The Taste of Navidad Past.

Posada 1

So it’s that time of year, time for tamales, and champurrado, and buñuelos, and pozole!

Llegaron las Fiestas Navideñas!

For Latinos, the Christmas Holidays bring many great memories of delicious food and good times con toda la familia.

Being Latino, I come from a very Catholic family where Christmas is celebrated with old traditions with family and friends, celebrating all the Christmas traditions that are common in Mexico, from before the birth of Christ, until El Dia de la Candelaria where the Nativity is put away for the year.

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Home Is Where The Mex Is.

Mi Tierra Bakery

I always wondered why it is called Tex-Mex.  Wikipedia explains it as a term used to describe a regional American cuisine that blends food products available in the United States and the culinary creations of Mexican-Americans influenced by the cuisines of Mexico.

Wikipedia goes on to state that the Tex-Mex cuisine originated hundreds of years ago when Spanish/Mexican recipes combined with Anglo fare, and that most recently, has spread from Border States such as Texas and those in the Southwestern United States to the rest of the country.

I have always known the cuisine to be a mix of the essence of Mexico, infused with the taste and flavors that the native born Mexican-American Texan could prepare with the products available and what their meager wages could afford.

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My Familia.

Familia Angelica

I come from one of those families where all of your cousins and your brothers and sisters and all of your tias and tios treat you as if you are one of their own. I am blessed to have both parents in my life. They were high school sweethearts and have fought for their relationship and family ever since. If there is one thing that I have learned from their struggle, it is the importance of family.

Over the generations, the sanctity of family bonds has slowly deteriorated. Divorce, broken homes, and single parents have, sadly, all become the norm in society. My intentions for writing this piece are not to explain or describe how a family should be or what it should consist of, but rather to explain how I was raised and the importance of those values for me and individuals like me. Growing up, many friends and outsiders could not understand the way my family worked. Just to be clear, I am speaking about my entire family, not just my immediate family as I had previously mentioned.

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For the People: A Mercy Killing.

medical_NyTiZ_18311

In several conversations about health care legislation over the course of the past year, I argued for taking whatever we could get.  I reasoned that a defeat now would likely be a defeat forever, as national health care would face its second consecutive failure under its second consecutive Democratic president, and would strengthen the argument that the people of the U.S. would never accept national socialized medical care.  I have theorized that the smallest victory now would establish a base camp of sorts that future legislators could work to move toward more all-encompassing health care coverage.

Today, I am of a different mind.  The health “insurance reform” that the Senate has crapped out is a vile, dishonest rape of the notion that Americans will see any sort of relief from the corporate, for-profit machinery of the insurance industry.  The bill must die.

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A Lucky Way to Start the Year.

pozole 1

So, the holidays have come and gone, and you have eaten everything from tamales and champurrado to frijoles charros and bunuelos. Yum! If you’re like me, you love this time of year when it seems like every day is a smorgasbord of deliciousness.

It seems, though, that the holiday season is never complete without one key dish, and that is pozole.

Just as black eyed peas are common to eat for good luck in the U.S. for New Year’s Day, so too is pozole for Mexicans.

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