A psychic once offered my mom a peek into her past lives. A buzzing flourescent sign hung in the store window indicated that this particular psychic had an uncanny ability to touch a person and recieve premonitions from their once-upon-a-time. For a handful of green dollar bills, the psychic would tell you who you once were. My mom ponied up the cash, and waited with wide eyes to hear her fate. Or, you know, to hear the fate that was now her history.
Turns out, the psychic didn’t waste any opportunity to wow. It seems, according to her, that my mom had once been a whole slew of infamous people. She’d been a distance runner in the Greek Olympics, served as royalty in Russia, captained a pirate ship. (Okay, I’m making that one up.) The whole thing was odd and freaky, and secretly exciting. It made me wonder what sorts of stories the psychic would tell me, if I believed in that sort of thing and had enough cash to rent her mystical insight.
Last night, while sitting in seat 121 at the Palace Theatre on Broadway, I decided I would pay my mom’s old psychic extra dinero if she’d tell me that I’d once played Anita in West Side Story. Oh, wondrous Anita. That girl has got vamp, vim, and vigor and I fell in love with her character, wondering if it was too late for me to move to Puerto Rico and add an “a” at the end of my children’s names. I love the South American culture with a vengeance, but last night, Anita made me want to be a sassy, flamenco dancing mamacita.
So, to the psychic with the magic hands and tall tales: if you can tell this curly-haired mama from Colorado that she once kicked her costumed legs over her head while wearing high heels, I might just have a dollar or two for you. In the meantime, I’ll be memorizing the lyrics to “Amer-E-ka” and calling my husband Bernardo.
Because, here’s the thing. I may not believe in psychics, but I do believe in dancing straight into my own destiny.
Or, as Anita says in West Side Story…”Ah, I’m an American girl now, I don’t wait.”
The Best Taqueria Taco Meat Recipe Yet
Ingredients
- 1 3-5 pound cut of cheap beef
- flap london broil, flank or roast all work beautifully
- ½ cup limeade
- ½ cup white vinegar
- ¼ cup oil
- 1 onion
- 4-5 garlic cloves
- 1 jalapeno
- 2 tablespoons Knorr Mexican beef boullion granulated
- 1 7 ounce can Embasa Salsa Verde Green
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
Instructions
- Early in the morning, place your meat in a large crockpot. In a blender, combine limeade, vinegar, oil, onion, clovers, jalapeno, boullion, salsa, cumin, and chili powder.
- Blend until well pureed. Pour the sauce over your meat, making sure it's well coated (the meat doesn't have to be entirely submerged, just nicely coated with the sauce).
- Cover crockpot with a lid, and cook all day on low heat. After allowing the meat to cook 8-10 hours, shred the meat, then return it to the crockpot. Stir it in the pan juices and allow it to continue cooking until it's ready to be served.
- Spoon over corn tortillas, top with grated cheese, homemade salsa or pico de gallo, and sour cream.
- Es Muy Bien!
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