Tacos and Churros in Mexico City

A bubbling cauldron of everything good in life.

It’s the street food capital of the world, and it hangs out its shingles for everyone. For those on a budget, for those with millions. Walk Mexico City and you see the stalls everywhere. Food stands hawking tacos and tortas. Breakfast and lunch and dinner and dessert. Guys on tricycles with speakers on the front blaring advertisements for tamales. Vendors on corners selling cups of freshly cut mango and papaya, with a dash of chili salt on top if you’re feeling that. You can find something to eat everywhere. And if you can’t find it, give it a minute and it’ll find you.

There are few cities in the world where you will see more people eating on the street. As the writer David Lida explains in his marvelous panorama of the city First Stop in the New World, street stands in Mexico City share two distinct advantages. The first is the weather, which is consistently temperate, enough so that eating on the street is a good idea almost any time of year. The second, more important reason, is that the government hardly taxes food stands. Essentially, every vendor gives the city a small percentage of their profits. This allows for an interesting experiment in democracy, with people intermingling from street corner to street corner without sequestering themselves into corner booths or tables, isolated from one another.

The other thing that makes it work, of course, is the quality of the food.

For most Norte Americanos, the food most associated with Mexico is the taco. And while it would be a mistake to call the taco Mexico’s national dish, it is probably the go-to convenience food for every state in the nation. Mexico City, being the central switchboard for the country, holds countless restaurants and food stands that cater to all of the nation’s regional cuisines. This means that you can find every kind of taco under the sun, stuffed with every imaginable combination of stuff. Everyone contributes. And Mexico City, for its part, contributes perhaps the greatest version of them all: Tacos al Pastor.

In the 1920’s, Lebanese immigrants made their way to Mexico City, and brought with them the shawarma spit. Enterprising Mexican vendors took the basic design (meat on a vertical spit with a flame toasting the side) and replaced the lamb with pork. Cured, and marinated with chili, citrus and spices, the trompo, as it’s called, rotates on the spit, turning the meat a distinctive orange hue. When you walk up and order, an expert takes a knife to the meat with one hand and slices downward, shearing off strips of meat that fall into the tortilla waiting in their other hand. Cilantro and relish are added, and often a slice of pineapple, which is usually roasting on the spit just above the pork.

Behold, El Huequito’s Taco al Pastor. Quite possibly the best taco in the world.

Like po boys in New Orleans, hot dogs in Chicago and pizza in New York, every neighborhood in the city claims they have the best of the best Tacos al Pastor in the city. Following the advice of David Lida, I went to El Huequito. This joint’s been serving the famous dish (and a variety of other things) since 1959, and their al Pastor is legendary. They have a sit down restaurant on the inside, but you can just as easily stand on the street and chow down right by the freshly cooked meat. You also get to witness the curious honor system of the taco stands. You walk inside to pay, tell them how many you had, and they charge you. Nobody questions it, and nobody seems to lie about it, either. The street food exchange is, it appears, sacred territory, free from con artists.

El Huequito brushes their Tacos al Pastor with an orange salsa. Perhaps it’s the salsa, perhaps it’s the way the meat is cured. But when you bite into one of these, everything bad in your life vanishes. I’ve eaten my share of tacos, both in Mexico and the States, and I have never tasted one so good. It is as perfect a bite of food as I’ve ever had.

To move onto another stand is not so much about improving upon El Huequito it is about variety. Quite simply, if you can go anywhere to eat, you should. Eventually, you’ll find a few stalls you return to repeatedly.

Fortunately, El Huequito sits right next to the model of taco variety: Los Cocuyos.

Extending out onto the sidewalk with a small metal bar and a few stools, Los Cocuyos, prides themselves on, and distinguishes themselves with, their varied menu, which includes earlobes, throat, head, tripe, tongue, and eyes.

Eye meat for the taco. Don’t knock it til you tried it.

I tried everything. Even the eye, which it should be noted is NOT the eyeball, but rather the meat that surrounds the eyeball. It was pretty good. Everything was good. But the surprising winner was the tripe, which pops with a charred smoky flavor that you would never associate with stomach. The folks at Los Cocuyos will also toss in some nopales—stewed and diced cactus leaves—which make for a nice side.

