Taco Hugh's Day

                             London and a movie?

                             My husband was sharing a story of a mutual friend who went to London and it was snowing and she was having trouble getting in to see “The Greatest Showman.” 

                             Clarisa Chavarria overcame several multiple snags to getting inside the theater and I was thinking “why was she all the way across the pond in  London watching a movie?” It must have been to cold to ride the London Eye.

                             Then I thought that this story is going to end with Hugh Jackman being in the theater, live. Guess what? It did.

                             The theater stopped the movie and the audience thought it was a tech problem and that Australian charmer danced in. My front-of-the-rows friend even showed up in the background of Hugh’s Instagram.

                             Everybody and my Mom is talking about this show, so I decided to host a theme night for her. Mom has great memories of the excitement when the big tops came to town and set up, and that made me crave peanuts and popcorn, but more substantial fare was in order.

                             Then it came to me. It was a Sunday, so we had not a Taco Tuesday, but a Taco Hugh’s Day showing of “The Greatest Showman.”

                             Let me say it once more: Taco Hugh’s Day. It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue with the same grace as the acrobat flipping through the air in the movie, but we weren’t “clowing” around.

                             It got us to thinking of how the classic image of a “taco” has changed over the years, even in this Tex-Mex stronghold.

                            I’ve always been partial to a crunchy taco and loved the innovation of wrapping a soft flour tortilla around a hard shell so as to keep your toppings from crumbling out from your first mouthful. And who wants all those extra calories?

                             Then there’s always the flour vs. corn tortilla issue and within that my house there’s a  white flour vs. whole wheat flour side debate. Who wins? Eventually we all did.

                             We served coriander-heavy beans and ground meat and I ended up with a loose taco salad over shredded lettuce, scooping it all up with tortilla chips.            

                             While Hugh Jackman won’t be invited every time, I could see how a regular Taco Tuesday is becoming an American favorite, because there’s a never-ending variety of ways to get your Tex-Mex.

                             Let me know yours via darraghcastillo@icloud.com