On Loving Mexican Food

Thursday, December 15, 2005

It's time to start turning out the tamales. I don't know why but many families have the tradition of making and eating tamales on Christmas Eve.

Mexican food. I love it. Don't you? In November I wrote about loving pizza and others told me they loved it too. When I lived in Stockton, CA a young man burst into my office one day just before noon and said, "Can I use the phone? I need to make a reservation for me and my girl friend for lunch." "Sure, you can use the phone but do you really need a reservation for lunch?" He was going to a Mexican restaurant on the "Miracle Mile" and he said that it was the best in town and that you really did need a reservation. This started a debate over the best Mexican restaurant in Stockton. Everybody in the office that day had a different opinion which resulted in free lunches for a few weeks. I mentioned this fact in the church bulletin and invitations starting pouring in. It seems that everybody in the congregation had a special place for eating Mexican food and they wanted to convince me that theirs was the best. Man, I was eating Mexican food all over town and a few places that weren't in the city limits. I was a little uncomfortable in a few of those places. One day at noon the Deputy Chief of Police and another policeman took me to lunch down on skid row. I felt very safe. The place was full of policemen. It was the place to eat. The food was excellent.

I have never lived any place that had as many Mexican resturants as Phoenix. I will never get to them all. I have no idea which one is the best of the best. Maybe someday if I keep eating my way around town I will be able to say, "Eureka! I found it!"