Beautiful May is upon us! This is truly one of my favorite months here in Puerto Penasco. The weather is just about perfect - not too hot and not too cool. No need for the A/C yet but it's plenty warm to swim and play on the beach. As the snow finally melts after a very rough winter in many parts of the USA, here in Rocky Point, we have been blessed with an unbelievably mild winter and now we're fully into spring and tourist season again.

Semana Santa once again proved to be the busiest time of the year as expected.  An estimated 80,000 additional visitors came to our little town of around 50,000 full-time residents. Also as expected, traffic moved mostly at a bumper to bumper crawl, especially around the normal tourist haunts. Banda music (the hands-down favorite of the Semana Santa crowd) could be heard until sunrise in many areas both on and off the beaches. Friday and Saturday nights were the busiest, and people reluctantly starting to trickle out of town on Sunday. By Monday, there was an exodus of cars leaving town and by Tuesday, we were pretty much back to normal. Living in a tourist town year around is something that really must be experienced to be understood. I think that I love both the busy times and the solitary times pretty equally and they seem to be spaced out just about right.

    

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If you decide that you want to download some popular Banda, La Banda el Recodo, La Arrolladora Banda, El Lim�n, La Original Banda El Lim�n, Banda MS, Cuisillos, Banda Jerez, and Banda Los Recoditos are some of the most famous banda groups. Banda is primarily a male dominated genre; however, there are a few female soloist banda-singers such as Ana Gabriel, Carmen Jara, Shaila Durcal, Ana B�rbara, Graciela Beltr�n, and the late Jenni Rivera (who frequented Rocky Point before her tragic death).

At the time - and even now, to a certain extent - the R�o Grande marked more of a political and geographical divide than a cultural one, and the musical styles of the immigrants became popular among those of Mexican heritage. Two of the most important musical instruments of the Germans' musical style, the tuba and accordion, became especially popular and were frequently used in dance music such as waltzes and polkas (Brings back early childhood memories of my parents listening to reruns of the John Deere Bandwagon - Talk about an obscure reference. I haven't thought about that one for a very long time).  

 

Today, various overlapping styles of music that descended in part from the German music include tejano (from the Spanish name for Texas, Tejas), conjunto (which features the accordion along with the bajo sexto, similar to a 12-string guitar), Tex-Mex, quebradita (heavy on the horns), banda (similar to the polka), ranchera, norte�o and various mixtures of the above.

 

The musical style also has influenced music from other parts of Mexico, such as the mariachi music of the Guadalajara area. Such musical styles are especially popular in northern Mexico and in places of the United States where there is a large immigrant population of Mexican heritage.

 

Incidentally, the music is nearly always performed in Spanish, even by Mexican-Americans who speak primarily English. (Native Texan and crossover artist Selena sang in Spanish as a girl long before she could speak Spanish, which she learned to market herself better in Mexico.)

 

So common is the tejano-style genre that in the United States it is often erroneously viewed as synonymous with Mexican music (or even with Spanish-language music). In fact, though, Mexican music these days is incredibly diverse. Although you'll hear tejano on Mexico City radio stations, you'll also hear Mexican-produced rock or rap en espa�ol as well as the same English-language hits you can hear across the border to the north. Spanish-language versions of songs by international performers such as Enrique Iglesias and Shakira are also quite popular.

 

Sample of Banda Music in Mazatlan, Mexico

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So Popular in Fact is Banda Music, California High Schools are Having a Hard Time Keeping Tubas From Being Stolen.

Story from CBS Los Angeles:

Pricey Tuba Thefts Blamed On Popularity Of Mexican Banda Music

BELL (CBS) - Authorities say two marching band tubas were stolen from Bell High School over the weekend, the latest in a rash of thefts at area high schools.

 

Two King brass sousaphones valued at $6,000 each were the latest to be stolen in a series of high school thefts believed to be related to the popularity of Mexican banda music, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The thieves cut the locks on numerous metal lockers in the school's band room, apparently searching for the sousaphones. When they didn't find any, they broke into the band director's office, where the uniforms and tubas are stored under lock and key, the Times reported.

