The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Expat Life

Albur, the Mexican double-entendre

by

While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.

Image from Esmas.com

Today my cab driver mentioned a concept I had heard before but hadn’t really had the Spanish expertise to pay much attention to. So now I pass it on to you!

An “albur” is a Mexican form of wordplay through the use of sexual double-entendres, often used as a putdown like the dozens in the U.S. There are some common albures that everybody knows (see a great overview here), but the quick-witted people who are really good at it get to make a career out of it.

One of these is Victor Trujillo, better known as “Brozo the Creepy Clown,” a green-haired wisecracker (pictured above) who, behind the makeup, has become one of Mexico’s sharpest political critics, to the point where the big names in government have to kowtow to him. Here’s President Felipe Calderon on Brozo’s show, back when he was running for the office. (In this sense, Brozo seems to me to be kind of like a Mexican Jon Stewart.)

My Spanish comprehension and Mexican cultural sophistication aren’t nearly good enough to get most of the jokes, but the ones I have managed to digest are pretty great. Brozo, for instance, used to have a show called “El Mañanero,” which can be translated simply as “The Morning Show,” but can also refer to a morning roll in the hay. That crazy Brozo!

(Also, according to this, Brozo did the voice of Lion-O for the Spanish-language version of Thundercats. Hooooooo!)

Things I don’t understand about Mexican soccer

by

While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.

I’m not one of those Americans who hate soccer or think it’s a wussy sport or whatever. I really enjoy the games, especially when I can go to the stadium, because as with American football, people-watching is half the fun.

I’ve been to two Mexican league games and one international game, the World Cup qualifier between the U.S. and Mexico last summer, pictured above. (Lesley chronicled some of those experiences here and here.)

I generally understand the game and a little bit of the strategy, though the unevenness in the enforcement of the offsides rule always confuses me. But Mexican soccer has some peculiarities that really throw me off. Maybe some of Lesley’s helpful readers can help me out here.

Why does the Mexican league have two seasons? It does! The first one is called the Apertura, or opening season. The second one is the Clausura, or closing season. (We’re currently in the middle of the Clausura.) Each season has its own champion. If a team manages to win both championships, it’s known as a bicampeonato, and it’s really rare and fantastic, they say. But unless that happens, each year does not have a single team that is declared the best in the country. I find this incredibly frustrating.

Why are teams so inconsistent? Pumas won the Clausura last year, then got off to an awful start in the Apertura. Chivas were so-so in the Apertura last year and are having a great Clausura so far. Nobody seems to be able to get any sort of dominant run going. Good teams turn bad and bad teams turn good almost instantly. Is there a lot of player turnover? Do the good teams lose their players to Europe or something? Is this common in all professional soccer? I feel like in Major League Soccer, the U.S. league I sort of paid attention to, there have been a few consistently good teams over many years.

Why is it so hard to figure out when the game is on? Seriously! I know Mexican soccer fans use sites like Medio Tiempo to keep up, but I have yet to find any central repository of information on what channel the game will be on. The newspapers never have any detail. Is the Pumas game on Televisa this week? Do Chivas play on TV Azteca? According to this, you’re just supposed to know?

How are Chivas still around? My friend Carlos, a diehard Chivas fan, says the Guadalajara team has a special mystique because its roster is, by policy, composed completely of Mexicans. No other team has that rule, he says. So if you’re puro mexicano, Chivas is your team. But this is an international game! Other teams are importing players from Argentina, Brazil, even the U.S. How can a team with this policy, which is either patriotic or xenophobic depending on your view, stay competitive? It automatically shuts out most of the world’s soccer players from its recruiting base!

Carlos is trying to convert me into a Chivas fan. I’m going to watch some games with him this pseudo-season and see if it rubs off. Who knows, maybe this’ll all become clear to me.

El Super Tazón (or The Super Bowl in Mexico)

by

While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.

