Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Sepia Saturday #320: "Sock it to Me"


Years ago, it was simple and safe to pop down to Tijuana, Mexico from here in Fallbrook. For Southern Californians and our visitors, a day in TJ was an easy way to visit a foreign country. We loved shopping for hand-made Mexican arts and crafts -  silver jewelry, onyx chess sets, hand-painted tiles, clay pottery and the like. Bargaining in the markets was fun and we enjoyed the lively street scenes. Everyone who came to visit us, from out of state or out of the country, wanted to go to Mexico and drink margaritas, eat at Caesars**, go to a jai alai game or the bull fights. Ole!
Tijuana Bullring

Jai Alai Palace Tijuana
"Tuck and Roll" www.jalopyjournal.com
As a teenager, my husband motored down to Tijuana for a leather tuck-and-roll job on the upholstery of his new car. A pea green '51 Chevrolet 2-door coupe with a Bluefire 6, he inherited it from his brother who enlisted in the marines. Richard painted it, what else? -  red. The tuck-and-roll upholstery job was almost a rite of passage for "gear-head" teen-aged boys in Southern California. The photo is not Richard's upholstery but very similar.





The boys probably did other things while they were in TJ, activities prohibado for teen-aged boys at home, but I'm only guessing at that. The photo below is of Richard and a friend, Neil, sitting in their friend Dave's car. The plate to the left of the license plate proudly announces that Dave is a member of the car club, "The Violators." Richard has on his letter sweater circa 1955, 1956 from Birmingham High School in the San Fernando Valley. The sweater survived an avalanche and a hurricane, countless floods and attacks by mice and moths but finally succumbed. These are the only bits we have left.





The boys had all the trappings of "Rebel Without a Cause" except they weren't rebels. In case you've forgotten or weren't born yet, "Rebel Without A Cause" (1955) was a film that sympathetically portrayed restless and misunderstood middle-class American youth.





The photo below shows how I remember the streets in "TJ" during the 70's. How about all those macrame pot hangers? I bet most of them ended up housing spider plants or wandering ivy, hanging in kitchens in L.A. or here in San Diego and swaying gently to the sounds of Herb Alpert!

Tijuana 1977 Tadeusz Slaboeznski

On my last visit, a decade or more ago, we purchased large clay pots for outdoor landscaping and a custom iron railing for the house at bargain prices. Too bad that it's currently considered unsafe by the State department to travel to Baja, Mexico where Tijuana is located. Here's the warning* as of Jan. 16, 2016.
The border

And now for the hats.....
I took the long way around to get to my photo of the week which features my ex-sister-in-law's family in full silly tourist regalia, on one of those Tijuana visits ...I can't believe we/they posed with those corny sombreros. I have to confess there is a photo of me wearing one of them somewhere, but I can't bear to post it. The "Sock it to Me" hat might date the photo to Laugh-In days (1968-1973). Don't you love the donkey/zonkey with the painted stripes for added Tijuana ambiance?


Grab your sombrero, large or small, and skip over to Sepia Saturday for stories of jugs, fountains and hats and sleepy, dusty little towns. 



Tijuana at night. Not exactly a sleepy dusty little town.

*"The U.S. Department of State warns U.S. citizens about the risk of traveling to certain places in Mexico due to threats to safety and security posed by organized criminal groups in the country. U.S. citizens have been the victims of violent crimes, such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery by organized criminal groups in various Mexican states. For information on security conditions in specific regions of Mexico, which can vary, travelers should reference the state-by-state assessments further below. This Travel Warning replaces the Travel Warning for Mexico, issued May 5, 2015, to update information about the security situation and to advise the public of additional restrictions on the travel of U.S. government (USG) personnel."


**Here's the original Caesar salad recipe (their spelling and grammar left intact) from their website.

"In Caesar's, we respect each of the versions and varieties made a legendary dish; We honor the history of our city and godparents of the restaurant Tijuana tradition of sharing our current version of Caesar salad:


Our version of the original Caesar's salad portion for 4 people
20 pcs. Romaine lettuce leaf
200 gms. cup extra virgin olive oil
20 gms. Perrins sauce
15 gms. Dijon mustard
15 gms. crushed garlic
1 egg yolk
15 gms. lime (juice)
3 gms. black pimienta
35 gms. Parmesan
4 pcs. croutons
40 gms. anchovies


In a wooden bowl anchovies and garlic, pepper, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice milled.


