The protagonist in many of my stories is Rocky.  He’s a disabled Marine Sergeant who works as a hired assassin.  Only the doctors at the Navy Hospital in San Diego know his last name.

His favorite breakfast is chilaquiles.  Mine too.  Hemingway describes food in The Moveable Feast.  He does so while complaining that his short stories are selling in Germany, but not in America.  All that bitching while savoring the potato salad he just purchased in a Paris Restaurant.  Somehow that paragraph has always stayed with me.

The first time I experienced chilaquiles was in Guadalajara.  My brother and I were looking for antiques.  We stayed at a hotel in the outskirts of the city.  It was small and really nice.  The first morning we had a breakfast of pancakes and eggs.

The hotel manager had his food served at a table next to ours.  His plate was filled with a tortilla chip thing.

It smelled great. “Wow, what’s that,” I asked?

“Unmomento.” With a chuckle he left his table and returned with a small plate of what he was having.  Placing it on our table he said, “Chilaquiles.”

What an eye opener.  It was an education without expressing a word.  Dry without any sauce, hot and spicy.  I remember that moment like first-time sex.  That’s how chilaquiles were to me.  I know it’s weird, but what can I say?

If you’ve never had chilaquiles I “borrowed” a recipe from Molly Bloom, a very talented writer.  It’s her grandmother’s Guadalajara recipe. Enjoy.

 My name is Wally Runnels and I write Border Pulp.

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