These two stands, three doors apart, make up a microscopic section of the savory street options in town. Once, coming out of a bullfight, I ate tortas that I was assured were made from cabeza de lobo—wolf’s head. I had no way to confirm this. I simply took the man’s word for it.

But if you’re feeling like a sweet option, you can get everything from fresh cut fruit to ice cream. My personal favorite, however, is the churro.

Churro stand. A beacon of hope.

I fell in love with these sugary torpedoes while visiting Spain, where people often have them with chocolate dipping sauce for breakfast, proving that Spain is one seriously civilized country. The churro is basically a tube of fried dough, smothered in sugar and cinnamon and often dipped in some kind of sauce. On the streets outside the main plaza of the Coyoacan neighborhood, La Estacion serves these things up with a couple dozen options of sweet sauces to cover them.

My friend Chris and I happened upon this place after we may or may not have been drinking rum in a nearby cantina. I can’t tell you the hour, but I can tell you that a churro sounded like the perfect cap to the evening. Chris ordered his with a sauce made from Bailey’s Irish Cream, and I ordered mine with Nutella.

Churros.

We got them to go, took our first bites, then turned and walked back to the stand to get seconds.

Perhaps these were the best churros on the planet. They sure tasted that way to me, even the next day when I was far more sober. But whether they are, objectively, the greatest churros ever, isn’t the point. The point is that just by walking and sampling what’s available on the street, you can find some of the best food in Mexico City. In that kind of environment, it’s advisable to never be in a hurry. Wander, graze, try a bit of everything. In the city with the greatest street food on the planet, it’s easy to have a great meal. Even if all you’re doing is going for a walk.

Los Cucuyos is located at Calle Bolivar 54 in the Centro.

El Huequito is a couple doors down at Calle Bolivar 58.

A Rumor of Conflict: Oaxaca in July

Protesters march through Oaxaca in late July, 2016.

“It’s so quiet,” said Sofia. Not that I would have known the difference. Oaxaca, in my first experience, felt like a city that was usually quiet. The old aqueduct, the beautiful colonial church, the brightly painted buildings on cobbled streets. The town seems right out of a Yankee tourist brochure. In July, with the state’s biggest festival just starting to swing, it had everything except the Yankees.

But any thrill I might have felt about this beautiful place ran up against the crushing reality of its cost. Sofia, who is from the area and has lived there most of her life, reminded me that nobody was making any money. People in this city, in this state, depend on tourism. Especially in July, when tourists from Mexico and the U.S. come down in droves for the annual Guelaguetza Festival. But walking around town in July, it was clear that as far as Americans went, I was an exception.

*     *     *

On June 19, Mexican Federal Police opened fire on a group of teachers in the town of Nochixtlan who were protesting sweeping education reforms, killing several people. Maybe eight. Maybe a dozen. Maybe more, depending on your sources. The stories in the American news talked about the violence, and quite simply scared the hell out of the gringos. Across the news networks, the story was about the violence in Oaxaca.

Nochixtlan, where the shootings took place, is in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca. In Oaxaca City (many state capitals in Mexico share their name with the state they are in), the explanation for the Yankees staying away was pretty simple: Americans heard the word “Oaxaca” and either assumed the violence was in the capital city itself, or simply assumed that the whole state was on fire.

I saw this firsthand when I told people where I was going. For some Americans, the mere mention of Mexico as my destination (outside of a saccharine, sterilized tourist resort) was tantamount to proclaiming a desire to scale Everest. The immediate response, often from people who had never set foot in the country, was something along the lines of “Be careful.” This statement often came from people who lived in cities with a much higher rate of violent crime than where I happened to be going.

And yet today, four months later, the story has virtually disappeared from the American news cycle.

*     *     *

For Oaxacans in the city, the conflict was, and remains, all too real and at right their doorstep. Most people I spoke to supported the teachers’ union (Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Education, or CNTE), which has been locked in a battle with President Enrique Peña Nieto’s government over the reforms that had been put in place in 2013 (and to a larger extent, since earlier reforms in 2006). Much of this is about power in the region. The union is seen as the major political force in a region that has been historically marginalized by the federal government. More than half of the country’s entire indigenous population lives in the state of Oaxaca, and many of them count Zapotec, Mixtec, or another indigenous dialect as their primary language, with Spanish as their second. Even those who supported some of the reforms put in place by the government were reluctant to support them after the violence erupted, particularly since the government’s original statements placed the blame with “guerrillas” who had mixed in with the protestors and fired on the police (video footage contradicted this story, and the government was forced to pull back the Federal Police).

