The Gluten-free Chicano Cooks
Tacos de Aguacate
"Do they have the black ones?" was my Dad's standard question when he heard someone had avocado trees. The black avocado, variety Mexicola, was his and my Mom's favorite. It's mine, too.
The black avocado is smaller than the green aguacate popular in grocery stores, with a thin skin some say is edible, but not by me. The deep rich flavor is unsurpassed among avocados.
If you don't have the Mexicola, use any ripe avocado, though you may want a spritz of lemon or lime to enhance the flavor of those other varieties.
Fortune smiles on the lucky shopper who finds a bin of Mexicola avocados in the store. My daughter has a large, mature tree that, this year, produced a bumper crop despite the California drought. She sells the fruit in her local farmer's market, and gives Mom and Dad as many as we can eat.
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A tiny "D.F. style" tortilla de maiz makes this small black gem appear large.
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Aguacate is a wonderful addition to a green salad, or as avocado-tomato-onion-olive salad, stuffed with shrimp or tuna or egg salad, inside a burrito, on the side with breakfast, as guacamole, in a seafood cocktail, in soup. Like a good theory, nothing is as practical as a ripe avocado.
For The Gluten-free Chicano, nothing matches the simplicity and eating pleasure of a Mexicola avocado taco. It's a life-long pleasure that is fast and incredibly simple to prepare.
I warm the tortilla on the open flame because the aroma and taste of charred corn masa is part of that life-long memory. A comal works effectively, too. Wheat-eaters can use a slice of bread for this and call it a bread taco de aguacate, or simply "I ran out of tortillas".
Slice the aguacate in half. A swift chop with a paring knife into the seed, and a twist, easily removes the impaled seed. The knife technique works with any avocado. When an aguacate gets really ripe, the skin around the seed may stick in the cavity. Pull the papery-thin membrane away, or scrape it with a spoon.
Place the aguacate cut side down on a tort and use a finger to smash the aguacate into the tortilla. Some cooks use a potato peeler to skin the fruit; the Gluten-free Chicano prefers the old-fashioned manual approach.
Pick off the skin. I use the edge of the knife to scrape away any meat that comes away with the skin. Waste not and get more of that delicious fruit spread across the tortilla.
Fold or roll after sprinkling with a good chile sauce. I like
El Yucateco brand because its habanero-based flavor is extra picoso.
A sprinkle of salt, if you can tolerate it, and that's an aguacate taco.
Fast, simple, naturally gluten-free. And sabes que? Life doesn't get much better than when eating a warm tort filled with the insides of a black aguacate.
Soup? Make a good chicken broth. Strain. Stir in vigorously to blend thoroughly two or three puréed Mexicolas, or any soft ripened avocado. Garnish with cilantro and diced aguacate.
¡Provecho!
Pasadena CA
Ertll Book Presentation and Signing
La Bloga friend, Randy Jurado Ertll, shares the following about his Thursday, November 5 event at the main Pasadena Public Library's Donald Wright Auditorium, 285 East Walnut Street Pasadena, Ca 91101. The reading begins at 7 p.m.
Occidental College Alumni Seal award winner Randy Jurado Ertll ('95) will speak about the experiences, motivation and perseverance required to be a writer in today's society. Can we achieve social changes through the written word? What is the price that writers pay to exercise their freedom of speech?
Ertll is the author of Hope in times of darkness: A Salvadoran American Experience, Esperanza en tiempos de Oscuridad: La Experiencia de un Salvadorteno Americano, The life of an activist: In the Frontlines 24/7, and the lives and times of El Ciptio. His books will be available for sale and signing
On-line Floricanto for DDLM
Betty Sanchez, Francisco X. Alarcon, Lara Gularte, Oralia Rodriguez, Sarah Frances Moran
Calavera Ayotzinapa by Betty Sanchez
Poema calavera a Donald Trump / Skull poem for Donald Trump by Francisco X. Alarcon
Day of the Dead by Lara Gularte
La Sombra de mi padre by Oralia Rodriguez
Father by Sarah Frances Moran
Calavera a Ayotzinapa
Por Betty Sánchez
Cuarenta y tres normalistas
Del pueblo de Ayotzinapa
Por ser un grupo idealista
No se encuentran ya en el mapa
Organizaron protesta
Allá en su escuela rural
Y recibieron respuesta
De manera muy brutal
A Julio lo torturaron
Y le sacaron los ojos
Así fue que lo encontraron
Y lo lloraron de hinojos
Por este crimen de estado
Les juro que pagaran
El mundo ha manifestado
Que ya no se callaran
Que si fue la policía
Los narcos o los soldados
Todos en un justo día
Liquidaran sus pecados
La huesuda no es culpable
De esta desdicha tan cruel
El sistema miserable
Trunca vidas por doquier
Ese presidente inepto
Ya la tiene sentenciada
Si se descuida un momento
Se lo lleva la fregada
Su presencia es indeseable
Ni en el infierno lo admiten
Es un ser tan despreciable
Que ni entrar se lo permiten
El país está de luto
Por tan horrible tragedia
El gobierno muy astuto
A los pobres siempre asedia
En la lista de la parca
No estaban los estudiantes
Eran de una buena marca
Educadores brillantes
Ya ha pasado más de un año
Aun pedimos justicia
No se ha reparado el daño
La indignación se reinicia
Sus familias los reclaman
Sufren mucho por su ausencia
Diario lágrimas derraman
Anhelando su presencia
No seremos conformistas
Con su desaparición
Seamos todos activistas
En pro de la educación
Ellos con fuerza lucharon
Y por eso gritaremos
Unidos todos en coro
¡Vivos se los llevaron!
