Chicanonautica: 2025: A Road Odyssey: The Mexica Return to Mormonland

With certain archeological discoveries in recent years, the idea that Aztlán is located in Utah is getting more popular. Mexican-looking people are everywhere, mostly working, building, making a new home for themselves and the "native" Mormons. Even in Kanab, that was once where Hollywood crews would stay while making westerns because Monument Valley is prettier than Texas.

At the office of the Days Inn, a huge screen showed Fox News’ alternate universe, a world that was begging for Trump to save it.

If people just looked around, they would see all the Mexica/Aztec faces. The New Pilgrims. Future Thanksgiving feasts will become more and more . . . Mexican? . . . Native? . . . American?

Kanab doesn’t serve breakfast until 11AM. We were up way early. Luckily, Mike was raving about a restaurant in St. George. It was a bit of a drive, through towns scattered in what I call psychedelic geology. We got coffee in Hurricane.

 

The restaurant was First Watch—a chain that I hadn’t noticed because of the name. Mike had the steel-cut oatmeal. Emily had the Chile Chorizo omelette. I had the Farm Stand Breakfast Tacos. The non-traditional Mexicoid fare was delicious. We ate there several times on this trip.

After we cruised some thrift stores, I saw books by my editor/mentor/friend Ben Bova. A message from the great beyond, from a deeply materialistic hard science writer . . .

Then we hit Snow Canyon. The landscape in its fantastic glory, shining through the fading Uto/Mexica memories and crumbling Mormon/Hollywood visions. Rocks churning up cosmic truths from the center of the Earth.

Later Emily’s sister Carol caught up with us. We had dinner at a place called Los Tapatios that has a great taco plate. Mexican restaurants in Utah used to be such a joke. The times they are a-changing, amigos.

 

That night, Yamamoto led the Dodgers to a victory, sending them to the World Series. I was reminded of the words of the Firesign Theater: “The Tokyo Cubs had won the Series, and mustaches were out of style, and believe me, the dames looked better without ‘em.” 

 

Also, No Kings protests were scheduled all over Utah. Saw a sign declaring that St. George was “Utah’s Dixie.” 

We took Carol to Snow Canyon. She was wowed.

Then we went to Kanarra Falls, crisscrossing the icy river into a dazzling slot canyon. Here we go, I thought, the Senior Citizen Adventure Club. Mike had broken his toe in the hotel, but it didn’t slow him down. I took a tumble at one point, but somehow did an automatic tuck-and-roll, so there was no pain a few days later.

A dead llama was splattered across the road.

Next morning I improvised huevos rancheros with some Cholula packets and pre-cooked eggs in the Days Inn breakfast room. When the going gets tough, the tough get creative . . .

Besides, I needed to get in the mood for the Pink Coral Sand Dunes; a rock shop in the Orwellianly named Orderville served tacos (they’re everywhere), and featured dinosaurs and a Flintstone car.

Then we went to the as-usual amazing Bryce Canyon National Park. No employees during the government shutdown, so it was free, though the trash receptacles were overflowing. The magnificent hoodoos still stood tall.

 

That night we asked a local what the best Mexican restaurant in Kanab was. The name Escobar’s was offered immediately. Once again, good food and funky decor. 

A Uto-Aztecan future in the making . . .

Chinanonautica: Up the Pacific Coast of Cali

by Ernest Hogan

We left Monterey before dawn, got food at Ferrell’s Donuts in Santa Cruz. Spanish names. Still in Aztlán, but pretty far north. It starts to change here. The vast Pacific touches the West Coast and Asia at the same time. During the Gold Rush, prospectors used to put their dirty clothes on sailing ships and have them laundered in Hong Kong. And there are influences that aren’t Native or Spanish. NorCal was once part of the Russian empire.

Soon we came upon the Pigeon Point lighthouse. It’s no longer in use. Most lighthouses in the United States are automated. Satellite navigation and GPS are phasing them out even though mariners and fishermen still use them as backup for the electronics.

Boing! Story idea: An apocalyptic event knocks out the world’s electronic systems. An electromagnetic pulse or a cosmic event, solar flare, or something. A ship carrying important supplies needs lighthouses . . .