But even those who supported the union were frightened for the local economy. Tourism is one of the area’s economic engines, particularly in July when the month-long Guelaguetza Festival goes into full swing. A celebration of the traditional dance, costumes, food and drink of the region, it’s the high season of the tourist trade, and everyone from trinket sellers to waiters to tour guides to language teachers depends upon the business. With the CNTE blocking the major highway between Oaxaca and Mexico City, the business was spare, and people were frustrated.

Dancers in traditional dress during the Guelaguetza Festival.

Tourism work is feast or famine work. When the season is on, you make money. In the off-season, you spend the money you stored away when things were hopping. You do this on the assumption that there will be work again in the future. You don’t think about the bottom dropping out.

But the danger of that kind of economy is the same as the danger for an agricultural one. What do you do if the rains don’t come?

In July, the tourists weren’t coming, and the town felt thirsty.

*     *     *

In August, as the school year began, the teacher’s strike continued. Roughly half the schools in Oaxaca failed to open their doors, and nearly all of the schools in Chiapas remained shuttered. In Oaxaca, a tent city in the Zocolo continues to be a presence, as it has, more or less, since protests began rolling in the region in 2006.

And yet, outside of Mexico, stories about the protests and their effects are few and far between. Other than an excellent article in Al-Jazeera earlier this month, it is very hard to gauge the situation if you follow English language news.

But gauging the situation in the capital back in July wasn’t much easier. There wasn’t a great deal of press coverage in Mexico, and the city continued to function. There were rumors, there was a sense of something being wrong even as the town forged ahead with its festival. Not for the benefit of the tourists, but simply because that’s what has to be done to keep things going.

And the protest goes on. As it did in 2006. As it did in 2013. As it did this July. A study of the government’s education reforms by the Georgetown Public Policy Review found enormous faults with them, claiming that “the policy instrument presented by President Peña Nieto disregards completely the current teaching model.”

President Peña Nieto is extremely unpopular in the country (his popularity rating in August was a dismal 23 percent), and his tenure ends in 20 months. Perhaps that could crack open a dialogue between the union and the new government.

In the meantime, the roadblocks in Oaxaca come and go as the protests wax and wane. The government continues its track to implement its reforms, despite the historic unpopularity of their architect. And those of us far removed from the situation have the luxury of hearing nothing of the continuing conflict.

La Polar: Mariachis and Hangover Cures

Every country has its suggestions for how to recuperate when the previous night was too much. From full English breakfasts to the heart-attack inducing Canadian specialty of poutine to—my personal cure-all—pickle juice right out of the jar, humanity worldwide looks to certain specialties to save them from crippling headaches and sideways glances after a night of poor decisions.

In the Mexican state of Jalisco, that specialty is Birria.

Birria is ideal hangover food. Like the hangover cure of choice in many places, it centers around a bowl of salty, spicy broth. The salt helps your dehydration. The spice makes you sweat out your sinful nature. Birria chefs then pile the bowl high with shredded lamb, and the waiter brings out sides of avocado, cheese, lime, and various peppers. Even if you stagger in like the village drunkard, by the end of the meal you’ll be right with the world again. Just wash the club stamp off the back of your hand and you’ll be ready for church.

Goodbye hangover. Hello clean living.

Since 1934, Mexico City’s Cantina La Polar has specialized in this particular hangover cure. Sitting in the Colonia San Rafael, a frequently overlooked neighborhood studded with colonial mansions in various states of repair (or disrepair), La Polar is easy to spot with its distinctive yellow and blue paint job and their logo of a polar bear walking away from an igloo where he may or may not have been feasting on the inhabitants.

The neighborhood of Colonia San Rafael was once the major theater district in the city, but sustained heavy damage in the 1985 earthquake. The area has been undergoing something of a rebirth of late, but a slow one, as other areas of the city seem to be gaining a lot more attention. The one business in the area that seems to never have slowed down is La Polar, whose busy valet parking lot speaks to the restaurant’s continuous business. This is one of those neighborhood joints that it is fair to call an institution.

Birria is more or less the official dish of the state of Jalisco, which contains the nation’s second largest city, Guadalajara. This region is famous for another piece of Mexican culture quickly identifiable to foreigners: Mariachi bands.

