October 15, 2023
We had our very first Mexican Moonshine Festival yesterday at The Triple B Ranch. Two people showed up, both late (bad GPS coordinates). Our friends, Larry and Rose Mary Winget finally arrived, around noon, as I guided them in by phone. I made Tacos de Bell and we sipped bacanora from my private stash which Greg Scott hand delivered to me from Nogales.
Tacos de Bell in progress
(can you spot the pliers?)
While sitting around the kitchen table solving life we started talking about two things: taco trucks and taking risks. Larry's son works in the garment district in LA and he took his dad on a Best Tacos In LA And The World Tour and I told him this is a tour I would pay big money for so that my son and I could do it. This led to me telling the El Forte side street taco experience on our Copper Canyon Train trip 17 years ago and thanks to Tommy Bell who forced us to take a side trip to a tiny village called Cerocauhi, and I got so excited telling this I had to run out to the studio to grab one of my most treasured photos:
Yes, we ended up in this remote village deep in Copper Canyon, Mexico because my son saw it on a map and thought "we should go explore and investigate." It seemed risky as hell to me, but we had designated T. Bell "The Decider" for the trip to make up for all the trips where he had zero say (his version) and besides, as he put it, his older sister was very comfortable with calling all the shots for the two of them. Anyway, after an hour ride in the back of a taxi pickup we came upon this little village where the horses and donkeys owned the streets. It was my birthday and we asked someone where we could buy beer and they pointed up the road to a rambling house-store on a hill and told us to knock on the side window, which we did, and they sold us a six-pack of Tecates and when we were walking back down to the road we spied the scene, above, and Deena took this classic photo which I have framed in my studio. When I look at it I can almost smell the woodsmoke from the fireplaces.
Yes, it was a risky bet down a dusty road, deep in the Sierra Madre Mountains where, well, let me have R.P.S. Brown tell you:
"It's always been dangerous, it's always been an anarchy, but now nearly all the decent people have been killed or run out and all the bad guys have automatic weapons, at least in the part of the Sierra that I know. It's become the kind of anarchy that gives anarchy a bad name."
—R.P.S. Brown, as quoted in "God's Middle Finger"
But Larry sees it differently and I give the final word to him.
"The best memories are not measured by the money spent but by the risks taken."
—Larry Winget
No comments:
Post a Comment
Post your comments