Kinda vague. Needs something to keep it from seeming like a Fifties thriller.

Lighthouses are beautiful, and there’s something dramatic about them. They make a good backdrop. 

Then, near a cliff, was a bit of Mayanoid graffiti. Or maybe it was Olmecoid. Seems natural after seeing a Zapotec presence.

Did any ancient MesoAmericans make it this far north? Probably. Marco Polo walked most of the way from Italy to China. Modern folks underestimate walking, and when it’s combined with celestial navigation, look out!

After a while, the fog melted away along the road-hugging forest, and we arrived in Half Moon Bay, too early for any of the thrift stores to be open. There were murals, giant metal roosters, and other examples of California outdoor art. 

Mexicans aren’t the only people who like to paint on walls.

Then, while zooming down the highway, a sign caught my eye: MAYAN CUISINE.

What could it mean? Tamales? (Tamal is Nahuatl, they are called “pibs” in the Yucatán, and “uah” in Mayan.) Or—dare I hope—something totally different? 

Unfortunately, we had plans for the day, so we couldn’t check it out. Gonna have to come back someday. So many Mexican restaurants, so little time .  . .

Near the town of Pacifica, all of our phones made a hideous mechanical noise, like something designed to announce a nuclear attack or the approach of an extinction-level event asteroid. We all got that same text: Earthquake alert! Drop, cover, hold on, protect yourself – USGS SHAKEALERT.

We didn’t feel anything, nor was there any interruption to traffic. San Francisco was still intact. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge without incident.

Ernest Hogan’s new book, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 GonzoScience Fiction Stories includes some that caused him to be called the Father of Chicano Science Fiction.

Chicanonautica: The San Andreas Fault and Zapotecan California

 

by Ernest Hogan

We had to check out the San Andreas Fault, that keeps rattling California but still hasn’t managed to sink the state the way it was supposed to back in the early Seventies. The Golden State doesn’t seem to be destined to be a new Atlantis, but then the Pacific plate whose northward movement causes the dreaded earthquakes is more likely a chunk of lost Lemuria.

Not far from the fault is the remarkable and somewhat Lemurian town of Parkfield, population 18. It’s the home of the University of California Berkeley Seismological Laboratory–a metal shack that seems to be home to some machines--and a bluegrass festival, though there isn’t much room for a big crowd. There’s the Parkfield Lodge that wasn’t open, guarded by a wooden Indian and a monument to the Yokut, the local Indigenous tribe. and some fanciful buildings and odd structures that could well be Lemurian plumbing fixtures.

Back on the road Mike asked about the word “logistics” on trucks. Then we looked it up: the detailed coordination of a complex operation. Hmm. I pretended to answer a phone: “Mysterious Logistics, what can we do for you?” We all laughed.

Then I saw some roadside datura.

We checked into a motel in Monterey–the bathroom in our room had a sign with a Tralfamadorian heretic reminding us not to flush “flushable” wipes.

We felt like Mexican food. I like to eat Mexican while on the road, not just too feed my addiction, but to see what kind of variations on the theme are going on as the virus spreads. The young woman with orange/purple hair and a lip piercing recommended El Milagro down the road in Seaside, her personal favorite. Her family was from Oaxaca and their menu was Oaxaqueño. We went for it.

It had some nice murals and Día de los Muertos decorations, and the food was great. Not the generic Mexican fare you find in most of Aztlán. They didn’t have my old, beloved,reliable tacos, beans, and rice, so I went for their tacos and a cold cactus salad. The taco was what I would call a burrito, and the salad was made with nopales, known in the Anglophones as prickly-pear. It was made from the paddles, not the fruit. I usually have nopales fried, and with eggs and salsa for breakfast, but the salad was a new treat.

A lot of the customers, and the employees, were from Oaxaca. The manager was impressed that I had been to Oaxaca, and knew about Zapotecan culture. There seems to be a Zapotecan colony there.

Mexican immigration to California has changed over the years. Decades ago it was mostly people from the border states–like my family, on both sides–and some from as far south as Mexico City.

