The tomatillo had its day in the sun, but it was time to try some salsa roja. For you Yankees, that’s regular salsa. “Roja” means “regular” in Spanish. A local told me that.

I used a very easy recipe and whipped it together in a few minutes in time to throw it in the fridge before getting the boys from school, but I just found this recipe and it sounds better because you cook the ingredients after you boil and blend them. Anything more is better, I’m learning. Like the client of one of Karen’s architect friends whose design style is “Big Ass.” As in, “I want a party barn off back of the house, and I want you to make it ‘big ass’!”

So, aforementioned Texan, Karen, actually approved of the salsa. Said it passed muster. I looked up muster just now to find something in its etymology I could refer to about inspection or troops or Texas being its own country or the Alamo or LMAO (which shares the same letters as Alamo, but I don’t mean that as a joke because during my first visit here in 1996 I made a joke about Texas in a roomful of her relatives and that’s the one thing you don’t joke about–you get the Dead Eye–even though Wall Street traders will joke about losing their fortunes or their dying grandmother or more likely your dying grandmother), so I looked up muster and in addition to being a formal gathering of troops it also carries the rarer meaning of a group of peacocks.

Which makes total sense.