And at La Polar, you can order your very own band to serenade you while you eat.

You definitely need to hire these guys.

Listed on the walls in each of La Polar’s four large, spare rooms are prices for bands. 135 pesos for Mariachi tunes. One hundred for Norteños. Ninety pesos for photos of the band, or with the band. Often, the bands walk up to your table and offer their services, but if you don’t see them you simply tell the waiter what you want to hear, and he will retrieve the band. These guys are professionals, too. You will see them tuning up in the parking lot, checking the shine on their boots and the cut of their jackets. They make a joyful noise, which might be a bit much if you walked in with a hangover, but that’s what the birria is for anyway.

This is a classic cantina, about as old school as it gets. But its a proudly local spot, off the main tourist track, and still very much as it was a few decades ago, when the neighborhood had more movie theaters than any other in the city. Despite the changes in the neighborhood, from high to low to (hopefully) high again, La Polar remains there, a signpost of consistency in a rapidly growing, rapidly changing town. Still serving the old recipes. Still bringing in live music during the meals. Still there, whether you are arriving in the highest of spirits or trying to crawl back from the dead.

Cantina La Polar is located in Mexico City’s Colonia San Rafael neighborhood at Guillermo Prieto #129. Their number is +52 55 5546 5066. They are open at 7 a.m. every day, and stay open till 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, midnight on Sunday, and 11 p.m. every other day. More information here.

Waxwing Music: Hurray for the Riff Raff

Back on the scene.

Here’s my latest piece for the wonderful Waxwing Literary Journal. This is on the amazing Alynda Lee Segarra and her band Hurray for the Riff Raff, her new album The Navigator, and the question of identity in a world intent on grinding that down. I hope you enjoy.

You can read the story here: Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Lee Segarra Navigates Identity in Turbulent Times

More soon…

Growing to Love Miami

A quick stop in a city that has slowly become one of my favorites…

Too many people miss the layers of Miami. It seems, on its surface (and from the myriad, often highly inaccurate portrayals of it on television and film), to be a gorgeous and vapid place for gorgeous, vapid people. A place with little sense of history and no sense of taste. I’m not so different in that I got the city wrong for years, either by acquiring distorted perceptions or dismissing it entirely. I only found it growing on me in the last several years.

Some of that was shaped, I’m sure, by when and where I grew up. Throughout the 1980’s, Miami was regarded by many in the nation with a certain fascination and a palpable degree of fear—a fear that extended into the city itself. One of my first clear encounters with unvarnished racism came during my first visit to Miami with my mother. At a gas station, we asked an attendant for directions. He advised us that as we drove through one particular neighborhood not to stop for anything, unless we hit someone with the car, in which case he advised us not to stop, but to drive faster.

There was a kind of mania around the city in those days. In 1980, riots erupted in the Liberty City neighborhood over the acquittal of four police officers who had beaten a black motorcyclist named Arthur McDuffie to death after a high speed chase, then claimed he died when he fell off of his motorcycle.  That same year, the Mariel Boatlift brought tens of thousands of Cuban refugees to the city. Some of them had been released from prisons or mental institutions, and once that information got out many people painted all the arrivals as criminals and derelicts.  And as the cocaine trade picked up, fueling the free-market go-go eighties, violence erupted. In 1981, the Miami-Dade morgue was so overwhelmed by bodies it had to use a refrigerated truck for the extra cadavers. That same year, Time Magazine ran a cover story on the violence.

Time cover from November, 1981 (Time Magazine)

But that was adult stuff. We got the horror stories as kids, for sure. Scare tactics, advice to never go near the place. But for kids my age in the 80’s (definitely in Florida, but probably nationally), Miami was famous for three things: Miami Vice, The Miami Hurricanes football team, and 2 Live Crew.

I’m probably not the only person who had his perceptions of the city shaped early on by Miami Vice. It was the first “adult” show I could remember watching, though I can hardly recall any of the episodes today. All I knew was that it was a hot place where a man could drive his Ferrari and keep his pet alligator in peace, provided he didn’t have to go shoot some bad guys.