¡Vivos los queremos!
¡Vivos se los llevaron!
¡Vivos los queremos!
Betty Sánchez
28 Octubre de 2015
Norma Beatriz Sánchez, poeta Mexicana. Miembro activo del grupo literario Escritores del Nuevo Sol desde 2003. Ha participado en numerosos recitales poéticos tales como Poesía Revuelta, Honrando a Facundo Cabral, Noches de Voces Xicanas, entre otros. Finalista del concurso de poesía en español, Colectivo Verso Activo. Sus poemas se han publicado en la antología Voces y Cuentos del Nuevo Sol, Mujeres de Maíz Zine 10 y 13, Revista La Palabra, La Bloga, Poets Responding to SB1070 y recientemente en la antologia: "The Borders Crossed Us"
POEMA CALAVERA A DONALD TRUMP
Por Francisco X. Alarcón
una Calaca se coló
a la última conferencia
con ojo a la presidencia
que Donald Trump ofreció
y cuando el Trompas comenzó
su afrenta racista ritual
anti-inmigrante ya habitual
la Huesuda se lo llevó
de las greñas rubias sin más;
al inframundo lo arrastró
donde piñata lo volvió
con sus millones por demás
dicen que el muy arrogante
billonario entre palos todavía
el gran muro que proponía
para excluir a todo inmigrante
a los diablos del infierno
continúa manifestando
para que no sigan llegando
tanto mexicano al averno
gracias Calaca querida
por librarnos del Gran Trompas
que con falacias idiotas
daña a tanta gente linda
© Francisco X. Alarcón
16 de octubre de 2015
SKULL POEM FOR DONALD TRUMP
By Francisco x. Alarcón
a Calaca quietly snuck
into the last press conference
with an eye to the presidency
that Donald Trump offered
and when the Big Mouth started
his anti-immigrant racist affront
ritual that is already his usual shtick
the Bony Woman took him
by pulling his blonde hair without
further thought, dragging him to
the underworld, turning him into a piñata
not withstanding his many millions
they say that the very arrogant
billionaire between hits
the great wall which he proposed
to exclude every immigrant
he is still trying to convince
the devils of the world to build it
so Mexicans won't keep coming
in great numbers to their hell
thanks you, Calaca darling
for getting rid of the Big Mouth
whose idiotic fallacies intend
to hurt so many beautiful people
© Francisco X. Alarcón
October 16, 2015
Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, is the author of thirteen volumes of poetry, including, Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010), From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002), Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books 1992), and Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes (Creative Arts Book Company 2001). His most recent books are Canto hondo / Deep Song (University of Arizona Press 2015) and Borderless Butterflies / Mariposas sin fronteras (Poetic Matrix Press 2014). He has published six books for children available through Lee & Low Books, among them, Animal Poems of the Iguazú (2008) and Poems to Dream Together (2005). He teaches at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program. He is the creator of the Facebook page POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 and co-founder of Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol / The Writers of the New Sun, a writers’ group of Sacramento, California.
Day of the Dead
By Lara Gularte
We burn candles,
offer them sugar candy,
sweet fruits, scent of flowers.
Their voices call from the dirt,
bodies turned to bones
rise again into the air,
weave through eye sockets
and pelvic bones.
They linger at the front door,
float through windows.
Lights blink on and off.
Through rooms they wander,
pretend to be alive,
drag a table, chairs,
across waxed floors.
They are all here,
bridge of beating pulse,
arc of blood,
to share the sun and death,
the dark miracle of being alive.
"Day of the Dead," was first published by the Sand Hill Review.
