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.