you are wrong, acknowledge it right away and apologize profusely and sincerely.
24.  Mejor un loco y no dos. Always strive to be the voice of reason, the voice of maturity.
25. Don’t do it if you don’t enjoy it; there are plenty of others who want to do it.

[Going through some old papers, I came across this column I wrote for The Houston Post in March 1985, more than five years before I got my long-held wish to be a columnist for that paper, and about six years before my mother died. I was working in The Post’s Washington bureau at the time.] 

WASHINGTON – This morning, as usual, I walked from my apartment to the subway, a couple of blocks away, on my way to work. As I rounded a corner, I noticed a woman sitting on a short stone fence near a bus stop. 

She was Latina, short and slightly built. Something about her seemed familiar. But I couldn’t quite figure out what. Then I walked right in front of her and saw that, as she sat there patiently waiting for her bus, she held in her hands a rosary. 

She was praying. 

I knew then what it was about her that was so familiar. It was her posture. I have seen that posture so many times: the slight stoop of the rounded shoulders, the right leg draped over the other, the two hands resting on the lap, caressing and massaging each bead as the lips form the words of the Padre Nuestro and the Dios te Salve. 

I have witnessed that scene many times in my life, at home. I couldn’t count the number of times I walked into my mother’s bedroom to find her sitting on the edge of her bed, silently saying her rosary. For years she’s been doing it at least once a day. 

She prayed when she was young and busy with work inside and outside the home. Now that she’s retired with little to do but watch her Mexican soap operas on television, she still prays, often while watching TV. I’ve often wondered how God feels about time-sharing with a soap opera. If he resents it, he hasn’t made his feelings known yet. I doubt he’d dare, since he’s given her enough suffering in her life justify a few more of her eccentricities.

When she was younger, her strong hands exerted clear control of the rosary. Today, after almost a decade of suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, the beads rattle a bit as she holds on. Those trembling hands – hands that were strong enough to pick cucumbers in the hot sandy hills of Wisconsin and sturdy enough to top sugar beets in the freezing rains of North Dakota’s Red River Valley – today can barely hold onto a string of beads weighing but a few ounces. 

Yet she prays. She prays for me. She prays for my brother and sisters and their kids and their kids’ kids. She prays for her sisters and brothers, nephews and nieces and in-laws. 

She prays for politicians and the pope. 

She prays for rain for the farmers and the starving Africans and peace for esa pobre gente in Nicaragua, El Salvador, in Lebanon and other lands, though she has no idea where most of them are. 

And when she does, she appears to be completely at peace.

So did that woman I saw at the bus stop. While other commuters impatiently looked to see if the bus were coming in, others worked their crossword puzzles and still others read reports or briefing papers or whatever work they had brought with them, this woman sat quietly, serenely enveloped in her prayers. 

And for a brief moment, as I hurried to the subway station, I was home, and I was rushing away from my mother, as I have done so many times before. 

CHEESE ENCHILADAS is one of my favorite dishes, and I (of course!) like them the way my mother prepared them, by dipping a warm corn tortilla in the hot chile sauce she had made with red chile powder, then briefly dipping it in a pan of hot lard then placing grated cheese and raw onions in the center and rolling the tortilla into a tight tasty burrito (any rolled up tortilla is a burrito in my book). She never smothered the burritos in sauce, or even poured a bit of sauce on them. We ate them with a simple salad of lettuce, tomato and onions. Nothing fancy at all.

Over the years, I’ve made lots of enchiladas and, because I’ve become a food snob, I had this stupid notion that I had to make my enchilada sauce from scratch – using whole dried chile peppers. Some of my sauces have been excellent, some have been disasters. Recently, though, I decided to go back to my mother’s way and I made the sauce using chile powder made by McCormick, with chiles anchos, from a jar I bought some time ago.

