digitalcommons

Serrated basil

The master gardeners of Santa Clara County have a sale or two each year. I was able to buy the only six pack of serrated basil they had to offer. I gave one plant to my father-in-law, three were damaged on the road to Santa Cruz, and two survive in pots in my back yard.  I just harvested the first batch along with some more common basil.  The serrated which Burpee's calls Green Ruffles, seems to be much spicier from tasting the leaf. Tonight we will have some pesto made with it.  The seeds are not cheap: $2.50 to $3.00 for 100 tiny seeds.

Tamale Festival, San Jose

The second annual Tamale festival was held in San Jose on June 3 at Prusch Park near the corner of King and Story, the commercial center of East San Jose. It's
predominantly latino, but nearby there is a shopping center that is completely
Vietnamese in character.

My wife and I cycled part of the way to avoid parking lot chaos that is characteristic
of popular events in this area. At the gate security people checked and confiscated:
water bottles, balloons, weapons, and drugs. There was no admission charge. Inside rows
of tented kiosks were staffed by real estate companies, loan officers, non-profits, and
many radio and TV stations. In the center were the food stalls, most of which featured
tamales for $2.00 each. The Mex-Tamal stall had a hand-written sign boasting of being
the 2005 winner, and I joined a long slow line to sample a couple. After fifteen
minutes in the sun I reached the front. They offered more than chicken and pork (which I bought):  pineapple, elote (corn), and a special one wrapped in banana leaves instead of corn. 35 years ago I had eaten fish tamales in British Honduras made in the same way. I wonder where the corn/banana leaf border is in Mexico...

After we ate we roamed past the stalls and stopped by Primer Pueblo bookstore run by my
friend John Ramos. It's the only Spanish language book store in San Jose, and so it was
nice to see a bit of print culture among all the radio and TV stations (though San Jose
Public Library also had some tables for kids' activities). John was stuck at the table
so we found a tamale vendor with no waiting and bought him a couple of tamales.

There were speeches by civic leaders and mayorial candidate Cindy Chavez who reminded  people of her accomplishments in developing this part of the city. Music on one stage was a rap group that had its roots in black urban rap so we headed over a hill where the other stage featured a young mariachi group and joined the large crowd resting in the shade.

In general this event was an imbalance of consumers over creators (of food and music),
but it's not practical to think of the kind of intense community involvement you have
with Rio samba clubs or Guatemalan cofrades where village relgious orders work all year
on floats or, for Day of the Dead, giant kites.

According to the San Jose Mercury News the tamale contest winner (out of more than
fifty entrants) was Carla Toto who made a sweet tamale wrapped in leaves from a
cinnamon tree. It was her grandmother's recipe from San Andres Tuxtla, Mexico.