In recent years, we’ve come to see an influx from the south, where tamales are wrapped in banana leaves. These days the Pacific Coast Highway now bristles with Mexican restaurants boasting a diverse selection of cuisines.

And there are so many of them. I thought that my hometown–Glendale, Arizona–had a higher density of them than parts of Mexico, but this, I'm afraid to say, blows us out of the water.

So many Mexican restaurants, so little time. I’m going to have to come back someday.

The next morning, I found a news story about scientists discovering the Law of Increasing Functional Information. More information, even if it’s in the form of molecular structure, triggers evolution.

And here it’s happening with La Cultura.

Later at a Pacific Grove thrift store, I found a copy of Cortez and Montezuma by Maurice Collis. The guy who rang me up told me his name was Quetzalcoa, dropping the “tl” like a modern Nauhuatl speaker.

The functional information keeps coming. Maybe some mysterious logistics are in order.

Ernest Hogan’s first short story collection, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song, is available on Amazon. What are you waiting for?

Gluten-free Comida: Quiche Sin Crust

Originally shared last June. Tis the season!

The Gluten-free Chicano Cooks

Chile Verde Gluten-free Meatless Tortilla Quiche 56g* 

Michael Sedano, The Gluten-free Chicano

 

Note well, this is the Ur- version of the dish. An experimental attitude, and a hielera full of left-overs, leads to wonderful eating. 

Add a layer of chopped Hatch chiles, or, zucchini for a modified green&gold casserole. Adding a layer of well-drained sausage or ground meat picadillo gives the dish an entirely new character. (Beware of ingredients that add liquid to the delicately balanced custard element. You will ruin your meal. Add more rice to soak up the liquid.)

 

375º 45 minutes

 

Whisk together vigorously:

2 eggs (medium) 7g 

Scant 1/3 cup whole milk 4g

2 TBS (¼ stick) salted butter melted .02g

Pinch coarsely ground black pepper .06g

 

½ can, 1 cup or so, Las Palmas green enchilada sauce. 3g

 

Grease a baking dish, bottom and sides:

Ladle a few TBS enchilada sauce on the bottom of the greased baking dish.

 

3 corn tortillas 33g

Tear corn tortillas into small chilaquiles-size pieces (1/3 the size of a storebought chip)

Cover the bottom of the baking dish with tortilla pieces, get them 2 layers thick.

Cover the tortillas with most of your enchilada sauce.

 

Add all the egg butter milk mixture atop the sauced tortilla pieces.

Scatter 1/8 cup leftover steamed rice into the custard blend. 6g

1/3 cup small curd cottage cheese.  2g

1/3 cup grated mozzarella or jack cheese .4g

1/3 cup sharp cheddar .4g

 

Distribute cheese across the top. 

Daub rounded TBS of cottage cheese in 4 or 5 spots;

Sprinkle lots of grated cheese across the entire dish;

Ladle a few TBS enchilada sauce across the cheese;

 

Decorate the top with sliced yellow cheese and black olives.

 

Bake 40 to 45 minutes at 375º. 

Give the Quiche a shake. If the top middle jiggles like jello, give it another 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and let sit five or ten minutes. 

Serve with a crisp green salad and a gluten-free dressing.

La Bloga-Tuesday: A History of Gluten-free Chicano Food

The Gluten-free Chicano has been a La Bloga-Tuesday Semi-regular Occasional feature since 2011, when Michael Sedano's Celiac Disease-dictated campaign against wheat / barley / rye ingredients in his food was in its fifth year. No: bread, soy sauce, beer, pasta, malted milk, and a host of suspicious ingredients best avoided than risk a few days incapacitation.

Just because you have a food allergy, and Diabetes, doesn't mean you have to find a cave and become a food hermit. Some food, like Mexican food, is naturally gluten-free, or mostly so. Other dishes lend themselves to gluten-free methods, and carbohydrate counting. Diabetics often limit each of 3 big meals to around 50g, and two snack meals at 35g.