Wow, that was an impressive victory by Los Santos in el Super Tazón. I don’t know how to say “onside kick” in Spanish but:

“First down” = “Primer diez”
“Second down” = “Segunda oportunidad”
“Touchdown” = “Anotación”

Interestingly, Mexico has four different ways to watch the Super Bowl. You can watch on one of the two national broadcast networks, Televisa and TV Azteca, and on two cable networks, ESPN and Fox Sports. No matter what you watched last night, El Who’s halftime performance was weird, with the vocals out of sync with the video. We chose Fox Sports for the broadcast. The announcers, who called the game from a studio with occasional “color” feeds by cellphone from a guy who was actually in Miami, just seemed a little more knowledgeable than the rest.

American football (as opposed to “football,” which is soccer, guys) is quite popular in Mexico. In my first year in el DF, the Steelers seemed to me to be the most popular team based on the jerseys I saw, so I’ll be interested to see if that changes now that we have a new champion. The Cowboys are perennially popular, along with the Pats and the Broncos. I’ve spotted a good number of jerseys of my team, the Bears. I think the north of Mexico is pretty exclusively Cowboys territory, but the capital is a little more diverse.

Someone once told me that the Steelers – the Acereros – are popular in Mexico because the NFL first started broadcasting in the country in the 1970s, when the Steelers were pretty much everything one would want in a football team.

I ‘ve posted a bit before about how to watch American football in Mexico. You can get the Sunday Ticket here if you are able to get a satellite TV receiver. There’s no (legal) way to do it over the Internet here, though you can sign up for Internet broadcasts in other countries further away from the U.S.

That’s where the NBA has the NFL beat.  I’m addicted to International League Pass, the gateway to U.S. professional basketball. I can watch my Phoenix Suns play every night, along with every other game in the league. Thanks, Internet!

OK, i just checked. “Onside kick” is “patada corta.” Now you know.

(Oh! I almost forgot! Some people like to watch the Super Bowl just for commercials! Not so much in Mexico, where there are just regular commercials for cars and such, nothing special. To watch the Real Super Bowl Commercials, expats must rely on the Internet once again. Pass the guacamole!)

“Drink up, chumps!”

by

While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.

[Before I get started, thought you’d want to know: I heard from Lesley this morning and she’s doing fine. I think she misses the Internet.]

Mexicans love The Simpsons. It airs on broadcast TV here, in Spanish, with a bizarro Spanish-speaking Homer who Mexicans find just as hilarious as Americans find English-speaking Homer. (“D’oh!” is a universal word.)

The owner of an establishment in probably the ugliest part of Santa Fe, the swanky Mexico City suburb, loves the show so much that he devoted his whole bar to the theme. It’s called Moe’s Tavern. Because it would have to be.

Lesley and I went there with a couple of friends back in December. It’s on a highway access road in a kind of shopping center, with a Comex paint store and that sort of thing. It’s a very difficult area to direct a taxi driver. We’d caught a glimpse of the sign a few times coming home from the Volaris airport shuttle station, which is the only reason we knew the place existed.

I thought the bar might have a couple of posters up, whatever. But they went all out. Each table is shaped like a Simpsons character, painted in loving detail. (We sat around Ralph.) Memorabilia covered the walls, including various portraits of Homer fashioned to look like famous people, such as Einstein.

The menu had Krusty Burgers! But were kinda scared to try them. We were the only ones in the place for most of the time we were there, until some dudes showed up to play pool later. The music was insanely loud techno. The big plush chair/couch things reminded us of ’80s roller-skating rink decor. I ordered a tequila and for some reason the waiter served it on the rocks.

And disappointingly, despite the actual availability of Duff beer in Mexico, Moe’s Tavern only served the garden-variety Mexican beers. For shame.

Since it’s kind of out of the way, I don’t think we’ll go back unless we happen to be in the neighborhood. But should you be so inclined…

Moe’s Tavern
Prol. Gomez Farias Lote 14 No. 203
Santa Fe, Mexico DF
1327-8897

Beer o’clock

by

While Lesley’s studying at an ashram in India, her husband Crayton is guest-posting. Please be kind to him.

Thanks for all your great suggestions on topics for the next couple of weeks. Keep ’em coming.

Today I’d like to talk to you about beers. Cervezas, as they’re formally known here. Informally known as chelas, chupas and other words I haven’t even learned yet.