Once they integrate well all these ingredients we add the egg yolk with this we texture.


We continue mixing adding olive oil, dosificándolo threadlike while mixing to achieve the desired volume and texture, and finally add a touch of parmesan cheese."



22 comments:

  1. Mexican jewelry would be my financial downfall. I still have albums (33 1/3 rpm) of Herb Alpert & his Tijuana Brass. "Spanish Flea" was a great number. I've never been to Mexico, myself. But my two daughters have - one to a friend's parents' summer place down the west coast of Baja, the other to Cancun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Spanish Flea transports me pleasurably to the 70's.

      Delete
  2. Very interesting post. I didn't realise where Caesar's salad came from originally. We did the day drive from San Diego to Tijuana on a trip to the US in 1995 - south of the border was certainly an eye opener!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Caesar's Salad is another one of the many popular dishes originally developed out of necessity....they were out of everything in the restaurant and made do with what they had. It's true that necessity is the mother of invention.

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was in Tijuana once in 1971. I still have the bright striped blanket I bought there. It is just a cheap thing that I have never used, but I can't quite decide whether I want to get rid of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hear you...I have boxes of touristy trinkets that were so compelling at the moment of purchase in a souk or bazaar. Once home, they never fit anywhere but they are hard to toss. I'm taking photos of all those kinds of things...memory inspirers..and then taking them to the thrift store.

      Delete
  5. I have some really nice jewelry from Mexico. I tried to buy a Talavera sink, but I couldn't find the right color combo in the right shape.

    And yes, those sombreros must be how Mexico gets even with Americans.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I grew up 60 miles from Nogales but never visited. My brothers would go and one time brought a huge sombrero home for me and it hung on my bedroom wall for years. Love Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. We had the Greatest Hits LP which is on my playlist. My mom has a macrame pot hangar from the 70s that is still hanging in her living room with an orange pot and a pathos plant. I remember commenting about it last year when I was visiting and she says that it is the same plant from all those years ago. It is in the background of many family photos.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good for your Mom...she must have taken excellent care of that macrame.

      Delete
  7. Here on the east coast, there's a campy tourist trap in northern South Carolina called "South of the Border". Hundreds of billboards on I-95 used to advertise "Pedro's Bargains" with terrible "Mexican" cliches and puns. For years we avoided the temptation to stop, but finally succumbed one time. Besides expensive gas and unappetizing food, it offered nothing but the cheapest of Tijuana style souvenir schlock with none of the charm. Wikipedia says it is still in business, but the State Department should issue a warning for it too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You wonder why people spend all the money on advertising and have nothing left for the actual product. Unfortunately tourist souvenirs all around the world now appear to come from the same factories in China. Did they at least play some decent Mariachi music at Pedro's?

      Delete
  8. In a way it is sad that a city can morally so deteriorate that people can not visit anymore. It must have been fun to go to Mexico, just over the border. Living in Switzerland we also could quickly visit a "foreign" country, probably not as exotic as Mexico was. Just over the borders was Germany, Austria, Italy and France. Always exciting to visit. Caesar Salad is on the menu when we have fresh lettuce romaine in the garden. It is very tasty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it was fun. Now the border crossing is so mobbed it can take hours to get across. Another reason to stay on our side.

      Delete
  9. I wish I had several of those macrame hangers right now!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hah! We were only playing The Spanish Flea the other night at my brother-in-law's place. His family used to have a drive-in movie theatre up north and that was what they played between movies while they got the next reel ready :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I still hear it once in a while in a restaurant or a shop and it always gets my attention. I can see why it would be a good choice for between movies...lively and fun.

      Delete
  11. I've never been to Tijuana, or Mexico, either, but I can imagine similarities to El Salvador, based on your photos. It's too bad it's unsafe to travel there these days.
    --Nancy. (ndmessier @ aol.com, nancysfamilyhistoryblog.blogspot.com)

    ReplyDelete
  12. The only thing I own from Mexico is a pair of earrings made from Mexican silver, and they were bought in England! I bet it was great fun shopping for souvenirs in Tijuana; it looks so colourful.

    ReplyDelete
  13. For some reason, the 1977 photo really appeals to me.

    I have kept the recipe for future. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Everybody was having a good time...maybe that's mood still lingers on the photo.

      Delete
  14. I miss those old "Tijuana days". Lots of fun times. Yes, of course, I have a few of the "zebra/donkey" photos, too.
    Barbara

    ReplyDelete