Celebrating the 16th of September in High Style

A new restaurant/night club in El Paso, Texas

A new restaurant sign in my home town of El Paso, Texas always intrigues me. This sign, "Cuñado's," was especially interesting because of the combination of two languages, Spanish and English. Being a city on the US-Mexico border, El Paso welcomes both languages into its cultural mix, often with creative results. 

The Spanish word cuñado means "brother-in-law" in English.  So this is the brother-in-law's restaurant. But the apostrophe (') is not used in Spanish to show that someone possesses something. The phrase in standard Spanish would be " el restaurante del cuñado," the restaurant of the brother-in-law.  By adding the English construction of apostrophe s to the noun cuñado, we have a new phrase, created by combining features of two languages.  I thought it was quite clever.

But enough of the language lesson.  On to the tequila drinking!  This friendly waitress at Cuñado's was circulating, offering shots of tequila for $5. 

Tequila shot, anyone?

The occasion for celebration was the 16th of September, a holiday in Mexico commemorating the beginning of the war of independence from Spain.  As with other national holidays around the world, citizens of the country and others with ties or even a fondness for the country celebrate with costumes, traditional colors, food, drink, music, and dancing. Cuñado's Restaurant offered all of this on the eve of the 16th.

Mexican flag

The Mexican flag, red, white and green, with an eagle in the middle holding a serpent in its mouth
was on display.  Many restaurant patrons had also dressed in the traditional colors of the flag.

Colorful restaurant patrons

 Buffet food offerings added to the celebration of Mexican culture with dishes such as red and green enchiladas, carnitas, corn on the cob, squash with corn, ceviche, and posole.  But this is the dish that had us ooing and ahing.

Dish on left is chiles en nogada

Chiles en nogada (chiles in nut sauce) is a special, fancy dish traditionally offered beginning in September and going through the holiday season.  The dish echoes the colors of the Mexican flag with a base of a stuffed green chile poblano, the white of a nut sauce, and the red of pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top.  The recipe to make this scrumptious dish is not for the faint-hearted!

Music was of course part of the celebration.

Singer at Cuñado's 

The energetic singer reflected a melding of two cultures, belting out songs in both Spanish and English.  A few hardy patrons found space to dance to the music.

We left Cuñado's before the traditional cry at midnight of "¡Viva México!" (long live Mexico) to which the crowd responds, ¡Viva!   But we patted ourselves on the back for having celebrated the 16th of September in high style.

Note:  Thanks to my husband, Wayne Calk, for the photographs!  I couldn't write these blog posts without his contributions.

One Sunday Afternoon in the Park

A lazy Sunday loomed before us.  Too lazy if the truth be known.  Where could we go for entertainment in our home town of El Paso, Texas that we hadn't been to at least a dozen times 

before?

Maybe the answer could be found in investigating a new project in our city, the revitalization of Downtown El Paso.  The renovation of the central square of El Paso, San Jacinto Plaza, had taken what seemed like ages to complete (it was really only three years).  We wanted to see if we had received good value for our tax dollars.

San Jacinto Plaza

San Jacinto Plaza, located at the corner of Oregon and Mills Streets, has a proud history, dating from the first part of the 20th century.  It was a transportation hub, first for horse drawn carriages, then for trolleys, and later for city buses and taxicabs, which is when my memories of the park began.  I remember the park as being leafy and green, with benches around the perimeter.  A highlight was the alligator pond inhabited by live alligators.  Later, the plaza fell into disrepair, the alligators had to be moved because of vandalism, and the park atmosphere was anything but welcoming.

How delighted I was as a native El Pasoan to experience the new and improved San Jacinto Plaza, dedicated in April of this year.

"Los Lagartos" -The Alligators

A fiberglass alligator sculpture by Luis Jiménez retains the memory of the live alligators who lived in the pool until the 1970s.

Diners at the plaza cafe

A full-service cafe serves a variety of dishes, including this cup of corn with typical southwestern seasonings.

Another nod to local culture is a court for the game of pitching washers, which goes by the name of huachas in our border region. The game is similar to pitching horseshoes.

Huachas court

Ping-pong tables are also available in the park.  Equipment for playing both huachas and ping-pong is available at the plaza cafe. You may get a sudden inspiration to try out your game skills.

Splash pond

Children cooling off in the splash pond, monitored carefully by moms and dads on benches, reminded me how much fun it can be to be a child, and uninhibited.

I took a moment to soak up the atmosphere of our urban park.  The details on a historic building visible from the park reminded me of an earlier, more elegant era in El Paso.

Historical Building

And I especially enjoyed the flora of the park and made note of which plants I could use in our southwestern style yard.  I love the hardy native and adapted plants that survive and even flourish in the Desert Southwest.  This plant looked to me like a type of bush called "Yellow Bells"or "Esperanza (Hope)" in our region.

Flowering bush in plaza

My husband, Wayne, and I sat on a bench in the park for quite a long time, feeling the excitement and pride of living in a city with a downtown park that is not only an attractive place but an exciting place as well.  Will our out-of-town visitors for Thanksgiving enjoy the park as much as we did?  We have our fingers crossed.