Huevos a la Mexicana

Silence.  Well, it’s really the absence of silence.  The manmade noises, the churn of humanity are reduced to a hum.  We are left with sounds previously unnoticed.  The swish of the waves on the beach, the rustling of palms, and the creatures that activate at dusk are all that ring in our ears.

This week I unplugged from it all and spent a week in the Pacific region of Mexico with my best friend from high school.  We didn’t rough it, but we did play to local style by taking buses everywhere instead of taxis and planes and eating lots of delicious street food.  We flew to Puerto Vallarta for a night and then immediately departed to Guadalajara and then a small town on the beach near San Blas.

I unplugged from it all.  I checked my email twice and called my fiancé for five minutes.  The current Mexican telenovela buzzed in the background while I ate my pozole, but that was it for TV.  It was incredibly refreshing and mind clearing.

My friend found this magnificent bed and breakfast (although no breakfast for us) right on the beach.  I’ve been on a fair amount of beach vacations and stayed on the beach plenty of times.  But what I didn’t comprehend was that not only were we on the beach, but that we were on the beach alone.

Miles of smooth sand stretched out and the clear water extended shallowly out for hundreds of yards.  Other visitors, Mexican locals, frolicked a quarter of a mile away.  Vendors drove by in ATVs and pickups right on the sand selling ice cream and banana bread.  Otherwise, silence.

For breakfast, we adventured to the building adjacent to ours.  We pick up the menu and I start to ask questions in Spanish about the different food.  The cook for the small restaurant, an older lady named Maria Camanera astutely asked me if I like to cook.  I asked her how she knew. “Is it because soy gordita (I’m chubby?)” She chuckled.  “No" she says, "because you talk about food with passion.  Most people aren’t like that.”

I ask her to teach my how to make a simple Mexican breakfast “huevos a la Mexicana”.  She cuts up Serrano, onion, and tomato, which she proudly states are colors of the Mexican flag.  The gas to the grill glows in the underlit kitchen as she stirs her eggs and beans and presses freshly made corn tortillas right in front of us.  I contemplated staying forever, with the waves and the sand and the sun.  Silence can be very seductive.

Huevos a la Mexicana

½ onion finely diced
½ Serrano seeded and finely diced
1 ripe plum tomato finely diced
4 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Chile sauce
Refried beans
Corn Tortillas
Avocado slices
Mexican cook and beach

Over high heat, heat oil until smoking and cook vegetables until onions start to soften.  Salt to taste.  Add eggs and stir until cooked.  Serve with love.