I posted a picture on FaceBook and I was surprised by the number of people who wrote that they never make their own sauce, that they instead buy it in cans. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially if you have a busy life and don’t want to spend all your time in the kitchen. But if you want to be able to make your own sauce, here’s a recipe I’ve created. It doesn’t take longer that 10 minutes, and it’s a lot cheaper than what you buy in cans. Try it.

Ingredients:

1 tsp    oil

8 oz     hot water or broth

2 tsps  flour

1 tbs    chile powder*

½ tsp   salt**

½ tsp    garlic powder

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in a skillet under medium heat
2. Heat the water or broth
3. Gradually add the flour and stir rigorously until flour is completely dissolved
4. Slowly pour the mixture into the pan with the heated oil.
5. Stir while adding the chili powder.
6. Continue to stir, adding the garlic powder and salt, until it starts to boil. (If the sauce is too watery, continue to heat until you have the right consistency.)
7. Turn off heat.
8. That is all.

This will probably make enough sauce to serve two people (about 8 enchiladas).

* Any brand; I prefer McCormick Gourmet Ancho Chile Pepper, which you can get online if you can’t find it at your grocery story) 

** If you use this sauce with corn chips instead of tortillas, cut the amount of salt by half. 

I JUST FINISHED “A Taco Testimony,” by New Mexico novelist Denise Chávez, a perfect read for this time of year when the memories of the holidays and all their warmth linger and still pull us back to the things that sustain us, food, family and culture – even in these tragic times.

“A Taco Testimony” is a perfect book to read while you wait for the March release of Houstonian Adán Medrano’s excellent film, “Truly Texas Mexican.” They are both about the love we share for comida, familia y cultura. 

While Chávez is not a Texan, we can still claim her as ours: her mother was born and grew up in West Texas! 

And while there have been many a heated debate over the differences between Texas and New Mexico food, at heart, they are the same, really. As my mother used to say, “Es la misma gata nomas que revolcada.”

If you’re not familiar with Chávez, it’s not too late to get to know her. Her best novel, to me, is “Loving Pedro Infante,” a beautiful story that I’ll probably re-read soon because I loved it so much. (I reviewed the book for the old Houston Post when it came out, but I can’t find a copy of the review.)

“A Taco Testimony,” is not a novel. It is, indeed, a meditation on family, food and culture, as the book’s subtitle claims. Yes, we get recipes of everything from tacos to “capirotada sin vergüenza,” but we get a lot more.

“It’s about the living and the dead and the eternal nourishment that come from being part of a community,” Chávez writes in her ‘Dear Reader’ section. “This is a memoir of food. As such, it is funny, sad, merciful and full of prayers.”

WE LEARN a lot about her family, particularly her patient and saintly mother and her alcoholic father, but we learn a lot more about the generous and forgiving daughter that Chávez is.

The strongest, most moving part of this book is found in the chapter towards the end titled, “Culture with a Capital C.” In it, Chávez bemoans its disappearance. By culture, she means that which allows us – encourages us – to seek to learn about the differences in food, customs and traditions. 

“The lack of culture in contemporary society is manifest,” she writes. “It drives people to be intolerant, unsupportive and offensive. It allows people to hurt, maim and kill one another without reason.” 

BUT DON’T worry: Chávez is not a scold. Far from it. Her book is filled with humor and levity and warmth. You will feel good when you come to the end, just as you feel after feasting on a plate of tacos. And you will wish there were more.

You can order the book from Casa Camino Real in La Cruces, NM.

Chona was my mother’s next-door neighbor on Highland Circle in my hometown of Crystal City in South Texas. My mother called her Chonita. 

Chonita was one of my mother’s most frequent visitors after our family moved from our old neighborhood on the other side of town after Urban Renewal decided it would be a good idea to run a street through my bedroom. Chonita was the source of family and neighborhood gossip. 

Anything that happened in Chonita’s family – hurt feelings, spats, outright fights – my mother would hear about it. When things got real bad, Chonita would precede her story with the phrase, “Ya ubo pedo en el baile, Martina!”

Loosely translated, the phrase means, “Things have gone to hell,” or, to put it more colorfully, “The shit has hit the fan.” 

More literally translated, it means, “Shit broke out at the dance (last night),“ although a pedo is a fart, not shit.

The dance reference is not a casual one, for dances meant a lot in the life of small South Texas towns such as Crystal City. Aside from church (and, later, sports events, the weekly dances at El Campestre or La Placita, were the only places where people could socialize in large numbers, where young people could meet and court each other under the watchful eyes of their parents, tíos and tías. 

And because young people could hold each other while dancing and show affection towards to each other, jealousies were bound to be aroused, which meant that sooner or later a fistfight would erupt. Maybe two. Maybe more. 

The fights would all eventually be subdued by friends and relatives (no need to call the cops for these family spats, and security guards? Whoever heard of security guards at dances back then?) and the dancing would continue until the conjunto began packing up its equipment.

The next day the talk of the town would be about the dance. Who danced with whom, who was seen sneaking out to the parking lot with whom, and what poor fool paid the $5 entrance fee only to stand on the sidelines all night because he was too damn timid to ask the pretty girls to dance. (You guessed it: that shy Palomo boy!) 

But the titillating talk was about the fights. So much so that eventually the most common response to the question, “Como estubo el baile?” was, “Muy bonito – nadie se pelió!” (It was beautiful, there were no fights!).

All this to tell you that my reaction to the last 365 days on this the last day of the year is, “Ubo pedo en el baile.” 

It was not a pretty dance. Far from it. The conjunto didn’t know the difference between a bolero and a cumbia and people kept stumbling over each other and falling as they tried to figure out the beat. Meanwhile, the orange-haired lead singer kept insisting the group’s music was nothing less than a big, beautiful sound – the best ever, anywhere. 

And whatever discontent there was would all be over soon, he insisted. It wasn’t, of course, and the dancers finally got together to select a new band, only to have the orange fool charge the vote was rigged and refuse to vacate the stage. 

And that’s where we find ourselves in the last few minutes of this dreadful dance – donde ubo un gran pedo.

As I’ve mentioned a few times over the past month, I’ve been enjoying Jonathan Alter’s biography of Jimmy Carter, “His Very Best.” It may be the best book to read in these the waning days of the Trump administration, for in many ways Carter was and remains the ultimate anti-Trump, a decent, honest and honorable man with a deep, deep love and respect for humanity and the world in which we live.

Not long ago I read former Carter aide Stuart Eizenstat’s book of his former boss. I liked that book but it is only an account of the Carter years in the White House, not a complete biography. Alter’s book offers so much more, from his childhood to his third public life as international humanitarian and peacemaker (his first was in Georgia state politics, including the governorship; the second was the presidency).

Two things struck me the most about this book. The first is that Carter was a much more successful president than he has been given credit for. Contrary to popular myth, Carter was not a weak or ineffective president. He accomplished a lot more in his four years in office than any 20^th Century president other than FDR and LBJ, and he did most of it while standing strong for his beliefs in honesty, justice and morality. The list of his accomplishments is long. Here are a few: 

• The Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel
• The successful transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama.
• The creation of the Department of Energy and the passage of the nation’s first national energy policy designed to promote conservation and the development of alternative resources (which eventually led to the country’s becoming energy self-sufficient).
• The appointment of more federal judges in his four years than any other modern president (including the soon-to-be ex-president).
• The creation of the Department of Education.
• The injection of human rights as an integral part of international relations.
• The introduction of the notion of global warming and the need to take action to curb it.
• With the help of First Lady Rosalyn Carter, elevating mental health as a national concern (much of what Rosalyn pushed for ended up being included in ObamaCare).
• Giving greater prominence to the Veterans Administration and pushing it to do more for the nation’s veterans.
• Elevating the role of his vice president, Walter Mondale, making him, for the first time in history, a true partner.
• After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter began a period of military build-up that eventually was to convince Soviet leaders to throw in the towel, leading to the breakup of the USSR.
• And yes, it was his negotiations with the Ayatollah’s men that led to the release of the hostages, unharmed, minutes after Reagan was sworn in.

There is more. A lot more. Significantly, most of these accomplishments came in the face of a very negative press, which went out of its way to portray Carter as weak, as a wimp – an ineffectual fool.

And, of course, there is his post-presidency. Again, with Rosalyn, he has racked up success after success in promoting human rights, reducing homelessness, eradicating diseases, ensuring honest elections abroad, and facing down corrupt strongmen in third-world countries. 

Alter offers a thrilling account of when Bill Clinton sent Carter, former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn and Collin Powell to Haiti to negotiate with the island’s dictator, an army general. With U.S. forces on ships off the island, ready to invade if the general didn’t step down, Carter refused to abandon negotiations even as his Secret Service protectors and military leaders warned that if Carter and the others didn’t leave, they could be captured by the Haitians and held as hostages to prevent an invasion. The invasion never came because Carter was able to talk the strongman into stepping down.

Was Carter perfect? Far from it. Carter had many flaws, chief among them his pride, his certainty that his way was the right way. He was a terrible communicator, and he knew it, but he refused to do anything about it because he believed substance, not showmanship, would carry the day.

Carter was indeed, a flawed individual. Which brings me to the second thing that struck me about his book, the fact that in his early years in politics, Carter turned his back on the struggle for civil rights and on those who continued to be oppressed by Jim Crow laws. 

The future human rights champion began his political career in the early 1960s, as a state senator, in a state that was a major civil rights battleground. Yet Carter never spoke publicly against the Old South mentality and its suppressive laws and mores. Carter and Martin Luther King Jr. never met; there is no record of his ever seeking a meeting with the civil rights leader.

Even worse, as a candidate for governor, Carter relied heavily on code-word campaigning to assure racist white voters that he was not their enemy. And he played footsies with both George Wallace and Lester Maddux to keep them from opposing his candidacy. 

This was an ugly, ugly chapter in the life of Jimmy Carter, one that ended a few minutes after he was sworn in, when he declared in his inaugural address, that the time for racial segregation in Georgia was over. He went on to govern as an enlightened Southerner, and that served him well when he ran for president.

What amazes me is that, despite his distasteful early civil rights record, Carter managed to win the Democratic nomination in 1976 and go on to become president. Would a Democratic politician with such a record be able to do that today?

I don’t think so, not in this era of 24-hour punditry, relentless media scrutiny and unforgiving purity tests. Not in an age when redemption, forgiveness, renewal, etc., are bad words.

What you will need:

• A loaf of French bread, sliced about ¾ to 1 inch thick, toasted. (You can use any kind of bread, really, but I think it tasted better with French)

• One cone of piloncillo, cut into small pieces. Piloncillo is a raw form of pure cane sugar. It usually comes in the shape of a cone and you can probably find them wherever Mexican goods are stocked in your supermarket. At my HEB they are with the dried chiles and corn husks (for tamales) in the produce center. You can always order it online. Don’t buy GOYA. If you can’t find piloncillo, use brown sugar. 

• Raisins. I’d say anywhere between three-quarters of a cup to a cup.

• Chopped pecans, about three quarters of a cup. More if you are crazy for pecans. (Some people use peanuts, others use walnuts; I’ve only made it with pecans.

• Three or four sticks of Mexican cinnamon. 

• One-half to one whole stick of butter, salted or unsalted.

• About a cup of grated cheese. I mostly use cheddar of Monterey Jack, but I’ve tried it with Gruyere and other cheeses. I think the sharper the cheese the better.

• About a quarter cup of sliced almonds (optional)

• Also optional: about 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder.

• About a quart of water, maybe a bit more.

• Some ground cinnamon and white granular sugar, and a tiny bit of salt, for sprinkling on top before putting in the oven.

The story:

There are probably as many recipes for this Mexican dessert as there are Mexicans. In our household, it was considered a Lenten dish, especially for Holy Week, but I like it year-round. I prepare it the way my mother used to make it, with a few notable exceptions. She made hers (and my sister still does), very, very mushy. So much so that I never touched the stuff in my finicky youth). Mine is still mushy, but not as much. More soggy than mushy. And, because I place it in the oven, it comes out with a nice crunch crust.  

How to do it:

• In a deep pot, heat the water with the cinnamon sticks and the piloncillo pieces. Stir until the piloncillo has dissolved. Allow to come to a boil for a few minutes then turn off the heat and add the butter and the cocoa, if using, stir until all the butter is melted and the cocoa has dissolved.

• In a wide pie pan (I like to use a heavy glass pie pan) or a bread pan, place a layer of the toasted bread at the bottom. Cut up pieces of bread to fill in any spaces between the slices.

• Spread some cheese and raisins and pecans over the layer of bread.

• With a dipper or ladle, carefully pour some of the piloncillo water over the layer until the bread is lightly soaked. You shouldn’t soak it completely because as you build up layers, the water will seep down and thoroughly soak the bread. 

• Repeat steps 1, 2 and three until you’re reached the top or you’ve run out of bread. Over the top layer of bread, place and extra helping of the raisins, pecans and cheese. Top with almond slices, if you’re using. 

• Sprinkle cinnamon powder and sugar all over the top, and then sprinkle a tiny, tiny amount of salt over that (salt is optional).

• Place in the oven at about 350 degrees and allow it to bake for about 15-20 minutes. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn. When the top forms a beautiful shiny golden brown crust, it is time to take it out of the oven.

You can serve it warm right out of the oven, cold, or reheated. Goes great with vanilla ice cream. 

The New York Times is about to release its list of the best books of 2020, so I thought I’d beat it to the punch. Here’s my list of the best 14 books published this year (in no particular order):

Fiction: 

1. Redhead by the Side of the Road, a novel by Anne Tyler.
2. The Lying Life of Adults, a novel by Elene Ferrante
3. Miss Jane, a novel by Brad Watson
4. The Nightwatchman, a novel by Louise Erdrich
5. A Long Petal of the Sea, a novel by Isabel Allende
6. Memorial, a novel by Houstonian Bryan Washington
7. A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, short stories by El Paso native Sergio Troncoso.

Nonfiction:

1. The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.
2. His Very Best, a Jimmy Carter biography by Jonathan Alter
3. In the Dream House, a memoir by Carmen Maria Machado
4. Children of the Land, a memoir by poet Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
5. On the Plain of Snakes, a travelogue of today’s Mexico by Paul Theroux
6. Pelosi, biography by Molly Ball
7. Mad at the World, a biography of John Steinbeck by William Souder

I’VE BEEN making my own salsas for years but I’ve never bothered to write down any recipes, primarily because the recipe changes each time I make it. But friends have been pressing me to write down the recipe, so here it is. This recipe will give you a rich, thick dark -red salsa with an intriguing slightly smokey taste. It is relatively mild. If you prefer it spicier, add another chipotle chile.

1. Place two tomatoes and four tomatillos in boiling water and let boil until tomatillos start to soften. Place them in your blender. Do not get rid of the water.
2. On a hot skillet, place two ancho chiles and two guajillo chiles. Leave them there for a couple of minutes on each side, then place them in the hot water and let them soak for a few minutes.
3. Place the chiles in a blender.
4. Place four garlic cloves and a sliced half onion on the hit skillet and leave them there for a few minutes, until the onion becomes translucent. Add them to the blender.
5. Add half a cup of chopped cilantro to the mixture in the blender.
6. Add one chipotle pepper from a can of chipotle in adobo.
7. Add the juice of half a lime and a quarter cup of vinegar and some salt.
8. On the still-warm skillet, heat one teaspoon of cumin seeds and an equal amount of oregano. Let them toast for a bid and add to the blender.
9. I think that’s it. Purée just long enough to get a nice chunky salsa consistency. You’re welcome.