Letter From Edinburg:...A Writer Battles His Cheese Demons & Lives To Eat Another Enchilada Plate...

By ELIOT ELCOMEDOR
Editor-In-Chief

EDINBURG, Texas - The chef at the little Tex-Mex restaurant likely couldn't help himself; he insisted on sinking my chicken enchiladas under a pond of yellow-white melted cheese. Lord and everybody who knows me knows I hate cheese - of anykind, anytime.

Not that it is an unusual thing. Most people have some food or another they simply cannot stand, much less eat. A friend in New Mexico would not eat apple pie, even on the coldest of gorgeous December nights, when our other friend would serve it after dinner in that walled uniquely-Santa Fe compound that screamed nourishment and the ensuing laying-out of a full-table of food & snacks. Another friend in Dallas could not stand cooked Spinach, equating it to weeds, and, as she would say, "Who eats weeds?"

Well, for yours truly, it is cheese. There is something unappealing in cheese for me. And that smell! Dang! It arrives armed, as if from darkened innards of an abused cow, one sexed by a cold, heartless, cruel bull. No thanks. So, I said, to the young waitress, in a sugared tone: "Sorry, I suppose I should have said no cheese..." She reached down for the plate and lifted it as if lifting a basket of rejected jewels, her face giving me the tiniest of frowns, but a discirnible frown nonetheless.

Is it me, or are local cafe employees put-off by customers who return Tex-Mex plates for, uh, something else? I say, yes. I get these looks that say: "You should be happy you have something to eat, you moptopped ingrate." Still, I smile at them, because that's what my mother said I should do when women even think about being mad at me. The chubby waitress smiled back, turned and retreated to the kitchen. Shortly, my chicken enchiladas arrived as if three Roman ships brought up from the bottom of the ocean, laid-out on the plate side-by-side, nothing but the delicious Mole sauce covering their corn hulls in a sort of economical manner - my preference, as well.

Perhaps it's my fear of Big Plates. Throw an overly-generous  fajita botana at me and see me rise from the table and head for the car. Moderation at the dinner table is my manna. It keeps me fit and it keeps that popular Big Belly off my body. Cheese only takes you there faster, is my feeling. Cheese is a killer. Cheese will settle you down faster than a wife. It's just not good for the digestive system. Imagine the engine on a diesel submarine and know that is what you need to work cheese down your gut and through the unlit highway known as the colon. Not a pretty sight.

So, I ate my $3.99 enchilada plate at my corner table, listening to the Tex-Mex music bursting out of the ceiling speakers, thinking why in the holy hell would anyone want to ruin a perfectly tasty plate of chicken enchiladas with a river of cow belly stuff? I gave myself no answer. I had none.

Seated at a table nearby, a couple, both healthy in size, ran their forks through their plates. I couldn't make out what they were eating, but I do know that both plates were covered by a thick blanket of what looked like cheese. I don't know what else those cheese-stuffed two got into later that night, but I suspect that both fell asleep before they could enjoy the best of desserts - the rest of what Life offers in bed...

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