 

Two less-expensive fiberglass sousaphones and dozens of other instruments were left behind.

 

There have been burglaries at several other school over the last several months, in which only tubas were stolen. Sycamore Junior High School in Anaheim had all its band instruments stolen over the Christmas break, a loss valued at $25,000.

 

Instructors have connected the thefts to the popularity of banda, a dance music played with marching band instruments and anchored by tubas. The popularity of banda has skyrocketed the pay of tuba players, who make more than, sometimes double, what other banda musicians are paid, according to the Times. 

 

Who Knew???

 

 
 

The Latin American nation now only trails Canada, but experts say Mexico could become the top exporter to its northern neighbor as soon as 2015, a potent symbol of its growing global clout in the sector.

 

Industry analysts had expected Mexico to surpass Japan by the end of the year, but the Mexican Automobile Industry Association (AMIA) says it happened faster than expected.

 

"It does not surprise me that they did (overtake Japan), and that number will even get bigger," said Haig Stoddard, industry analyst at Michigan-based WardsAuto Group.

 

The figure came in an AMIA report this week showing record production in the first quarter, with 774,731 units rolling out of plants in Mexico, a 6.5 percent increase from the same period last year.

 

AMIA, using its own statistics and WardsAuto figures, said the United States imported 428,376 "Made in Mexico" cars compared with 408,405 from Japan between January and March. Analysts say the figures are credible.

 

Latin America's second-biggest economy has steadily grown as a global power in the auto industry, with most of the production destined for exports.

It is the world's eighth-biggest carmaker and the No. 4 exporter.

Relatively low wages, being next door to the massive U.S. market and a raft of free trade deals with other nations have combined to make Mexico a prime location for carmakers.

 

"Mexico will continue to grow very strongly in the next five years," AMIA President Eduardo Solis said.

 

In addition to its ideal geographic location, Solis said Mexico is a major auto parts supplier, home to a skilled workforce and backed by a government that invites foreign investment.

 

Ironically, Japanese carmakers have helped Mexico become a manufacturing powerhouse, with Nissan, Mazda and Honda building new factories in the country.

 

The first Saturday in April was a day of endless activities for all ages, and that includes the vendors who jumped right into the spirit of the day at this First Annual Pirates and Mermaids Extravaganza. The  festive event was created by the organizers of Mermaid's Market, Russ and Naomi Black along with some of their faithful exhibitors who have offered their arts, crafts, gifts, and clothes for the two years of Mermaids Markets held every first and third Saturday of the fall, winter and spring months.

 

This day in April was special as the costume contests (with some great prizes!) touched the imagination of everyone, most of whom wore some form of recognizable clothing or accessory denoting a pirate or  mermaid  affinity.

 

Then there were those who took the dive to the depths of costuming and emerged as close to the real thing as, in the case of the dozens of kids, their parents could get them. In the case of several adult costume lovers, as  this pictorial depicts, there were some all out efforts to please and impress the largest crowds seen at the market in a while.

 

Along the back rim of the exhibit area was Pirate Russ's Cajun Kitchin' (Yes!  Pirates ate a lot of Cajun style food-back in Russ's younger days...J). He had a big cast iron pot of "Cajun Boil", he had a grill going, and someplace he was cooking peel and eat shrimp, or crawdads or one of those, but they must have been deeelishus 'cause he sold out of about everything they were cooking. To his right was a bar serving Hurricanes and Margaritas and that bar was busy all day long. It's  important to note here that a portion of the moneys from this event are donated to DIF, the city's assistance program for needy families and children.

 

In between the fashion show that was put on by the artisans themselves, and the  Hawaiian dancers hula presentation, and the costume contests, Russ piped in continuous Zydeco music that commanded your feet to move to the beat!

 

The children's costume winner involved a mermaid outfit made of recycled CD's cut  in half and sewed like fish scales shiny side out. It came complete with a little mermaid's tail that severely cramped the littlest mermaid's walking style, but not her kid-like grace, and certainly not her smile when draped with the first place ribbon! 