Here are four columns where a click leads you to some outstanding comida Chicana, all of it Gluten-free. Menudo. Nopales. Helote Calabaza soup. Enchiladas. Mira nomás!

https://labloga.blogspot.com/2011/09/introducing-gluten-free-chicana-chicano.html

Puro Quiche

https://labloga.blogspot.com/2012/07/gluten-free-chicano-cooks-banned-books.html

Chile-Potato-Helote Bisque 

https://labloga.blogspot.com/2015/09/gluten-free-chicano-cooks-mission.html  

Multiple recipes 

https://labloga.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-gluten-free-chicano-looks-back.html

 

 

*Carbs estimated from values found at http://www.carbohydrate-counter.org/advsearch.php 

 

Pachanga For Christmases Past

Memory / The Gluten-free Chicano Cooks

Holiday Singsong in Plague-time: Memories of Christmases Past

Michael Sedano and The Gluten-free Chicano

In her time, my wife, Barbara, earned her reputation in our house as the Perle Mesta of  Pasadena. Barbara threw a party at the slightest hint of a big occasion. 

The Christmas caroling party was Barbara at her peak. After Thanksgiving people would begin asking about this year’s Christmas party. Barbara's party became the annual highlight of our friends’ holiday season such that her invitation list grew longer by the year.

It came to pass that 100 people thronged to CasaSedano. Just the best time of year for such a journey, people filled every room of this large house, smokers and hangers-on outside. 

The dining table sparkled with decorative platters and bowls, and never paper nor plastic, Lennox china. Weekends up the coast or out to Palm Springs required a stop at the factory seconds outlets at the discount mall. She never did find that china cornucopia. 

The final dish ready for the oven

I perfected my scalloped potatoes the first year. They’re incredibly simple and ravishingly attractive on a buffet table. The papas are more attractive in steaming scoops piling onto plates by chilled singers just returned from roaming the neighborhood singing their three-song repertoire and avoiding the cranky tipos who greeted us with boiling oil last year. The centerpiece of the desserts, of the entire buffet spread, was the Croquembouche. At first, she ordered a six-layer Croquembouche. The list lengthened and people brought more kids, and she ordered an 8-layer Croquembouche for a few years.

8-layer Croquembouche line Sarkis Bakery showcase

Before it all stopped, that last party Barbara dispatched me to Sarkis’ pastries where Barbara’s gigantic 12-layer Croquembouche towers above the 8- layer crème-puff trees awaiting someone else’s parties. 

Tradition teeters in the back of the van, susceptible to gravity, kinetics, potential energy, and dust. The croquembouche tree sits upon cardboard taped around the quivering confection. I drive slowly along Washington Boulevard easing my way around the corner, holding my breath ascending my sloping driveway. 

I carry my load safely inside where Barbara’s Croquembouche center-piece dazzles the eyes of guests seeing such a marvel for the first time, and delighting others who look forward to seeing what Barbara’s Croquembouche looks like this year.

As visitors arrive, eager smiles mirror years of unsupervised joy, small fingers taking plastic reindeer to inhabit treasure boxes, then spending the evening returning to the buffet table to pull endless profiteroles off the shrinking tree. 

The finished product.
The topping mixes ⅛ cup rice panko with ¼ cup grated cheddar, in a blender

That last party of Barbara’s, in a corner of the dining room, a PhD Grad Student licks her fingers after devouring the last crème puff she’ll share here, after a succession of parties she’s attended since she was a little girl. Her parents didn’t attend this year. She's invited on her own. 

The woman wraps a plastic reindeer in a napkin and takes it with her. I smile at her departure to another event, grateful she shares her time and love here at Barbara’s party. A fitting end to a tradition.

Barbara doesn’t have energy in 2017. She opens some computer files, prints some lists, but  something has dissolved and we abandoned the idea. The house remains silent that dark December month. Her friends know not to ask, we're in trouble and they recognize it. 

Five months after the party we never had, we are diagnosed with “dementia of the Alzheimer’s type.”

In the years since, I’ve been writing about Memory here at La Bloga-Tuesday. A lot of gente have been through cognitive diseases and impairments. Their words and support comfort me. I hear, too, that what I’ve shared in these columns comforts others experiencing their own pain. No, you are not alone in this freakish existence.

