The Anxious Enthusiast Travels

Tacos Taste Like Coming Home

I wasn’t born in Texas, but it has come to pass that the food that grounds me most after traveling is tacos (and margaritas!)

Tomorrow morning my partner and I will board a plane for the very manageable flight from our home in Dallas to New Orleans, Lousiana. It will be a quick two-day trip, but still I will require grounding at the end of it. For me, the cure for away-ness — the joys and the anxieties of travel — is tacos.

I was born in Michigan. I have no reason to feel the way I do about tacos and margaritas.

When I moved to Texas almost 8 years ago, tacos were just fun. It was a great way to gather, eat well, and spend time with friends. Today I know, for me at least, tacos are so much more.

Tacos in Texas are a sensual experience.

The experience of Texas Tex-Mex begins when I step out of my car in the parking lots of such well-loved, Dallas favorites as Marianos, Mi Cocina, Meso Maya, and more. The sounds and smells of tacos surround me and cause me to salivate like one of Pavlov's dogs.

Mariachi trumpets with their polka-esque, bouncing underbellies create a sort of fort blanket cast wide around these establishments. Even during the cool of winter, walking from my door to theirs feels warm and inviting.

The perimeter signals to my ears and then to my heart that I am somewhere I know. I am home. My belly growls with pleasure.

I don’t have to wait long to feel and taste my grounding noms. Every one of these places serves chips and salsa as soon as I’m seated, most free of charge. Each place has signature offerings; their salsas and chips are curated and unique.

Tortilla chips are bumpy, fried, long, homemade, dusted with chunky salt, seasoned, thick, thin, served in metal bowls, served in little baskets, served on small sheet pans, or served in greasy paper bags, but there are no circles here. All tortilla chips have corners.

Salsa is red, green, roasted, toasted, mixed with avocado, chunky, blitzed, spicy, more than spicy, mild, creamy, or pulpy and brown, but it always flows freely.

Then there’s queso. Chips play the blessed vehicles to shovel cheese-and-xxx into my face. Cheese-and-white-cheese. Cheese-and-yellow-cheese. Cheese-and-pico. Cheese-and-brisket. Cheese-and-ground-beef. Cheese-and-roasted-red-peppers. Cheese-and-FLAMES. Yep, some of these places go as far as to light their cheese on fire. What’s not to love about that?

Time to order drinks. As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one kind of margarita: tequila. I must taste tequila. Often that means I order a simple mixture of lime and tequila with a dash of sweet, on the rocks. I may order my margarita shaken, but never frozen.

Okay, not never. There are two loopholes. The first is Mariano's in Dallas because it is the birthplace of the original frozen margarita machine. They donated it to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, where patrons can ogle it through glass. So, technically, a frozen margarita from there has historic significance and may be worthy of a dalliance.

The second is the Mambo Taxi. It is frozen. It is a swirled margarita with sangria so it’s not technically a margarita, but drinking them is worth as many a dalliance as I can handle without hitting the floor. That’s two mambos; they pack a serious punch.

I haven’t even gotten to describing the tacos, but by this time I’m home, and that’s my story.

Don’t get me wrong, the tacos are delicious. But tacos aren’t just for eating.

Tacos are where I go to help me arrive. They are a safe place to be when my mind is stuck in transition. Every little detail from entrance to seating to crunching to sipping helps me feel more grounded.

My taco experiences are familiar. They’re hospitable. They’re so ritual, they’re almost meditative. They’re a reminder to myself that I know where I am because I’ve been here before and I know what comes next.

It is meaningful to have an experience to lean on, a coping mechanism for when I’ve just landed from traveling or when I’ve had a bad day that I can’t seem to let go of. I can always count on tacos.

Tacos don’t taste like home. But they do taste like coming home. And I love that journey for me.

Please feel free to check out my profile: Brett Jenae Tomlin. Comment below if we have something in common, if you have anxiety or if you like what you’ve read. Do you have any questions for me?

If you love, love, love my writing and want to shout out, “You get it, anxious girl!” You can contribute to my cookbook collection here.

A Few More Articles for the Anxious Reader

More Fall Recipes: Easy Spaghetti Squash

On Comfort Food: Weekend Ratatouille

On Autumn: Equinox Love: A List of Mindful Ways to Feel Fall

On Wine: Ways I Wine Tour Like a Bossb*itch

On Sassy Self-Pleasure: When I Say “It’s My Pleasure” I Don’t Really Mean It

On Body Image: Summer Body, Part 1