 

Among the adult contestants, were abstract renditions of what a  mermaid might wear to a royal reception, where evidently mermaids leave their tail flippers in the coach.  As any mermaid will tell you, walking gracefully on your tail flippers only happens in Disney movies. 

 

The most costume competition was found among the gang of pirates, all sizes, all imaginative   and all armed with swords, some with hooks but none dangerous. It was all in fun and the winners were donned with over-the-shoulder blue ribbons and laden with all sorts of neat prizes.

 

Happy spirits continued right up until closing of the  event making it a great precedent for an annual spring tradition of the Mermaids Market!

 

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"It's everything at once," Abraham Hernandez said as he jabbed a fork into a cardboard serving boat layered with salsa verde-flavored Tostitos corn chips and topped with, among other items, shaved jicama, pickled pig skins and stumpy tamarind candies. "The chips are crisp, the toppings are soft, the flavors are sweet and hot and salty."  

 

"In Mexico, they're smart," said Berta Nava, who assembled the dish, called Tostilocos, that Mr. Hernandez was eating at Nava's Bakery and Comida Mexicana, her family snack shop here. "They take a food, a bag of chips, anything and say: 'What else? What else can we do?' "  

 

As if to illustrate her answer, she went to work on another order of Tostilocos, which she garnished with all those toppings as well as soy-coated peanuts and chopped cucumbers. She then drenched the whole shebang in lime juice, hot sauce and chamoy, a magenta-colored sauce made with pickled fruits and chiles.

 

"You can use any base," she said. "Most people start with Tostitos. I can do Cheetos, the flaming hot kind, and Churritos, too." (Churritos are stick-shaped extruded masa snacks, flavored with chile and lime.) "I can do anything you want loco."  

 

In Spanish loco means crazy, an apt description of these chip dishes.

Tostilocos were conceived in Mexican border about 10 years ago, probably in Tijuana. Now variations on this modern folk food are gaining popularity here and in other stateside communities where Mexican immigrants settle. American companies, working both sides of the border, have recently begun to commodify the dish, and a few relatively upscale restaurants are also interpreting it.  

 

Ms. Nava learned to make and eat Tostilocos 40 miles south of Escondido in Tijuana, where service is often less formal. Many vendors there just slit open a bag of chips and ladle on ingredients until the plastic sleeve threatens to collapse beneath the weight of what Derrik Chinn, a proprietor of a tourist service in Tijuana, called a "fruit-nut-nacho-lard salad."

 

Today Tostilocos, also known as Tosti locos, are a baseline Tijuana street food, often consumed on the go, as sauce leaks from a split in the bag and drips Rorschach patterns onto the pavement. Asked where he liked to eat Tostilocos, Carlos Ivan, a cabdriver, smiled and said, "I eat them in the street, when I've been drinking cerveza or tequila."  

 

At soccer games and wrestling matches, Tijuana vendors work the crowds with plastic flats of preassembled Tostilocos bags stacked on their heads. Tostilocos are a standard at city parks and are popular in Tijuana beach communities. Some movie theater operators in northern Mexico park tricked-out Tostilocos carts, outfitted with chilled condiment wells, in their lobbies.  

 

Unlike tacos or tamales, Tostilocos require no heat source to cook them or keep them warm. And start-up costs are low. Vendors stock up for the night with 24-packs of snack chips and $10 worth of vegetables and condiments.

On Saturday evenings in Tijuana, when the bars empty along Avenida Revoluci�n, swarms of vendors, pushing awning-topped carts, assemble Tostilocos on the fly for drink-addled customers.  

 

And on Sunday afternoons, when cars line up at San Ysidro to cross from Mexico to the United States, vendors weave between stalled traffic lanes, doling out Tostilocos and aguas frescas to families with children, who reach through car windows with two hands to retrieve their bagged prizes.

 

At first glance, the dish appears to be a version of Frito Pie, a stunt food mashup built on a base of processed and salted chips and embellished with dissonant toppings.  