I was more interested in football, though, and in the 80’s, the Miami Hurricanes were a juggernaut of a football team—always in the mix for the national title, and easily the most hated team in the United States. Some of that was good old bad sportsmanship. Some of it was exhaustion that the same team was always at the top. A lot of it, however, was racism. The Miami Hurricanes built their teams off kids from inner city Miami, many of them black, which meant that anything they did wrong got magnified through prisms of class and race. The team was brash and cocky. They would hit you late and stand over you to gloat. They would score a touchdown and sneer at the camera. And most importantly, they would win. And they would win by playing fast, exciting football that drove a spike in the heart of the Big 10 style “three yards and a cloud of dust” model. They were the new thing. They would enter the stadium through that white cloud of smoke, symbolizing a hurricane, and all the adults would cluck their tongues and shake their heads. I didn’t really cheer for them (I was a Florida Gators fan), but they were always fun to watch. And at least they weren’t Florida State.

2 Live Crew, the rap group fronted by Miami legend Luther Campbell, was every bit as cocky and brash as the football team, and every bit as controversial. While the Hurricanes were vilified in the press for every misstep (and make no mistake, there was legitimate corruption in the football program, but people were definitely gunning for the team), 2 Live Crew was villfied for every raunchy lyric (of which there were plenty) in their songs. They quickly became the focal point of the Parents Resource Music Center, a morality-police group founded by Tipper Gore with the aim of stomping out obscenity once and for all, I guess. 2 Live Crew made a prime target with songs like “We Want Some Pussy” and “Me So Horny.” They even managed to get themselves arrested for obscenity in 1990 (hard to believe, today) for performing these songs on stage, which was probably the single best publicity boost I’ve seen for any band in my lifetime. Their records sold out faster than Madonna’s, faster than Prince’s. And even though I didn’t really like their music, there was still a palpable pre-teen thrill my friends and I felt as we listened to something so offensive to people older than us.

There was the sense that Miami was a secret that the adult world was keeping from us.

In a sense, Miami still does keep its secrets. They just aren’t the ones I always thought the city was keeping. I think my biggest disappointment on my first couple visits to Miami was that it seemed kind of dull. And that had a lot to do with my age and where I went. I only saw the downtown, a small sliver of Coconut Grove, and Miami Beach. I was too dumb to appreciate Art Deco architecture, too young to drink, and there were plenty of beaches in my hometown. Worst of all, it was in my home state, which I was in a big hurry to get away from. It didn’t occur to me that one of the most interesting cities in America was only a three hour drive from my dad’s house.

Miami’s biggest secret is its history. It is a fascinating town, a port city with a massive mix of cultures, stories, and histories. Like Los Angeles, it is a city sold as a dream, a balm, a cure-all for a dead-end life. And like Los Angeles, it is a town that shields its true self, and deep hurts, under a sheen of glitter and sunshine, alcohol and excess.

On my last visit—an 18-hour layover on my way to Mexico—I rented a car at the airport and drove straight to a local breakfast and lunch spot on the eastern edge of the Liberty City neighborhood. It’s run by a woman named Trudy Ellis, who opened up shop in 1988 when she saw there were no Bahamian restaurants in the city. The Bahamian Pot is a small slice of the community, and a meal there was perfect way to find my path into the city. Owner-chef Trudy Ellis recently moved the place a few blocks east of its original location, but the food, I am told, is the same as it ever was, with a  few additions. The breakfast of boiled fish and grits is probably the most famous meal at the place, but as I was too late for breakfast, the waitress suggested I order the oxtail with mac and cheese. “I’m Jamaican,” she said. “So that’s what I like.”

It seems odd that there aren’t more restaurants like the Bahamian Pot, considering that Bahamians were so critical in the building of Miami. At the time of Miami’s founding, more than 40 percent of the city’s black population was Bahamian. Many of the new arrivals found work in construction, especially as stonemasons, working with the oolitic limestone common to both South Florida and the Bahamas. They also found work on Henry Flagler’s railroad, which would bring thousands more transplants from the north, and eventually establish Miami as one of the most important cities in the American South. The Bahamians also brought their music, including the street bands that form the Carnival-centered Junkanoo parades, and a local drum-heavy musical style called Goombay, both of which would influence the musical sound of Miami for decades, in everything from soul music to Miami Bass.

After the meal, Mizz Trudy came out and thanked me for coming in. I told her the food was incredible, and that I drove straight there from the airport. She encouraged me to come back, and to book an earlier flight so I could have breakfast next time.

