Getting ready to head back home. This past weekend was, to say the least, lazy and low-key. I'm not complaining. I am sort of glad it ended up being a laid-back weekend. I rested. I reflected. I took the time to be alone and just be. Felt good. These are some of the observations or conclusions I've come upon during these past three days away from home:
I am a NEW YORKER to the core. A Puerto Rican New Yorker at that. I noticed during my trip to the Supermarket how everything in these parts caters to my Mexican brothers and Sisters. They definitely rule out here. Not sure if I was too thrilled at realizing this. If you're not Mexican, it seems you are Central American. Spanish may be spoken but not with the accent and flair I am used and accustomed to. Even the names of things are changed and seem foreign to me. For exmaple, Andre loves to eat "tostones" (fried Plaintains) so I decide to hop in the car (you have to drive everywhere in this town) and headed out to VONS Supermarket. Typical American venue with the aisles in the middle and the deli and meats on one side, Dairy products in the back against the wall, and Produce on the other end of the huge Temple of Nutrition and Consumption we are so used to and thankful for. The difference to me, as a Hispanic, was the complete absence of my GOYA products. Couldn't find a can of Goya Beans even if my life depended on it. Sure, their was plenty of canned beans but to me, since it did not say Goya, well I swear to you I felt I was buying generic or bootleg. I half expected to crack open a can and find something else inside. Disturbing. I wanted to see the familiar blue and yellow cans with the bold white letters! Nowhere to be found. Oh well, I thought to myself, this was just a fluke. I was sure I'd find them at the next Mega foodplex. Hopped in the car again and headed out to what Andre called the "hood". Yes, if anything, I would definitely find Goya beans in the "hood". I mean, I grew up in the ghettos of Brooklyn, NY and this is where I was introduced to the Goya products with the catchy Spanish slogan: " Si es Goya, tiene que ser bueno!" which was later translated to English when beans became mainstream..."If It's Good, It's Gotta be Goya". Way before "gringos" were mixing beans into their salads and making three bean chili, I was cleaning them off my plate with rice and whatever meat was made available to me. Rice and Beans- every Puerto Rican's staple; at least those of my generation.
So as I was saying, we drove to the "hood" which looked just like any suburban town with vast expanses of parking lots in front of countless shopping mall strips extending the length of six to eight lane roads. As a New Yorker, I love and appreciate sidewalks. I take them for granted. And I'm not talking about asphalt pathways with grass on either side of them. No. I'm talking about those huge gray cement blocks with blackened gum imbedded into them and pieces of paper and wrappers floating about like modern -day dust balls of the ghost towns portrayed in Old Westerns. No one walks in the Suburbs. No need for sidewalks. This goes against my Native New York City mindset and upbringing.
We finally get to the TAPATITO Supermarket and once again I am thrown into a state of mental confusion. Once inside, I head for the fresh Produce section, which was as traditionally expected, off to the left side and start searching for plantains. Finally spotted them piled up next to the bananas and realize they are called "Bananos" here in the West Coast. Bananos? WTF? You gotta be kidding. No matter, I grab a plastic bag and start filling it with my "bananos" from Guatemala. They look the same as the plaintains from the Dominica Republic I am used to purchasing at home so I think nothing of the fact that unlike back at home, you buy them by the pound here. Back home, I get my "platanos" for as much as ten for a buck! Here, sixty-nine cents a pound. Not sure what that translates to, but I figure, it must be cheap, or close to what I would get at home. Wrong! When the Cashier girl rings 'em up I play it off when I see that my five small "bananos" cost over five dollars. S.H.I.T.!
Well folks, not only am I in a different time zone which becomes annoying when at night I reach for my cell phone to make my customary calls and have to stop as I realize it may be ten o' clock here but its one o' clock back home and very few of my contacts will be up or happy to hear from me at that hour. I realize I need more West Coast friends.
All in all, thankfully, I get back to Andre's place and was relieved to find that those expensive "bananos" fry up just like back home and taste just as divine dipped in garlic butter. Same for the beans. I opened the can to find that the only thing different was the label. Same beans wit that nasty liquid I always gladly drain out of the can and same gassy effect after I'm done consuming them. Thank God my butt is all better now and passing gas is just like any other nocturnal and private activity. Thankful, I don't see stars anymore when I have to let one rip (I curse you Booty Cancer!).
Looking forward to getting back to familiarity; to the City that although "Disneyfied" and gentrified still is home to me. Where plantains are just that and can still be had for cheap. Where Goya still fills the aisles of most supermarkets and bodegas. Where Puerto Ricans are still the majority amongst Spanish-speaking folk, even if we are rapidly mainstreaming and migrating to the burbs. Where I can choose to walk anywhere if I so please and do so without feeling confined by the narrow pathways of the suburbs; finding plenty of other people walking on them also, adding to the hectic energy of what I identify with as home sweet home. And where last but not least, everyone is governed by the same time zone. Can't wait to be back where I belong. New York. Home Sweet Home.
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