Taos mío

By Teresa Dovalpage

Taos Mio – Episode One

First encounter with Taos: tortillas, sopaipillas and the cook’s helper The first time I went to Taos was in 2002. I had moved to Albuquerque a year before and started working toward my doctorate. Taos sounded like a cool place that I was glad to visit. Little could I imagine then that I would end up living in that quaint and quirky town for almost ten years. I went with my friends Marَia and Soledad who were, like me, graduate students at the University of New Mexico Spanish and Portuguese Department. We were taking a class with Dr. Enrique Lamadrid and the course included doing research about Northern New Mexico culture and traditions. I chose La Llorona, which later inspired a theater play. Soledad, who was from Spain, wanted to write about los penitents and María was interested in local songs. It was early fall, but it had begun to get chilly. When we came into the restaurant, the first thing that caught my eye was the potbelly stove in the middle of the room. The aromas—a mix of cinnamon, pork and, of course, chile—were mouthwatering. There was a pastry case in the bakery side, but we vowed not to check it out until we had finished our lunch. Soledad had come from Madrid only a few weeks before at the beginning of the semester. She had lived in Chile for several years and often sprinkled her Castilian Spanish speech with Chilean expressions like “¿cachai?” (get it?). But she hadn’t mastered the local Spanish yet as our visit to Michael’s Kitchen proved. María, a native Taoseña, had suggested the place not only because it was such an iconic restaurant but because her youngest son had been hired for his first job there and was already on his way to being promoted. She wanted us to meet him. We perused the menu. I craved a burrito. Would it be a regular one with pinto beans, onion, cheese and beef? Or Martin’s Breakfast Burrito, which included scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese, green chile and hash browns? Ah, decisions! “Burritos here are the best,” I told Soledad. “You have to try them.”

Her eyebrows went up. “What do you mean by burritos?” she asked, looking alarmed. “Do they eat donkey meat here?” The dialogue happened in Spanish. A couple of Spanish-speaking patrons turned around and glanced at us. María laughed out loud.

“Qué donkey ni donkey?” I told Soledad. “Chica, it’s just meat, veggies and sometimes eggs wrapped in a big flour tortilla.” She frowned. My explanation hadn’t helped.

Do they eat donkey meat here ?

“Wrapped in a flour tortilla,” she repeated. “Well, that doesn’t make sense. Do you beat the eggs with flour or what?” I asked María for help. She finally stopped laughing. “Our tortillas are not made with eggs, but corn or flour,” she said. “And we use them to prepare tacos and burritos.” “Spanish tortillas are made with eggs and sometimes onions and potatoes,” Soledad replied. “What do you call them here?” “Ah, that’s an omeleta, an omelet.” María pointed to the menu, where it read: “Spanish-style omelet: Nothing mild or bland. It’s homemade chile, cheese and onion.” And below, there was more: “plain omelet: choose from ham, link sausage, bacon, etc.” Soledad grumbled something about that not being really Spanish-style, but by then the waitress was ready to take our order. Mine was a breakfast burrito. María ordered a cheese omelet and Soledad decided on atole and piñon pancakes, which were blessedly free of linguistic confusions. “A pancake is just a pancake, right?” she asked.

Teresa Dovalpage- She was born in Havana and now lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, where she is a professor at New Mexico Junior College. He has published three collections of short stories and nine novels. Web https://teredovalpage.com/. Queen of Bones (Soho Crime, 2019) Death Comes in through the Kitchen (Soho Crime, 2018) The Astral Plane: Stories of Cuba, the Southwest and Beyond, University of New Orleans Press, 2012 (USA) The return of the expatriate, Egales, 2014, (Spain). Orfeo en el Caribe, Atmósfera Literaria, 2013, (Spain)La Regenta in Havana, Edebé, 2012, (Spain). You will mourn Franco, Atmósfera Literaria, 2012 (Spain) The late Fidel C, Renaissance, 2011. Habanera: A Portrait of a Cuban Family: Floricanto Press (USA), 2010. Death of a Murcian in Havana: Anagrama (Spain); 2006. Because of Candela: Floricanto Press (USA). Posesas de la Habana: Pureplay Press (USA), 2004. A girl like Che Guevara: Soho Press, (USA)