*     *     *

I have my own history in Miami. Four generations of my family have lived there at one time or another. My great-grandparents lived there in their retirement years. My grandfather attended the University of Miami for a year, and helped pay his tuition by playing piano at the Tides Hotel in Miami Beach. My father moved there as a young man from North Carolina and worked as a radio DJ. And my first cousins live there now, on the very edge of Miami Beach in a small house on a hidden alleyway of a street that seems to exist only because developers haven’t figured out it’s there.

The Tides Hotel, where my grandfather played piano for tuition money.

Miami Beach is actually a separate city from Miami itself (LeBron James’s 2010 announcement that he was “taking his talents to South Beach” led to a lot of palms to the forehead among local residents). Much of Miami Beach is built on landfill, as are the nearby, ultra-exclusive Palm Island and Star Island. It’s a beautiful place with a  lot of ugly history. For decades, the beach and all the hotels on it were segregated (though the all-white hotels still regularly booked black entertainers, who had to stay in other parts of the city). There’s a big Jewish community in Miami Beach, but for decades they were only allowed to live in a specific section of the city. Even the mayor who oversaw much of the city’s revitalization—Alex Daoud—was as corrupt as they come, eventually serving a federal term for 41 counts of bribery, corruption, and racketeering.

The criminality of the place is just as obvious today in the glittering high-rise buildings that continued to go up in the middle of the Great Recession. A massive sting operation by the FBI in 2012 rounded up a half-dozen city employees on the take, including the city’s lead code compliance officer. But an investigation by the Miami New Times showed that the arrests barely got under the surface of the city’s seemingly endemic corruption.

Miami Beach is also famous for good things, like its stunning art deco architecture, which seems to be everywhere, and its remarkably unpolluted beach. When you walk down the beach itself in the twilight, the crowds having thinned out and the evening breeze cooling the waterfront, you kind of understand why everyone from a northeastern pensioner to a billionaire Russian oligarch would want to make his home here. Although parking can be a nightmare, the beach itself is probably the most democratic institution in the city. Dip your toes in the water at sunset and look around. You could almost believe the city was built for all of us.

*     *     *

The coffee stand at Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana, around midnight.

After resting at my cousin’s place, I made my way back across the bridge to Little Havana, the largest Cuban neighborhood in the United States. Running like a main artery through the neighborhood is Calle Ocho (8th Street), where you can find a variety of shops, clubs, markets, coffee stands and parks where old men play dominoes and sip highly-caffeinated, syrupy Cuban coffee. And if you keep going down Calle Ocho, you will eventually reach the famous Versailles Restaurant, known to many, and with much justification, as the capital of Cuba outside Havana.

Hang around here long enough and you see everybody. Tourists and locals. Young and old. A neighborhood drunk and a state senator. There’s 44 years worth of history here, along with a heavy reputation for anti-Castro politics (owner Felipe Valls once boasted, “In that corner, they have killed that sucker at least a hundred times every day”).

To get into the history of the Cuban community in Miami is to dive into some very deep, very turbulent waters. Perhaps the first thing you should know is that Miami was never supposed to be a permanent stop for many of the people who came over from Cuba. It was supposed to be a convenient outpost to stay in until Fidel Castro was overthrown and they could return to their homeland. But 57 years and countless assassination attempts later, Castro is still around, and those people—those who are still alive, anyway—are still waiting to go home. The reaction to Obama’s move to open up dialogue with the Cuban government has been met with very mixed reactions, often split along generational lines. Many of the original exiles swear they will not return until Fidel and his brother Raul are dead. Many of the younger generation want to see the island they’ve always heard their parents and grandparents speak of as soon as possible. Nobody is certain what the next decade is going to look like—for Cuba, or for Miami.

It is a massive understatement to say that many Cuban exiles relationship to their adopted home is a complicated one. But if you come to Miami and you want to at least get a toehold in that mix, Versailles might be the best place to start.

It helps that Versailles, in addition to being a center of local culture, is also a damn fine restaurant. It’s also convenient if you have an extremely early flight and have decided to power through the night. The restaurant stays open until one in the morning most night, and later on the weekends. Even if you arrive on the later side, there will still be a crowd, and there will still be a line at the coffee stand next door.

The Medianoche, slightly different than a Cubano. Roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickle and mustard on sweet bread. A staple of any South Floridian diet.