Lara Gularte was featured in the Autumn 2014 issue of The Bitter Oleander with an interview and 18 poems. Her poetic work depicting her Azorean heritage is included in a book of essays called "Imaginários Luso-Americanos e Açorianos" by Vamberto Freitas. Her poems can be found in The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry. Gularte earned an MFA degree from San Jose State University where she was a poetry editor for Reed Magazine, received the Anne Lillis Award for Creative Writing, and several Phelan Awards. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Bitter Oleander, California Quarterly, The Clackamas Review, Evansville Review, Permafrost, The Monserrat Review, The Water-Stone Review, The Fourth River, The Santa Clara Review, and she has been published by many national and regional anthologies. She is an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine.
La Sombra De Mi Padre
Por Maria Oralia Rodriguez Gonzalez
Busqué la sombra de mi padre
en el barbecho y la calle,
en las paredes de adobe,
en las tormentas de la noche,
en la fragua y el hierro templado
mientras el zaguán gritaba: "¡se ha ido!"
Seguí sus pasos por la calle del espejo,
lo vi desdibujado
en la silueta de mi hermano,
la soledad tronó mis huesos,
vislumbré una carcajada
no me rendía, seguía, seguía.
Al llegar a la parroquia desdoblé sus pasos,
para ver si así lograba atraparlo
y el horizonte se bañó de ironía,
mis manos tan pequeñas
le robaron abrazos al destino,
esos que mi padre no me dio,
mientras la huerta me decía: "no volverá",
¿Qué sabe uno a esa edad?
Miré el cielo teñido de ilusiones
y envuelta en el rebozo de mi abuela,
me distraje
la sombra fue agua entre mis dedos
y en un instante la cantera la bebió.
Regresé a la huerta
a recoger el aroma de mi padre,
escuché sólo un murmullo
entre los manzanares,
su sombra huyó por el umbral,
mis brazos fueron ligas
que no lograron atraparlo.
Maria Oralia Rodriguez Gonzalez. Originaria de Jerez Zacatecas, radica en Tijuana B.C.
Estudió la Licenciatura en Informática en el Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, y la Licenciatura en Educación Primaria en la Normal Fronteriza Tijuana. Trabaja como docente de educación básica.
A participado en antologías de poesía en Mexico y Argentina, y en diversos encuentros literarios. Ha publicado dos cuentos infantiles ¨Lobo, Lobito¨ y ¨Murmullos en el bosque¨ con la editorial mini libros de Sonora. El poemario ¨Habitada de nostalgia.
Estudia la maestría en Cultura Escrita en el Centro de Posgrado y Estudios Sor Juana, cursó un Diplomado de Creación Literaria en CPESJ. Y un Diplomado en Estándares y Herramientas Lectoras para un Aprendizaje Efectivo y Transversa del TEC de Monterrey.
Father
By Sarah Frances Moran
If anyone ever asked me,
I’d say that my father would die from a rotted liver.
Too long soaked in the likes of Bud Light and Jack Daniels.
But no. He died a rebel. Riding his bike down the side
of a Bayou. Led Zepplin guitar riffs blasting from memory
in his skull.
Trekking cross old Rail Road bridges and falling to his demise
inside the Buffalo Bayou. Smoking a joint with the Doobie
Brothers and living inside a peace bubble he blew himself.
Hitchhiking his way up to Heaven,
and kicking it with God, old school.
Sarah Frances Moran is a writer, editor, animal lover, videogamer, queer Latina. She thinks Chihuahuas should rule the world and prefers their company to people 90% of the time. Her work has most recently been published or is upcoming in FreezeRay Poetry, Drunk Monkeys, Rust+Moth, Maudlin House, Blackheart Magazine, East Jasmine Review and The Bitchin' Kitsch. She is Editor/Founder of Yellow Chair Review. These days you can find her kayaking the Brazos in Waco, Texas with her partner. You may reach her at www.sarahfrancesmoran.com
Late-breaking News
CSULA Hosts Ellis Island Premiere
La Bloga friend, Roberto Cantu, shares news of an upcoming free-except-for-parking event on the El Sereno campus.
The Department of Chicano Studies, in partnership with Picture Motion (New York), will host the premiere of "Ghosts of Ellis Island" (ELLIS) at Cal State L.A. "Ghosts of Ellis Island" is a short narrative film starring Academy Award winner Robert De Niro, written by Eric Roth and directed by acclaimed artist JR. Set in the abandoned Ellis Island hospital complex, this film tells the forgotten story of immigrants who built America.
For details on the showing visit the event website at:
http://ellisatcalstatela.blogspot.com
La Bloga Tuesday columnist, Michael Sedano, is one of the panelists.
See Trailer:
http://www.ellis-themovie.com/
