Cinco de Mayo

I used to cook special treats for my restaurant's staff at times when we needed to relax and just enjoy one another. Sometimes we needed to remember why we were all there, and it wasn't all about money. I mean, we genuinely cared for each another. In all the years I had The Black Sheep, or it had me, the best part of it all was the people I worked side by side with -- my teammates. We were a troupe, an ensemble. I miss them terribly, and think of them often.

My Sunday morning cheese grits were a hit with our little family as were my calorie loaded sausages and biscuits, but one early May afternoon, Victor Gonzalez, a sweet wonderful soul, when I asked what everybody wanted, said, "Chilaquiles"

"What's that and why do you want it? I mean, you could have anything."

"Cinco de Mayo is this weekend, and my family moved from Mexico to LA where we celebrate it, and for nostalgia I want 'Chilaquiles', a dish my grandmother made for us kids on holidays."

Well, this curious, knowledge-hungry chef would never pass up an opportunity to learn a new dish, so I agreed, as long as Victor would acquire the ingredients. Victor, I should add, was excellent at 'acquisitions' -- a very useful quality. Once, when I wanted a Mexican mortar and pestle, the kind made of gray volcanic stone in the shape of a bull, called a 'Molcajete', Victor found one in Jackson Heights. He didn't quit 'till he got what he was after. I use it all the time to grind spices. There were other instances I won't mention here. I knew his background had once been shady, but he loved The Black Sheep and we all loved him. I certainly did.

When I became ill in '94 with a deadly brain virus and was bedridden for months, virtually demented, it was Victor who negotiated the catered events with corporate clients and kept the restaurant's party catering business going. Victor stood by me when some others of my staff jumped ship anticipating my impending death. The reports were premature, it seems. He even zipped me thru the Metropolitan Museum one afternoon in a wheelchair, so we could view their Monet collection, which, for a New York City museum, wasn't very special. But the experience was.

When I was able to walk again, I took him to the Brooklyn Museum to see their special Monet Mediterranean show, and he fell in love with three paintings of one olive grove. I think when I see him in Heaven, he'll be walking around that grove.

Back to Chilaquiles; Victor told me the recipe "more or less" as his grandma made it. She never used a recipe, but that lady was not available for questions. Take a good Marinara sauce, you can use a jar, it wont matter after you finish seasoning it, and add lots of garlic and a generous amount of Chili spice, also some hot pepper sauce, (to your taste, of course) and set it aside. Tear up flour or corn tortillas into 1x3 inch strips and in a large frying pan, fry them in oil till they start to color. Keep them moving so they don't burn. Then add the sauce, and fry some more. You will want the sauce to be somewhat absorbed by the tortilla strips.

Cover the skillet with handfuls of grated sharp cheddar, of course if you had that sharp white Mexican cheese (we didn't) it would have been more authentic. If you have a broiler, let the cheese melt all over the mess, and serve it. Sprinkle with some thin slivers of jalapeno chilies. Not one scrap was left over, and I had to make three enormous batches.

Victor eventually succumbed to the plague, he was afraid to take meds and decided too late to begin them. By then, his frail body was unable to recover itself.

I celebrate his life, and his joy of living, whenever I walk naked in the rain, which is any time I can.

love,
Michael