At the coffee stand, you order pastries and Cafe Cubano, which is essentially an espresso with the sugar added during the brewing process. It is incredibly sweet—too sweet for many coffee drinkers—and can leave you jangly for hours if you’re not used to it. It’s also depressing, after having a bad reaction to it, to see old men at the counters throwing it back like water, seemingly to no effect.

For me, the effect is powerful. And since I’m not 18 anymore, I need all the help I can get for an all-nighter.

*     *     *

There is still that part of me that wants the Miami I dreamt of as a boy. And although it’s not something I should be doing (financially speaking), and although it smacks of an early attempt at a mid-life crisis, I decided to indulge that part of myself by renting a convertible. It was a silly thing to do in many respects, but I have to admit that it satisfied that desire to be a character in the Miami movie that always existed in my mind.

As cliche as it is, there might be no better city in America to drive a convertible than Miami. Especially at night, with the countless lights of the overgrown city reflecting off the low clouds, the palm trees waving slowly as you go by, and the smell of the ocean around you. You cross the bridge, and ships coming into port tower above you. It’s a dream, a montage sequence from a TV show. And although everything is telling you how cheesy it is, how hopelessly you are reaching for the romantic, it is beautiful. You can’t pretend for a moment you’re not having a good time.

But it is a dream. It’s the part of Miami that fades as soon as the credits roll. If you do fall for this city, it’s not the dream that holds you. It’s those deeper layers. The neighborhoods. The endless stories that spring up from a place where the whole world has crashed together in a pool of greed and phony appeal, and managed to build communities in spite of it. On the plane out of the city, I could look down and see the shiny towers of the new developments. You couldn’t miss them. But there was no way to see the little neighborhood stores, the restaurants, the playgrounds, the schools, and everything else that makes up the spine of the city.

It’s a tough place to know for that reason. For all of the glitter, it’s in all the parts you don’t see that Miami really reveals itself. I didn’t understand that. I got it wrong for so long. I keep going back now in the hope that, eventually, I’ll get it right.

The Bahamian Pot is located at 6301 NW 6th Avenue. Their phone number is 305-759-3408.

Versailles Restaurant is located at 3555 SW 8th St. They have a website here, and are open Sunday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. On Friday, they stay open until 2:30 a.m. On Saturday, they stay open until 3:30 a.m.

Publication for “On the Trail of Jack London”

Hey everyone.

My story “On the Trail of Jack London” was chosen for a Solas Award back in February, and the publication that does the awards, Traveler’s Tales, is publishing it twice this week.

First up, it’s going to show up on the front page of Traveler’s Tales as their Editor’s Choice for the week. You can read it here.

The story is also this weeks feature story over at Besttravelwriting.com. Have a look here.

More stories from the road shortly.

Friend Blogs: John Makes Beer

For as long as I’ve known him, my friend John has brewed beer. But lately, he’s been steadily moving out of the “guy who makes beer” category and into the category of “brewer.” He just started a website to both promote his brand and document his process.

You can see recipes, methods of preparation, and advice from someone who is starting to break into this field in a  serious way. He also just did a very cool video documenting his brewing day process.

Here’s the website: John Makes Beer

More stuff from my own travels soon. In the meantime, go watch my friend do his thing.

Friend Blogs: Two Up

New blog for you all to check out.

My good friend K has recently entered the blogging arena, and will be posting about her experiences from the back of a motorcycle, the view and the ride and the experience of being a passenger in the best way possible. We’ve talked about the future of this site. Expect everything from analysis of motorcycle racing to the glory of the Big Boy franchise in the midwestern U.S.

The blog can be found here:  twoupblog.wordpress.com

From the blog:

The last couple of years I’ve spent more time on the back of a motorcycle than at my writing desk. This is simply my attempt to find my way back to the writing life via the riding life.

Now go read her piece about Valentino Rossi.

Friend Blogs: Night Shift Historian

Hello readers.

My computer has been down for a couple weeks, hence the lack of updates. More soon.

But in the meantime, check out my friend A’s new blog Night Shift Historian. It can be seen here: nightshifthistorian.com

From the website:

Welcome to the night shift.

