My Daily Feast 2020
As she tells it, Ivette grew up “on the streets of Nayarit.“ Her father was Ah-chew, and his neighbor’s nickname was Salud, so her street always sounded like someone sneezing and being blessed. Her grandmother’s names were Lola and Moya, and this is the name of her cafeteria, which specializes in Nayarit coffee and other delicacies, such as pan de platano and rajas poblanas. This is where Ivette serves me strong ginger tea with miel to soothe my colds and huevos campesinos to warm my belly.
This morning Cafeteria Lola y Moya is one of the checkpoints for municipal police, not to stop travelers but to stop cops, at least long enough to photograph the sign and prove they completed their rounds, as local cops have been accused of malingering and shirking duties. A new accountability is in town, or maybe this is just an excuse for the folks in blue to grab a breakfast bagel, para llevar, while they wait beneath the plentiful hand-knitted Ojos de Dios, the eyes of God, that hang from the entry to Ivette’s place. It is the closest Ivette gets to surveillance.
My friend Angel Aldo offers the latest evidence that unionized taxi drivers are the worst people. We already know that it is dangerous work, as they are routinely shot, decapitated, or otherwise executed along the hotel zones from Cancun to Playa del Carmen—purportedly for bad behavior. The latest incident occurred in a park in La Colonia when Driver 4--, while washing his car, threatened to kill Aldo for asking El Taxista not to pollute the park with his waste water. “We (the other drivers) know where you live, Cabron,“ replied the driver, raising his voice enough to scare his little boy into dropping his sponge.
Taxi drivers are a proud bunch of scoundrels. And if you irritate them, they have radios to share the bad reviews of you. This can mean you do not have a ride when you may absolutely need one. Or, of course, they can simply kill you, as this guy suggested, according to my friend. I became curious about this Driver 4--, so I hopped his cab in the plaza to find lunch in La Colonia. I tried not to stare at him during the drive over the causeway. The car looked very clean. Almost too clean. I am pretty sure someone was murdered in this car.
Pollo Sinaloa is the best chicken in La Colonia, but it is inexplicably closed today, so I head over to Jarochita’s for the Veracruzano pollo parrilla. Jarocho are the people of the port of Veracruz. Many of the landowners around the old parts of this town are the descendants of Veracruzanos that made vast purchases in the ’80's. They brought with them the Jarocho culture, including their food and an enterprising attitude, as well as the traditional music of Sonjarocho, which consists of a tiny guitar, a much larger guitar, and a bulky harp played by the slender albino wearing a big hat and inscrutably pained expression, lest we ever forget how Veracruz has suffered.
Today Tia Jarochita favors aggressive Reggaeton over traditional sounds at lunch time. But the Agua Residuales tanker parked outside her place, with an extended corrugated plastic hose, does little to whet my appetite. I head instead toward the street venders, where diners sit on buckets beneath a leafy tree, and tacos sell for 10 pesos, 15 pesos for fried tripe. With 2 corn tortillas, greased meat, pickled onion, limon, and hot sauce, this meal is a bargain, but some refuse to spend more than 8 pesos, about 40 cents. All agree, however, that if someone offers you a taco for 5 pesos, there is something wrong with that taco, and you should probably check the neighborhood for missing dogs.