A Little Something Extra

Ay yi yi yi

This past weekend we went with some friends to Fair Park to attend something called "Flea Style"--part flea market, part art fair, part individual designers of jewelry and tie-dyed infinity scarves. It was kind of ragtag and funky, with lots of people expressing their individuality through intricate skin art and tousled man buns.

One older guy in a curly ponytail dabbled in interesting Steam Punk sculptures--assemblies of coils and hardware and typewriter keys that had old fashioned light bulbs that were electrified and on dimmers.  My favorite piece was an antique meat grinder with a rubber baby doll's hand sticking out of it.  There was a handwritten sign on it that said "120  0 days since last workplace accident."

There was an odd collection of food trucks outside.  I am not sure I have seen Sliders, Belgian Waffles and Sushi being sold alongside Popcorn and Dippin' Dots before.  The lines were long and we were feeling peckish after buying a little palm tree and some hand-made soap, so we headed out to the car and drove a short hop to Deep Ellum for authentic Mexican food at Pepe's and Mito's.

It was crowded for a late Saturday afternoon, but we snagged a choice table on the patio to enjoy the freshening breeze and acrid smell of hot grease.  We ordered some adult beverages (after the first salty sip my margarita tasted like another) and scanned the menu. (I've always contended that Mexican cuisine consists of just 9 ingredients: chicken, beef, pork, cheese, salsa, pico, guacamole, rice and beans.  If they are flat they are tostadas, quesadillas or chalupas, if they are folded they are tacos, if they are baked and sauced they are enchiladas, and if served on a sizzling skillet they are fajitas.)  A couple of us opted for fajitas, one for a quesadilla, one for tacos.  Same food, different shapes.

Sooooo, a few bites in and my very good friend Matt plucks what seems to be a chest hair from a British chap in his early sixties from his little bowl of salsa. We weren't totally repulsed as it was rather small and gray and straight and had a charming accent, but still.  We motioned over our server who was about 25% fluent in English, which was no problemo because another good friend Joe is 100% bilingual.  They had one of those rapid fire conversations in Spanish, during which el server smiled broadly and shook his head good naturedly, the universal sign for "no, that is not a hair from a British man's chest, that is a tiny little piece of dried cilantro, or possibly a fiber off the end of a hastily peeled onion."

We asked Joe to translate his response which was just about word for word what I wrote above.  So I smiled at the man, and said "so you are sure that is not a hair?" and he confidently smiled and replied "oh no, Senor".  So I pointed to it and said "then you eat it" to which he smilingly replied "oh no, Senor" and departed rather quickly.  We left the hair/cilantro/onion detritus in situ on the table and ate the rest of our lunch, avoiding the one salsa bowl that had possibly been follically contaminated.

And it was delicious, if just a hair too spicy.