Dear Mexican: I find myself at odds with my peers because I don't like coffee or coffee drinks. I need to find a substitute beverage that will be tasty yet somehow hip. I've heard that Mexicans have magical chocolate drinks called atole, champurrado, and chocolate, but I don't know what is in them or what they taste like. Do you have any advice?
Thirsty in OC
Dear Gabacho: You're a smart gabacho, you know that? Coffee is among mankind's most overrated drinks, and has created a nation of babosos who think it's perfectly fine to hacer cola at Starbucks every morning to buy some overpriced chingadera. Mexicans, on the other hand, line up for far-more-flavorful-and-healthy hot drinks every morning. Atole is a gruel made of masa and usually piloncillo (unrefined brown sugar) and cinnamon; Mexis have imbibed it since the Aztecs were stuck in caves in Aztlán. Champurrado is atole mixed with chocolate; chocolate (or, in gaba speak, "Mexican hot chocolate) is — you got it! — hot chocolate, except the sweet stuff is of the bitter, better variety instead of some Nestlé heresy. These drinks are sold year-round at panaderias, but most Mexican restaurants in American barrios start whipping up batches come December, when the cold comes in and a steaming cup of any of the three will take you through the day. Christmastime also brings a seasonal specialty: ponche. Every family has their own ponche recipe; ours includes guayabas, orange, pineapple, apples, cherries, cinnamon, grapes, cloves, piloncillo, tejocotes, and whatever else my tías throw in. And, after the kiddies have their fill, un piquito de tequila, of course! It's literally just hot fruit punch, but you know us Mexicans: we take the menial and turn it into the celestial.
Dear Mexican: I was shopping at a swap meet one time, and I saw that a little 12-year-old girl was trying to dress her fresh-from-the-border uncle into some black shades, big ol' baggy pants, and a Fubu jersey. My actual question is: Why do border brothers who cannot speak any English at all like to shave their heads and dress like a cholo? Because, as luck would have it, that uncle was standing in front of me in line and his gross, pimply newly shaved head with fat rolls in back of his head was staring at me.
More of an Affliction Guy
Dear Gabacho: I tengo que take issue with your generalization of our border brothers — if they all dressed like cholos, then Stetson would've been out of business long ago. But if they do dress like cholos, it's just the usual tale of immigrants shedding the traditions of their mother country and dressing to mimic what's around them. Put them in fancy neighborhoods, they'll dress in Brooks Brothers; put them out in the fields, it's all about jeans and long-sleeved shirts to guard against the sun and pesticides. And put them in gang-infested neighborhoods, and it's no surprise they'll dress like cholos. Fashion no es rocket science, cabrón.
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