It’s a hard truth that others will have cognitive impairments strike their family. These La Bloga columns, they suggest what it’s going to be like, pero sabes que? It’s going to be worse because it happens to you in person.

One consejo I offer is decide not to suffer. Get yourself active, get help, get respite time for yourself, have parties, sing songs, eat Croquembouche and scalloped potatoes. 

Assembling the scalloped potatoes takes organization.
milk in the bottom of the caserole dish, then cheese, potatoes, cheese, potatoes

"Órale, these papas are firme."

"Glad you like them. Have some more."

"Man, I keep eating cream puffs."

I need not end 2022 in the dumps. To remedy the dumps, I decided to have a GOPlague-time Christmas Caroling Party in honor of Barbara’s tradition of major league joyousness. 

After a few moments fighting off regret at the old days, I put together a menu that I changed three times, eventually kept it simple: papas, apple salad, crisped potato skins, make your own ham sandwiches, and other stuff.

We ate, we drank, we sang, we got loud, we got louder, we had fabulous fun. A tiny gathering of people with vulnerabilities and vaccinations.

Instead of heading into the neighborhood to carol, we had a living room floricanto. Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin and I read a dialogue from Vibiana’s recent collection, Chicana On Fire. Margaret Garcia and Rhett Beavers read from Margaret Elysia Garcia’s, Burn Scars, a narrative poem from the Dixie fire, embodying the power seen in Margaret’s fire paintings. 

Then we sang. Vibi and I did a demi-duet of Cielito Lindo, then we segued into Rudolph and a whole book of kid's carols and songs. We ended with boisterous operatic Granada with lots of tremolo that had cars stopping in the street and dogs fleeing the din.

I didn’t order a Croquembouche, and I laugh maniacally at thoughts of making a croquembouche myself--I’m not that down in the dumps even to think of it. 

But hand me some papas and ahi vamos. This year I used gluten-free panko and gave the potatoes that cheesy crust that people rave over.

Layers of spuds and cheese are fork tender after absorbing the
milk that filled less than ⅓ of the vessel, ~2 cups whole milk

One more layer of potato slices then the crumb crust layer.

The Gluten-free Chicano's Scalloped Potatoes

9" x 13" dish, non-stick sprayed

six or more Russett potatoes, peeled & sliced

brick sharp cheddar cheese slices & grates

whole milk

fresh ground pepper

salt

rice panko crumbs

Get oven up to 375º

Fill the casserole vessel with 2 cups or milk or ⅓ deep. 

Milk alone is fine, but you can use Half&Half or Crema Mexicana thinned with Milk, for a rich flavor. 

Using a cheese roux béchamel sauce like you do for macaroni, is overkill.

Add the first layer of cheese slices. 

Grated cheese works but it's a lot of work to grate.

Sprinkle generous pinch of coarsely ground black pepper and a smidgen of salt. Chile powder would be nice for some people.

Use a bristle brush and scrub the potatoes clean. 

Rinse the papas and all utensils and cutting boards before using the surfaces to slice.

Slice the potatoes less than ¼" thick. 

Put them into the dish. Overlap the slices to avoid large gaps. Layer two or more thicknesses of papa then layer some cheese slices.

Repeat until you have no more potatoes. Add milk to less than half the volume of potato.

Take an ⅛ cup of the rice panko meal and ¼ cup of grated cheese. Blender or Cuisinarte them into a crumbly consistency. It should fluff up to a thick layer completely covering the top of the casserole dish, edge to edge.

Bake at 375º 40 minutes or until a fork / knife blade easily penetrates the center of the potatoes. 

Never serve under-done scalloped potatoes--people will talk about you. If 40 minutes isn't enough in your oven, add 20 more minutes (cover them with foil when you add heat) (if disaster strikes, use the micro to finish off underdone dishes).

Provecho!

Margaret Garcia Studios Hosts Vincent Van Gogh Play

Margaret Garcia's studio welcomes this production of Vincent, starring David-Edward Reyes.

The setting alone makes attendance must-see teatro. Garcia's studio is staged with a monumental mural the artist will be finishing during the run (not while the acting is on stage).