Cinco de Mayo in the Time of Coronavirus Is Just as Dumb as Regular Cinco de Mayo

Shelter de Mayo? Shoot me I’m muerta

No access to the outside world? No problemo!

District Taco, a so-called taquería based in I-don’t-know-where-but-not-Mexico wants you to know that you can “take back your right to fiesta” by ordering the coronavirus-special sheltering in place combo: Delicioso steak fajitas, PLUS chips with your choice of two dips!

This, of course, is a promotion about this blogger’s favorite “Fake Mexican Fiesta” (FMF) aka Cinco de Mayo, which is just around the corner. ¡Ay!

Anyhow, hold onto your sombreros. The madness is about to begin!

Hat tip: Juan Escalante

 

If 2020 Was a Kitchen Gadget, it Would Be this ‘Taco Toaster’

This thing promises ‘crunchy goodnes,’ but it’s giving me a heart attack instead.

Move over $30-dollar Taco Toaster, here comes a less expensive, even more outrageous contraption to make what Americans think is a taco. I give you the … $22-dollar Made in California Taco Toaster, a plastic/metal mold thingy to hold your “taco” in place while you put it in a toaster –for some reason.

Worse than looking at this thing is reading the description of what it is and what it promises:

Creating a well-executed taco is an artform: salty black beans with sweet onions, blistery red peppers and corn, spicy guacamole, cooling Cotija–and best of all–a crunchy shell you can pile all this goodness into. This petite gadget lets you make crispy taco shells at home in your toaster, without any of the added oil like the ones you’d find in the grocery store.

Now if y’all excuse myself, I’ll go get drunk.

Via: Uncommon Goods

A ‘Latin-Style Fiesta Pet-Parade’ Is Just What 2020 Was Missing

“OK, I’ll pose, but please don’t put me inside the piñata.”

What would you do to raise funds to help cute little furry friends in these times of crisis? Well, how about hosting a “Latin-style” pet parade and livestream it to the millions of suckers stuck at home trying to avoid getting coronavirus?

That is exactly what the San Antonio Humane Society will be doing on May 2. At approximately 3 p.m. local time, the society will livestream its annual Fiesta fundraising event, which helps raise funds to support local shelters, adoption and care programs in the area.

According to the local press, those who log on for the virtual fun can expect to enjoy a parade of “furry friends modeling sombreros and posing beside papier maché margaritas,” because apparently that’s what pets in San Antonio do.

I’m not sure the below canine looks particularly happy at the prospect of drinking a paper margarita, but then again, I’m not a pet person, so who knows?

“Make it quick, Jen, I feel totally ridiculous.”

Hat tip: Melissa Salas Blair; photos via: San Antonio Express News

We Must Stop Cauliflower Tortillas Before it’s Too Late

As if I didn’t have enough bad news these days, someone just mentioned Cauliflower, a Los Angeles-based company determined to “reinvent our favorite foods” with healthier options, including cauliflower rice, cauliflower chips and cauliflower pizza dough.

While I couldn’t care less about what they do to rice and pizza, they’re now proudly peddling the ¡Viva Cauliflower Tortilla! apparently because people really really needed a grain-free, cauliflower tortilla to wrap God knows what in them.

“Caulipower’s mission is to listen to what people want,” Gail Becker, founder and CEO of Caulipower, told Baking Business. “Like pizza, tortillas are beloved, versatile and a natural fit for us to create a better-for-you option.”

Listen, Gail, I’m sure you’re all healthy and all that, but who are you to say this is a better-for-me option? Last time I checked, my better-for-me-option was a deliciously greasy set of carnitas wrapped in –what else?– a double corn tortilla.

Besides, if you really really want a healthy meal, just go squash some cauliflower and roll things inside it, but don’t call these things tortillas if you don’t want me to throw a fit.

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Photo via: Caulipower

Mexico’s Top Health Official Is Now an Official Piñata, Because Mexico

Hugo López-Gatell as a piñata? Yes, please, thank you.

It is official: Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez, the Mexican deputy health minister in the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19 has been immortalized in a piñata from the famed Piñatería Ramírez in northern Mexico.

The López-Gatell piñata comes with –what else– a mini version of the coronavirus piñata and a sign with a very appropriate message in these times of pandemia: Quédate en casa (Stay home.)

As a Twitter follower wrote the other day: This is “as prestigious as having been inducted into the Mexican historical hall of fame.”

Here’s The Star-Spangled Banner in Spanish Honoring Hispanics Fighting COVID-19

The Spanish translation of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was done by Clotilde Arias, a native of Peru.

Ever wondered what The Star-Spangled Banner sounds like in Spanish? Well, look no further than El Pendón Estrellado, the “only official Spanish-language translation” of the national anthem allowed to be sung, according to The Smithsonian.

The translation into Spanish of the National Anthem was done by Clotilde Arias, a Peruvian immigrant, during the Roosevelt administration, but is now being repurpused as part of a new campaign to honor Hispanic workers fighting COVID-19 across the United States.

The version you’re about to see is performed by Jeidimar Rijos, the 2019 winner of La Voz competition, and was commissioned by We Are All Human Foundation’s Hispanic Star, a non-for-profit organization that seeks to “raise awareness of the contributions of the Hispanic community to the United States.”

The campaign comes at a time when Hispanics –and other minorities– are being hit particularly hard by the epidemic. Only in New York City, for example, data shows that 34% of fatalities as of April 8 were within the Hispanic community, despite their making up only 29% of the city’s population. Nationwide, says Time magazine, Hispanic and Latinx Americans are also the largest uninsured group.

Via: Time.com

Today in Surreal Mexico: Social Distancing at the Combi Stop

I had promised myself to stop blogging about coronavirus, mostly because I live in New York City and everything is terrible and I keep having anxiety attacks over the whole thing. But then I’ve been facetiming, skype-ing and zooming a lot lately with family and friends in Mexico who send me the funniest memes, videos and jokes about the pandemia and then I smile again.

However, no meme or joke would ever come close to my country’s daily life struggles as the crisis intensifies, and the Mexican government plays catch up with the rest of the world in setting up guidelines and policies to contain the virus.

Take the above “heroes” on a colectivo stop, keeping a healthy distance in line just to end up all crammed up inside… of course, because Mexico.

Filing this under #SurrealMexico and #SusanaDistancia.

Photo via Reddit México