Archive for Puerto Rico

Boricuas everywhere!

{ April 8, 2008 @ 2:45 pm } · { California, Island musings, Puerto Rico, Queer }
{ Tags: , , } · { Comments (2) }

Everywhere I go here I end up running into mi gente.  Bars, boricuas.  Church, boricuas.  Schools, boricuas.  Camp, boricuas, mexiricans, cariben@s…  And now I’m devising a possible training/workshop/leadership development for queer boricua youth here in lb since there seem to be a few in the group a friend of mine volunteers with.  New project for after cabaret! Yay! 

Everywhere in the world I’ve gone, US and Europe (I won’t bother including Caribbean in there LOL) it’s like we have a magnetic pull and we just find each other.  New Orleans, touring the city on the streetcar,ran into a random dude from Ponce who had been living there for over a dozen years.  I still remember the excitement of the conversation.  Paris, random run in at a bar with other Newyoricans on holiday who were watching the world cup.  Idaho, I happened to intersect with the two other Boricuas in my area and quickly connected with a few others (probably the only others in the state!).  Utah, of all places, running into random Boricua college students, raised in Utah claiming their roots!  Western Mass, kicking it at a club and just by watching him move I could tell we shared a patria.  Representin’! And now, LB I find ’em everywhere without even looking. 

La mancha.  La sangre llama.  It never ceases to amaze me that magnetic draw that brings us to each other.  And it always excites me to find another.  And here, well we network about where to find ingredients for our favorite dishes, or I get questions about the island, or we talk about what it means for them to be mexirican and how the two cultures are expressed in their families.  Always such an affirmation and such an adventure.  Always so familiar.  Well, it is a small island, we could be cousins after all.  And that is generally the attitude we approach encounters with, mi gente.  And every now and then it proves true and we find a primo tercero, a random relation, a suspected branch on the family tree. 

I’m excited and fascinated to be part of this beautiful web that joins us all together and somehow lets us recognize each other in multitudes, carries the message of our history, our blood, our collective being… beyond stereotypes or phenotypes.

Ode to MayoKetchup

{ February 4, 2007 @ 6:06 pm } · { Island musings, Puerto Rico }
{ Leave a Comment }

I used to frown on the use of Mayoketchup…

for those of you who have not had the culinary experience it is a mixture of mayo and ketchup (duh!!) usually with garlic powder, sometimes a little bit of mustard. ANYway… it is similar to the beast called fry sauce in some places. But here on the island it is used as dip for tostones (fried plantains) and as salad dressing.

So, back to my story.

I used to think mayoketchup was so ‘ghetto.’ Una jibareria. That and putting canned vegetales on salad. I still can’t stand the latter but I have to admit I’ve come to a truce with mayoketchup. I still won’t buy iceberg unless I’m desperate, I still am a snob about vine ripened tomatoes, I love some homemade honeymustard dressing with balsamic.

Mayoketchup has grown on me. I’ll confess if you give me a delicate salad with fresh greens with a few walnuts and then have me chose between a raspberry vinagrette or mayoketchup I might be swayed but when I’m going out for some chuletas, rice and beans, well, mayoketchup is just right for the iceberg and mealy tomato that I also love sometimes.

So today we got the craving for comida criolla and I didn’t feel like cooking so we decided to try out a new restaurant in town. We ordered Churrasco for the boi and Shrimp with a mango sauce for Me and some rice and beans and salads. We were asked for our choice of dressing and if we wanted the house dressing. I said yes, el aderezo de la casa por favor. The boi looked impressed. I laughed to myself.

Of course we got little cups of mayoketchup (usually it is served in a squeeze bottle so this was pretty fancy shit!). The boi was surprised but realized I had known all along that this pompous attempt at fanciness hid nothing more exotic than the cafre dressing of choice.

I don’t know if it’s nostalgia that makes the shit taste good. Or if it’s the fact that I don’t feel a need to prove anything to myself. Or just a loss of comemierderia.

Whatever it is, it’s hella good on tostones.

Buen provecho.