Mexico has some great things going for it in the beer department, with some serious, serious flaws. The good news is that the widely available commercial beers are, by and large, pretty good. Some of them you know: Corona is every American’s favorite beachy beer. Dos Equis is that “stay thirsty my friends” beer. A lot of U.S. cities have Bohemia, Modelo Especial, its cousin Negra Modelo, and other stuff like Tecate and Sol. They all have their merits.

But here in REAL Mexico we have two beers that I really really like and that haven’t yet been marketed in the U.S. Victoria is what beerologists call a Mexican version of a “Vienna lager.” Beerologists are pretty dorky. I just call it a “good beer.” It’s slightly sweet, just enough bitter, tastes good at various levels of cold. Very functional, I’d say. The color is darker and much manlier than your typical Corona.

The other Mexico-exclusive beer is Indio, also apparently a lager. For my money, it’s pretty much Victoria. I find very little difference between the two beers, and so normally I’ll buy one or the other depending on what’s available in the store.

Which brings me to one of the awful truths about Mexican beer: There are only two beer companies. Two. One is called Modelo and the other is called Femsa. (Femsa has agreed to sell its beer unit to Heineken, so I guess it’ll be Modelo and Heineken down the road.) They make ALL THE BEERS. And they own their own convenience store chains, which dot every other block in Mexico City. So in Oxxo you’re going to get the Femsa beers, which are on this list. In the Extra stores, you’re going to get Modelo beers, which are these. (A few of the brands you’ll see on those lists are regional varieties, but they’re not standouts.)

Imports? Ha! You can get Budweiser and Bud Light in some of the stores. Coors Light is trying to make some inroads here, I think. And in some bars you can get a Heineken or Guinness in a can. To go beyond that, you need to really search and find a rare specialty store like the highly recommended La Belga, because otherwise you’re out of luck.

Microbrews are also elusive creatures. They do exist, but you have to really search. We have encountered Cosaco around town, and it’s very earthy, but cool just to have something different. I believe Lesley has mentioned the strange tale of Duff beer before. These Guadalajarans are apparently trying to start a line of beers named after soccer stars, starting with Maradona. Could be cool. (These small breweries have to contend against very giant companies with a lot of power, so it can be tough to get a foothold in the market.)

So anyway, what you don’t get in Mexico are these bars and restaurants and supermarkets with dozens and dozens of beers. I miss the adventure of trying new brews with weird names – your Dogfish Heads, your Anchor Steams, etc. And I really, really miss Miller High Life, which some of you may know is the Champagne of Beers.

One last note, lest anyone calls me out on it: There is one more very special Mexican beer called Noche Buena, which means “Christmas Eve” or “Poinsettia” or just “Good Night” and is available every year only around Christmas time. It’s the most bock-like of the Mexican beers, sweet and dark and quite yummy. So there’s that.

The neighborhood pan dulce guy

by

Every morning at 7 a.m., we hear a loud, screechy bicycle horn honking right outside our window. It sounds like this:

Originally, I had no idea what this horn meant. Then I checked the Internet and realized it was a neighborhood vendor selling pan dulce. Of course! Every service-provider has his own sound here — the trash man with his bell; the gas guy who yells “Gaaaas!”; the camote guy whose little cart sounds like a teakettle that’s about to explode.

I’ve been wanting to run down and meet the bread guy for months, but I’m never awake and lucid by 7. Today, the stars finally aligned. Crayton had gotten up at 6:30 because he has the early shift this week. I’d been tossing since 5:30, thinking about India, my writing project, this blog, and whether I might be able to squeeze in a haircut today.

At 6:30, I got up with Crayton and made some tea. I put on tennis shoes and a fleece, because it’s freaking cold in my house. Then I walked to my desk and realized: Holy god, it’s 6:45 a.m. and I am completely dressed and ready to meet the pan dulce guy! I excitedly Twittered about it. Then I put my camera, my tape recorder, and some change in my pockets. (The fleece happened to have pockets, another sign from God.)

Then I waited.

At about 7:02, I heard a faint honking sound.

eee-eee. eeee-eeee.

I flew out the door. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, though, the sound had disappeared. I stared out the window and thought, a little sadly: “Maybe he’s not coming today.”

So I walked back up to my apartment and puttered around. Checked email. Sipped my tea.