For mavericks, mavens, and moonlighters. For toe-tappers, tree-climbers, and tight-rope walkers. For truck drivers, two-timers, and time-travelers. For fixers, for fighters, for flies on the wall. For smugglers, lovers, and writers; for alley cats, book worms, and barn owls; for sharpshooters, hot-heads, and easy riders; for friends and foes alike. For zookeepers, street sweepers, and switchboard operators. For guards, ghosts, and gumshoes; for hustlers, helpers, hecklers, and howlers; for gamblers, geckos, and goons. For pushers, puzzlers, pavers, prayers, preachers, pin-ups, and pyros. For barflies, for black eyes, for bedroom eyes. Not For Couch Potatoes. For show-stoppers. For side-steppers. For state secrets. For science. For All-Around Stand-Up Guys. For you, for me, for the girl next door. For nothing, for no one, for now.

 

I’m really excited about the work that’s going to be coming out here. It’s a brand new deal so go give it a read and check out the interview with Quincy Jones.

More friend blogs coming up in the coming days as I get my technology back in order.

Enjoy…

Last Days on Deslonde Street

In the end, I decided to go forward. I decided to leave something behind. It’s been nine years in New Orleans, longer than I’ve lived in a city since I left home at 17. And in those two decades, there is no address I’ve claimed longer than the little cabin on Deslonde Street that served as my home for two years, one month, and twenty-seven days.

I’m off the map again. Nothing new, really. I recently tried adding up all the moves I’ve made in my life and came to around 45. From the split houses that came with my parents’ divorce right through to the new life I formed after my own marriage collapsed; from my first shot outward when I went off to school, to the three schools that followed that first one; through ten states, a foreign country, and all the moves and all the dissembling and reassembling that came with them, the dominant theme of my life has been movement.

And last week, once again, I moved. I loaded everything I own into a truck, drove to Florida, loaded it all into a storage locker, sold the truck, and took off to Mexico, where I now sit, calculating possible trajectories.

My corner of the world.

There’s no way to write about what this move means for me without falling into overt sentimentality. Maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world. But I find I need to remind myself that this latest move isn’t about this house. It isn’t about New Orleans. It’s not a means of escape or a crisis of being. It’s simply an attempt, a hopeful and potentially misguided one, to embark on the life I want now. In nine years in the city, I learned to build a life from ground up, and to make it stick. I’ve never done that before, and the life I had at the cabin is the best evidence that it worked out the way I wanted.

I wanted to live in this house years before it became my home. There was a time when if anyone asked me where I would choose if I could live in any house in the world, this would have been the place. That I felt that way and found a chance to make that feeling become a reality is still surprising to me. Some places we live in seem magical, and maybe there’s some truth to that. But I think the bulk of it is just finding a spot that syncs up perfectly with who and where we are in our lives, as though what was happening to us internally had manifested itself into the shape of a home. I’ve rarely lived anywhere that had so much of what I needed surrounding me all at the same moment. My favorite neighborhood. The Mississippi River just steps away. A good friend to share the space with. And music, all the time, pouring out of every wall.

One of the many backyard concerts held at the house.

When I tell people about my time here, years from now, it will come back to the music. I would lie down at night, and the music from the jazz band on the steamboat Natchez would drift across the water and sit in my room. My friends recorded single tracks and entire albums in the living room. The house was a living, breathing space where one person after another came to create their work, whether it be a new song breathed into a microphone and made permanent, or a campfire in the backyard where the songs welled up and held together in a shared space before floating away to make room for the next ones.

One of the best parts about getting older is watching your friends become who they are going to be, and to find success with that. I’ve watched people who poured coffee and sang on the street when I first arrived become international touring musicians. I’ve watched friends publish their first books, their first stories. One after another, I’ve seen the people I know find their callings and begin to live them.

A freighter passes outside my door on my last night in town.

In a way, that’s what I’m trying to do now. Over the coming months I’ll be reworking the website and making moves for a massive trip that will consume the bulk of 2017. And I’ll continue to write, and to see how much further I can cast this net. I’ve been writing in the blog for a little over a year now, and it’s gone from a hobby to a cornerstone in what I hope will be the primary work I’m doing for years to come.

I’m not done in New Orleans by any stretch. I’ll be back in town in a couple months, and I will be staying a couple months when I return. But I will be doing it without a fixed address or a room of my own. There are larger steps to come. But this was the first one. It feels big and it feels terrifying. I have nothing to complain about with the life I’m moving from. This house was a gift, and this house was ballast. It’ll be interesting to see how well I can keep my balance without it.