[Sca-cooks] OT - I guess magic is where you find it...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Hullo, the list!

You know that moment in many a child's life where they hear stories  
about a magical being who appears at various special times of the  
year, and, if you've been good, gives you inordinate quantities of  
toys, candy, and various other goodies?

And then when you get older, the bigger kids tell you there's no such  
thing, it's all a fraud, it was all your parents rigging the whole  
thing, and your innocence is gone forever?

Well, it's true. You've been had. Those older kids lied to you, and I  
can prove it.

As we speak, there's a jolly old fat lady in a trailer on Roosevelt  
Avenue and 61st Street, giving tacos filled with fried beef, spicy  
chicken, shredded pork, tongue, sausage, and about six other fillings,  
to all the good little children in the neighborhood! If you're extra  
good, say "please" and "thank you" (especially if you make a  
reasonable attempt at doing so in Spanish, but this is not strictly  
necessary), you get extra hot tomatillo salsa, chopped onion, radish  
slices and lime wedges, plus a huge toothy grin, for free!

It makes even a morning spent on line at the US Post Office  
worthwhile! I don't know the details on how long people have been  
buying tacos on the street (or where those streets might have been),  
but I did feel like part of a very, very old tradition, of buying a  
hand-held, grain-based meat package from a stall at the side of the  
road while in the middle of running errands in town... a similar  
experience could probably have been had in ancient Rome, medieval  
York, or any of a million similar scenaria.

I just love these little moments of magic in everyday life.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter