Mexican Melange

I'm not sure what you'd call this but it was delicious. I had some pinto beans already cooked and waiting in the freezer so I busted them out as the foundation for a Mexican soft taco/burrito/sort of thing to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo may not be a huge deal in Mexico (contrary to popular belief, it is not Mexican Independence Day) but up here in Alta California, we relish a chance to celebrate just about anything.

Here's what else went into our quickly heated whole wheat tortillas, clockwise from the top:

-shredded leftover garlic roasted chicken
-minced red onion
-sliced red and yellow sweet peppers
-chopped green onion
-guacamole (I made it with ripe avocado, diced tomato, minced red onion and two dashes of hot pepper sauce, all smooshed together)
-shredded Romaine lettuce
-pinto beans, previously long-simmered and thawed
-Old World Portuguese cheese

I just put it all out on a board and My Beloved and I built our tacos according to our preferences. The guacamole was a little too fiery (that hot sauce is potent!) by itself but tucked into the tortillas with the rest of the fairly bland ingredients and alternated with sips of beer, it was perfect. It left me with softly burning lips, just the way I like it.

We owe a lot to our neighbors to the south, whether from Mexico or even further south. Not only do they offer a delicious and inventive cuisine, in California they are often the people who grew, weeded and picked the food for us as well, doing backbreaking jobs for very low wages. It's the immigrants' story in this country, whether we came from Ireland or Italy or China or wherever. We start small and work our way up. Our labor, our foods, our customs and our languages enrich this nation with each new wave. Hear me, Arizona?