MeXscape

I love empanadas. I have since I was a young girl and my mother used to make them for me. The fact that empanadas take on an almost entirely different form here in Mazatlan does nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for them.

A good nacho is a thing of beauty. A bad nacho is, well, common. And it's no different here in Mazatlan, since nachos are not a Mexican food. They are, in fact, a Tex-Mex creation. Legend has their birth in a small restaurant along the Rio Grande in the mid 1900s.

An ice-cold Pacifico and a Mazatlan sunset. There truly is nothing finer in this world. There is something magical about our local brew, and no where else on Earth does it taste as good. We used to drink Pacifico in Fort Worth, where it arrived world weary from it's travels across the border. It was a very fine beer even there, but here, at home, it is excellent. On a hot day when the sweat is trickling between your shoulder blades and into your bra, add a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime, and its sublime.

We're starting to get into that time of year where cooking becomes a task too onerous to consider. Two days ago, the humidity shot up suddenly, making it feel 10 degrees warmer. It's still comfortable if you keep your activity level low, which for me is usually pretty easy. I am a web developer and spend 80% of my awake time sitting in front of my computer. But even low level activity is guaranteed to bring a good sweat, and going into the kitchen and firing up a couple of burners or the oven is a trip to the second ring of hell.

The first time we ate out here in Mazatlan, I thought we had the worst waiter that ever fell to Earth, and I was good and angry by the time we left the restaurant. Etiquette and social behavioral norms are different here than NOB. Not extremely different, but enough to cause you some problems, even doing something as simple as dining out.