At about 7:08, the sound came again, but stronger this time.

eee-EEEE eeee-EEEE eeee-EEEE

I wasn’t expecting to hear it. I ran out the door holding the waistband of my flannel PJs, which were loose and about to fall down. Immediately outside my door, and a little to the left, was the bread vendor: a young man of about 25, sitting on a bicycle outfitted with a large, gingham-lined basket. My flour-filled pretties sat inside.

The man looked at me kind of funny, because I was the only person outside in pajamas. But he didn’t say anything except “Buenos días.” I tried to act professional and said, “Buenos días” back. But inside, I wanted to shout to everyone walking by, “I FOUND THE PAN DULCE GUY!”

With a dumb grin on my face, I picked out a chocolate concha and a bisquet; a knobby, rounded piece of bread covered in sugar called an “español,” and a muffin. (Normally I wouldn’t have bought so much, but I was on a high.) He placed everything in a blue plastic grocery bag and handed it to me.

“Este….” I said. Este is the Spanish word for “um.”

“Sí?”

“Este…. le molesta si tomo un foto del pan?” Do you mind if I take a picture of the bread?

He smiled and said he didn’t mind.

I pulled out my camera from my fleece… and promptly discovered that the battery was dead. Oh, crap. I could not miss this opportunity. This was the actual pan dulce guy, standing right here in front of me. I had to have visual evidence of our encounter.

So I asked if he minded if I went up to my apartment real quick for my other camera.

“Are you going to be long?” he asked.

“Oh no,” I said. “I live right here.” I pointed.

He nodded, and I took off running to my apartment, where I rushed up the stairs, holding my pants, and unlocked the door and grabbed my iPhone. Fifteen seconds later I was back downstairs, standing in front of the basket. I took a few photos and recorded his horn. He told me the bread comes from a bakery near Tacuba, one of the Metro stations in the Centro.

“Anytime you need bread, I’m here,” he said. Then he took off on his bicycle, honking his horn the whole way.

As a postscript: The concha was very good. Not Bondy quality, but up there.

New Year’s Eve traditions in Mexico

by

On New Year’s Eve, our friends Carlos and Daniela invited us to spend the evening with Carlos’s Mexican grandmother.

She lives in a quiet colonia north of the city, and so we drove up and hung out with Carlos’s father, little brother, aunt, uncle and a few cousins. The grandmother, who I’m going to call Lila (I think that was her name but I don’t entirely remember), had prepared a big feast: spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese, bacalao, pork loin in achiote sauce, creamy apple salad with pecans, and romeritos with mole.

We munched on strawberry ate and cheese and crackers, and sat down to eat around 9:30 or 10 p.m. We talked about the difference between New Year’s Eve in Mexico and in the U.S., and how in the latter, the night’s mostly built around partying with your friends.

At midnight, we each got a small plate of grapes.

“Make a wish for each one you eat,” Lila told me.

I did. Then we poured champagne, and Daniela took off her wedding ring and slipped it into her glass.

“For good luck,” she said. I did the same.

After that, we walked out the front door and took turns tossing a cup of water into the front yard, to signify less tears in the New Year. We threw coins on the sidewalk, for financial stability. Then, Lila gave us each a tote bag, and we walked into the street.

“Córrele!” she said to me, smiling. Run!

Carlos, Daniela, Crayton and I ran down the street with our tote bags, all of us trailing behind Lila, who is very spry.

The longer we ran, the more exotic locations we’d travel to in 2010, or so the thinking went. Since Crayton and I are already planning to go to India, Carlos joked that we’d have to run 16 blocks. I made it maybe one and then came back.

Next New Year’s Eve, I’m wearing more comfortable shoes.

Not the most wonderful time of the year

by

I loved all the colors and the pageantry of Día de los Muertos in Mexico. I expected I’d love Christmas here too.

Not so much. Traffic is now insane in my neighborhood, largely spurred by the presence of the World’s Largest Christmas Tree. It’s impossible to find a taxi. The markets are crowded and crazy, and for the first time in my 11-month marketing experience, some of the vendors I encountered were rude. One at Mercado de la Merced sighed and acted annoyed when I told him I only needed a half-kilo of tamale flour. Dude! Por favor.