 

Yet that view is shortsighted, said Gustavo Arellano, the author of the forthcoming book "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America." Tostilocos are better understood as a product of Mexican cultural and culinary reclamation efforts.  

 

The story began when Texas-based Frito-Lay introduced Tostitos in the late 1970s, after Fritos and Doritos had already made their debuts. "Americans wanted authentic Mexican flavors, so that's what Frito-Lay sold them," Mr. Arellano said.  

 

"A generation later, Mexicans are now claiming Tostitos for Mexicans by adding a bunch of stuff on top," he said. "That's what people in Mexico do with anything that comes down from somewhere else. We change it, we add more ingredients, more toppings."  

 

Now American companies are in the game. On the Mexican side, Sabritas, which like Frito-Lay is a unit of PepsiCo, sells shrink-wrapped flats of three-ounce Tostitos bags, emblazoned with serving suggestions for Tostilocos and all manner of variants, including peanut-topped Tostitos, which translate as Tosti-Huate, as well as Tosti-Caprese, capped with tomato and mozzarella slices and basil leaves.  

 

Sabritas promotes these offerings through efforts that recall Coca-Cola's mid-20th-century plan to repaint corner stores and groceries, as long as the job included a prominent Coca-Cola logo. Today in Mexican border towns, newly painted bodegas (flanked by murals of Tostitos bags bulging with cucumbers, jicama and tamarind candies) advertise themselves as Tosticentros.

 

On the American side, Tostilocos are sold at candy stores, bodegas and flea markets (often called swap meets) in San Diego and Los Angeles and, farther east, in Phoenix and Houston.  

 

The primary American market for loco variants is Mexican immigrants. But that may change soon. In 2010 Taco Bell embraced the locos coinage when it introduced Doritos Locos Tacos, taco shells made from the same mix of masa and spices used by Frito-Lay to make nacho cheese-flavored Doritos. According to a report in Nation's Restaurant News, Doritos Locos were a significant part of the chain's growth plans in 2012.  

 

Chris Kuechenmeister, a spokesman for Frito-Lay, said the company has also begun to roll out a few Tostilocos sample carts, similar to the ones used in Tijuana movie theaters, at festivals and openings of convenience stores.  

 

Meanwhile, a number of Anglo and Mexican-American restaurateurs have introduced Tostilocos-inspired dishes.

 

At Barrio Queen in Scottsdale, Ariz., the chef, Silvana Salcido Esparza, who first noticed Tostilocos 10 years ago at a wrestling match in Tijuana, serves a Lucha Libre version, topped with all the customary ingredients, as well as mango. She also serves Mexican-style fries, topped with corn kernels, butter, mayonnaise and cheese, in a version that could be called papas locos.  

 

In San Diego, Jay Porter, the owner of El Take It Easy, a restaurant emphasizing "Mexican wine-country cuisine," dishes pork belly tacos, rabbit soup with oyster mushrooms and a gentrified take on Tostilocos that incorporates house-fried tortilla chips, house-made persimmon pickles, roasted peanuts and minced pigs' ears.

 

Serves 2

 

Note:

 

 

Ingredients

About 1/2 cup of cacahuates Japoneses, or Japanese peanuts

 

chill it now

3. While bacon cooks, prepare fruit. Peel and dice mango, and peel and dice cucumber. Set aside.

4. Arrange tortilla chips attractively in a bowl. (Or, alternately, just pour 'em in the bowl.) Cut lime in half, and squeeze over the top of the chips, making sure as many chips as possible get some lime juice. You may need to use the other lime, too, depending on how ripe it is.

5. Top lime-drenched chips with diced cucumber and mango. Drizzle with Valentina sauce, then bacon, and then Japanese peanuts. Take a chip and eat it when no one's looking. Ohhh. So good.

Serve with cold Mexican beer or cold horchata.

 

How To Make Tostilocos

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See you again next month. Until then, enjoy this beautiful month. If you are having perfect weather like we are, that shouldn't be too hard. If not, just come and visit Puerto Penasco. You'll be glad that you did.   

 

Saludos, Jim Ringquist