In the Zona Rosa yesterday, the streets were nearly empty, hopefully because everyone was fleeing the city. Unfortunately, less people meant less crowds, which meant I was suddenly a walking target for folks selling things. One lady approached me and said, “Hola chica guapa!” and then asked if I wanted to buy some lotion. Another one approached with incense.

Usually if you say “no gracias,” they’ll leave you alone. But one guy started walking right next to me, matching my fast pace as I walked down the street. (As a sidenote: None of this has never happened to me in the Zona Rosa before. Usually there are so many people, you’re able to walk safely and anonymously.)

The guy was yammering on about religion, or something, and I said “no gracias.” He kept on walking and talking, staying close to my left side.

I started to feel uncomfortable, so I said no gracias again.

“Are you an angry person?” he asked me. “Are you sad about your life? God can help.”

He kept on talking, but I couldn’t tune him out. Finally I looked at him and barked: “Déjame en paz! Por favor. Gracias.”

He looked startled and walked away.

Lord. Seriously? Is this what it takes now? Puro yelling on the street to get people to leave you alone?

Right after that, various men walked by and murmured “hola chiquita” at me and made a lip-smacking sound. I HATE THE LIP SMACKING SOUND. Mexican men do it all the time. It’s like some carnal form of cat-calling. It’s disgusting.

Can’t wait for life to get back to normal around here again. Merry Christmas, yeah, great. But January cannot come quick enough.

*Photo of a Christmas piñata in front of Mercado Sonora, taken on Dec. 14, 2009

Mailing off a Christmas present, Mexico City style

by

How many stops does it take to mail off two Christmas presents from Mexico? I found out last week.

Click on the icons below for more info. (Hint: Start on the green house, and move clockwise, ending with the green push pin.)

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105662237355781038208.00047a3fd14f5530d9d86&ll=19.430132,-99.167173&spn=0.003541,0.00456&z=16&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

When a random Mexican dude offers to pick up the tab

by

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with my new friend Mary Claire at La Moscota, a cool cantina in the Centro where the food is free if you order a few beers. We ordered sopa de médula and tostadas de picadillo and had a good time. When it came time to pay the check, the waiter removed the 100-peso bill I’d placed inside and said: “Te invitó.”

Me: “Huh?”

“Te invitó.”

I looked at Mary Claire. She looked as bewildered as me.

“I’m sorry,” I told the waiter in Spanish. “I’m a foreigner, and I don’t know what that means.”

“The man behind you wants to pay for you ladies.”

Whaa? This had never happened to me in Mexico. I didn’t want to turn around and see whom the waiter was referring to — that would be rude — so instead I looked helplessly at Mary Claire, and then back at the waiter.

“I’m sorry,” I told him again, in Spanish. “But this is the first time this has happened to me. If we accept, do we have to do something?”

“Nah.”

“But we should thank the guy, right?”

“If you want.”

His nonchalant attitude struck me as strange. I asked Mary Claire if she was cool with some random guy paying, and she said yes. I didn’t mind either. I could use that 100 pesos for a cab ride home.

So we said okay, and the waiter disappeared, and then it was time to leave. I turned around and saw two tables directly behind ours — one with two older men and a woman, and the other with three late 30s-ish men. I guessed it was the latter table. But what was I supposed to say? I eyed each of the men and they eyed me back. One in particular stared longer than the others. My brain scrambled for words, but all I could think of was: “Era…. tú?”

God, was that even grammatically correct?

The man slowly shook his head.

I had no idea what was going on, so I mumbled “gracias” and we left.

“I have no idea what just happened,” I told MC as we were leaving. She didn’t either.

Anyone out there know the proper response? I told Crayton about it later, and he said I should have just turned around and said, “Gracias, muy amable” to no one in particular. But was the waiter correct? If a random guy offers to pay your tab here, will he not be offended if you don’t pull up a chair and sit down? In the U.S., if a man offers to pay for a woman’s drink, 98 percent of the time it’s rude to not chit-chat with him a little bit. (Unless the guy is a complete jerk, or you’re already drunk and have no idea what you’re doing.)

Thoughts?